MP: MA game - Happy Christmas - ended - Koral - Ulm wins!

[earcaraxe]

thats it then. grats Koral for playing that great!

[Valerius]

Earcaraxe, very well played! You not only stopped Van and I but I think you were actually attacking more than you were playing defense. We needed a quick victory in order to have any chance against Ulm later and we didn't get it.

And congratulations to Koral on the win! The thought of having to face hordes of cheaply equipped iron angels and other SCs if Van and I managed to defeat Aby was painful.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

I'm beginning to think that eriu got overbuffed with that E pick on tuathas, i wonder what I could have done had i not researched life for a life in time.

You mean in terms of thugging or spellcasting? I don't think I accomplished much with thugging in this game. I went with a scales build so I was able to afford mages even after my horrible expansion but without a strong bless I needed more gems to equip them and with only a few provinces and no good sites I couldn't afford to equip them or even cloud trapeze them into your territory (the only good site I found was a D site that generated 4 gems/turn and necromancers - not good for equipping thugs but the D magic would have been useful against your vampires). If it weren't for Ulm sending over free equipment I would have been able to do even less. And I didn't even try to attack any provinces with your blood mages in them.

This game you went with a more traditional Aby strategy - demons, vampires, and horrors - and I think it was very effective. You made good use of those mixed forces of demons, even threatening my cap, but I was a little surprised you didn't put any in your provinces. With flight they can hit an attacking thug before he can even self bless and with magic attacks they can pop mistform. And of course the vampires are immortal so even though they aren't as good as demons at killing glamoured thugs they are reusable if they get killed.

Also, I obviously didn't want to mention this earlier but another spell that can work nicely against glamoured thugs is blood burst, which is only level 1. Armor negating, no MR roll. I used it to good effect against TNN's thugs when I was playing Van (decided I wasn't going to try to out-thug him ). Now Vanjarls do have better precision than Aby's mages and can cast aim to boost it further so it would be tougher for you to pull it off, but when it hits it works great (AOE 1 means it's also a nice spell against elite troops).

As far as Eriu goes, I think they are a very strong nation through the mid-game. Late game they still have issues with no native access to SDB but until then I think they are quite good and with a strong showing can put themselves in a good position for the late game. One game I'm keeping an eye is YARG3, where three nations that received significant boosts (Ulm, Van and Eriu) are among the game leaders.

Originally Posted by vargr

Must try Vanheim with a more conventional build the next time, I think the increased blood randoms do a lot for them.

I agree; B2s have a lot more options than B1s. All things considered, I think the 50% chance of an extra blood random on Vanjarls/Vanadrotts is a bigger boost than just giving them all a dousing bonus would have been.

Originally Posted by Koral

I like the feel of MA ulm though it could use some nerfing. At least the forge bonus in capitol should go.

Not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to Ulm's national FotA?

Originally Posted by Koral

Vampire lords are kickass and should cost at least the 100 slaves, I just hope cbm brings some alternative non-immortals as blood hunter option.

I see your point, though for purely thematic reasons I like the idea of not making it easier for non-blood nations to get a strong blood economy going (and one good thing about the elimination of blood stones is that non-blood nations don't feel obligated to get some kind of blood economy running just in order to forge them).

[Koral]

I actually meant the resource bonus ulm gets in the capital. I'm confident they can get a good start without it.

[earcaraxe]

thanks for ur feedback Valerius, I appreciate it and found it useful! I got better playing abysia this time, have learnt a lot.

about the E picks for eriu: i meant the self buffs. I might still have been partly under the effect of our previuos game, where U easily beat all of my troops i sent agains them. But anyway, a tuatha now, fully buffed and with a useful HOF perk seems about undefeatable to me, on par with an SC easily. I mean in the hands of a creative and clever player like you.

thanks for the hint on blood burst and the lone demons defending!

[Mightypeon]

Originally Posted by Koral

Sure, we can end the game. I like these small games as well.

I like the feel of MA ulm though it could use some nerfing. At least the forge bonus in capitol should go.

I went blood 7 and vampire lords for blood and death access, it seems a bit overpriced for a blood hunter (I realized yesterday I could just have empowered a smith in blood, forge boosters and empower scouts for blood hunting) Getting b3 hunters with forge bonus and empowerment would be cheaper than vampire lords.

Vampire lords are kickass and should cost at least the 100 slaves, I just hope cbm brings some alternative non-immortals as blood hunter option.

Wouldnt Empowering a 3 scouts to blood 3 be more expensive than getting one B3D3 Vampire count?

[Koral]

One empowernment 50 blood slaves, then you add 2 blood boosters each 25 slaves.

So the total is 100 slaves as opposed to 99 slaves for a vampire lord for a generic nation. Ulm has a forge bonus which makes it a total of 86 slaves vs 99 slaves. And you don't have to research blood 7 as soon.

[Mightypeon]

Did you archive your turns? I would love to take a look at them to compare strategies.

[earcaraxe]

llamaserver automaticly archives the turns. im going ask lama how to get it.

[Mightypeon]

I generally have my turns archived in my "save game folder" as well, I find that invaluable if somebody claims to have send you a NAP 3 offer in turn 5, and you dont have a memory of it in turn 65.