Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)

[Squirrelloid]

TC was selected as the overlord nation by the player who was supposed to be playing them, and was already locked in on the map when i stepped up to replace that player. As such, it was just easier to be TC than to make Rdonj rejigger the map, reupload the map to Llamaserver, and hope that didn't break anything. That said, I think TC is a fine Overlord nation, and I don't know why they're getting no respect. I imagine even Ashdod would have had problems if virtually all of his neighbors had turned on him, and I'm still alive and kicking here. (If I hadn't gotten jumped on I'd still be leading the research race)

I was originally to be Jotunheim.

[Lingchih]

TC is not bad. Not bad at all. I don't see any problem with them being an Overlord nation. True, it does not inspire the fear that Ashdod does, and that was probably why it was attacked. But it's a good, strong nation.

[LupusFatalis]

If you think about it Overlords may have started with a 3:1 lead in every thinkable way. But Machaka and Ashdod started with a potential battle on potentially 5 fronts. T'ien Ch'i on 6. Marignon only had 4 fronts to deal with, and logistically it wasn't a matter of running cross country to do it. R'lyeh may have had 6 fronts (before he gave himself more), but if I have to gear up to make an enemy of a nation I'm not well suited to dealing with, thanks but no thanks. I don't mean to downplay Baalz' or Atul's abilities, but they did have less to deal with. And Ashdod seems to have successfully made some allies where TC and Machaka have not.

So I guess what I'm saying is, while any one normal might have to step lightly around an Overlord. An Overlord would do well to go with the name of the game and actually be an Overlord in the spirit of the word. Were I to play one, it'd be well worth the gems, money, tactical assistance, etc... to convert those potential enemies into allies. Even though I might not "get" anything standard from them.

And in response to whomever wanted to see the start locations. Start an overlords game on the map with all the starting players involved. Not hard. If your fooled by a VP symbol over an empty province you've got bigger fish to fry. *teases*

-- At the moment only definitive suggestion for "Overlords 2" should there be one is to have a very well balanced map prepped in advance.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Haha, to be fair though, MA R'yleh is a serious powerhouse under almost any circumstances if played by an expert player. I don't think I'd be in too much of a different position at this point if I had started as a non-overlord (attacking more than one province per turn would make up for the slower start), and would be in a vastly stronger position at this point if I didn't have the overlord restrictions. As I mentioned, the advantage I gained leveraging the gatestone to gain easy territory was balanced by the fact that my territory is quite spread out. I've got temples in about half my territories (probably the most temples of any nation, with a dom score of 10)...and that's roughly how many have friendly dominion. Hopefully not to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but if a non-overlord were to get it together enough to push a decent raid underwater I could conceivably lose half my territories with no recourse at all to reclaim them. This would be rapidly compounded if said raids also destroyed several of my temples. Given the defined restrictions there are some serious drawbacks to being a water overlord just due to how dominion interacts with general water layouts.

You do make some good points. But I think in general R'lyeh makes for a particularly powerful overlord nation, and if some of the restrictions were lifted from them in regards to when and where you can attack, I think you'd be completely insane right now. So maybe underwater overlords being disallowed completely is overly-harsh, especially with the typical underwater dominion issues. But with some of the ideas floating around, I can't even imagine how much better you'd have done if you had had more free reign.

With regards to the map, yeah, the map definitely needs more work than it got this time around. It was a really last-minute deal, I generated something like 4 random maps and that was the best of the lot of them. I didn't think it was too completely horrible, so I used it and spent all my free time the next few days whipping it into shape. I still don't know what happened with thedemon, heh. Anyway, map suggestions are certainly requested as well. What worked this time? What didn't work? What would you like to see in a map for this sort of game?

[Squirrelloid]

There was nothing I could have offered Man to make them my ally (given their position, I have to kill them or they have to kill me). Any future map needs to wrap because the corner effect is especially egregious in this game.

And Pangaea wouldn't even talk to me. Pythium's only messages to me were taunts. And Abysia was planning to attack me before the game began. Nothing I offered would have made *any difference whatsoever* in getting allies. Indeed, in such a diplomatic climate, offering handouts would have been perceived as a sign of weakness. So most of my neighbors were going to war with me regardless of what I did, there isn't much you can do about that.

[Baalz]

As far as the map goes, this map and my placement is very favorable to R'yleh in general. To be sure, balancing a map well is a serious headache and its my policy not to complain to the admins who donate their time, but you asked so I'll point it out: I started in a totally secluded water area with the two other water nations at each other's throats, a lot of water territory available and even more secluded islands I can easily hold. Wasn't really boasting when I said being an overlord didn't make too much of a difference - this is just a very favorable setup for R'yleh, who is arguably the strongest nation in the game. Even if I hadn't had the gatestone, teleport/gateway would have been a very early research target...almost all of my expansion was due to my unsupported pretender jumping around and he could have done nearly as well with teleport/cloud trapeze. The real trick was that I can leisurely pick whatever fights I want, bullying whoever I want into ceding easy territory as I'm comfortable that it's totally infeasible for anyone else in the game to attack me. Even at this point of the game I'm pretty sure that there is no nation whatsoever who could in any way pose a real threat to my homelands where I have strong dominion. Basically it's the reverse of what
Squirrelloid faced...

[rdonj]

I really wasn't sure if it would be better to have you seperated from the other water nations, or grouped with them. I figured, if you were apart from them they might be able to grow a little before coming into contact with you, which might give them a better chance to survive. If you were together, you'd be able to hit them harder, but they'd be able to group up against you. Or all of you could group together into some sort of underwater supernation, the others blocking for you while you used your gatestone army to take out the strongest individual armies. In retrospect, I probably should have had all of you in one pond with you more or less surrounded by land and the others on the outside of you with some sort of land connection.

Well, one of the other underwater nations is alive still anyway. Anyway, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

[namad]

what does controlling for 3turns mean? does that mean... get inside the fort... then have 5... then get gateston-ned on top of you... but since they can't break the walls fast enough you win?


or do sieged forts not count towards victory?


also does vanheim win with 2normal capitals+his own+an overlord capital+THE SAME overlord's fort?

[Baalz]

I think only capitals count, each overlord only has one capital.

[Squirrelloid]

A non-capital starting overlord fort counts for non-overlords. I can only imagine also possessing the capital should count a second time by a strict reading of the rules.