RAND REDUX - ASHDOD WINS (Calmon)

[PashaDawg]

Turn 55 is out.

ASHDOD WINS!! Congratulations, Calmon! Excellent playing.

Players are now free discuss the game as they please.

Pasha

[Lingchih]

Good Game Calmon

-Marignon

[quantum_mechani]

Congrats Calmon!

I'm sorry I didn't have the free time to finish playing this one to the bitter end, it had some fun moments.

C'tis was stuck in a pretty tough spot- very little gold income and some very tough neighbors. I was hoping the miasma would keep people at bay but alas that didn't scare R'yleh much. I spent most the first part of the game trying to pick an opportune time to make a move on Pythium... which was going great for the few turns before the R'yleh invasion. I then switched tactics to scorched earth but I had gotten very busy so handed it off to Baalz shortly after.

Anyway, I'd love to here other perspectives on the game (especially Aby/Pyth/Ryleh). Also- all my guesses on which player were which nations were way off, except I guessed Calmon was R'yleh or Ashdod.

[atul]

Good game, congrats god Calmon.

I was playing R'lyeh.

I had it easy in the beginning, and guess got a bit overconfident which led to my downfall. Initial expansion had given me plenty of room in the rich center, with TC to south, C'tis to north and Ashdod to east. At that point I'd have liked to attack big A already, but was more than afraid to cut the map into two halves. Hence when I noticed C'tis attacking Pythium, I decided it was time to grab their lands. The fighting got a bit too extended, and by the time it ended most of the nations in north had gone AI for neighbours to grab.

As to Miasma, well, I had Const8 long before anyone else, but guess who got lazy and just slowly forged boosters in order to get Chalice instead of rushing there. So, (probably) Ashdod beat me to most of the items. Doh.

Dunno how that should have been played out, no-diplo is really a problem when you can clearly see the top dog is in most difficult-to-attack place for you.

But, thanks for the game!

[WraithLord]

Congrats Calmon, you scored one for the hebrew gods


I played Abysia and had a horrible game.
First I chose "thematic" scales for Aby, D3,T3,L3 after reading Baalz's thread about the merits of T3,L3 and considering and testing this setup (in tests it worked nicely since I got lots of gold events).
In the actual game these scaled proved to be Aby's downfall. I had literally no gold income, I couldn't recruit armies and mages, couldn't build castles. Then I was attacked by Pythium who by all rights should have made quick work of me -- except that he didn't, I'm not sure how and with what exactly but I managed to drive his forces away and conquer his capital (This one with Ctis help, now attacking Pythium as well).

It was obvious to me that A- Ashdod will win and that B- I could do nothing about it. Now I do think the outcome could have been different had Pythium not attacked me, Ctis not attacked Pythium, R'lyeh not attacked Ctis and instead all would have dog piled on Ashdod (Including, TC, Ulm and Marig). Actually I was kind of expecting the dog piling to happen, except that it didn't and as I came to understand that it won't happen so I realized that Ashdod wins. I had also guessed Calmon is playing Ashdod

MA Abysia was ruined by old age mechanics and the "thematic" D3 scale doesn't help much (since its counter to what Aby needs). What a shame, this was once a solid nation.

[WraithLord]

Hey guys, check out the battle at 128. I managed a single victory against Ashdod and I think its worth watching

[DonCorazon]

Just curious - how did you guess it was calmon other than the fact he was winning? While the sad story of Caelum is best left unmentioned, it was basically a lesson in why I should have taken an awake SC pretender instead of a rainbow when diplomacy is not an option. Sandwiched between a dual Ashdod and Jotunheim rush IIRC - it ended before it even started. Hehe, thanks Pasha.

Congrats Calmon!

[WraithLord]

Intuition I guess, but I had this strong feeling that Calmon is leading Ashdod for a long time.

[Lingchih]

I was neighbors with Ashdod the entire game. We never came to blows until the next to last turn, when he beat my Angels sieging the Ermor cap. That was the cap that won him the game.

In retropsect, I guess I should have attacked Ashdod, but Machaka and Ermor were seemingly such easy targets. I lost a lot of troops to Fundikira, and my Cylcops got killed and horribly afflicted fighting him.

[WraithLord]

I have learned from bitter experience that in RAND games, when there is a top dog and you see a weak target, you need to resist the temptation and attack the top dog . Blindly, no questions asked no expectation made (of other nations to join).

I was TC in previous RAND, had a solid position, could have made a move to stop Micah, but instead I attacked what I thought was a weak target (Jomon or Yomi) and thus did a double wrong, for not only did I not help stop Micah - I had also prevented my target from doing that.

Same in this game. Had Pythium not attacked me, I could have been in a much stronger position to help against Ashdod. Pythium, alive, would have made a great difference what with his astral dominance. He could have MHed most of Ashdod's teleporting SCs. Now, I did my best to convey to Pythium that I don't want to fight him. At first when he attacked me I didn't retaliate, I let him capture and keep my provinces in hopes that he'll understand that the greater threat was Ashdod but he kept attacking (probably took my reaction as a sign of weakness) and after sometime I had to respond which led to a bitter war that spent both of us (me coming victories wasn't such a blessing since by then I was depleted).
Also, had R'lyeh not attacked Ctis and instead attacked Ashdod the smaller neighbors of Ashdod (Ulm, TC) might have had more courage in joining the attack and so on and so forth.

But that's all part of the fun in RAND, Its much more a practice in psychology than the diplomacy games. Bottom line, ppl were either afraid to attack Ashdod, or they had chosen weaker targets instead, or couldn't do nothing about it since were chosen as said weaker targets (like Aby who got jumped by Pythium).