AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[LDiCesare]

I hope the others will post their AARs too, they are likely going to be more interesting than mine.

Summary: Pangaea is very good at turtling.


TURN 19 :
I alchemise some more gems to pay the troops. I still don't understand what Abysia did in Tir na'n Og. He's got no defenses there, no troops, so I'll try to take back the province. Whatever deal they think they have with R'lyeh matters little. Arco's god was assassinated by the abysian prophet. Too bad. Fomoria is building forts like crazy. I'm still turtling. I'll have alt 2 researched by the end of the turn and still don't fear for my fort yet.
I also send an in-game message asking Helheim for blood slaves in exchange for gems for blood saccing.
He hasn't got any to give me or isn't willing. Anyway, my best allies against Abysia are ultimately Arco, Caelum, and Abysia's all-eggs-in-one-basket strategy.


TURN 20 :
I stumble upon Fomoria's PD. Looks like he's patrolling with chaff lucky event militia.

That's overkill for my poor scout!
Abysia bought the wolfkin reavers to try to tear down my walls. Good move if it actually works. A test with god's enforcers shows they don't seem to actually besiege anything. The reavers are definitely useless on the first turn since they are still not making any progress at harming the walls so far, but it may change. I have 122 units + commanders inside the fort, he's supposed to have 160 units outside it. I have 250 defense. I will summon vinemen this turn. They suck at defending walls, but I can have 48 of them, which will count as about 5 defenders and that's more chaff for the actual battle.
Abysia is also bringing in some wolf tribe warriors. He'll eventually get numbers, but at a cost. Since I'd burn my lab if he storms, this will be 500 more gold. What with the loss of most of his provinces, this early war will not have benefited him at all. He might be building a fort in 4. I took back the island province R'lyeh left to Abysia for some unknown reason.

This is very interesting in fact. For some reason, in all the tests I ran, mercenaries seem to be worth nothing at sieges. Maybe Helmut Sappers manage to do something, but the others never haad any effect at all. So I would advise to never buy mercs to try to breach walls, it seems not to work.

TURN 21 :
Despite all his troops, Abysia still doesn't start breaching my walls. He's never going to do it at this rate. I only got 5 maenads this turn however, what with that nasty order dominion he brought. In case my fort walls started crumbling, I can cast Iron Walls if I have an E3 wizard, which would require earth boots. So I research constrcution. I'll reach cons 4 in 8 turns, build boots in 9 and cast iron walls in 10 if needs be. This is obviously the most exhilarating plan ever designed, but that's the only one I have. I mean, Abysia will be dead if they keep using 6 top tier mages to just besiege a fort for 10 turns or more.
I'm a bit concerned that Arco didn't attack province 4 however. I suspect a fort may be being built by Abysia there. I realise province 13 is defended by a single misbred and no PD. What? I'll strike there. I go back to preaching and researching.
Caelum didn't answer my offers to attack Abysia.
Actually, Abysia never grasped the concept of building forts in this game.


TURN 22 :
Well, not many people posted their AAR. Only Helheim, Marverni and I.
Yes, that's the turn we started posting AARs. Today, we're far from the turn 30+ we should have reached if people stuck to the initial rules about posting AAR 20 turns after they were played
Things went better than expected.
Which doesn't mean much, actually.
Not only did I take the province Abysia had left defenseless, but I also kept the one I took back on the island. With my PD of 1, I bet his army of 1 commander + 3 light cavalry, killing one, which caused the rest to rout. That's a very useful 1 gold investment. I decide to up the PD's to 3 in my provinces. This could get rid of a fourth 20-some-gold horseman after all. What do you mean I'm working with scraps? A PD of 3 is massively impressive. I'm obviously going to win the game with such grand investments and decisions. Or not.
My dominion is up to 3 black candles only in Pangaea, with 5 maenads and still unbreachable walls.
In addition to my new province, Caelum has attacked Abysia, taking 2 provinces. I am quite sure he'll turn against me afterwards, but that doesn't matter much, as he won't hurt my walls any more than Abysia and I might actually pay him to get some land back.
Actually Caelum will have been turtling at least as much as I have been, probably more if that's possible, for the whole game.
Now, I go into conjuration rather than construction, in order to be able to summon animals. If I can get wolves, I can sneak them out of the capital and take some actually defended provinces before the walls fall.
I have no idea what to do with my monkey troops. They have no province to take back and cost money now... I'll go back to Tir na n'Og, to take out whatever province R'lyeh forgot to defend. He lost another one to indies this turn. I don't know if he picked turmoil/misfortune... Oh, no, it's true, that's my dominion. If my luck was actually his misfortune as it's supposed to be but apparently not, it would be even better (try to ask Calahan to get accurate infos on that topic). Bad, isn't it? I wish people knew a deterrant when they see one, but R'lyeh and Abysia apparently didn't. Although I can't blame R'lyeh for profitting from the spoils. He is the dangerous one by the way, since he can bring enough chaff to take my fort down whereas Abysia never will. Anyway, I want to point out that my stinky dominion has managed to steal 2 provinces from R'lyeh to the indies so far. I mean turmoil here. Of course, he's bringing his dom back there so the effects won't last forever, but still.
I keep a scout on the Abysian capital. It's not very useful, but I'd love to see it stormed by Arco. Ichtyids, archers, chariot archers, pegasi, amazons. Amazons? It means Immac has found some juicy indies. I wish I knew what kind of amazons they are.
Anyway, I'm still turtling, nothing else to do, but I'm pretty confident by now I'll survive Abysia.
The next picture shows ownership of the various provinces. It's actually generous to R'lyeh, which seems to have one less than shown. Those inside thick borders are certain. Those outside are guesses, but I think they are fairly sure.

I'll also bring an animated jpg of what I thought the borders were for all the game when I post the last turns.

TURN 23 :
Abysia keeps trying to take the same province he didn't manage to take before, but with less troops. Since I tripled the defense, he unsurprisingly loses. Maybe he's paying too much upkeep and tries to get rid of his expensive and useless light cavalry? Likely not, since he recruited the boar mage and his mercs this turn. But he left the wolfkin reavers go.

Also, Arco 'scouted' province 33, checking the PD there. Abysia lost 2 more provinces this turn.
I only got 3 maenads this turn, but there are only 2 black candles left. I will create some vine men and next turn I can summon bunch of animals if needed. Vine menare quite useless at repairing walls but, for some reasons, lions are great. I mean, errr... don't try to make sense, lions are strong, so they are good masons.

TURN 24 :
Fomoria has announced they would annex Marverni. Good. They won't strike Arco, so they can still fight Aby.
Conj 2 researched. I'll summon some animals in order to actually do something.
Berserk boars take Pirenna. My 3 PD kills 10 of them. The other 3 PD is beaten by Abysian light cavalry for a change.
I see a battle in Runia (can't remember where that is. I expected Fomoria/Marverni AAR to show it if it was relevant). I don't know if Fomoria stealthy army was caught by patrollers, but they were easily slaughtered by a large Marverni chaff. Fomoria still took 8 Marverni provinces.
Oh, and my walls still hold fast. the good news being my dominion is back up at home.
Apparently, Abysia moved his army north to take back the province lost to Caelum.
Arco has been doing something stupid. Attacking a 20 PD abysian province with a lone oreiad. WTF? Of course she was slaughtered.
I see that province 121 is defenseless. It's Marverni, so Fomoria should take it next turn. Also, Marverni proper is under siege by Fomoria. Abysia's dominion is falling. If he doesn't preach, he could be dead in 4 turns, but let's not hope too much. In fact it looks like he'll be preaching to survive for the rest of the game and it's way more than 4 turns.
I'm short on gold, so I'll try to break the siege with my centaur archers, a dryad and the revelers plus some maenads and vine men. I should logically fail as abysians will bring back their troops from the north, but this should kill the centaurs and thus I won't have to worry about upkeep costs. The only problem is I'll lose a dryad along with them, but that's affordable. I might even win if Abysia tries to take back other provinces rather than persisting on my capital.
I leave one monkey in Pirenna, in case Abysia moves without putting any PD there. I'll move in the island and see if I can take back land from R'lyeh.

TURN 25:
I killed my troops as expected, but still have to pay more upkeep than I earn. I'll attack R'lyeh this turn with the monkeys. I'll then have to bring back the monkeys home to repair the fort if it's getting damaged.
I somehow killed 1 out of 10 enemy commanders, but the battle replay doesn't show which one. I doubt I could have been lucky enough to kill an annointed, so it's more likely one of the 2 indy commanders who burnt himself near abysians.
My dominion is back up in my capital but I lost 10 out of 250 fort defense this turn, thus I'll summon chaff. I got 5 stealthy wolves out of my summon animals, so repeating this I could hope for 20 wolves per turn to try to sneak out, but that's a huge cost for a smallish army. I'll also get 10 lions or so per casting, with str 15, so they are worth 2 attackers each, so I should repair 80 more points this turn when I get 40 lions. Plus the birds, wolves, spiders and however many maenads I can get.
In other news, R'lyeh is attacking Fomoria and Marverni is defending itself.


TURN 26:
I got a bit carried away with my animals. They need food and I don't have enough. I'll have to sacrifice another commander or get out with some wolves. I'll build some cauldrons of broth. One cauldron feeds 100 troops, so I need three of them and can keep my armies well-fed.
I took R'lyeh's province back. There's a lab there (thanks to that random event), so I'm tearing it down, pushing taxes to 200%, and retrieving a Piercer that I put on my monkey. I don't remember building this item, maybe I got it from an event. Whatever, the commander will be using it instead of just staying behind his soldiers.
Abysia is back to preaching, but my dominion is still positive and my prophet is back so she and the 4 dryads will preach again. that's a bit less than what he's got outside the walls I believe, but with the temple, temple bonus and start province, I think I can get more candles. Of course, neither of us does any research during this time.
Arco has breached Abysia's walls, but Abysia's prophet is utterly scary. He probably can't beat a whole army by himself, but... probably.
I'd also like to take back one province from Caelum. I mean, he doesn't do much to attack Abysia, so I might as well take what I can back and people who don't put any PD on their provinces deserve to lose them. I'm asking him since I don't want to cross him. He seems to be turtling, but I'd rather stay on his good side. I propose 5 water gems for that: He answers "That's fine, I think... Let me check the map." I suppose it's ok so I do that.
I also send a message to Abysia to try to convince him that besieging Pangaea is stupid. I don't have very high hopes of convicing him.
Here is the conversation:

Well, since Abysia has no hope of surviving now that there are 3 forces allied against us, we have no option but to at least make life hellish for our neighbors.

If we had some hope of survival, maybe there would be a point to negotiating a truce out of this stalemate, however, between Caelum and Arcosphale's opportunism, we may as well take somebody down with us and make things as painful to our enemies as possible.

Okay, I'm going to lose animals to disease because I forgot the cauldrons, so I'm not saying the exact truth. I'm just one turn off, however. I would also like it better if he concentrated on someone else. As for the other two opportunism, I think the word is badly chosen. Leaving oneself open for invasion by Arcoscephale wasn't calling for opportunism. It was suicide. Rushing someone whose forts are notoriously the hardest to storm out of the whole game is also slightly silly. You can shut down Pangaea, but you can't kill them. Not unless you have hordes of chaff to take down the walls, and I think only R'lyeh might manage that in the early game. So attacking me was always going to cost Abysia the game because it was a strategic suicide, which ends up saying he played like "I'l committing suicide, but I'll take out my unlucky neighbor down with me". Thanks a lot.
Damn. I'm whining again. Oh, well...

TURN 27 :
Abysia lost his fort. Marverni lost a second fort. Fomoria's income has lowered a lot this turn, though.
Marverni armies were slaughtered. So were Abysia's. Caelum (what did he do?) and Arco lost a lot of troops too. I'm actually third in troop numbers, but I have a third of my troops diseased, despite what I told Abysia and because I misplanned.
R'lyeh is first in troops, but that's probably mostly freespawn. Then Fomoria comes a close second. These are mostly unmarked and some Fir Bolg from what I saw. So they are Not chaff, and back with thunder strikers and lightning bows, he's quite scary. R'lyeh, Helheim and Caelum should band together fast to get rid of him because I don't think Marverni will survive for more than a few turns.
I get a province thanks to Caelum, so I have some income. R'lyeh will take out my province on the island next turn. Then, I'll be doing some scouting and calling back my god. My prophet should go preach in Abysia's lands and, with Arco building a temple, dom kill should be possible.
I'm still turtling. Told you so. I get out south to check which province too attack next: the island or the province straight to my south.

[Ragnarok-X]

Hooray for LDiCesare. At least he posts his turns !

[YellowCactus]

I love the way you guys are posting images into your forum replies. Can someone explain to me how you are capturing the images, and how you add them to a post?

I can capture images by using the paint program, but when I try to add a picture to a forum post, the forum requests an url....but it's just a file saved on my computer. Thanks for any assistance!

[Immaculate]

use an image hosting site like 'tiny pic'.

If you quote someone's post, you can see what the image code going into it are; thats probably the easiest way to learn.

[LDiCesare]

I don't think anyone else will keep posting their turns by now. It's a pity since all I have to show is a map where Pangaea fortresses stand alone under a tide of red...

TURN 28 :
R'lyeh's god has been killed by a 20-strong(?) Fomorian PD with 3 druids inside. I think he must be somewhat gutted. Helheim is joining the fray against Fomoria. However, the equation is: R'lyeh + Helheim + Marverni < Fomoria so far.
Arco lost 2 provinces, but I do'nt know to whom. He brought in 2 armies - one of chariots in the north, one of archers and ichtyids in the south. Hopefully, Abysia may be killed soon. Marverni only has 2 provinces left. Definitions of soon may vary here.
I'm striking at my fort and the province to the south.

TURN 29 :
Abysia asked Arco to let him live so he could dom-kill me. I'm laughing at the thought. Why would Arco do this? At least I can provide him with gems, while Abysia would always want to take their capital back, so he can't seriously let them live.
I freed my capital. That lets me blood hunt there.

Abysia has something like 3 candles left. If he doesn't preach in 33 - which he certainly can do efficiently - he runs the risk of dominion death next turn.
I didn't dent the southern PD with my wolves. This was quite pitiful in fact.
In other news, Marverni is reduced to a single besieged fort. They may well die before Abysia or I.
I keep a scout eating popcorn in Marverni, waiting to look at the storming to come.
Oh, and my research is skyrocketting. I have reached Conjuration THREE by turn TWENTY-NINE! Fear, you heathens. No, seriously, this is pitiful.
The map is now clearly divided.

R'lyeh holds the waters and most of MY island. Abysia and I are tiny coloured patches in the south-east. Arco holds the south. Helheim the northeast, Fomoria the west and center. Caelum holds the east, but they are still mostly uninvolved and building their typical armies of Frankenstein monsters.
Arco warns me that he can soon cast Mother Oak and offers a shared investment so we share the benefits. I'm in no position to refuse. I have few gems, it will take me forever to reach Alt 5, and by the time I could try to overcast it, Immac would have stored lots of N gems and could overcast it back, so I accept the principle.

TURN 30 :
I get 19 blood slaves in Pangaea. Enough for 6 turns of dom spread with a prophet. But... 1/5th of the population is unhappy and decides to leave Ouch. I already don't get much gold, that's a permanent 20% reduction in my capital.
Lions prove to be much better than wolves at beating abysian infantry:
Caelum comes say hello to Abysia where they are strongest. I leave it up to either of the contestants to make a screenshot. Basically, 8 anointeds of Rhuax plus an uber-prophet > a few eagle kings with some mammoths and corpse constructs. This was suicide from Caelum from the start. He achieved nothing there, except maybe kill a few infantries, but most of the infantry is PD anyway. Caelum also attacks the province of Renthale with 2 squads of archers. Against Abysian PD? Seriously? Did you even scout them? If a markata could take the province, I'd have taken it back long ago. Of course he loses too.
My scout dies in Marverni seeing Marverni commit suicide. He goes out with all (?) his druids, makes a mass communion and then, since his troops were not told to hold and attack, sees them rush straight ahead out of range of all the buffs he scripted. His druids cast a blade wind once. I mean. Communion Master + Power of the Spheres on the master; Communion Slave + Summon earthpower on the slaves. Everyone casts a buff while the troops are on hold and attack. Next, blade wind * 2. Sure there would have been losses to thunder strikes but at least the druids would have done something useful beyond the occasional vine arrow. Marverni is dead by now, the storming will be trivial for Fomoria.
Here's my diplo to Arco, who offers me to take back 2 provinces he just took:

There are only black candles left in his province of Deadlands. 5 of them. I have 2 dryads preaching there, one in Renthale (36) who preaches one more turn and then will go to Deadlands too. I also start blood sacrificing in my capital. Not with my prophet yet, I prefer to have her smite the last abysian province in the island, but she can do that soon if the dryad doesn't prove efficient enough.
I'll also send a dryad there every turn to counter-preach. Still, there are 8 H3 priests in that province, along with a prophet and maybe a H2 (I think he is just PD).
You may not have seen the battle, but Caelum tried to take Deadlands with maybe 20 corpse constructs, 5 mammoths, 3 or 4 eagle kings and a few yazatas. He lost all and caused no casualty beyond some PD. He also attacked 36, a 20-strong abysian PD, with 2 groups of 20-so spire horn archers. Of course he got his *** kicked.
I'm taking these provinces, thank you.
Oooh, and I lost 1/5th of Pangaea population this turn to a bad event . Thanks luck scale for not working.

TURN 31 :
2 Unexpected events in Citala:
1. A local lord has built a fortress to defend his lands from revolting peasants.
Woohoo! Free fort!
2. Local defence improved by 10.
Woohoo! + 50 gold worth of PD.
I retrieve 2 provinces from Arcoscephale and take one from Abysia. I decide to leave Tir na n'Og alone for the moment and not worry about R'lyeh immediately but rather about Abysia remaining provinces. This is partly due to the Astral window in the province where I fought Abysia. I would bet R'lyeh put it up to see what was coming so it could counter me if I attack him, so I'd rather not waste troops on someone who can counter attack when there's a lone demonbred and some PD waiting for the kill in the south.
I plan to build a temple next turn in Citala.
Abysia's prophet wasn't in the battle that happened in Deadlands (a lone Arco scout got killed), so I suspect he moved it somewhere else to preach. Maybe to my capital, which would suck as he could happily assassinate everyone there. This is why I bring an indie commander and a black harpy, to act as assassination decoys. I also give bodyguards to my mages, with little hope that it will help them survive. Anyway, with a second temple next turn, protected by walls, I will be able to blood sac twice as much and maybe build more dryads.


TURN 32 :
Fomoria has killed Marverni.
Abysia's god has broken free.
I lose 1/5th population in Carnag (argh, I'll have noone left) but gain 200 gold there. Abysia also moves to take Rim Mountain. Great. He doesn't preach during this time so I get rid of one of his candles. I build my second temple, and blood hunt some more on my capital so I'll have enough slaves to blood sac. Next turn: dryads + preach + blood sac. Whoever suggeested winning by blood saccing. Abysia's dominion is utterly crap. Like 3 or somesuch. But he's got H3 priests. It's a helluva pain to get rid of that. Of course, if I had 10 temples, it might work, but it's still painfully slow and inefficient. I dare say it's not even seriously possible without jade knives.

TURN 33 :
5 blood slaves and a lucky event for 200 gold this turn.
I lose quite a lot of vinemen, maenads and a few lions to Abysian PD but take out their southernmost province at last:

However, Arco tells me he's signed a NAP with Abysia, as he is rightly concerned with Fomoria's growth.
I'm slightly concerned about Caelum's next move personnally. If I were him, I'd certainly try to get rid of Abysia and then of Pangaea, and that's not good. But actually, he's just a turtle so I fear little.
Since Abysia refused my truce last time we talked, I see no point in asking again.
Silly me forgot I needed to give some blood slaves to my dryad so she could actually do some blood sacrifices. Duh! Wasted one turn.
As a result, I build 1 lab and 1 dryad this turn.
There are 2 black candles left in Deadlands (33), but I only have 1 in Rim Mountains (21). I bring a preacher there. I still preach in 33. Next turn, with my lab, I should be ablee to get both a second blood sacrificer and one more dryad. Although I may lack gold for the latter. As a result, I will overtax my capital. That is, I will patrol and tax normally while blood hunting.
According to Helheim, Caelum should be joining the war against Fomoria. Things will be difficult for giants. I think they're a bit overestimated, since a 2 to 1 war isn't easy to win, and with Arco joining the gang, it'll be hard for them.

TURN 34 :
I found some fire and death gems to lucky events. I've lowered Abysia's dominion to 1 candle in 33 but he grew to 5 in 21. I can start blood sac'ing in my second temple, though. It will take forever... I will be buying 2 dryads per turn every turn until the end comes... I also try to take out the one province with a lone anointed one to my north.
Helheim is near dead. They have as many provinces as Abysia, but more income. Less gold than I earn, which means really not much. They have their forts, however. That, and Arco has started attacking Fomoria. It doesn't show much, as Fomoria is still rocketting in provinces count.

TURN 35 :
My army sent north is slaughtered by abysian PD.

Even with some Armor of Achilles cast at abysians, swarms of maenads are worthless and I didn't have enough lions. Vine men also suck.
I got a lucky event for a hero:

Not that I'll ever be able to kit him and use him, mind you.
I may think buying minotaur lords for their berserk bonus is usually a bad idea, but I must say that berserk +7 is kind of impressive. Plus he's a good mage, even though he provides zero magic diversity. He'll help me research Destruction and then some summoning in order to maybe summon lions and use them to fight Abysia with decent numbers without having to waste tons of gems to give supplies to mostly useless black hawks, spiders and wolves (useless against Abysia that is).
I'm also going to send the rest of my army against R'lyeh. He just didn't have to take my lands. I'll probably lose all those maenads, but that doesn't really matter if I have even a slight chance of seizing one province.
In other news, Helheim controls zero province but retains 3 forts. Arco lost a bunch of province this turn and Fomoria is generally thumping everyone around while Caelum jsut sits there idly.
Abysia still has 5 black candles, but his dominion shrank this turn (?) while mine grew. More preachers every turn. Yawn.

TURN 36 :
Fomoria has cast Mother Oak. Well, not like I could compete.
I've got a lucky siren event, along with a nice one : 3000 pounds of gold, a huge amount of fire gems and a magic item. Nice. It's but a marble armor, but I won't spit on anything.
I take out R'lyeh's PD with surprising ease. I mean, unsupported maenads beat them!

Caelum attacks Abysia once again, in the province I failed to take last turn. That's intersting. This time he brought a lot of wizards.

9 thunder strike casters slaughter abysian PD without problem.
I also witness Fomoria's mercenaries storm a Helheim fortress.
Graphs show Fomoria lost all that he took last turn. Arco got some provinces back, and so did R'lyeh. Caelum is still not participating in the big war. I suppose he wants to kill Abysia, then me, and then tackle Fomoria.
I bet for Marmor the white wizard. I mean, he could site search or research, whereas Fomoria is only going to get him killed, so he should really come and help me instead.
I start building another fort. The idea is to have as many as I can, much as R'lyeh. I don't care about resources. I want fort + temple + Pans inside + blood sacrifices.

TURN 37 :
Unrest in Pangaea, air and water gems through luck event.
I take over one R'lyeh province with heavy maenad casualties. This gives me a lab and 2E,1S income.
Abysia is reduced to 3 candles only in its only province left.
Arco lost half his armies this turn, but I didn't see what happened. Too bad RL doesn't let me ask about it.


TURN 38 :
Just some gems and 200 gold from lucky events. Helheim lost its next-to-last fort to Fomoria. Still 3 black candles for Abysia. I preach with 2 more dryads there this turn, and build a temple in the province south of it, where a fort will be completed this turn. I also bring in 4 blood slaves to start saccing next turn.
In addition, I summon some animals on the island in order to attack R'lyeh next turn and take back the whole isle.
For the first time, there's a clear dent in Fomoria's army graph. They still seem to be trampling everyone else, though, and they send some remot ghoul attacks against Arco.

TURN 39 :
Conjuration 4 researched.
Some air gems found.
Still 4 black candles left for Abysia... I have a new blood sacrificer. I blood hunt some more, recruit one more dryad and watch R'lyeh and Arco fight Fomoria while Caelum still sits idly. I'll also attack that last R'lyeh land province on my island.

[jotwebe]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

I don't think anyone else will keep posting their turns by now. It's a pity since all I have to show is a map where Pangaea fortresses stand alone under a tide of red...

Well, that is not dead which can eternal lie: R'lyeh is just ... sleeping. I've been a bit overwhelmed with me reaching end game in all my other games against expectations, but one at least is winding down now. (with hated atlantis winning, to add insult to injury. What is the world coming to?)

That'll leave me with only two late-game micro-nightmares, and hopefully the stars will be right again soon so I can continue R'lyehs tale.

[LDiCesare]

Since this thread fell off the first page, I think it's a good time to post my last turns.


TURN 40 :
Construction 3 researched. I got people who immigrated to Pangaea, a nasty blizzard in Silver Fangs, and good harvests in Pirenna.
I also conquered the last R'lyeh province on the island. There was but 1 PD there. The net result of the random events is that I have not much money.
Arco and R'lyeh both lost quite a few provinces to Fomoria this turn. Caelum built another fort and still doesn't seem to be doing anything. What is he doing????
I still don't do anything special. Preaching and blood sacrificing. I bring more preachers, and will use my prophet to blood sac next turn.

TURN 41 :
Still 4 abysian candles. I'm not achieving anything and yet I preach as much as I can and sacrifice all I can. This is frustrating. But then I have a lot of candles in my forts, and my prophet will start sacrificing instead of just a H2 dryad...
Nothing interesting otherwise, war rages everywhere except for Caelum. I'll get construction 4 next turn and go back to Alteration.


TURN 42 :
Fomoria cast Gift of Health. I got 3 events: some water gems (twice), and a free H2 priest with some usless and expensive militia from an event.
R'lyeh is sending Zmeys at Fomoria for the moment. I can't even begin to contemplate such spells myself.
The good news is Abysia is fown to TWO candles. With a bit of luck, he's dead next turn as I have 2 more preachers in his province this turn.
Arco is falling quickly now. Helheim is still alive but hiding in his lone fortress. R'lyeh is stable and Caelum is still waiting for Fomoria to win.


TURN 43 :
Some astral gems found.
Fomoria is using some Morrigans against Arco. I bet he will explain them in detail at some point, so I won't spoil. Maybe I should have taken more notes and some screenshots actually. I doubt anyone else will write their aar now, but please prove me wrong? Basically, strong, tough, flying, sacred glamorous undead with life drain and deacy... And Abysia is back to 5 candles
Still, my dominion is growing on the graphs and I now have the second army in numbers. Seriously, maenads vs. morrigans is laughable, but still.
I decide to send my militia to attack Abysia. I suppose he's got no unit left but his commanders and a few henchmen, I shall see. Anyway, they should make short work of the militia which are just 37 units worth nothing so they just eat a dozen gold or more each turn in upkeep, I'd rather have them die.


TURN 44 :
400 gold worth of events. I use these to build a lab in my lab-less fort.
Helheim is now dead.
I managed to kill 33 of my 37 militia. This lets me see that Abysia has 11 wizards and 13 infantry to defend its province. They also have but ONE candle left. I have 2 more preachers on their province this turn, so I hope it will suffice.


TURN 45 :
Alt 5 reeached.
The Arco capital has fallen. Other players want to stop the game. That's bad because I'm jsut starting to get back into it. I can cast Mother Oak next turn. My dominion is growing. there's jsut 1 candle left in the last abysian province. I have tons of maenads to defend my forts. All is going well. I will attack Abysia this turn, hoping to take the province or kill some priests in case I don't dom-kill him next turn.

TURN 46 :
FINALLY!
Two noteworthy things happen this turn:
1/ Caelum attacks a Fomorian province. This was long awaited.
2/ I get rid of Abysia.
I manage to kill Burning Ones only by polymorphing them into swines, but eventually I do kill them all and rout the few remaining priests. My maenads die in droves. I lose 350 troops + 20 vinemen + 2 commanders and kill 7 out of 10 commanders and 13 units. Not a brilliant result. Maenads do kill Burning Ones when their armor has been Destroy'ed, but the ai would rather cast Wooden Warriors than Destruction when there are a few remaining heavy soldiers backed with fire mages in front of me. Oh well, it's not like I didn't know it. I had planned to kill a few priests and that it would be enough to dom-kill abysia. I still wish I had managed to dom-kill him. I have 3 candles, but I don't know how many I would have had if Abysians had kept preaching.

Where a Burning One is turned into a swine, and other one, with broken armor, gets cut to pieces by maenads.

I cast a 110-gem Mother Oak. Not sure if it's enough to beat Fomoria's but I can try.
I task 20 dryads with "Call God". This should bring me back immediately.


TURN 47 :
Mother Oak cast successfully. Of course, Fomoria might overcast it back, but it doesn't matter much. I have events for water gems, gold, more gold and some faith boost.
I lose my scout in Arcoscephale lands, but I can see Caelum's attacks against Fomoria. He just ran into PD so far but Fomoria's province count has lowered a lot after Caelum and R'lyeh grew a little.
My god is back but mute, limping and with a never-healing wound. Luckily, being immortal will heal all that over time. Still, it sucks.
I will finish Evo 2 and start on Alteration 6 in order to try and get alt 7 for transformation to get rid of my Pans' ridiculous upkeep costs.
All of this will take forever of course.

TURN 48 :
Played from a hotel at work (busy week this one). Lost the comments in the process. too bad.

TURN 49 :
Someone scryed my capital and got fried. Fomoria cast Well of Misery. Nothing really interesting here.

TURN 50 :
I staled the next turns because I thought I could play my turns from a cybercafe while on holidays, but I couldn't. Apologies to my fellow players. It didn't change much to my turtling, though.
Staled. Too bad. R'lyeh attacked this turn. Random event brought 1000 gold.

TURN 51 :
Staled. Again, R'lyeh keeps attacking. Got some magic item through random event.

TURN 52 :
R'lyeh keeps trying to take out my provinces. He also attacks with astral spells my commanders. I don't know what R'lyeh is trying to achieve by fighting me instad of Fomoria. I'll just try to get rid of him. Some Calls of the wild, an army of crap to test the ground, and I bring back my god just in case. I'll have Alt 7 (transformation, mass protection, marble warriors) researched this turn so I'm starting blood.
Anyway, despite taking 3 provinces from me in 3 turns, R'lyeh is still losing in the number of provinces to Fomoria. I saw his god come by but he moved on somewhere.
I had some militia randomly raised in the last Tir na n'Og province, but it's crap. I add some PD though, it might hurt R'lyeh a bit. I will also add some mermen there jsut to show him I can get underwater troops if I so want. It really doesn't serve much, but his invasion is just a way for him to hide far from the giants anyway and it's not going to gain either of us much.

TURN 53 :
I get attacked by a R'lyeh poison golem

It has a copper plate and a standard of the damned, boots of quickness and eye of the void. That's interesting but really what on earth is R'lyeh doing against me with that thing? Sure, I can't get past 23 protection with maenads. But targetting me won't do him any good, he's just postponing death at this point I suppose to get the game finished faster, crowning Fomoria in the process. Not that Fomoria needs much help. He's also taking some territory from Caelum, or what remains of Caelum. I note there's unrest in the two provinces I took back, so I bet he raised taxes there as he put only token PD, so he planned only to raid, except maybe in the NE province where he might want a fort? He's bringing hundreds ofchaff too, but they are likely not enough to take down Pangaea's walls, since he only has 300 or so while I have 600 troops in my castle.
I have 9 Pans cast transformation. That should save me something like 9 * 320 / 15 = 184 gold worth of upkeep. Probably more depending on rounding.
Anyhow, I ask R'lyeh what he's doing. Looks like he's juste fleeing, at which point we might as well end the game anyway without fighting silly one-sided battles.


TURN 54 :
I'll get Blood 4 next turn (demon knights). I start Ench for ench 5 / GoH...
2 transformations killed my Pan, 1 made him feebleminded.
My probe into water provinces shows a PD of 1 in Smallsea.
I got 1 great lion, 1 giant spider, 1 fire drake, 1 cave drake and 1 great eagle. My upkeep is back below my income. The loss of so many Pans makes the move questionable. Sure, I get a nice upkeep cut, but really, is it worth it? In games where the Pangaean player doesn't suck as much as I do, I strongly doubt it. Still, Pans are the best targets for transformation out of the whole game, except maybe some capricorns?
And Caelum is indeed attacked by R'lyeh. Dogpiling the weakest in order to crown Fomoria? I don't get it. Why not simply ask the game to be finished then? Or doess he think he needs one of Caelum's forts to have a land fort that he can use somehow?

TURN 55 :
R'lyeh answers my in-game message by saying Snakey has won, so he's basically Crowning. I think we should end the game instead if a majority believes the game to be won by Fomoria, as these were the victory conditions expressed. I had asked for a delay in order to get rid of Abysia but there's no point keeping playing if other players play to lose.
Anyway, R'lyeh has a nice army in Tirr na n'Og:

'Tis not his god there, just another great kraken. My poor maenads and a few minotaurs don't stand a chance against that. R'lyeh also uses a zmey to take one of my provinces, I take one with my pretender, so I decide to take out some of his land provinces with Calls of the Wild this turn.

TURN 56 :
R'lyeh and Arco agree that Fomoria is winner. I think the game should end.
I got Ench 3 researched. My Calls of the Wild took both targeted R'lyeh provinces.
I also sent my god underwater, and that gave me one province too :
I send the militia I got to suicide against R'lyeh in Tir na n'Og. My god moves out of the water.
It turns out Arco didn't even bother to put up province defense in one of his last two provinces.
I cast a Rain of Toads on the province where R'lyeh is massively besieging Arco. I don't really know who gets diseased, I hope the besieger or maybe both. I also send a dryad and some minotaurs to strike R'lyeh's fort in my dominion, just to teach him a lesson that I can raid too.

TURN 57 :
Ench 4 researched. Ench 5 gives ettins and GoH.
I empower my siren in more Water (she's A2W1 on land, A1W2 underwater).
I took some undefended R'lyeh province, pillage its water province and make a mess of his fort. I also got rid of all my militia as expected.
So I now have as many provinces as R'lyeh, which doesn't mean much. He's got a lot more gem income than I, though. Not that it matters. I mean, I'm not ever going to be able to bring zmeys to the battlefield, and the game should be over.

TURN 58 (LAST TURN) :
We agree to have Fomoria declared winner.
i got to Ench 5 this turn.

Yeah, pitiful, isn't it?
No battle or anything worth saying this turn.

Finally, an animated picture of my knowledge of the map, as promised:

[jotwebe]

A that point, with Arco going down and me getting pushed back into the water, continuing would have just meant my feeble tentacles scrabbling ineffectually at Formorias muscled thews while he got around stomping you and Caelum for 20 turns. Or maybe just 10.

I think think the turning point in this game was when Bluemage142 (Maverni), Roland Jones (Helheim) and me (R'lyeh) failed to contain Corinthian (Fomoria). Which was something of a surprise to me at the time, since I thought a triple-dogpile would be more than enough and was rather more worried about getting my share of the spoils.

Maybe if I had commited all my forces instead of playing a holding game on my initial gains - but that would have wrecked my research and would have left me open to Arcoscephale.

But once Helheim went down I think Fomoria was effectively unstoppable. At the time I had hopes on Arco, but it turned out he was to late and got ripped apart instead.

[Anaconda]

Very nice AAR, however!

[LDiCesare]

Yes, by the end game I was mostly wondering why we didn't stop.
I think Caelum should have joined the fight against Fomoria. Even I, with very little scouting ability, knew Fomoria was being huge. I know Arco was concerned about him but he was already fighting a war, thus it made more sense for others to come and join the fight. Helheim got kicked really fast though, but Caelum was never involved, at a point when he could have prevented Fomoria from taking all of Helheim (even if he kept Helheim's territory for himself).
Arco got too carried in the war against Abysia trying to help me finish him when it wasn't necessary. Aby was effectively dead unless someone saved him, and even then he didn't even have a lab, so he could have been left alone and Arco could have turned north earlier.
I was mostly useless the whole time, apart from stealing Fomoria's global enchantment. All I really wanted was time, forts and temples to blood-sac from.