MP: Pointy Sticks MA started

[shatner]

Yes, the war has opened and Ulm has fared reasonably well in its opening but this is a clash of empires and first blood matters much less than last blood. Ulm's "commando operation" was a suicide bombing, but that is to be expected from a country full of fanatical nihilists. What hasn't been reported is the failed amphibious assault Ulm attempted, as well as the series of failed assassinations Ulm tried to execute. In the interest of fairness, we would mention any successful assassinations... but there weren't any.

A true meeting of armies has yet to happen. Once it does, then there will be something worth reporting.

[Mightypeon]

It appears that Pythiums mages, assassins and diplomats are quite formidable, while its warriors are not exactly up to Ulmish standards.
Unfortunatly, in deplorable incident happened in which the Free Mictlan Liberation army sallied forth, and was fired upon by still boyued up Ulmish soldiers. The Free Mictlan Liberation army returned fire with a fairly impressive array, which quickly decimated the ill positioned forces of the Peoples Republic. However, the Mage Corps of Ulm was able to escape largely unscathed.


There also seems to be a bug, some of the thunderbows I got from pythiums assassins register as "Abomination Banes" for some reason...

Pythium was a bit more succesfull with its assasinations than Ulm, although I believe that 1 out of 6 is perhaps not what Pythium intended. It still beats 0 out of 2 though.
Economically the outlook is positive for the Peoples Republic, as its forward detachments are quite efficient in beating up Pythiums PD and denying vital resources to the Empire. Alas, the Empire has made vital progress on the diplomatic front by convincing Tien Chi to join the "Anticomintern". Senior party leadership is tight lipped about its own diplomatic efforts, but the currently well going war effort may prove to have diplomatic advantadges on its own.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Mightypeon

It appears that Pythiums mages, assassins and diplomats are quite formidable, while its warriors are not exactly up to Ulmish standards.
Unfortunatly, in deplorable incident happened in which the Free Mictlan Liberation army sallied forth, and was fired upon by still boyued up Ulmish soldiers. The Free Mictlan Liberation army returned fire with a fairly impressive array, which quickly decimated the ill positioned forces of the Peoples Republic. However, the Mage Corps of Ulm was able to escape largely unscathed.


There also seems to be a bug, some of the thunderbows I got from pythiums assassins register as "Abomination Banes" for some reason...

Pythium was a bit more succesfull with its assasinations than Ulm, although I believe that 1 out of 6 is perhaps not what Pythium intended. It still beats 0 out of 2 though.
Economically the outlook is positive for the Peoples Republic, as its forward detachments are quite efficient in beating up Pythiums PD and denying vital resources to the Empire. Alas, the Empire has made vital progress on the diplomatic front by convincing Tien Chi to join the "Anticomintern". Senior party leadership is tight lipped about its own diplomatic efforts, but the currently well going war effort may prove to have diplomatic advantadges on its own.

I can't tell if you are lying in-character as a propagandist or if one of us is having some weird out-of-sync error. My replays are showing you as having attempted 2 assassinations and failed at both whereas we have attempted 6 assassinations and failed at 1. In other words, the "score" is Ulm 0/2, Pythium 5/6. Furthermore, our assassins seem to have a keen sense of targets as they have ended 4 mages and one very expensive, summoned commander, who fled the battle and rusted his armor with his tears before he met his fate.

The point is, you go to war with the army you have and our army was prepped for fighting lightly armored Mictlan sacreds. Combine that with Ulm being the first-strike aggressor and Pythium has certainly suffered some early-conflict setbacks. Still, we're down an army, Ulm is down an army (courtesy of Mictlan showing that it still has teeth) so matters are far from decided. Ulm is taking a handful of satellite provinces but gains easily taken are easily lost. After all, if you plan to climb a tree to get to the moon you can report rapid, early progress too... The true magical, logistical and military might of Pythium has yet to be tested. In short: bring it on!

As to the diplomatic front, it is no surprise that Ulm fights alone while Pythium has allies, both open and secret. Ulm has been waging wars of aggression since the dawn of the age, attacking Shinuyama, invading and destroying Arcoscephale and finally threatening T'ien Ch'i for... no discernible reason other than sheer bullying. We of Pythium have sought peace with all our neighbors when possible and have never exterminated an entire people; neither of which can be claimed by the iron nihilists.

The diplomats of Pythium have ranged far and wide offering words of peace, trade and solidarity. We shared the spoils of Vanheim with our neighbors, the Caelum. We shared our spoils of Mictlan with T'ien Ch'i and our erstwhile ally, Ulm. We have offered trade at a considerable reduction of price despite not having an inherent forge bonus like Ulm. What has Ulm shared? Who, other than Ulm, profited from the demise of Arcoscephale? We are peaceful and generous whereas Ulm is ambitious, war-like and miserly. Who would you have triumph? We would gladly share the spoils of Ulm with all who would join our coalition. What can Ulm offer you, what has Ulm ever offered you, except the business end of a maul?

If you would rise up against the despots of steel, please PM Pythium; we have a great wealth of resources and forged equipment (which Ulm has only had the merest taste of) which we would gladly share.

[Mightypeon]

OC: I only had one assassination succesfull on battlescreens, I also ended up with 2 captured thunder bows, in addition, I can certainly ascertain that my summoned guy is alive and well on the campaign map. Had he ran away he would be dead. Although I miscounted, Pythium killed two mages called Lobimag and Starwald, not one.
Several of my other assassination targets also proceeded to fight in the battles of Mictlan, after eliminating their would be assassins with superior firepower.

Besides, in what way are we more agressive than Pythium?
Our early clash with Tien Chi was unanticipated, and while we deplored senseless loss of life, we felt no hostility towards them and promptly signed an NAP 3 proving our rational and peacefull nature. Nor did we initiate into any attempt of bullying them into submission, when we asked about their opinion on matters during the early stages of the Tien-Chi-Mictlan-Pythium war, we indeed welcomed their well thought out reply, even though we opted to do something else. Nor do we bear ill will towards Tien Chi in general, their decision to side with Pythium makes sense from their point of view, the sheer laws of geography dictate that Tien Chi can make potential gains from fighting Ulm, while fighting Pythium would be georgraphically infeasable.
While we did engange in an early war with Shinuyama, we were most rational with all of our other neighbours which included Acrosephale.
That Acrosephale choose to suprise attack us and spit on our previous border agreements (and in spite of having an AI neighbour) did indeed lead to a full retribution, and contrary to Pythiums believes, we were fully willing to share spoils, and partly did so with Shinuyama.
Shinuyama itself profited from the Acrosephalan ulmish war by managing to conquer not insignificant amounts of neutral territory and get an additional inlet into the sea.
Concerning Mictlan, we were in the belief that wide segments of the world agreed that having Pythium conquer all of Mictlan is not acceptable.

On a general note, we also do not consider either ourselfs nor Pythium to be "superpowers" in cold war sense of today. The policies of nations such as Shinuyama and Caelum are driven solely by their own rational self interests, and Ulm has proved in that past to be quite accomdating of those.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Mightypeon

OC: I only had one assassination succesfull on battlescreens, I also ended up with 2 captured thunder bows, in addition, I can certainly ascertain that my summoned guy is alive and well on the campaign map. Had he ran away he would be dead. Although I miscounted, Pythium killed two mages called Lobimag and Starwald, not one.

All in-character banter aside, this is worrisome because my turn-35 results seem very different from your results turn-35 results. I have attached a picture showing a sampling of what I've seen so we can try and reconcile this as either a misreading of events or an actual llamaserver, turn-out-of-sync error.

EDIT: larger version of image can be found here (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?t78874krwzp4cjs)

[RonD]

I would suspect that this is yet another manifestation of the bug where battle replays are incorrect. The replay is not part of the turn file, but is recreated on your computer based on data in the turn file (as I understand it, anyway). The definitive result is what shows up on the strategic map the next turn (so sometimes only the *real* winner actually can figure out what happened). Probably this is even more cryptic with assassinations. But Llamaserver has nothing to do with it, nor does it suggest that the main game file is corrupt.

Are your assassins still there in place this turn? I would guess that the answer is no. If it turns out that both the assassin and victim of any one attack are actually still alive (or showed up in a regular battle) - that would be weird.

I might also recall having read that the battle-display-not-matching-the-actual-results bug is more common in games using mods?

[shatner]

Originally Posted by RonD

Are your assassins still there in place this turn? I would guess that the answer is no. If it turns out that both the assassin and victim of any one attack are actually still alive (or showed up in a regular battle) - that would be weird.

I might also recall having read that the battle-display-not-matching-the-actual-results bug is more common in games using mods?

So I went back and checked and no, some of my assassins who "won" seem to be missing. This is... unsettling. I will certainly have to revise my turn when I get the chance this evening. I gotta admit, I preferred the version of reality where I won 5 out of 6 rather than 2 out of 6. That bug is a bitter pill, Dominions, and I don't appreciate being forced to swallow it.

[Mightypeon]

Did your assasins acutally tried to use their tunder bows in your battles?
In mine, Thunderbows are somehow abonomation banes, which is a mellee close combat things with bonus against magic things for Rose Ulms summons.
Not particularly suited to attacking mages that blast you... And of course totally unexpected for your own scripting I believe.
Your assassins did not fare well when trying to run up to my commanders while getting Iron Blizzarded (or spanked by the fairly tough thug).
May it be an issues of differing mod versions?
I remember their were some issues at the game start...
Can you check what your remaining guys with Thunderbows have as weapons?

[shatner]

In my now-debunked replays, yes the assassins used the thunder bows as bows... that shot lightning. Therefore they stood back and fired lightning at your commanders and over 80% of those commanders died. From lightning, not melee beat-downs. One such assassin is shown below. He is definitely holding a thunder bow and not an abonomation bane (which isn't even an item that can be forged).

[shatner]

CBM 1.92 has the following definition:

#selectitem "Thunder Bow"
#descr "When the string of the Thunder Bow is drawn, a lightning bolt will
appear where the arrow should have been, ready to be fired at the archer's
enemies. The further the string is drawn, the more powerful the lightning
bolt will be. The Thunder Bow can be a very formidable weapon in the hands
of a man with strong arms and a good eye."
#weapon 927
#end

#newweapon 927
#name "Thunder Bow"
#flyspr 210
#explspr 10241
#range 40
#ammo 24
#dmg 0
#magic
#armornegating
#shock
#aoe 1
#att 10
#sound 27
#end


Ulm Black Rose v0.282b MC edition has the following definition.
-Abomination Bane
#newweapon 947
#name "Abomination Bane"
#dmg 12
#att 5
#def 2
#len 3
#nratt 1
#twohanded
#magic
#dt_magic
#armorpiercing
#sound 8
#end

Mightypeon, are your definitions any different?