family vs family, the rematch

[The Panther]

Good game, Zooko. I did get lucky by not losing my prophet OR my Einhere during the seige. And, another thing that is very nice indeed, neither are poisoned!

Of my 22 vans, only 6 have escaped without disease. As for my Huskarls, I have but 8 of them without disease. Fighting against 10 base-dominion Miasmi C'tis is definitely costly, even when you win the war.

Now, on to the other false pretender Ambrosia! She will be next on the chopping block. The invasion has begun...

[Zooko]

Well, remember those 5 Empoisoners who threw themselves beneath your hooves early in the invasion? I am very regretful that I stupidly sent them to that province (even though a scout had just seen your Vans invading the adjacent province). It was a blunder on my part.

My strategy *had* been to hide in my castle until you broke the walls and then assassinate your commanders, but I had too few Empoisoners left at that point.

Anyway, I hope that my nasty attrition strategy has slowed you down enough for Caelum's purposes. :-)

[Zooko]

Ambrosia:

Take heart! The great gale of Caelian magic has risen and now sweeps across the provinces, scattering our foes like leaves before it!

I will send you updated reports as appropriate.

Your devoted servant,

Your Secretary of Military Affairs,

Bwoony the Lizard God In Exile (Permanent)

[Zooko]

Until this turn, I thought there was a chance Caelum could get back on top of both of her assailants.

Until this turn, Caelum had decisively won every encounter in which she deployed Elementals. (Except for those darned independent knights.)

However, in this turn both of her armies of Seraphs were chewed up by flying demons before they could cast, thus ending the game.

Now, I studied Construction up to level 4 so that I could create Staves of Storms, but I didn't have the air gems to construct one since I was pumping air gems into the field.

So one possible thing that Caelum did wrong was not searching for magic sites earlier and more thoroughly?

I ask your advice, oh great conquerors, so that I may use it to destroy you in a future life.

[Zooko]

Ctis had never planned to invade Vanheim. In fact, he didn't even count on surviving until the end of the war. But he *had* planned to survive a lot longer than he did. If I hadn't made several blunders and thrown away valuable assassins and Poison Slingers, then I might have defeated the first wave of Vanheim (since Vanheim didn't choose to allocate powerful troops to bodyguard duty, except for two Fey Boars, both of which were dead by the end).

My questions for Vanheim are: 1. Were you earning substantial income from the formerly-Ctissian provinces before you banished Bwoony, or did the Miasma successfully suppress your income from those provinces? It was Bwoony's strategy to soak up both your time and your money (where diseasing your magical super cavalry counts as soaking up both). 2. Were you earning substantial income from the formerly-Ctissian provinces after banishing Bwoony? I would guess so. 3. Was this added income, in your opinion, necessary for your successful team attack on Caelum?

Any other general pointers?

[Zooko]

Maybe I should have hired flying troops to keep the devils and fiends away from my Seraphs for a few turns, instead of hoping to build Staves of Storms. But by the end-game there, I had little gold income after upkeep. Hm.

Another thing is that perhaps Caelum should have studied Evocation before Conjuration. It was great fun having the Elementals, but the Lightning Bolts could have started flying earlier and helped Caelum expand wider.

In general, both Ctis and Caelum expanded too slowly due to holding back from attacking independents when they should've attacked, and due to attacking independents when they shouldn't have. ;-) (The latter error was more common when I was the military secretary of Caelum.)

Neither of us ever properly scouted Vanheim, so I don't know how many provinces he controlled before invading Ctis.

[Zooko]

Good game, you guys. I really enjoyed playing against you because I felt like I had to do my best if I wanted to have a fighting chance. I enjoyed seeing the two of you cooperate, such as when a Jotun army including his prophet headed for Ctis before turning back when his Vanheimish partner reported that Ctis was already helpless.

Thanks for the game!

I'm sorry for the numerous and extensive delays. If we ever play against one another again, you can be sure that:

1. My primary computer for e-mail, dom2, and most other things won't experience filesystem corruption and go out of service for a month, forcing me to set up a replacement.
2. My server that hosts my e-mail, web site, and mailing lists won't be hacked, forcing me to set up a replacement.
3. My brother won't do all his final exams, write an undergraduate thesis and graduate Magna Cum Laude. Hooray for arc!

So anyway, next time arc and I play dom2, things will probably go a lot smoother.

[Zooko]

The two-vs-two format is excellent! The games are fast as furious. You get to chat with your partner so that you are socializing with your friend or relative instead of playing a computer game all by yourself. If one player is unable to play his turns his partner can do them for him. Strategies can be more varied since one team member can help the other one out on his weak points.

In general, the two-vs-two format is a superb format. The only drawback that I can think of right now is that there aren't very many maps that are the right size and shape for 2-v-2.

[Zooko]

I like the Chandrea2 map. It is okay to look at, although not as pretty as the Cradle of Dominion map. It is also small enough and densely connected enough to be suitable for the 2-v-2 format.

It could stand some improvement, though, on "intuitive province connections".

In particular the various kinds of "lines" -- province boundaries, roads, rivers, shipping lanes prevent me from easily seeing the relations between provinces. And in general it isn't intuitive to me which provinces connect to which other ones, and in fact my biggest blunder of the game was perhaps partially due to my not thinking of the fact that province 81 connected directly to province 71. (Although I was certainly aware of that fact and had in fact moved a scout from 81 to 71 earlier in the same move!)

Another example question is why Altdorf City connects to Wasser Marsh but not to Bruh Rogg or Oxmoor.

For comparison, when I earlier played a game on the Cradle of Dominion map, I played the entire game with the "province connector arrows" turned off, except for the occasional double-check. In Cradle of Dominion, once you have looked at the province connect arrows a couple of times, you can confidently remember most of the connections, because those provinces "look" like they should be connected when looking at the map.

[Zooko]

As per the "micromanagent and balance issues are due to Free-For-All" concept, I'm not so hot on Zen's Balance Mods anymore.

For example, his mods eliminate Wish. Is too much Wishing going to be a problem in any 2-vs-2 game? I think not. If anybody takes a strategy where they are able to cast Wish, then more power to them.

The Pretender Balance Mod might be okay, though, as that is intended to balance things right at opening and early game.