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

[thejeff]

My apologies to Hoo and Sambo for not delaying the game for them. I had intended to, but made it back to my computer about 5 minutes too late. OTOH, neither asked for an extension.

I was also concerned with the two tries that both R'lyeh's golem and Tir's Eater got and was worried that we had hit some kind of bug, but I think I understand what happened. Banishment to Cocytos does not actually kill, just sends them elsewhere. They still exist and still have orders to fight in the death match so they do.

So with that out of the way: Congratulations to our new Pangaean overlords! Can we at least have some revels before the purges commence?

[thejeff]

TwoBits:
Pirenna was something of an epic battle. It was quite fun to watch all your Maenids vanish in the first couple Rains of Stones, but then we got to prove that 2 buffed endgame armies essentially can't kill each other.
So we ran the clock out and I won. Though with your berserk Ice Devil I wasn't sure of that for a bit. I think he would have gone down faster if my troops had surrounded him rather than chasing after everyone else.

I was also disappointed that my Champion didn't even get a spell off. Petrify slowed him down and then he was in melee and just hacked instead of dropping Gifts from Heaven on you.

[Stretch]

All hail our glorious Pangaean overlords! Mavreni and Lanka were missed at the tournament, but I find it hard to believe that they could have beaten a GoH'd father Illearth wielding mage bane with a built-in army of undead, who opened at point blank range with petrify. That was quite a fine strategy. I had considered sending my tartarian blood master in with a wraith crown, but the Hat of Zapping did ok as well. My blood magic plan (claws of kokytosx2, attackx1, clawsx2) went horribly awry when Caelum's Spenta of fire started off our combat with Firestorm... 20+ blood slaves wiped out, just like that! Damn you Caelum! As soon as I saw the wave of fire come through the air my perceptions paused and I spent a couple seconds thinking "Oh... crap."

On a side note, how many military troops did everyone lose due to my armageddon? Vanheim lost around 380.

The tournament has finished and the world rejoices with the cessation of hostilities! A new era of peace is upon the world... let the drinking begin!

If anyone would like to watch the battles, the file is here: http://www.filedropper.com/earlyvanheim

[thejeff]

Of course, Illearth also got lucky and defended in both of his fights (IIRC, I know he did with mine.) Claws or GfH first round would have finished him just as nicely.
I almost scripted Petrify first myself, but decided that I wanted more scripted meteors instead. Not that it mattered since he went for the 50% chance of physical attack instead of casting every round once the petrify wore off.

[LoloMo]

My fire Spenta burned through all 30 fire gems in the first battle! Next time I'll script Living Fire twice only

Without the gems, the AI took over, and boy did it like prison of fire!

Congrats Pan!

[TwoBits]

New Converts to the One True Faith,

In the name of Pony, Pantakrator, Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Emerald Goddess!, all Pangaea welcomes you with its green embrace! Indeed, now that the terrible and bloody Last War has ended, and Lady Pony has Ascended to true Godhood, a new era of Freedom and Revelry shall sweep the World! Let all living things rejoice!

Your people shall be glad, as their cities are thrown down (to be covered once again by the forests), and they are released from their artificial prisons of walls, streets, towers, gates and other such abominations. Your menfolk will be relocated to reeducation camps in the wilds, there to learn the joys of revelry and a proper respect for nature, while your women shall embrace the cult of the bacchanalia, to swell the ranks of the Maenads, and enjoy the ecstasy of the Orgy with the Beast-men of Pangaea!

Let the World be covered over in mighty trees and green vines, and let this one mighty Forest be filled with wine, song, dance and carnal pleasure!

So the Lady commands, so let it be done!

Troes the Pan, Master of Revels and Servant of the Pantakrator.

[TwoBits]

I think I did get lucky in some respects. Indeed, Father Illearth (my script was Petrify, Living Earth, Reinvigoration, Attack) was on the defensive in both his fights, and that first round Petrification probably did a lot to screw up opponents' scripting. And anyone facing Caelum's Spenta in the first round would have had their hands full as well.

But then again, he came into the fights with 234 HP, 20 HP regeneration, and luck. He might have been able to survive a Gift of Heaven strike or two, long enough to get off that Petrify. And Claws of Kokytos would just have sent him back into the tournament pool (he might have lost his Blood Slaves though, I'm not sure, but skipping the Reinvigoration might not have mattered much). And in the end, he never had to even use Mage Bane.

Yeah, I kicked around a lot of ideas for the tournament. Plan A was a Blood empowered Garnet-Sorceress casting Infernal Prison (with a Bag of Winds, so the Air Elemental would be the target of any enemy spell). But when I tested it, I realized that it just sent the victim back into the contest, so eventually she would have run out of Slaves, and would almost certainly get squished by the last competitor.

I also thought about an GoRed Ettin armed with Mage Bane, the Hammer of the Mountains, and the Gift of Kurgi, but I had no Ettins in a lab when the tournament was announced.

And I also Blood empowered a Vampire Lord, with the plan to give him a bunch of Blood boosting items and Slaves, place him in the back, and scripted with Life for a Life x 5. But I worried that enemies with high HP, regeneration, and/or luck might be able to shrug it off, and toast him in close combat. I didn't even think about all the Slaves getting toasted by Flame Storm and the like!

And my Gorgon pretender was another option (armed with Mage Bane of course, with flying, and Petrification for crown control).

But Illearth seemed to have the best combination of survivability, crowd control, and offensive capability - with Mage Bane at least. If it had been wished away, I may have gone for one of the other options (probably the Vampire Lord).


TheJeff: Yeah, Pirenna was crazy! Boy, when all my Maenads got wiped by the RoS, and many other units blasted by Neifel Flames and Flame Storm, I thought I would break and retreat in the first round!

And yeah, once both sides got up their buffs, and the gate got clogged with Sea Trolls (I think the same two stupid buffed - but not with an attack bonus - and regenerating Trolls stood in that gateway for 30 or so turns, or so it felt), it was stalemate, until the timer expired. Yeah, I thought I was going to get lucky with the berserk Ice Devil, and I would have too, if he hadn't gotten in the way of your retreating Fire Snakes

If one side uses storm to stop fliers, I don't know what can be done in that kind of situation.

Maybe just use the Maenads to tear down the walls, but only send in the high HP mages and some tough SCs? But then those few SCs just become targets for everything, so I don't know. In the future though, I definitely would have continued using Maenads and such on offense - they just die too easily before they can get buffed.

[TwoBits]

BTW, Stretch, Pangaea lost 399 units to Armageddon (and I saw a handful of commanders with random Afflictions too). Considering Pangaea's huge number of chaff, I think I came off pretty well there. But I'm sure Gift of Health played a big role, as it did with Atlantis' Flames from the Sky and Murdering Winter strikes.

If the Armageddons had kept up, it would have been the population loss, and resulting drop in gold and Blood Slave income, that would have hurt Pangaea the most.

[Sambo]

Tarnations!

Our plan was to bring a Mandeha. Auto darkness, undead horde, rush of strength, mists of deception, attack! By my calculations, he would have dominated.

Looking forward to the next game... on a smaller scale! Good fighting everybody.

[TwoBits]

That Mandeha sounds tough. The Auto Darkness would have been tough. Petrification might have threw off his casting though, and I think a bunch of Earth Elementals may have dealt easily with any hangers-on. But close combat in Darkness may have been rough (the Stone Bird might have helped there though).

Dang, I'd almost say "wish for another Death Match" just to see how it would come out, but now Illearth is stuck with the stupid Trident, so I guess we'll never know

Anyhow, I'd like to thank everyone for a cool game. Mists was my first foray into Llamaserver games, and was quite an experience, especially going from start to finish (how long was it, almost a year?).