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.