MP: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]

[thejeff]

No problem with a delay here.

That's not really much longer than our usual turn lag anyway.

[hoo]

Can we delay the current turn 48 hours. I'm going on travel.

[Stretch]

To the Noble Pretenders in the Mists of Time,

I believe that I have your attention.

We have fought one another long and hard for nearly 10 months and 83 turns, now. Some of us have been here from the beginning. Some of us have bravely taken up the standards of mighty nations when their guiding principles could stand no longer. I want to start with saying that this has been an amazing game, a great learning experience, and that I deeply appreciate and respect the quality of opponents that made this world so rich and fun to wage war in. Whether we fought each other or worked together, the pretenders here and the guiding principles behind them have shown a classiness, level of sportsmanship, and ability for entertaining prose that I am proud to have been a part of.

Now, down to business.

I have the Nexus. You will not be able to dispel it. By the time you make an attempt that is even close to good enough, I can recast it such that it is impossible to dispel. The amount of pearls it grants me every turn is indicative of the massive amounts of forging, rituals, and in the end, time that we invest into this war. Time that we find ourselves ever shorter of.

The armies of Vanheim are large and varied. Our bag of tricks is nearly limitless. They can destroy any massive army and even chayots fall before them. Banding together, the forces of this world may be able to destroy us, but it is no sure thing, and due to our preparations it would take an eternity in additional turns before Vanheim fell. The victors would be left with an even more interminable war amongst themselves, and they would find that it took ever longer to give orders to their commanders. Perhaps, the war would never end.

You would also face my most mighty ally, the Slayer of Tien Chi and Niefelheim, she who charges into the teeth of Atlantis' tartarian and angel-filled armies with nary a backward glance, though ritual and earth attack besiege her on all sides: The Mighty Queen Pony. With her against me, the balance could be tipped to my defeat, but if she is with me we form an unstoppable core in the center of this world that would slowly crush all foes on the periphery to paste, and let us decide the fate of the world between ourselves.

You may also face, should he choose to stand with us after this new revelation, the fearsome Lanka, who fought T'ien Chi and Niefelheim combined to a standstill for years on end. His wit is incomparable, his demons feared by all, his battle-savvy unquestioned. With his aid, the Blood Alliance would be a powerful threat to all other nations and even if we were somehow defeated, it would take quite literally years to complete the conquest, at which point those who defeated us would find themselves fighting their old allies for an equal amount of time.

Were we to enter this coming conflict, the war would last for eons, and our guiding principles would soon find themselves sapped of all willpower. (OOC: These turns are taking forever to do and we're hosting slower and slower... let's not end such a good game like this!)

We have a better way.

Let us not go softly into the dark night. Let us not bow down to the tragedy of stagnation. Let us free our spirits, one way or another, to pursue other goals. Let our valor light up the sky.

We propose a vote, yes or no, to finish before the next turn hosts. Please give us all the time to see the results of the vote and respond accordingly before sending in our turns, theJeff.

If the vote is unanimously "Yes", or if at least the nations who still have a legitimate shot at victory (Vanheim, Pangaea, Atlantis, Lanka, Mavreni), then I, PIMPDROTT 5000, Lord of Vanheim, will do the following.

This month, I will wish for a death match. We will all forge or acquire whatever we can in order to slay our enemies. Given my absurd number of resources, I do not expect the loss of a wish to significantly impact my chances of winning the tournament.

Next month, we will send our champions forth to do battle.

The month after that, the tournament will be fought. Keep in mind that, though 8 nations remain, those who are strongest also have the best chance of fielding a powerful champion. However, all nations will field a champion, and may find that cunning and skill can enable a victory over a better-equipped adversary.

The nation whose champion wins will become ascendent over all others, their pretender exalted as the new Pantokrator, ruler of this world, victor of this contest. We will form a pantheon of gods behind this transcendent entity, and together our reign shall never end. United behind the ruler of this world, we will be free to explore and wage war on countless other worlds using the tricks we've honed to such razor sharpness against each other, to sow the seeds of strife and blood wherever we may choose, unshackled and unstoppable!

And now I ask... what say you?!

[Stretch]

Note: If someone still possesses the previous champion's trident, and needs that champion killed such that they may enter the tournament with a new champion, I'm sure we can find someone to help out with the killing.

A further note that this idea loosely popped into my head immediately before sending in last month's orders, and took a few days to fully flesh out. As such, I have not been preparing for months on end wishing for strength and things of that nature (as you may have guessed, my wish-caster was my arcane nexus caster as well) and will start on the same playing field as the rest of you (especially considering my mages still have not unlocked the secrets of artifact construction).

I would recommend that, if we are to agree to this final contest to end all contests, that we appoint a trusted third party to be Master of Ceremonies, such that we can send him/her our .2h files or champion layouts/scripting, in case some bug with epic death match competitions (or the fact that the game version just updated on llamaserver, after turn 84 was sent out) rears its ugly head and things do not go as planned. It would only be done as an insurance policy in case some unknown game bug were to screw things up, as this would be a fairly significant turn. We would have a little while to decide on someone from outside this game (I don't really care who) to take this role, as we'd only need to know who it was for turn 85.

[TwoBits]

Powers of the World of the Mists of Time,

Greetings from the Realm of Pangaea. Know that we too were caught by surprise by last months events, despite our usually close relations with Vanheim. Not a few among us counseled for an immediate war against the Vanir and their grievous provocation, despite our friendship!

And perhaps we would have taken that counsel, if we thought it would at all serve our purposes. But we realized that destroying Vanheim and tearing down the Nexus would do nothing for Pangaea.

If the key to the Pantakrator's throne had lain in total victory over any and all foes, perhaps we would have taken our chances on our endless hordes, superior mass-battle magic, complete mastery of magical research, and our massively expanding blood economy, and waged a titanic war of attrition, inexorably grinding down our foes, until only Pangaea remained.

After all, did we not march into the heartlands of both T'ien Ch'i and Neifelheim, and defeat their strongest defenses, with only minor losses? Even now, we move into Atlantian lands, and despite the insane amount of ritual attacks they have sent our way (and Atlantis, we are duly impressed by the shear number of Flames from the Sky, Murdering Winters, Earth Attacks, etc., you have sent our way the last few months - where did you find all the gems?), our advance is merely slowed, but not stopped by any means (for every Maenad or Foul Spawn that falls, a dozen more stand ready to take their place).

But the previous Pantakrator, in her wisdom, set the bar for victory lower than total conquest - the first to control 10 capitals would succeed to her throne, a fact we were unaware of until quite recently! That is not the kind of war Pangaea has a good chance of winning. As noted before, our armies are strong, but slow. We lack the Astral or Air magic to take ground quickly enough to do well in such a land-grab conflict. Also, we cannot hope to put up the Arcane Nexus ourselves, nor prevent another from doing so in the event of Vanheim's demise.

Then should we destroy Vanheim, only to elevate another, more nimble, Clam-fueled power, to the Throne? No! We will take this unique chance offered to make Queen Pony, Terror of the Endless Green, the next Pantakrator!

Therefore, know this: Pangaea wholeheartedly supports Vanheim and PIMPDROTT 5000 in his mad scheme (indeed, the concept of a 'winner take all' Death Match tickles the Lady Pony's fancy to no end!)!

If the other powers choose to fight on, Pangaea will steadfastly remain in the Blood Alliance, sharing in the spoils, and contributing fully, to the Arcane Nexus. We will take our chances with our faithful Vanir friends, who have always dealt with us honestly in the past, rather than take a desperate gamble to side with other powers who have no cause to love us.

Agree to the Final Conflict, and let us end this titanic contest of the Gods finish with all the excitement and drama it deserves! Or face an unbreakable union of Vanheim and Pangaea (backed by the Nexus) which would almost certainly prevail (undoubtedly after a painfully long drawn out war though).

Sincerely,

Servant of Queen Pony, Empress of the Crimson Forest, Tyrant of Merciless Wild, Mistress of the Green Hell.

[LoloMo]

The shattered empire of Caelum agrees to this proposal of a Champion deciding the fate of the world! And we will throw in whatever meager resources we have to aid the Vanirs if the war were to wage on.

[Sambo]

The Oracle awoke from her slumber, haunted by the misty visages of time past. The death, destruction, and doom wrought by her commands weighed heavily, a lodestone on her mind. Memories of those who had defied her power flitted through her thoughts. The bones of the Ulmish, long cracked by the feet of her demon armies, as brittle as their plated armour and shields turned out to be. The C'tis lizard men, their flesh long consumed by her ravenous unholy maidens, their skulls now adorning her commanders' tents. The Celestial wizards, commanders and troops traded like undesirable pokemons, vanquished like smoke on a windy day. Giants of all shapes and sizes, from the misshapen cripples, to the frozen behemoths, to the man-eating warrior kings; all crumpled beneath her fiery gaze.

Exhausted, she sighed.

And the present? The wind warriors of the North, claiming dominance. Freakish beings rising from the ocean. Druids, claiming divinity. Greenland warriors, following the tide of battle. All destined to bow before her demon armies. Rivers of blood waited, a dam barely holding the arterial flow.

Yet she was tired; tired of the planning, tired of forging items for her unstoppable war machine, tired of plucking virgins from their families, tired of teleporting forces into the ocean by accident and watching them drown, tired of... war.

The future, clouded her mind, inscrutable through the gathering storms. The proposal from Vanheim intrigued her; a tournament of the gods! Was it a noble end to the war, or a cowardly submission to a greater power? Much to ponder.

She sent for her messenger, to give word to the gods of her intent.

Tell the rest of the gods, "Let's do this!"

Her champion, Demon King Kong, sharpened his blade. He had a month to prepare.

[thejeff]

Even after all these years the ways of the surfacers remain strange. The pretender of Vanheim believes he has the advantage and yet is willing to gamble it away for time. What is time to such as us?

Still, our ascension is not assured. These battles on the surface do not go as well as we had hoped. With the Nexus draining our very magics to fuel Vanheim's power and too many other pretenders following him to their dooms, we could even be driven back into the water. There we could hold out long, but Vanheim would only have to take capitals from his allies and his victory would be complete. This gamble gives us a chance. If it fails we can always sink into the ocean depths and sleep away another age.

What if he is bluffing, though? What if his hold on the Nexus is not as strong as he claims? We will make trial of his words. If the Nexus falls to a casual attempt, then his bluff is revealed. If it stands, we shall send our champion.

Atlantis


OOC: Well that's what the old squid thinks. Personally I'm a surfacer and the time is big factor for me. I'm ready to be done, one way or the other. His estimate of my chances is pretty much on target, but I never thought I had much chance. The Sea of Ice was really what crippled me.

I am going to throw away any pearls I don't need to equip a Champion on a Dispel attempt. Why not? What happens if it does drop is up to everyone.

A couple of things I'd like to know, just out of curiosity. How many gems were in Sea of Ice and how much did you get from the Nexus? (Obviously you may want to wait until after the battle to reveal that.) I'd also be curious what everyone had for clams or other gem gens.


Pan: The fire gems had been storing up for awhile. There really isn't much else to do with them in late game and neither Vanheim nor Caelum presented good targets for mass ritual damage. Water gems are more useful, at least as long as clamming makes sense. Scraping those up was harder. I wasn't impressed with either FftS or Murdering Winter. ~1500 targets, mostly Maenad chaff and I'm getting reports of around ~100 killed? They're supposed to hit half the army and either should have a good chance of killing chaff. The Earth Attacks were more effective, especially the first round. They're cheap. The main limitation was casters, not gems. That was the only real use I got out of R'lyeh's Conjuration discount site. Not a lot of underwater conjuration spells that are useful for a land war.

Also, if we do go ahead with this contest, do you want to attack the fort you've got sieged? I've been lousy at storming this game and I'd like to see how my defense works out.

[Ossa]

Though only few aboleths remain, we agree to the proposual.

[Stretch]

To my worthy adversaries,

It is refreshing to see such support for this final contest. I am more than happy to release some of Vanheim's secrets, to ease my noble opponents' agreement to the death match (all but Mavreni and Tir Na Nog, but I hope that they agree). Feel free to test what I say here with your spells.

I have 275 gems in the Sea of Ice (18 base cost).
I have 417 gems in the Arcane Nexus (75 base cost). I didn't use all of my gems to cast it.
I have the Oak of Ages (50% enchantment discount site) which is what lowered the base cost for Sea of Ice and Arcane Nexus. It is locked under 2-4 domes at all times, and the forces within would destroy any sieging force.

My gem income is currently:
300 non-pearl income per turn.
62 pearl income per turn.
About 100 blood slaves or so per turn, easily expandable as I need.
394 pearls last turn from the nexus.

I could immediately recast the arcane nexus with 750 total gems in it (meaning, 675 to dispel it, assuming you had a cast with 2 levels over dispel's cost). If you had failed to dispel it immediately, I'd have over 999 pearls available to up into it next turn.

As you can see, it takes a little while to figure out what to do with all of these resources, as well as swap items between commanders (I've got pages and pages of amazons and such with items they don't need so that my lab isn't constantly filled, and am mostly limited in my attacks by time available to put in a turn and not items/gems/commanders). It will be nice to bet it all on one last, mad roll of the dice!

-PIMPDROTT 5000, Vanheim