"A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

Um, can we got another 24h delay? Did the timer go back to 48h? I thought it was on 72....

Ok, delay has been added. (I've added 30 hours actually, so it would host closer to the evening in US time, like it did before, rather then in the middle of the day)

No, it should be on 72 hours timer, according to the server's game page .

[Lingchih]

Yes, I am still playing (sorry about the stale, I thought someone would extend the turn).

I will get the next turn in on time.

[Executor]

Shattered soul 25 my ars! I don't think I had a single turn so far where only 1/4 Tartarians were crazy.
One turn where remotely 1/4 were insane and barely capable to get organized I stale. This is beyond irritating.

Losing vital battles due to incompetence is one thing, but having everything dependent on fraking tartarians is hella lame!

So, what are the chances of your vital, single most important, can't do without tartarian being insane 3 out of 4 turns?

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

So, what are the chances of your vital, single most important, can't do without tartarian being insane 3 out of 4 turns?

Well, based upon my Dom3 experiences such chances strongly depepend on just how vital the tartarian in question is to its owner war efforts. If he is important but not overly so - then I would say such tartarin is insane 25-35% of time in average. But if he is extremely important, as in "the matter of life and death" tartarian - then the chances can easily go to 70-80%...

[Aethyr]

Well gentlemen, it looks like I'm done for. After barely hanging on against Ermor, I just had nothing left to fend off the lightning swift attack of the Bandar.

[Executor]

Woooooow!!!
You've domed yourself! How dare you?

That was an interesting battle! Shamefully I wasted some gems on flames from the sky, wolven winters to reduce the power of your Ember Lords, and some assassinations.
That could have really changed things...

Still not sure what happened altogether, it was a little confusing to watch, it seems everything on my part got annihilated with at least half my SCs going down. And btw, when the hell did you bring all those mages and SCs, I counted at least 15 SCs of yours? There weren't supposed to be... so many.
What still draws breath on your part? How much damage did I actually do?

Also, you moved the little wolves, I really counted on enslaving them...

[Lingchih]

Oddly, for a game at this stage, I don't think anyone could take me out now. Granted, I don't have the offensive forces to win the game, but I think I can hold this little area for as long as needed.

I did do a little strike back last turn. I wanted to get some resource provs. It wasn't a lot, and I think I have smoothed over the nerves. Strange how a little nation like me could make someone nervous.

Anyway, good game still. I'm glad it did not get deleted.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

Woooooow!!!
You've domed yourself! How dare you?

That was an interesting battle! Shamefully I wasted some gems on flames from the sky, wolven winters to reduce the power of your Ember Lords, and some assassinations.
That could have really changed things...

Still not sure what happened altogether, it was a little confusing to watch, it seems everything on my part got annihilated with at least half my SCs going down. And btw, when the hell did you bring all those mages and SCs, I counted at least 15 SCs of yours? There weren't supposed to be... so many.
What still draws breath on your part? How much damage did I actually do?

Also, you moved the little wolves, I really counted on enslaving them...

( Warning: This is going to be long post/AAR )

Finally!!! The great battle on the central front, for which I've been waiting and preparing for so many turns.

Well, that was very intense and nailbiting to watch. Frankly by the turn 3 I thought I am royally f*cked, since you've managed to destroy/neutralized my entire huge magic cadre, on which I've been counting a lot for this battle. And you did it while attacking! And having less then half of my mages!


Ok, answering your questions, as well as some of my own comments/AAR:

I've been preparing for this battle for the last 7 turns or so, since the time you've wiped my army defending bottleneck castle on our central front, and later smashed my ambush of 7 SCs, killing most of them. 7 turns is a long time to prepare jf you channel most of your resources into it. That's why I had so many SCs and mages there.

If you are interested in my opinion - frankly I think you've made a fatal mistake 7 or so turns ago Executor. You should be more aggressive after your large victories on our critical central front. When I've retreated tiny remains of my broken army from that bottleneck castle (rather then face the complete annihilation of what little was left of my forces on that front in yet another battle), you didn't pursue me, as I was afraid you would. I can tell with 100% certainty - if you would press forward back then, you would have no troubles at all smashing remains of my army and securing the next bottleneck castle at NE, the one that guards the entrance to the ex-Abyssia territory, and which is located just 2 provinces away from your castle.

Then you could easily overran the entire Abyssia in just 2 turns, trapping my weak southern army and reversing *all* my gains in our war in just few turns. I simply did not have army or any SCs to resist your advance back then, your kickass "boxing team" of SCs would be unstoppable, even if half of them would be insane and couldn't move on any given turn. Plus you could finally leverage your many thousands undead, once they are no longer locked in your core domain. And with gems/resources of the entire ex-Abyssia territory at your disposal and me pushed back to our pre-war boundaries...

All and all - that would be a complete catastrophe for me.

Instead you've spent these 6 or 7 turns chipping at the walls of my castle with relatively small force, then taking an empty castle, then rebuilding the lab I've destroyed, then not moving at all for few turns. That gave me enough time to bring a lot of troops, mages as well as a lot of SCs from my faraway homeland.

During the time since your major victories 7 turns ago on our central front, 80%+ of my resources and SCs on every given turn went toward building a new army at the province to which I've retreated. Also I've completely changed battle gear on many of my SCs, turning them into anti-SC force, designed to stand to your powerful "boxing team" that handed me my as* on the plate earlier.

Meanwhile I've bluffed, destroyed lab, repeatedly raided your back, showed off all my unique artifacts I've been hiding until then, basically did everything I could to delay your advance while desperately rebuilding my forces.

So when you've finally attacked this turn I was ready and waiting for you to come.

Now for this grand battle - it was very interesting and intense. Before the battle I had a pleasure to see 8 or 9 of your spells smashed against my two domes. (Of course I've domed that province - I didn't stack 70 mages and geared human commanders and half thousand soldiers to be a sitting target for your artillery spells! ) Once score to me.

Then when the battle started by turn 3 I thought I am finished - you;ve outplayed me completely in mages battle. You've only got few of my mages with that master enslave on turn 1. (great move by the way, my compliments) Unfortunately for me you've got all critical ones!! Including the one who was supposed to cast anti-magic on turn 2. Which in turn made all my undead in the back an easy target for your repeated castings of undead mastery spell. Which in turn wiped out or prevented from casting pretty much every battle enchantments I've scripted! And then your damned acid storm finished the destruction.

By turn 4 I had no regular troops left and my huge magical force was gone. And 80% of my battlefield-wide protection and buff spells were not casted! Not to mention two dozens of my communion masters/battle mages did next to nothing.

At least my mist warriors and mass regeneration and doom took off. (out of more then a dozen powerful enchantments! )

All an all - the battle of magic was won by you, hands down. Amazingly well done Executor.

So by turn 4 all I had left were my SCs. Fortunately I've brought quite a few of them, and almost all were designed for anti-SC roles, specifically against your SC battlegroup.

So rest of the battle was decided by mighty host of your SCs (I've counted 11 front-line SC, plus 4 or 5 SCs you've used as mages in the back), against my own SCs. I had almost the same number of SCs as you, just one or two more. Yours however had almost double HPs, since they coming from your strong dominion with GOH. And unlike mine yours have benefited from many buff spells your mages have casted in the beginning of battle.

I have to say it was a great sight to behold - 30 SCs of all types, all equipped with top of the line battle gear, all cursed, duking it out in the middle of the battlefield, while all lesser troops aeound them slowly dying to Executor's acid storms.

But at the end my SCs have proved to be superior. Plus I've had several nasty surprises among my SC force I've been counting on, and it worked well.

All and all - for the first time in the history of this great war Ermor's SCs have been finally defeated in battle! (Up until this turn 95% of dead SCs on Pythium/Ermor battlefield were mine - to my huge irritation.)

Out of 11 Ermor's front-line SCs only 3 have escaped, the rest were wiped out.


Ok, answering your question about the damage you've done. You've completely wiped out my magic cadre (aprox. 60 battle mages and communion slaves.) You've killed all my non-SC commanders and all non-Tartarian troops. You've also killed my unequipped Grenddelkin. All and all - the casualties you've inflicted were very heavy.

However your attack has been repelled and each of my SCs have survived the battle. Scared?

[Executor]

Ah, yeah, I know I should have continued onwards but in my defense I was scared of all the artifacts you kept throwing at me.
Seriously tho, I kinda expected Jotun to put a lot more pressure on you and overrun you with flying demons since the majority of your forces were involved with me atm and had been weakened.

I think this game went south for me when I chose to overlook BL and went against Ulm instead as I had a NAP 6 Lolomo made. Though It'd take too long to get canceled.
It went even more south when I chose to send a very limited amount of troops to take over Ulm veeery slowly, and BL putting up Sea of Ice didn't help later.
Also, I probably shouldn't have made peace with Vanheim but it made sense at the time, before TC attacked him too. At that point it became rather easy for you to take over Van with him focusing on TC more and going on a bloody vengeance murder rampage.

All in all, I think you're getting really close to winning this. I certainly can't beat you alone, and now with my central force crushed with very limited loses on your side it's probably just a matter of time. So far I managed to keep up gem vise, killing more SCs than I lost, but now that's changed.

As for the battle, unfortunately some Tartarians I wanted there went all crazy on me but I chose to chose to attack anyway.
I really thought I'd have you beat. I counted on flames from the sky to cripple your communions, hit some important buff mages etc, than the wolven winter to reduce the power of the Ember Lords if only for a fraction trough defense and encumbrance, and I kinda hoped the swamp penalty + cold would fatigue out at least some of your Ember Lords. But damn you with your weightles items and high reinvigoration!!!

As for scripting, I sent only 20ish theurgs to get the needed buffs online before they die out of fatigue from > MA, UM, WOTF, AM, fog warriors and all the other buffs I cast trough a communion.
The plan was to enslave your troops which would mess up your communions, scripting and kill mages hopefully, than have my own buffs cover your enslaved troops and keep your SCs busy.
Than while your SCs were busy killing chaff troops my SCs would slowly pound them into dust. I even equped as much as I could with elixirs and phoenix pyre for durability.
That never happened...
It went perfectly until turn 4-5 I think, I managed to completely crush your mage force, throw off your scripting and eliminate your troops, but...
Unfortunately it seems I never got trough my chaff, and just stood there while your SCs slowly showered me with elemental magic which ultimately killed me.

[DrPraetorious]

Honestly, if I'd had more time to devote to turns, I probably would've flown over and attacked him, yeah. Properly deployed, blood magic would've reduced his various teleporters to their constituent atoms.

But I just didn't have time , and now we're in bad shape because of it.

On which subject, can we have (another) 24h delay on the current turn? I was hoping to finish it tonight, but I didn't, and tomorrow is very hectic for me, with lots of meetings.