MP: STACKERS, newbie game, (started)

[Greyjoy]

I'd say that Blackguard and I (and, I'd argue, at least Amandamus and the pile of consonants playing the apes) are legitimately newbie-ish insofar as lacking a grasp of some/lots of proper competitive midgame strategy. Probably. I mean, he's not out of the water in earnest yet... though with that research graph, that could change any day now. Can't say anything about Jotunheim yet, but he sure knows how to run them early game. Verj is another matter entirely, but he got smashed between two fairly formidable nations, so, you know.

MA C'tis isn't as underwhelming as it looks, I'm finding. Don't knock magic diversity, especially not when it's nature/death. But most of my success, I'm comfortable admitting now, was early diplomacy - I persuaded both Ermor and Bandar Log to leave me with undisputed control of a fairly disproportionate number of provinces, some of which took me a LONG time to claim; I think I had 27 in my sphere of influence before I murdered Ermor. That's not skill at Dominions (and, in fact, my early expansion hit a number of snags; Ermor's scouts watched me smash my head against a couple indie provinces and suffer stupidly disproportionate casualties), that's general strategy-game experience, napkin-math, and a bit of fast talking.

The game's far from over yet, though. I'd say Ashdod's the least likely to die horribly before the endgame, but (and I'm torn between chagrin and pleasure here) there aren't too many matchups left that have foregone conclusions.

Edited to add: Great post, Verj.

Also, in the initial paragraph, I kinda tripped over my words. The people I listed are ones who seem fairly competent but probably don't need to be accused of experience. Jury's out on Nauquan, I haven't seen him in action yet and you don't have to be a master to be firstish as Ashdod.

[freykin]

No mention of me in there? I'm hurt, us cave dwellers are always trod underfoot!

My signup date might show an early time, but that doesn't mean I have a lot of experience. I still have difficulty with normal AIs, and this is my second ever Dominions 3 multiplayer game.

That said, I feel I'm doing alright in it. I haven't been horribly murdered yet and that's always a good sign.

[Greyjoy]

I have virtually no idea what you're doing, Frey. My scouts are otherwise occupied and your score chart doesn't really give anything away one way or the other.

That said, you're MA Agartha and you've survived into the midgame, so at least you can either play or negotiate. And midgame golems are when things get real.

[freykin]

True, true. Before this game I hadn't ever played MA Agartha, and while I've done several SP games as them since, I totally picked the wrong pretender for what I'm doing.

I think it's that no one really views me as a threat, yet I would at the same time be a pain to conquer.

[Amadamus]

Actually, i apologise to BG for calling him a know it all - nothing wrong with learning, so putting in the effort reaps rewards.

Thinking more about it, the beef is that the map stops us from teaching the fish a lesson. I would assume that putting up such a global so early would guanrantee a swift retribution from all players. As such, there is a regulation on uses of such powerful spells. I couldn't imagine where on a normal map surrounded by 3 or 4 powerful mid game nations, yourself, comparable, would chance throwing it up in fear of being dealt with harshly.

In this situation, there is little fear of retribution and indeed a capacity for the fish to keep this and other on the way nasty globals up indefinatley.

It just seems such a pity that the shear strategy afforded by Dom3 can be so easily neutered by a spell such as this. I realise that particular nations will be effected in different ways by this, but damn, what a horrendously powerful weapon to wield with no apparent effort to obtain...

[cwkjc]

I repeat that the biggest threat is Rlyeh, and it's not the first time i say it !

- Do we want to cooperate (hard exercise for newbs) and try to dispel and make game more difficult for Rlyeh ?

- have you seen the scores ?
Rlyeh research = 9382 the 2nd 4558...
Rlyeh gems = 129 + 22 + Clams... let say 160 gems at least

I think that we are newbs and we don't like :

- players with a good sense of communication as Blackguard (he plays right, and he succeeds to influence players and makes an efficient propaganda)

- to face an event that changes our SP way of play... (stopping our personnal goals, pausing wars, define in emergency a global goal and plan coordonated actions, grouping ressources with old foes etc...)

Maybe we think that MP is just playing SP against other non AI players ?

Once again, it's really fun to play this MP game, thanks again Gandalf

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Amadamus

Come Blackguard, you may say your a newb now, but you certainly come across as a know it all. Can't have your cake and eat it too mate.

there's a very big difference between gaining knowledge via reading the forums, wiki, chatting on IRC, etc and actual game experience. it seems to you that I'm a "know it all" simply because I've been doing a lot of the above. however my in game experience is still very very small, which is what makes me a newbie still. I haven't been around for too long, only a couple of months, and considering this game is already 3+ years old and there was also Dom1 and Dom2 which were similar so also give pretty good in game experience, than I definitely qualify as a newbie...

The point is, you have sat in your own personal lake amassed such a huge quantity of gems, clammed your *** off and now put up a global which effectly craps out the game. How many gems did you put in it eh?

yes, I've been sitting in my own personal lake, but I also can't leave it very easily. look at Ashdod and C'tis, both of them have grown much much larger than myself, and will soon catch up in gem income as well(no idea why they haven't done so already...) and well, this is vanilla so why not use clams...? everyone can do it, you don't need a lake for it, so I really don't see the problem...

now, please, Burden of Time is not 1 of those game winning globals! these include: Arcane Nexus, Astral Corruption(for blood nations), Forge of the Ancients, maybe Utterdark(for the right nations) and that's pretty much it I think. Burden of Time is simply annoying, for some nations more than others. some nations like C'tis shouldn't even feel it, perhaps a few afflictions here and there but certainly nothing serious... others feel it a bit more, but even than, there are ways to defend against it, if you're not adapting to the situation and coming up with the counters than it's your fault and your fault alone...

You deserve to get smashed by all nations - but the map doesnt allow for it. So in essence, you have effectively won. The land nations are two busy fighting it out - no possibility of getting a coalition in the ocean and the minute its dispelled you can put it up again! So whats the point continuing?

first of all, why do I "deserve to get smashed"? Burden of Time is not 1 of those game winning globals that I've mentioned above... second of all, if you still want to get me smashed than you guys can still gang bang me. I won't be dumb enough to actually walk you through it step by step, but it can be done with some effort... third of all, it's part of my position UW, it's hard for me to move out and hard for you guys to move in. it's not all white like you're trying to make it seem, heck if C'tis keeps on growing he'll be too large for even me to contain, than you'll stop whining about me and watch C'tis take over the game...

By the way Verj, blood boots dont help - lost some key warlocks teh rest have ammased a huge amount of afflictions to be useless even waring boots.

blood boots keeps them from dying, afflictions can be taken care of by other means... seriously, if you don't even try to put an effort to adapt to the situation at hand than stop whining about all the strategic choices in dom3 going down the drain due to Burden of Time!

My grumble is the whole development of the game, the subtle strategy, the wit, has effetively been rubbed out by one cheesey spell. As i said what a bore. If that counts for a winning move, then good for you - good for any one that uses it - but the spell should be called 'Waist of Time', becasue thats what it presently feels like.

think I've just commented on this above. a major part of any strategy game is the ability to adapt! I'm still so far from winning the game that it's not even funny... it's simply your lack of understanding Burden of Time and your lack of wits to actually put an effort to adapt to the situation that creates this very black picture for you. try to think outside of your little box for a moment and suddenly you'll see a lot of brightness!

[Amadamus]

I admit there is a degree of whining in there BG, but having blood boots didn't stop them dying of old age, and several others where feebleminded.

Listen mate, i have spent close to a month on this game, I log on and see all the work i have done evaporate. My old mages dead... All the good randoms i need gone. All that it took was for you to put up a global. Your damn right it pissed me off. What a waste of time is my point. I will need to recruit another 30 turns worth of warlocks to get back to where i was.

You know i was listening to you until the end of your post - then unfortunatley you come across as a bit of an *** - no a huge *** actually. I can respond to your global its not hard to work out, but for the effort in your casting of it for the consequence to me specifically, it was a game breaker.

Little box sheesh, i'm getting the sneeky suspicion i called you out right the first time.

[otic]

In Blackguard's defense, I do have one reason to believe that he still qualifies for kiddy-pool games like ours. The reason is that he hasn't been a terribly effective communicator. Even in the first twenty turns of the game I felt confident that other players would come to collude against him because he had the outsider/enemy position in our group, part of which comes from being the lone water nation and part of which comes from a consistent defensive / arrogant / knowledgeable tone in his communications. I think that a very experienced dom3 player would have handled the diplomatic situation more carefully.

As a specific example, the raionalistic line-by-line response against Amadamus comes off as combative and unnecessary.

PS:
I've basically given up on this game. My offensives never got past Marignon (158) (some learnings there that I might share later on) and they cost much blood and treasure. I will keep handing in turns because I don't want to hold the game up, but I'm not spending any more time thinking or planning. My thanks to everyone who traded with me - the purpose of the trading was to outfit my army to win at least one battle against Ashdod, which they did, just barely, with three times as many commanders and twice as many troops as the opposition.

[Jorus]

Newbie - This is my third MP game. I have played one SP. I have never played MA or Jotenheim. I have played other MP games though, and do know that diplomacy is just as important as game experience.

Burden of Time: Many Dom3 games forbid the casting of these types of global spells for many turns, this game should have done the same.

Burden of Time II: I'm certainly with those that say the game is not over yet. The question is whether we work together, or follow our individual paths to infamy.