New MP Game - Random, Anonymous, No Diplomacy

[WraithLord]

Wow, this was an exciting game.
Jurri, you did an absolutely amazing job with Marignon. After I have crushed Arco with less resistance than I had expected I was sure I'd be able to stop you. Especially considering that there were other nations fighting you.
I did manage to inflict losses on your armies but it didn't seem to matter as you slowly but surely ground my death empire to dust.

I was surprised that although I was fighting the clearly leading Marignon, Atlantis chose to attack me. They wiped out a fairly large army of mine in Arco's capital. Also, for me, it was very strange that Ulm didn't attack Marignon. The VPs clearly signaled an imminent victory for them and yet Ulm didn't attack.

For my part, my strategy of taking drain scales didn't prove well. For if I had access to the high level spells I would have been more of a match to Marignon.

Panther, I really respect the way you resisted Marignon. In a sense we were like allies and I want you to know that one of the major reasons for my decision to attack Marignon was seeing how fast he was expanding into your lands.

All in all this was one of the most enjoyable games I had played.

I want to give a big thanks to Pasha for his superb hosting of the game.

Pasha, can you please send the game files to me. I have some catching up to do with Jurri's strategy

[WraithLord]

I have attached here some screenshots of my final battle with Marignon for Ermor's capital.

[WraithLord]

A Deamon SC goes down...

[WraithLord]

Even lich queens may die.

[RonD]

Fascinating game all around. Too bad it ended just as it was getting really interesting for me

I spent most of the mid game nervous. My water empire was a long skinny snake that bordered everyone. With no ability to negotiate alliances and no mobility, any one of the land nations could have easily invaded. It would have taken me 5 to 10 turns just to get there to respond.

I decided to keep the bulk of my force near Ermor, as he would have the easiest time launching an invasion. In fact, he did, but he never brought enough at one time to overcome 20 Atlantian PD + a couple of priests.

As for why I attacked Ermor at Arco - it was a combination of all the above factors plus a couple more.

I had to get an above-water base.
My main force was there, and it would have taken a long time to go elsewhere.
Ermor had previously attacked me and, if I moved my force somewhere else he would be the most likely to take advantage of that vacuum.
I had seen battles at Arco. Emor's force was middling large but not overly powerful, so I figured Marignon was going to take Arco if I did not.
Going off to fight someone like C'Tis would have just been another pointless war between 2 also-rans.
Marignon was eating Ermor, and the VPs he had taken from Ermor were at Marignon's periphery and lightly defended. I figured I could grab back two or three of those VPs and try to hold them against Marignon's overwhelming mobility advantage.

[PashaDawg]

Panther: Yup! A beer is always a good thing.

Wraithlord: I am happy to share turns with you, but they are in about 75 separate zip files and to send all at once would probably not be possible. I will send you 10 turns spread out and then you could ask for more.

Pasha

[Jurri]

Hey, thank you for the game, everyone! (Especially Pasha!) I thoroughly enjoyed both not having to spend time on diplomacy (I find it almost a chore nowadays: you can't succeed without heavy investment in diplomacy in regular games but it's also a totally independent aspect from the game. The game is more... what's a good word... pure an experience without.) as well as the added thrill of not knowing who's who. I did tentatively place Izaqyos as Ermor when he asked a question on the forum about the assassins I'd been utilizing, and Panther as either Pythium or Ulm when he posted those oh so biased graphs (Since they were the nations that had the most interest in getting a unified front against me.) Other than that I sure was without a clue as to who's who [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Teddy.gif[/img]

Kudos to both Pythium and Ermor for the resistance; had I not had such an overwhelming logistical advantage I wouldn't have stood a chance against your tactics. Where did I get that advantage? There was little in the way of leet skillz involved, I'm afraid: the balance mods totally unbalanced Diabolical Faith (making the forced turmoil and extra heat of little consequence, and strengthening the demon jesters beyond any reason) and I found a 40% blood discount site fairly early on. (Didn't affect the wars with T'ien C'hi and Man, but afterwards...) Thus I switched gears from my initial spam jesters like crazy strategy to fill the world with Hordes from hell and unique devils; I could cast, like, ten hordes from hell each turn so taking large areas of land, castled or otherwise, was easy.

I had some other exit strategies in mind, but when Ron left his capital unprotected it all fell into place Otherwise I would probably have flown in to capture Pangaea, which was within flying distance from my hunting grounds.

So, if you have any lingering doubts on whether you could have done something better, take a look at my last turn and see how hopeless a situation you actually were in A better player than I would have finished this by turn 60, I'm sure, given the advantages I had. All in all, a supremely pleasant game; to think I hadn't played Marignon even in SP before...

[PashaDawg]

I have attached the next to last turn (Turn 74) for folks to download if they are interested. The master password is memoimich.

Pasha

[Shmonk]

This was a fun game, congrats to Jurri. I hated going out early at turn 44 (I was Abysia). What sucked was that the nation selection was random, and I don't like playing blood (and had never played it before), and I get Abysia as my random nation. But I tried, and was doing okay, until Ulm came over and engulfed me. So I don't feel so bad that Ulm was there until the end.

Can't wait to check out the turn file. And great job hosting Pasha, thanks!

[Whollaborg]

Thank you PashaDawg! You made enormous effort to serve us this wonderful game! It will be remembered!

The game was first email multiplayer ever for me and as such it gave me some confidence as i struggle against fellow countryman Jurri in the game of Invisible Swarm 4 as well.

Congratulations Jurri! (sigh, what a blood economy that is!)

It is splendid that you won this very exciting game! I should have attacked you much earlier but i though i could delay it a turn or two untill it was too late

But then again i am happy to live with Ulm this far
(I gasped in terror when i found out that i got the Ulm which i thought could not do anything from Middle game forwards, but then i found out couple of tricks that include having a rainbow pretender and forging the lightless lantern..)

As some have already (with a good reason) asked why i didn't attack Marignon earlier i think that there is three reasons for it:
Greed,
Fear and
Greed

...I tried to get that army of lead (a spell that i haven't tried ever before) and just a couple of death items more to spam Marignon with the Ghost riders.
Recently found -20 forge site and utilizing that delayed me a bit more.
Too greedy, too greedy...

Thank you all!
Whollaborg