Turn of the Sidhe Tide (Tuatha AAR)

[Zurai]

After puttering around with the demo (aka playing it to death), I ordered the full Version of Dom2 Last week. It arrived Wednesday and I've been virtually unable to tear myself away from it since. I've been playing each of the races in turn in quick, easy games to get a feel for each of them and see which ones I like. My favorite from the demo was Jotunheim, and for several days I thought I wasn't going to find another that I enjoyed so much.

Then I found Man.

Long story short, I absolutely love both the race itself and the mythological theme (Celtic myth and Norse myth happen to be my two Favorites... coincidence, huh?). So, I decided to give a little back to the community and boost my enjoyment of my first "real" game as Man by creating an after action report on the game. It will be fully roleplay-ized, but I'll include the raw turn data and personal notes as well for those who are interested. I am somewhat of a newb at the game, so I'm sure I'll make plenty of mistakes, and it's quite possible I won't even win the game, but I'll fight it down to the bitter end if neccesary.

Anyway, here's the initial story and game creation. I'll post the first 4 turns after I get some sleep - writing the creation story pretty much sapped all my literary creativity for the night.


Long ago, before even the Old Gods, the Tuatha de Danaan flourished. They were a proud race, tall and beautiful to behold, skilled in the arts of healing, illusion, and music. Their halls were filled with light and splendor, their lands were bountiful and pleasant, and their spirits soared with the clouds.

Then came Men. Wielding arms and armor of cold steel, they usurped the lands and riches of the Tuatha and forced them into hiding. Congratulating themselves on their victory, Man harnessed their new lands to their own purposes. Their own magicians, after studying artefacts left behind by the Tuatha, discovered the ancient land of Avalon and used secrets found therin to forge an empire for themselves. The reign of Man was long and bloody, for the Tuathan magics combined with their own steel-clad warriors proved unstoppable. Only with the rise of the Old Gods, who granted powers to their followers to match those of Man, was their expansion checked.

The Tuatha de Danaan, despite having lost control of their lands, had not faded away. They hid - in ancient towers, the burial mounds of kings, in the boughs of the oldest trees in the oldest forests - and they watched. As time crept on and Man forgot about them, the Tuatha slowly, carefully emerged from their hiding places, contacting the magical creatures of the lands with whom they had been friends in the height of their power. When the Old Gods disappeared, they began to move more openly. Any Man who ventured into a Tuathan forest rarely came back out.

More than a century after the departure of the Old Gods, after consolidating their positions, the Tuatha finally acted. Their oldest and most trusted ally, Garsivaz the ancient Blue Dragon, worked with the Tuathan air mages to craft a spell that summoned a massive, terrible storm. For one entire year, rain fell on the lands of Man, ruining their crops and forcing them slowly back from the lowlands and up into the mountains of their realm. A year to the day after the magical storm began, Garsivaz appeared to the gathered survivors of Man and, with a carefully orchestrated display of his own immense control over water and the illusion abilities of several hidden Tuatha Lords, dispelled the storm and drove the flood waters back into the rivers and sea.

The people of Man hailed Garsivaz as the Turner of the Flood and worshipped him as a diety. They offered him their children (which he refused), their loyalty, and their riches (which he accepted quite readily). Garsivaz told his new followers news of which they were unaware - powerful creatures around the lands had begun to exert their power, claiming to be new Gods and demanding loyalty and obedience. It was one of them, he said, who had sent the terrible storm. Of course, since he defeated the storm so impressively, it was obvious to the people of Man that it was Garsivaz, not the evil Pretenders, who was the True God.

And so it began...


Pretender- Garsivaz, Turner of the Flood

Blue Dragon

Water 9

Turmoil 3
Productivity 2
Luck 1
Magic 1
Dominion 6

Fortified City

Map - Kingdom of Karan

AI Opponents: Pythium, Arcoscephale, Caelum, Marignon, Jotunheim, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i
AI Difficulty: Normal

Strength of Independants: 3
Magic Site frequency: 60

Notes:

I wanted to use Blessed troops, as that's not something I've really messed with too much before, and the Last of the Tuatha theme has several good Sacred units. I picked Water 9 after careful consideration because it offered the most to me: +4 defense and an extra action every other turn for all my Sacred units. Considering that Tuatha has both very fast, cheap, and fairly damaging Sacred units in the Cu Sidhe and decently powerful Saced mages in the Sidhe/Tuatha Lords, those extra Action Points will get me a lot of bang for the buck.

I chose Blue Dragon because it's the only real option for getting to Water 9 as Man, simple as that. On the plus side, it makes a good early supercombatant with some careful planning. The name was randomly generated, since I couldn't think of a good Celtic dragon name.

For the scales, there wasn't much I could do. Last of the Tuatha forces Luck of at least 1 and Magic of at least 1, so in order to take any other scales at all I had to decrease my income. Since I already had luck +1, and since I'm not particularly bothered by most of the bad events, I chose to go with Turmoil 3 and increase Production by 2. I also raised Dominion to 6.

I picked Fortified City because Tuatha really needs resources to get their heavier units (Knights, sacred Daoine Sidhe) mass-produced in enough quantities to be worthwhile.

That left me with 1 point, so that was that.

I picked the AI opponents by rolling 7d6 and counting down from the top of the list, skipping Atlantis, Ermor, and R'lyeh since I dislike playing against them tremendously. I set the AI difficulty to Normal, which is one step up from what I usually play, but I'm good enough to easily beat the Easy AI now and I wanted a little more challenge - an AAR is no fun if I just cakewalk over everything.

Independant strength was set to 3 simply because I dislike slow initial expansion and because, while the computer doesn't handle high independants as well, I probably handle them worse.

Magic sites were set to 60 because I like lots of magic.

I actually wasn't going to write such a detailed initial story, but the "Turner of the Flood" random title caught my mind and I had to embellish a bit.