MP: MA CBM Game Greenstone Bandar Log Victor

I've been meaning to address this issue. No, its not as you say welltimat, I would like nothing more than to see this game to it's conclusion, be it victory or defeat for me, as its been so much damn fun! In fact, I would say the primary cause of my downfall was so many stales and especially the near stales in the recent turns (of course my opponents were also to blame )

This was, at first, simply because of my crazy rl work these days. The final straw happened with the last stale: my laptop decided to finally quite on me. I tried to solve the problem and even delayed the game by 24hours, but it seems as though the real only solution is to find a sub to take over. Its possible to play my other two games on my work computer as they are in their early stages, but spending several hours at work playing dom3 just isn't feasible.

Sorry guys, and thanks for being so patient, it was great playing with everyone. I'll post a sub thread now.

[Calahan]

It's a real shame to hear you have to sub-out Grijalve. Personally, I'm not sure it's worth the game continuing if you do, as I've seen this before, and been in this situation before, and a subbed-in leader coming in to such a big game and position, at such an incredibly late stage, always totally changes the 'feel' of the game. And almost always for the worse (no offence intended directly at any sub that might come in).

It was only two turns ago there was talk of conceding to you. Which would have been a fair outcome by all accounts from what history I know of this game, being a late sub myself. And also well deserved for the obvious hard work and fine playing performance you've put in to the game so far, and which got you into the leading position you have.


I feel a little odd here actually, since my role in the game is so minor that I don't think I have any right to vote on any matter, or have any say in what happens regarding the outcome. But I know if this was a regular 'played from the start' game for me, I'd be saying it would be better for the game as a whole, and in order for it to have the proper and worthy outcome any good game deserves, that you should be declared the winner now. This has to be better in my mind than a scenario where your nation is subbed out, and then all the other nations take advantage of a sub coming in to a very difficult and unfamiliar position.

Since I have no doubt you currently have a very big and confusing empire which, lets face it, only you yourself can handle at this stage of the game. No sub, regardless of who it is, will be able to handle the situation as well as you. So even if a sub is found, I don't feel any other nation in this game can be crowned winners as a result, since even if they defeat the Bandar nation, they won't have defeated the Bandar player. And any victory in these circumstances is completely pointless, hollow and meaningless. At least in my opinion.


All that said though, I am nothing more than a basic nobody in this game, so as I said above, I don't feel my vote or opinion should count for anything. But on a personal note, I'd really hate someone denied a rightful victory right at the death, and a deserved victory based on a well played and hard fought game. It's just not right that RL should intervene and ruin five months of hard work when you are just five minutes from the winning post. If you had been able to play the last two turns, you might even have managed to win by now. So I think your victory claim is just as valid now as it was two turns ago. But again this and all the above, is just my opinion, and I'm playing a nothing part in this game, so.....?

I appreciate the sentiment, Calahan, very well articulated and I think you have some very good points. However, as much as I would like to accept victory, I think I should defer to Hoplosternum, since he has the most realistic chance of winning if I sub out.

@ Hoplosternum, it's up to you man, I really enjoyed this game so much that I don't particularly care about who claims the ultimate victory, I'm sure I'll get another shot at winning some game in the future. If you want, you can claim victory, or we can claim joint victory if you think thats better. But you certainly played well and deserve victory at least as much as I do.

As for everyone else: I'm truly sorry that you may have played the last two turns in vain, but I hope that you enjoyed them nonetheless. And I must once again commend my long-time adversary Graem, who fought hard to the end and then some more. Also, I noticed that you picked Bandar Log in re-vendetta, its long been my favorite nation and I'm curious to see how you play it.

[Hoplosternum]

Down to me eh? The power, the power

Well if it is down to me I largely agree with Calahan. It's been a very enjoyable game and while I was happy to continue fighting Grijalva while others were up for the fight I don't really want to put all that effort in fighting A.N Newguy. Nor would it be very fair on them as even a position as strong as yours can decline rapidly.

I kept expecting you to put up Arcane Nexus and had my Astral Corruption ready as a counter. I was getting 100+ Blood Slaves a turn by the end but had only recently started spamming Onaqui (I haven't played Mictlan much and they don't seem that great for their price Thug/SC wise - so wasn't sure of their role), so did not yet have the huge amounts of sacred freespawn to chuck at you. But they were beginning to build up nicely And although I had not seen any evidence of your Blood economy I was not sure that you hadn't gone that way. My Pretender was designed to get me in to blood easily.

So congratulations to Grijalva. A worthy winner in this one.

I have certainly learned a lot from our skirmishes about what works and what doesn't - don't storm castles with conventional armies against a guy who can Master enslave for one And while I did not take some of the opportunities that came along in this game that might have given me a good chance of victory, it has been fun trying out the late game battle spells and SC chassis.

[Calahan]

Thanks for the feedback and thoughts Grijalva and Hoplo.

@ Grijalva - It appears that the ruler of the Mictlan nation has agreed to bow to their Monkey overloads. The Priest Kings have even just asked for part roles in the next Planet of the Apes film, so they can get used to the changes to come.

So it appears your monkeys are the rulers of all man and beast. Well played again Grijalva! Well played indeed Sir.


@ Everyone Else - Is there anyone who doesn't think Bander/Grijalva is a worthy winner? And if not why not? Since the current turn is due to host in around 20 hours, so it would be good for the all players to know if there is any reason this game hasn't finished at this point right here with Hoplo's / Mictlan's above concession.

I personally can't see anyone else having a realistic claim on the win, or part claim. But then I only know the full history of the last 15 or so turns. Graphs don't indicate any though.

So please post now if anyone has any comments or objections to the game ending with a Bandar victory. If not then please post anyway to congratulate Grijalva on a well played game and deserved victory


Edit: Grijalva - It might be worth adding 24hrs to the timer in case a last minute call comes through to save the game just before the switch is thrown.

[ghoul31]

Calahan can just take over Bandar Log

I graciously and humbly accept ultimate rule for the One Monkey God: ooo ooo OOO! (sic). Even though he did not live to see the eventual victory for his chosen...uhhh....people.

Its my first victory in Dom3 mp and (not sure about this one) maybe a first for Bandar Log too?

Let me give a quick ARR:

I started off with a simple s9 bless and crazy good scales, s9 because its cheap but also because it would later help protect my mages/communions from those nasty first shots. And of course the pretender I eventually got easily turned the tide several times in the many back and forth wars fought by the monkeys.

The main key to this game though (more than any tactical move I made) was diplomacy, fast and aggressive diplomacy. I quickly took out Eiru with my tiger riders, (easy to mass with a cheap blessing) and secured NAP3s with all of my immediate neighbors. Two of those four early NAPs were never broken the whole game; Ctis and Machacka soon became my allies and played a vital role by keeping my backyard secure.

At that time Ermor had expanded like crazy and built an insane number of castles, talk went around of a joint war with him, but in the end only my dear ally Jarko (Machacka) joined in. I would say our combined might more or less equaled Ermor's when the war started and we slowly won battles and gained ground.

However, Ermors strategy was quite clever, IMO, ignoring research, using his grandthams to create hordes of undead horsemen and b-lining it to nether darts. Oh so many monkeys are to this day feeble-minded, jabbering fools....hmmm...sounds about right for a monkey, actually.

At one point I was getting seriously worried that Ermor would wear us down, and indeed it looked that way; he could summon a nice army of horsemen at his cap every turn. But eventually Graeme (Ermor) committed a large army to invading Machacka, which got bogged down by wrath of god and eventually became a liability (I think). That army became the predecessor of Calahan's current fiefdom. I also managed to efficiently smash his armies with solar-rays and some dust to dust spam from those indie-1D-Raptors, lucky break for me there.

Eventually things started to move quickly and, before I knew it, I had inherited Ermor's giant, castle-laden empire. I felt bad that Machacka couldn't reap the spoils as well, but had to keep moving as there was little I could do to help my ally anyway.

Then came a critical moment, Abysia sent me a message imploring me to attack Ashdod, my new neighbor, since the two were bogged down in a war far from my borders.

That got me thinking, I didn't have NAPs with either of my two new neighbors, Ashdod and Ryleh, both of whom were involved in bloody wars. The icing on the cake was that Ryleh didn't even have PD in many of his provinces. Though I new it would mean war with everyone, I had to take what I could get; I reasoned that I would never have such a chance again.

From there it was brutal warfare with Ashdod and Ryleh, accompanied by some nasty little scrapes with Mictlan. It was at this point that my pretender carried the day, easily winning several crucial battles with master enslave (for Ashdod) and arcane domination (for Ryleh [more efficient]).

Graeme put up a hell of a fight when he took over for Ryleh and even pushed me back, some very interesting thug/anti thug tactics were involved in that showdown. There were some mean fights between his reverse-communion-thugged starspawn and my white ones + celestial thugs, very cool.

Ashdod also tried like hell to push me back. He had me worried too for a minute. Indeed our battles sea-sawed a bit just by the shear mass of his forces. In the end, however, he just kept feeding me more of his Adons with lots of gear. The real problem was that his research was not up to snuff. But one piece of advice I would offer is not to accompany your SCs with so much chaff when you know a master enslave is on the way, the chaff just worked in my favor every time: they became MY chaff. Funny side note: at one point I enslaved, healed (Chalice) and GORed his Adon prophet, I went overboard on that one

During the whole period of the three-front war I had only one goal in mind: conquer territory faster than Mictlen could take it from me. In the end though, Mictlan and I ended up staring down the barrels of each other's guns, each waiting for the other to blink. I think we both blinked a few times and suffered for it; Mictlan managed to wipe out an army or two of mine and I killed a few of his thugs.

By the end, I felt fairly secure in eventual victory (good Artifacts, Tarts, and a least one fresh Ruhdra per turn, a mage recruited in every fort) but the task of organizing such an outcome proved herculean, especially since every single battle I had to fight relied heavily on communions and various teleporting assets. When my laptop pooped out, well...that just about settled it.

So thanks guys, that would have been a long grind (which I wished I had time for) and I'm glad we could agree on victory like true gents. I look forward to playing again with all of you.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by ghoul31

Calahan can just take over Bandar Log

I'll pass on that thanks Ghoul. Mainly because I don't fancy upping my time investment here from 10 minutes per turn, to 10 hours per turn. Plus the game has been conceeded to Grijalva unless there is a flood of late objections.

I try to strictly sub-in only to dying or last stand positions. Strong, good postions, like the Bandar one, have no interest to me at all.

Originally Posted by ghoul31

Calahan can just take over Bandar Log

oops, sorry ghoul, I was so quick to start my ARR that I just started replying. I didn't notice your last post.

Anyway, we can wait a little longer to see if other people want to find a sub and continue.

[Graeme Dice]

I'm good. Bandar beat me as Ermor when I made a few stratgic mistakes. I went for E4 S9, so my bless was very similar to Bandar's, and I expanded through the use of shadow vestals, principes, and later longdead horsemen. I had a great location, with huge amounts of room to expand into. Unfortunately, I got attacked before my massive investment in castles could pay off in hordes of longdead warriors. The plan was to skip most human troops, and rely almost completely on reanimated ones.