KingMaker - let the Ascension War commence!

[Xietor]

In the 1st Big Game the EA did best, and the LA the worst. So I am not sure conclusions can be drawn yet. There were also more players taking EA races in this game then late.

In my war against EA Abysia, I would say the Burning Ones have protection as good as the best la nation, especially with their e9n4 bless, and their pd is 2nd to none. I attribute the difference in the outcome of the war to my pretender a 5d 3e 3a Lich, and superior research. The Lich gave LA Arcos a tie to much needed thugs.

The difference in the war was I had const 6 items and banelords, and effective communions and reverse communions. But had it been simply a fight between castle bought troops, EA Abysia would have won quite easily.

Then you have 2 on 1 wars, and even 3 on 1 wars. So EA Hinnom and LA mictlan really had very uphill fights with the former having to fight Lanka and Kailasa, and the latter EA and MA Ctis, plus MA Ulm with their new Bane of Heresy weapons.

I also agree with Dr. P that EA Nations and MA Pythium are higher value targets because they produce more gems. All other things being equal, you would rather own a capital of a race that produces 6 rather than 4 gems a turn.

[Xietor]

The effect of no LA Ermor or LA Ryleh means there is no compelling need for alliances to strike them down. In the 1st Big Game no Alliance appeared to take them out, and they became unstoppable in the mid to late game.

Even the strongest nations in Kingmaker are not All Powerful.

[DonCorazon]

A few anecdotal takeaways from LA Utgard:

I was next to EA Arcos, and never used "high protection" troops - it was just a matter of a strong bless nation next to heavy research dependent nation. High protection can mean need for resources which can actually be a disadvantage anyway depending on your starting terrain. I think it was more bad luck for them more than an inherent LA game edge.

Has LA Agartha captured many/any capitals? My takeaway with their leadership may be that relying on diplomacy to stay safe and focus on researching while your neighbors whittle away their resources and mage-time on battles can be an effective strategy vs. the aggressive, growth for the sake of growth strategy commonly employed. For example, players may fail to fully search and "harvest" the land they conquer while they expand indiscriminately.

Finally, beware piles of froot loops in the bushes. Until Eye Shields get made Const 4, it means you should buy lots of sun glasses....

[Zeldor]

LA Agartha is friendly nation that does not use aggression. We have just liberated MA Caelum capitol that turn from its oppressive goverment, that forced us to start that war.

We are nice and full of love towards everyone. But the one that unmade our Forge will burn in hell. Slowly. And we will make death that brings you to that place will be painful.

If anyone has any information about that pesky little coward, please PM us. You will get rich if your info leads us to that criminal.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

Now, everyone thinks the forge was dispelled? Maybe, but that's a pedestrian answer. I think it was cast by an K'tonian necromancer who got smacked down by one of 5,000 seeking arrows helheim just lobbed.

You can lay 5,000 seeking arrows upon the ground in a specific pattern to read "Dispelled" from space. It all depends on your perspective!

[Darkwind]

I might need a sub for a little while. My dad decided that updating my graphics driver (my screen has been blacking out on me temporarily for a while now) was a good idea and now, for some reason, various images and text aren't displaying correctly. I can't figure out how to find Kingmaker in-game, let alone play it. Hopefully I can fix this before the turn hosts.

[Xietor]

I was just looking at last year's Big Game. The final turn was turn 94. Only a handful of nations were left. Even fewer that could actually fight LA Ermor or LA Ryleh. Those nations were:

LA Ryleh-Evilhomer
LA Ermor- Velusion
MA Agartha Atul
MA Ermor -Lolomo
MA Ctis-Xietor
MA Pangaea-Hadrian(though I am not sure he would have lasted long in any major war)(he mostly picked on small nations).

Alive but I am unsure of their status-doubtful they had much left or could have fought off tartarians hordes for long(but I may be wrong)

EA Oceania- Amhazair
LA Pangaea-Lingchih
EA Pangaea-Szumo
Machaka-Reay
MA Ryleh- Salamander
MA Pythium-Zoshan
MA Tien Chi-Tichy
ma jotunheim-solo
la abysia-Stelteck

EA Oceania was, at one point in the game, a major power. When the game ended I was at war with the LA Ermor block, and had been for several turns. Several races were sitting on the sidelines watching. LA Ryleh being one of them.

But I think the thing you see from the 2 games, is there is very little carryover between races, but a lot of carry over between players.

Lolomo and Atul have new races, but are yet again contenders. Evilhomer is a skilled player, but he did not survive the 3 on 1 scare his presence generated. I think player skill, diplomacy, and luck(where and who you started next to) play major roles in your chances to survive the early and midgame.

[Darkwind]

Edit: Yay! I can still edit this! Anyways, nevermind about the driver bugging out and all that. I managed to fix it. So, I don't need a sub. Fortunately.

Also, interesting stuff Xietor.

[Xietor]

Also if you look at the top races in Kingmaker, they all died early deaths in Perpetuality. Niefelheim may have followed only MA Ulm in the early exit department. LA Agartha was killed off by independents, and I do not mean Bogus or the Ancient Presence. I mean Knights. The evils of Misfortune. I actually think the Bandar Log reached the mid game.

LA caelum I believe died fairly early(i know for a fact the other 2 caelums did), and I am not sure what misfortunes befell the marignons, but they were never a power.

[Xietor]

LoloMo Second Lieutenant

Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Manila, Philippines Posts: 472 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts

Re: LA R\'lyeh

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Since everyone is laying down their cards, hehe, I'll show mine too.

I was pulling in about 120 Astral Gems from Clams, and about the same number of Earth Gems from blood stones. Making 4 clams and 4 blood stones per turn. I was wishing for gems every turn, and had started in motion another unit to do 2 wishes per turn. My problem was recruiting enough units to put all the stuff I was forging. Most of them were reserve items that I wasn't expecting to use immediately. I had the Steel Oven Construction bonus, so that even though I had access to the forge as part of the Sinister Six Alliance, I found it more convenient to forge my own.

If pressed I would have been capable of 15 seeking arrows, 10 earth attacks, and 6 ghost riders per turn, while still doing all the forging and "turtling" activities. Plus I had prepared a batch of stealthy assasinating Claws of Kokytos casting Spectres that I was about to seed around to catch raiding SCs hehe. Also lots of Druid led raiding Shadow Vestals, a lot of them with flying carpets. I had only used a few squads against Pythium and they were surprisingly effective, enough to probably win me the war by themselves. I had quite a lot of specialized units in reserve that I planned to use to fight a gem efficient war against SCs. I had also planned to use huge communions with my cheap Astral and Death mages.

I had been holding back in the war against MA C'tis, going for gem efficiency rather than a quick kill, as I did not want LA R'lyeh to conclude that it was over for MA C'tis and reveal himself as an ally of MA C'tis. My theory was that the longer the game run, the bigger my advantage gets, especially since no one seems to think that I was clamming =) Without the Steel Oven, I probably would not have spent the huge resources needed to get clamming started.

The biggest danger for me the entire game was in the beginning in the war against Abysia. My vestals were not very effective against heat auras and the dragon pretender, plus they had control of the steel oven then. Then Vanheim joined Abysia in fighting me. I had to pretend to be a lot stronger than I was at that time to get those two to agree to non simultaneous ceasefires, that allowed me to eventually concentrate on Abysia.

After that I had to forge diplomatic ties to keep out of war while I leverage the Steel Oven advantage.


It makes me feel better that someone else of note had trouble with EA Abysia as a 1st foe as well. I will lay down my cards as well Lolomo. You were fighting one fist of my army. My main army sat in my in my mainland. I was hoping to draw out the full tartarian hordes of la ermor and whatever you had up your sleeve in a remote part of the world-which did not connect to my mainland.

I was prepared to lose several tartarians and that gated army, formidable though it was, to draw la ryleh into the war on my side. I figured that was my only hope longterm to even have a possible shot to win. get la ryleh involved, get my advance force killed off, then build up myself while la ryleh took over the fight against the Ermor faction.

of course all of that was before i found out he was wishing 5 times a turn. had I known that i think we could have just declared him the winner.