PBEM game: Song of the Blade (Running)

[Alneyan]

Indeed; all your orders have been overriden, and the AI decided to do something... knowing the AI, something means going berserk. They tried to snatch a couple of my provinces with your stealthy commanders, among other things. You've got to love the AI! They won't die behind their walls, oh no: they will boldly meet you in the field.

[The Panther]

Now that Machaka has been officially eliminated, I would like to ask Turms to sub for me in this game while I am on vacation in France. I leave June 17 and return June 28. I would even be amenable to have him take over permanently and I will just watch from the sidelines after I return home.

I hate to go AI because I am doing pretty decent so far and the comp would really mess things up. While I am not leading in anything other than forts, I am definitely holding my own with Broken Empire. I have to admit that I really like that theme, for it does not have the severe micro-management troop-shuffling problem inherent in the SG/AE themes. Also, having cheap mages who can all cast Nether Bolt & Nether Darts is quite powerful. People are hesitant to attack with SCs because of the Feeble Minded problem. The cheap mages can even do a mass mind duel when needed to kill an Astral commander! And with a couple of artifacts, they can do the more powerful Astral or Death spells. Plus the better mages all can do many good astral/death spells. The random school on those mages is especially sweet.

Broken Empire is certainly not as bad as people seem to think.

[Alneyan]

On my end, the current plan is to hand Arcoscephale to Jurri, and the hosting to Oversway (assuming Man does not become a major power by then).

[Oversway]

Vanheim is doing quite well to seeing that I don't become a major power Actually, I'm suprised I lasted longer than Machaka. I'll probably be next out unless maybe Abysia? The tables turned and Jotun seems to be eating him up...I didn't quite see how that happened.

[The Panther]

Let's see, in my opinion we currently have:

1. The Big Three of Vanheim, Ulm, and Arcoscephale
2. The Mid Three of Ermor, Mictlan, and Jontunheim
3. The Bottom Three of Abysia, Man, and Machaka.

I too was amazed when Jontun completely turned the tables on Abysia. It seems that somewhere during the player substitution thing, the giants declared peace with all his neighbors and concentrated solely on the devils. I was very surprised he had enough left to actually do something!

[Alneyan]

Well, except that Machaka has been finished off by now. As for Jotunheim, I did notice that they still had a lot of blood slaves (among other things) in their coffers, and that was why I reckoned them as still being able to put up a fight.

I guess the lesson is: don't surrender when you still have something like... 130 blood slaves perhaps, items in the lab, and miscellaneous gems here and there.

Arcoscephale considers declaring war on Ermor because of their offending rankings: they have put the Beloved Arcoscephale behind Vanheim and Ulm, contrary to alphabetical ordering and common sense (everybody knows Arcoscephale has the power to take over the whole world in two turns, but we are swell folks and so we don't fight wars. Really!).

[The_Tauren13]

Im really not that big. Just a couple devils and wolves lying around, preying on the weak and crippled...

Abysia's sudden ruin was, I am sorry to admit, my fault alone. For that I am truly sorry.

[The Panther]

Alneyan said:
Arcoscephale considers declaring war on Ermor because of their offending rankings: they have put the Beloved Arcoscephale behind Vanheim and Ulm, contrary to alphabetical ordering and common sense (everybody knows Arcoscephale has the power to take over the whole world in two turns, but we are swell folks and so we don't fight wars. Really!).

Well, my listing was not necessarily in any order within the groupings, except for the fact that Machaka was clearly last (being first eliminated and all). I am certainly not sure that I am at the top of the middle three. I don't have enough information to rank that accurately and was just trying for the tried and true method of estimating rankings by High-Medium-Low. I do think Vanheim is on top, however, though I could be wrong. I also think there is a much greater difference between the Med-Low boundary than there is between the Med-High one.

As for coming in last, I did that in my first attempt with Atlantis (9 players on Karan, I think). My second attempt at Atlantis was much improved (second of 17 on Faerun). And my first attempt at T'ien Ch'i (Slugfest) is going to be a last unless my son or Boron beats me to it!

[PDF]

Ah, thanks Alneyan !
I'd be happy to get a crap-poor nation to play !

It'll be a nice change, I can't understand why in all my pbem I outperform everyone in the early expansion game, just to end up not knowing what to do next ...

[Jurri]

Hello all! I'll be subbing for Alneyan until he returns. I'll respect the NAPs that are in place and assume you will too.