Karan Game (in progress)

[Pirateiam]

Well my summary of my game as Machaka is centered on diplomacy. I had never played Machaka so I had no specific strategy. On turn 7 I was attacked by Arcosophale so right of the start I was in a life death struggle. I killed his Pretendar Griffon (can't remember its name) 3 times. He sieged my capital then I sieged his capital. We raided each other to death. This went on for 40 turns so I knew I was dead if anyone attacked me while this war was ongoing. I made alliances with both Abysia and Man hoping to keep out of any conflict with them since I was so weak from the war and way behind in research. I finally got the upper hand on Arco and with Man's (St Patricks) help finally stamped him out. Then the inevitable fight between Man and Abysia came about and I had to make a tough decision. I basically just decided on Man because he had helped me out the most. I then proceeded to (with over confidence) invade Abysia took a few provinces. Sieged his capital then got crushed by overland spells and mass devils. It was a bLast playing with you all and I learned alot! Thanks all and thanks Zen and Graeme for hosting.

Machaka

[ June 22, 2004, 03:37: Message edited by: Pirateiam ]

[st.patrik]

Well my story is this:

One of my starting provinces was a sage province, so I got a jump on research, while building a bunch of longbows for initial expansion. Things were pretty peaceful to begin with - the only conflict I had was with Caelum, who attacked one province and wiped out a chunk of my guys. I deflected his assault by pointing out the threat of Pangaea (who was doing pretty well against Marignon by then). After that we had peace, and I made something of an alliance with Mictlan. Later I decided to move against Caelum, but unfortunately was a move or two late, and so Pangaea got his capital.

I figured a war would be coming with Pangaea at some point, since he had now 3 capitals (his own, Marignon's, and Caelum's) and so I tried to find out where everyone stood, to see if an alliance against him could be made. Around this time Machaka asked me for help against Arco, and also I came to realise that Abysia and Pangaea were allied. I asked Mictlan to delay our assault on Pangaea/Abysia until I could clean up Arco, which wasn't very hard as it turns out. But the delay may have cost us against Pan and Abysia. When we finally moved I took down a pretty large Pan army on Caelum's capital with very few losses - in general my sidhe were very effective against regular armies, but pretty ineffective against SCs.

When Abysia jumped in I was on the defensive - I didn't have much that could penetrate his IDs, and he could chew through a whole army of sidhe without a problem. I resorted to guerilla warfare, trying to harry him enough that he would lose out economically. Meanwhile Machaka was attacking from the other side, so his attention was somewhat diverted.

I tried attacking his main army with a couple of Iron Dragons, combined with Foul Vapours and Wrathful Skies, but although I killed quite a few devils, I didn't manage to take out the big guys.

In the end I hadn't gained really any ground, and had lost a lot of guys, but wasn't rolled over either. I managed to take one of the IDs down with a Magic Duel, and was hopeful about turning the tide with elemental armour being nerfed, but who can say how it would have gone.

In retrospect I think I should have prepared more for dealing with SCs and less for dealing with conventional armies - I had great troops for taking out conventional armies, but they weren't right for taking down SCs.

[ June 22, 2004, 14:14: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

[Teraswaerto]

Hadn't checked this thread for a while...

I was Mictlan in this game, had a fire 9 moloch as my pretender, and the blessing worked out quite nicely as a expansion tool in the beginning. I made a bunch of Soul Contracts and concentrated on getting demon SCs after that. I made loads of mistakes, but hopefully learned something too.

I made an early alliance with Ulm, who supplied me with quite a few magic items and gems later on.

Around the same time I met Pangaea, who was just finishing his war with Marignon. I contemplated attacking him then, but decided against it, figuring I'd be better off developing a good blood economy before any wars.

Man and I started planning our war against Pangaea something like 30 turns before we attacked him, and I'm pretty sure that was a mistake. We waited too long.

I summoned all the Arch Devils, 1 Heliophagus, and a bunch of succubi, and started stocking up on slaves for Send Horror and Hordes From Hell, and made loads of Blood booster items. Major mistake, should've gotten all the SC-type demons I could.

When the war started I spread my forces too thin, spending too much effort on taking all of Pangaeas provinces & too little on dealing with his armies. I underestimated the effectiveness of Lamias and Iron Dragons, and managed to get too many of my SCs and devils killed, particularly in an attempt to rout-kill Abysia's IDs, which failed miserably.

After a series of defeats I finally wised up and consolidated my forces and managed to defeat Pangaea's big invading army, though probably this turn in the tide would've been only temporary had the game Lasted longer.

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
I underestimated the effectiveness of Lamias and Iron Dragons, and managed to get too many of my SCs and devils killed, particularly in an attempt to rout-kill Abysia's IDs, which failed miserably.

yeah that didn't work out so good. honestly I thought you had more than you had as far as tough SC-type dudes go.

I agree we waited too long - I wanted to finish up Arco so that I wouldn't have to worry about him attacking my flank, but it cost us in the end.

ah well, next time maybe we'll do better

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by st.patrik:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
and managed to get too many of my SCs and devils killed, particularly in an attempt to rout-kill Abysia's IDs, which failed miserably.

yeah that didn't work out so good. honestly I thought you had more than you had as far as tough SC-type dudes go.

---

I had several more, but they were not within flying distance of the province where the battle took place.

[alexti]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Man and I started planning our war against Pangaea something like 30 turns before we attacked him, and I'm pretty sure that was a mistake. We waited too long.

I agree on this. After 2 early wars I was in a bad shape, my research was way behind, I had nothing but regular armies and my infrastructure was virtually non-existent. But by the time you've attacked I had my armies almost ready. I would prefer to have 2-3 peaceful turns more, but that was ok, I just had to sit for a couple of turns in my forts while you were beating my money-eating outdated armies

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
I agree we waited too long - I wanted to finish up Arco so that I wouldn't have to worry about him attacking my flank, but it cost us in the end.

Well, I already had all the ice devils summoned by the time C'Tis died, so what you would have mostly gained was not having to deal with the 8 soul contracts I had working.