MP: MA CBM Game Greenstone Bandar Log Victor

[ghoul31]

If you can't find a sub, then I'm fine with ending this.

Well, in the past few days no one has replied to my request, probably for the same reasons that Calahan gave. Also, it seems Mictlan has staled, no doubt because he expected the game to be finished....which I suppose it now is

I think I'll go ahead and send Hadrian a msg asking him to change the thread title declaring victory/declare the game finished on lamaserver. After that I'll go ahead and post in the HoF.

cheers!

[Hoplosternum]

Yes I thought we were finished. My turns take a while (and not in a fun way) and why bother if its all over?

[zegc-ben]

Yes we have a worthy winner, congratulation Grijalva.

I also want to congratulate Hoplosternum for his sportive spirit and to thank everybody for this nice time.

[welltimat]

I do not agree with crowning Bandar Log as a winner.
I do not agree with crowning Mictlan as a winner as well.
Given the choice i would continue.

Bandar Log needs a sub. Very experienced sub.
Lets delay the game until he finds one.

[welltimat]

And one more thing. I do not really understand WHY would anyone "declare" a winner in such situation when ooh-so-best-and-mighty-winner Bandar control LESS THAN 25% of the map and at least 7 other players still play. Some games start with less people!

[welltimat]

As for "you are the best, everyone who would replace you would be worse". Dominions is by a large chunk is a game of diplomacy and highly based on luck, initial placement, neighbors etc. If Bandar/Machaka/Ctis had an alliance since almost the beginning, no wonder they got to there they got.

[Hoplosternum]

Welltimat - I wasn't blind to the threat you were likely to pose, especially as the main Blood Sacrificer (with Vanheim being fairly weak at this point). Which was why I checked our NAP was over. Just in case.

But I think you overestimate your chances. I don't think you have no chance. I can see the potential strategy. I just think it would be very very hard to pull off from here.

The trouble for you is that you only have Blood Hunters from your Capital and I already have 2 Demon Lords, 2 Ice Devils and an Arch Devil so you are not even going to clear up the Blood Uniques. (I could also summon one of the remaining each turn if I wished) Crucially I can summon Blood Hunters with slaves including ones that spam sacred bats. You can't. You may have some indie blood hunters, but apart from Blood sacrificing what can you do with the slaves? Blood has some great SC killer spells but does not help you so much against regular armies and mages. I can summon more and better Bloods than you and ultimately out blood hunt you. Plus my Fire Bless makes horrors or even the better Blood troop summons fairly easy for me to kill. And I have plenty of Life for a Lifer casters and the two banishment spells casters. I also have life for a life casting assassins. On current income I could summon 4 of those a turn. And as they make great Blood Hunters themselves I could ramp up my Blood economy easily. Unless you have been very lucky with blood indies I can always increase blood hunters faster than you.

I can put Burden of Time up every other turn with my current Death income - every turn with alchemy. That would keep down your numbers of mages as only the Demonbred are not old or borderline old. Sure you will have some boots for the better warlocks but what will save the rest and all your fire mages? How will you research? Or Blood sacrifice for long? Even if you dispel it each time I put it up it still effects for one turn. My mages are sadly rubbish, I can stand their loss as my Coatls, SCs and Demon summons will not be badly affected. And my research is complete.

Your plan relies on us all leaving you alone for many turns. You are way behind on research and you will need a lot of internal strength to resist raiding once you start your dom push. Probably a lot more forts to protect your temples from raiders. You'll need many many turns worth of blood slaves in the bank before you begin.

But if you don't join the war then we will know you are either in alliance with Bandar or building up for your own win attempt. I, Ashdod or R'leyh could all have offered a peace/alliance/joint win with Bandar at any point. I suspect if any significant power joins Bandar the game is won. Which is one reason I'd rather just give the game to him now. Otherwise he simply chooses who comes joint first and when.

Of course that person may have been you! And I am sorry if that was your hope and the potential ending of the game kills that hope. But I suspect that we (R'leyh, Ashdod & I) would all make better progress against you than Bandar so you would find yourself under severe pressure very quickly. Why fight Bandar when I can fight you? Bandar can't safely expand quickly against all three of us while we would batter you - at least initially - to see if you could take it. You have all those lovely territories now. I always had dozens of mages and hundreds if not thousands of troops close to your border and many uncommitted SCs. One thing is for sure we wouldn't just have gone on fighting while you stood behind us building up.

You putting up Arcane Nexus gets you piled on very quickly. And the AN/Astral corruption combo, even if not taken down, is not that deadly to me.

The problem is that all the scenarios would take many many turns to play out. We were already strategically stalemating and I think either Bandar gets the better of us or chooses one of us to join him in victory. He really wasn't losing to the three of us before he started to stale. The game has been fun but I have certainly begun to be burned out by the long turns with no real end in sight. Bandar seems to be in the same position. I can see you have a slight chance of victory. We all still do, especially if we all take down Bandar. But this would all take a long, long time. And after Bandar goes it probably won't leave a clear winner. If I thought you had a decent shot of victory I would hang in there but I think your chances are slim at best. And it will take a long long time to find out.

I wish there was some better way to end these big games. Sometimes the winner is clear but in a lot it seems the end game can be longer than is welcome.

[Hadrian_II]

is bandar now officially the winner, or has he to fight aby first?

Originally Posted by welltimat

As for "you are the best, everyone who would replace you would be worse". Dominions is by a large chunk is a game of diplomacy and highly based on luck, initial placement, neighbors etc. If Bandar/Machaka/Ctis had an alliance since almost the beginning, no wonder they got to there they got.

Please don't try to steal my thunder by saying that this "alliance" was what brought me victory. The "alliance" was really just two NAP3s and one (yes one) joint war waged by me and Machacka. If the "alliance" was so important, then how come Machacka and Ctis couldn't benefit like I did?

Besides, trying to trivialize why I was successful (luck, placement etc) is immature and won't change the facts as they stand.

In fact, welltimat, you've had an "alliance" (NAP3) with Mictlan for a long time and it didn't get you anywhere...well, maybe it kept Mictlan from destroying you You even used an "alliance" with Vanheim to help you destroy Ctis...you just made your move too late I would say.

I know how you feel though, its endgame and you're just started to wage your successful little war, thinking "OMG, I'm doing so well in this war, it can't be over!" Well, it is, and it wouldn't be fun for you if you tried to take on Mictlan.

Hoplosternum was being perhaps a bit too kind when he said you even have a chance against Mictlan. As he said, he's already out-blooded you, and blood-summons are (aside from tarts) is pretty much MA Abysia's only endgame.

I, for example, could have dropped Rudras-scs all over your turf and then had them merrily fly around raiding, whilst summoning new ones each turn. When you see the mechanics of it, you realize that is would just be a perpetual war of attrition. One that Abysia, even in late game, lacks the mobility for.

Remember too, that I had already been at war with Mictlan, Ryleh and Ashdod (three game leaders) for many turns and had steadily gained income, provinces and gems during that period. Although they all gave me a really hard time

Im going to go ahead and say that this ship has sailed. I do appreciate everyones' good sportsmanship in agreeing on that though, as its not always easy.