DangerPudding - random nations EA game (finished)

[zlefin]

are you ok pangaea? cuz ya staled last turn; though it could just be an isolated thing.
and yes ich; stop the game timer; fomoria staling is a bad thing.

i'm fine with calling the game.

and pangaea declared war on me; so i can't really help fighting vs other people.

[Tuidjy]

Fomoria and R'lyeh are surrendering, Pangaea is stalling, Tir Na-Nog is OK
with calling the game... So Tien Chi is the only one who wants to fight me?
I am asking because I would rather not spend four hours on a turn that will
not get played.

[Janlm]

hmm, well if everyone(or most) is getting bored of the game, perhaps we might as well call it and decide a winner. I don't really know who is most likely to win if we decided to play on, except that its not likely to be me

[LoloMo]

Alright, I concede also. Congratulations Niefel!

[zlefin]

i certainly haven't expected to win for some time; even aside from the whole not caring enoguh to put in the time and having left dominions months ago.
i've more been bucking for 2nd.
never really had good expansion prospects; all the neighboring nations weren't vulnerable except for gobbling a few provinces when someone else was kililng 'em.

[Tuidjy]

So, I think that everyone has conceded. I think that this game was just too
big to begin with (the map is too large) I definitely do not think that I could
have stood to a combined assault - namely all nations teleporting SC killers on
top of my provinces and Fomoria telporting army killing squads on top of every
army I leave in an uncastled province. I would have lost the attrition game.

I did have a few things going for me: I do have a huge number of clams and
stones, which I mostly forged once I took over from Nick. He had done some
forging himself, but for some reason had not gone for broke, despite having the
steel forges. He had only made stones for his earth mages...

I also have one enslaving Seraph and a fighting Seraph. I am surprised the
fighting Seraph lasted so long. He actually faced a anti-SC commander under
the worst possible conditions (the anti-SC was part of a balanced army), and
somehow luckied into picking-out, attacking and killing the anti-SC first,
right after the first round of the anti-SC had taken 66% of the Seraph HPs away.

Tartarians... yeah, I am summoning six per turn, and not bothering to GoR them.
I get one or two commanders anyway. I only GoR the 'air cyclops', that is the
Cyclops that come with Earth and Air picks.

Someone did try to wish the Chalice away, twice, but I wished it back. I am
surprised that the coalition that faced me did not poll their pearls to deny me
the chalice at least half of the time. I guess you guys really did not have
clams. I have to admit, I was convinced that R'lyeh and TNN had more clams than
I did, at least until I failed to to be ground down by astral spells.

By the way, I was almost never mindhunted, to the point that I stopped
teleporting astral mages on top of my Air Cyclops. I only got attacked in the
last round, right after I had stopped protecting myself, and the attacks failed.

I am surprised that Fomoria did not use its Fomorian Kings as anti-SC. I
expected that every SC of mine would be teleport-attacked by Kings kited out with
dual firebrands, helmets of goring, boots of kicking, and birds of annoyance.
I certainly protected against that, by having 'retrievers/feebleminders'
sent to the exposed SCs... but I was never attacked by a teleporting anti-SC.
I guess Corwin was familiar with my old tricks.

Anyway. I'll go report the win.

[Corwin]

As far as Fomoria goes - one of its problem was that for all its size, it really had very few SCs comparable to Gaints. Niefelheim has outnumbered me 3:1 to 4:1 to one in teleporting SC department, based upon just teleporting SCs that he has used against me.

On top of that he had Mage Bane and Serpahs. That combo alone (of whitch I was unaware since I have not been in this game for too long) costed me a lot of my best SCs and anti-SCs in several battles. I am not even mentioning Astral Boots, Gate Stone and Solar Brilliance.

Lagging badly behind Giants in both quantity and quality of SCs, I have chosen not to waste what I still had by seeking SC vs SC duels with Niefelheim. I've spooked few of his SC in attempted ambushes (Gaints were also using ritual or returning like I did), but mostly I've used my SCs for raiding (those who had astal pick). Most of my Fomorian Kings as well as remaining SCs went into armies support. I had to use less conventional raiding tactic using "hide and seek" glamour stealthy troops protected against mindhunt, immortals in friendly domminion, Ghost raiders, et cetera. It was quite successeful raiding compaing overall. But at the end it didn't matter, since Gaints have long since switched to gem-producing items economy.

At the end I think one of the main reason for Giants victory is the fact that they had huge ammount of clams and bloodstones. While I have inherited nation which didn't have a single clam or blood stone by turn 75. Giants have masterfully translated their overwhelming gem income into all kind of benefits - tons of unique artifacts, Serpahs, Chalice, wishes, tartarians, kick-*** battle gear(I think Giants have routinely used Rings of Wizardy on their SCs where I would have used talisman of luck ), and of course Forge of Ancients, et cetera.


Anyway, good game everyone. And congratulations to Truidjy for victory, well done.