MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[Gandalf Parker]

Vanheim was definitely a wrong turn. I watched it display that over and over. I got sent notices over and over.

I dont know why it processed. But I now have logging to keep track of all changes to the timers so I will have a better idea next time. Possibly an overlap in the file editing trying to add admin functions.

Do the players who did not have a file in want to turn one in?

[rdonj]

Hey sept. What was that fomorian king doing cloud trapezing onto one of your allies provinces...?

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

2. I'm guessing either sept advanced the timer the wrong way (doh) or gandalf is still counting turns received, which you cannot do.

Chris, how dumb do you suppose me to be? Come now, lets remain constructive and avoid finger pointing. I put 10 hours on the clock without anyone asking for a delay as a favor to those 5 nations who appeared to not have submitted .2h files as of the 3 hour mark.

I followed Gandalf's instructions to the letter and did comment about the pecularities I saw after this (and no I did not advance the timer the wrong way), which Gandalf appeared to have corrected. Why the turn hosted after that, only Gandalf can tell us for certain. It certainly was not my fault.

[Septimius Severus]

At this point I believe the game to be winding down and a victor will emerge shortly if they've not already. I am inclined to just say lets keep going on and finish this thing (server issues aside). If the players desire another rollback, no problem we can do that as well and it would certainly be warranted if the server malfunctioned again in some way. Have these issues been severe enough to render a victory decision one way or another invalid or to necessitate the declaration of a draw at this stage? I personally don't believe so. I think teams have accomplished what they've accomplished based mostly on their own accomplishments and I think people probably know whether or not that team has a good shot at winning in the long run. But that is only my opinion.

That is where we stand at this juncture. The floor is open for suggestions and opinions to the contrary.

[Gandalf Parker]

It was server error (well admin error). It seems to have hosted on the initial 56 hours even though another timer was set for the extension. Quite possibly trying to add that as an admin option put multiple timers in place but thats fixed now (the extension routine now clears all timers, and logs all timer changes).

Whether it warrants a rollback I dont know. The players who didnt send in turns dont seem likely to send them in if we roll back either. The players affected by wrong turn or serial matches would have a chance to fix those altho if it hadnt hosted at 56 I dont see that would have changed anything for them.

[Septimius Severus]

Ok, I've completed an analysis of the score graphs as follows as of turn 38:

Provinces:
ACGHHS 72, Devas 94*

Forts:
ACGHHS 23*, Devas 17

Gold Income:
ACGHHS 6226, Devas 6459*

Gem Income:
ACGHHS 163, Devas 252*

Research:
ACGHHS 24192*, Devas 18515

Dominion:
ACGHHS 782, Devas 883*

Army Size:
ACGHHS 2515*, Devas 2492

Verdict: Deva's lead in 4 of the 7 categories, have a lot more provinces and the lead in the army size by ACGHHS is really quite small. While ACGHHS has a good research lead, the Devas are closing the gap. Both teams still have an equal shot to win, but I see the Devas in the lead at this point in the game.

Commentary?

[Gandalf Parker]

If ACGHHS doesnt already have a specific goal in the research they might take their their research notes to the Oracles at IRC for enlightenment (along with a sacrificial newbie of course)

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

Ok, I've completed an analysis of the score graphs as follows as of turn 38:

Provinces:
ACGHHS 72, Devas 94*

Forts:
ACGHHS 23*, Devas 17

Gold Income:
ACGHHS 6226, Devas 6459*

Gem Income:
ACGHHS 163, Devas 252*

Research:
ACGHHS 24192*, Devas 18515

Dominion:
ACGHHS 782, Devas 883*

Army Size:
ACGHHS 2515*, Devas 2492

Verdict: Deva's lead in 4 of the 7 categories, have a lot more provinces and the lead in the army size by ACGHHS is really quite small. While ACGHHS has a good research lead, the Devas are closing the gap. Both teams still have an equal shot to win, but I see the Devas in the lead at this point in the game.

Commentary?

Its the province count thats killing us.
and the gem count is both better and worse probably than your statistics account for. After accounting for globals, its something like 193:275.

And this is of course exacerbated by ulm's forge bonus.

I'm actually very happy with how our team is performing, and in a normal game we'd be either first or a close second. But, this is shaping up pretty much as expected. The only hope to beat hinnom is ganging up on him something like a 2:1.

And, in a team game maybe the best you can do is a 3:2. Im not opposed to hinnom being in games - but the problem that the choice mechanism weighted hinnom the same as any other good nation (formoria, neifle, Sauro etc).

Perhaps in the next installment we can use a point bidding system.

Each team gets 10 points. They can freely bid for nations.
They get however many nations they can afford.

So for example, if three teams bid for Hinnom, and the highest bid is 7 points... that leaves them 3 points whether that gets them one more nation - or 3.

this might have set teams up like:

Hinnom .....Sauro....Vanheim
Ulm.........Pan......Helmheim
............Arco.....Formoria



HOWEVER, that being said- I don't in anyway want to quit on this game. The Devas have a 50% advantage in gems and provinces - and they are pressing it against the Blesseds. Can they do it against the whole world? Will they have to ? = )

[Squirrelloid]

See, I'd rate Niefl as meaner than Hinnom. The only advantage Hinnom has over Niefl is better PD...

[rdonj]

Well, score graphs are a funny thing, in that they tell you an interesting story, but not the whole story. For example, the score graphs tell how the armies of the devas and ACGHHS are very close in size. They say nothing, however, of the fact that the majority of our armies are ulmish women, followed by indies and more or less uninteresting units hired by niefelheim to patrol his cap when it was bombarded with toads. They also say nothing of how ACGHHS has hundreds of jaguar warriors and androphag archers on our borders.

We have the most provinces not because we've been beating team ACGHHS, but because we've been more aggressive in marketing violence to our neighbors, especially the blessed ones. I find the income tally very interesting, personally. Despite having 22 more provinces than team ACGHHS, they have nearly the same income as we do despite the fact that I am currently overtaxing a few provinces, and despite the fact that they have at least one nation on their team that should be fairly into bloodhunting by this point. Clearly they are doing something right here.

I would be similarly cautious before saying too much about our gem income disparity at this point. We JUST put up a global, which is going to skew the numbers about. And as I said already, team ACGHHS has some serious bloodhunting ability on their team. It is not unlikely in the least that they are making 60+ slaves a turn. In fact that would be a ridiculously easy benchmark for them at this stage of the game, and I would suspect a significantly higher slave income. I would also like to point out at this point that we have seen a number of artifacts in their possession and suspect the hammer of the forge lord and the chalice to be among them. While it is true that, as ulm, I am an excellent forging nation, I do quite a bit of forging for my team without using smiths. We've also had a bit of difficulty scraping up earth gems, so we have far fewer dwarven hammers than you would expect us to have by now. The disparity is not as bad as it looks. And need I remind you that sauromatia has had the well of misery up for quite some time....


Now research, that is clearly not in our favor. I am the only member of my team with respectable research at this point. Every single member of team ACGHHS is above every other member of my team in research (though it looks as though caelum may soon overtake pangaea). I would also be willing to wager that team ACGHHS's research has been much more optimal than ours. Between sauromatia and arcosephale, it is obvious that they have at least level 8 in conjuration and construction, and I would be willing to bet mictlan is up there in blood. Can anyone say elemental royalty, artifacts, and unique blood summons? All on the same team? With a very obvious road to late game tartarian dominance? Meanwhile my team chooses to focus on things like evocation . Of course I have more than just this, but for the moment I'll leave you to keep guessing.

So, just think about what I've said, and ask yourself. Is the slight edge in raw material wealth that the devas possess, coupled with strong natural raiding potential, decent recruitable SCs and forge bonii sufficient to overcome team ACGHHS' far superior troop line up, artifact possession, significant research advantage, and tartarian spam coupled with access to all of the unique SCs in the game? It is definitely much closer than the score graphs imply.


This has been a public service announcement from the Devas Department of Looking Less Scary and Enabling the Greater Enjoyment of the Easy-Slay brand