Momentum - EA game - Finished - Sauromatia/Psycho wins!

[Aethyr]

Admitting the obvious, I'm done. Valerius, thanks for organizing. Pyscho, well done.

[Executor]

Jazzepi, my capital was of little significance to me. All my forces are on 175, golems, seraphs, pretender, tartarians, feary queens, demiliches and so on. As you saw I didn't even have domes on it, no troops, only tons of commander with clamms, which I took off before the battle.

Losing all my provinces and forts wouldn't do the job either, since I have over 200 clam, and cast wish 3 times a turn. I'm pretty certain you couldn't kill me for a very long time if at all.

IMO your main mistake was attacking me, instead of trying to use me as an ally against Psycho.

As for this game, I'm happy to concede to Psyho. Even with the enormous gem income I have I'd stand little chance looking at everything he's got with my stone spheres.
And I pretty much gave up on this game around turn 30 or so when the invasion on TC failed due to failure in communication with my allies.

I concede, Psycho, congratulations.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Executor

Jazzepi, my capital was of little significance to me. All my forces are on 175, golems, seraphs, pretender, tartarians, feary queens, demiliches and so on. As you saw I didn't even have domes on it, no troops, only tons of commander with clamms, which I took off before the battle.

Actually, depriving you of recruitable mindlords was very much in my best interest. But, I dunno, you didn't seem to do anything useful with them besides communion slaving them anyways, so who's to tell?

With all these tarts, and demiliches, and clams you claim to have had, I don't see why you didn't just crush everyone, me included. The forge was up for a million turns, which was part of the reason I attacked you, because even if I beat Sauro with your help, I wouldn't have won against your ridiculous clam income, something I could never hope to overmatch. It would have been very easy for you to wish away the chalice from me, and keep my gift of health down.

Jazzepi

[Aethyr]

Nah, it was actually in the best interest of both TC and R'lyeh to help Van against Sauro.

[Executor]

I though Sauromatia had the challice.

My problem is that I have no real army, unlike you and Sauro, only a bunch of golems and feebleminded tarts, which are recovering now, oh yeah and a million trolls, don't ask me why, don't know myself.

But you're right, the longer you leave me alone the stronger I get,
I started with tartarians only like 2-3 ago, but summoning 5 a turn.

Starting a SC factory with just a pretender takes a lot of time, and I started about turn 40 or so, I actually considered quiting the game at that point.

The thing that really got to me is that the damn water has no gem income.
I had a remarkable 4 water income and 5 astral a turn, including my capital, but 14 damn useless fire gems, which I converted into gold since my upkeep was much higher than income in order to recrut clam holders.

My start was also terrible enough to not being able to take any provinces for couple of turns, and constant indie attacks, as you see from the score graphs.

Until turn 40 I didn't have a single clam, actually I didn't have anything at all, waiting 3 turns to make 1 clam is a bit slow I guess, but everybody seemed stupid enough to trade water and earth gems so I could start the clam factory with the forge.

You were wrong about mind lords, haven't recruited a single one for about 20 turns at least, 420 and not sacred, whoa! It was hard enough to get nature random mages to forge clams.

I really got into power just a few turns back.

Oh yeah, one more stupid thing, you can't cast half the domes underwater, wtf!?

However in my overall experience I have come to the conclusion that water nations suck!

[Jazzepi]

Sauro definitely had the chalice. My point was that there was no way for me maintain a tart factory under the current conditions since I'd have to wish it away from Sauro or somehow over-cast your gift of health (something I couldn't possibly do, whomever set up this TC pretender gave him ASTRAL 6 and EARTH 6 which is the worst waste of pretender design points ever :| )

BTW, in your position, I would have started summoning mound fiends. I noticed you had a large death gem income. They make like 5 undead a turn, which can quickly become enough to form an army.

Jazzepi

[Executor]

Very small and crappy army.

I screwed up my pretender a bit too and it was a major set back, I forgot to give him one water level for the amulet of the fish.

EA Rlyeh really lacks the capability to exit the water.

Well I'm glad this game is over, can dedicate my time to some other games with world wars against me.

[Psycho]

What an unexpected turn of events. I feel I won this way too easily. No showdown with the strongest opponents.

I think Jazzepi's mistake is that he didn't try to ally with me against Rlyeh. That would leave us pretty much even to fight it out in the end. That was his best chance. Executor's best interest was definitely to ally with TC against me, together they would certainly be able to bring me down, thus leaving him with his clams and globals in the win position. My best interest - I'm not sure. With TC it would be a fight on more equal terms, but Rlyeh had a poor dominion and I can blood-sacrifice. Maybe I would be able to defeat him without a fight.

I don't have the time right now, but I'll write my thoughts about the game when I get some time.

I was hoping this game will entertain me until my summer holidays. Now I'll have to go take up some sub positions.

[Valerius]

Congratulations, Psycho!

Thanks everyone for playing. Special thanks to Jazzepi for stepping in to take over TC and keep the game going.

I was curious to see how things would work out among the final three. R'lyeh's casting the forge definitely changed the dynamics.

I was actually thinking of casting FotA myself but in the end decided to join the war against TC. That didn't work out so well.

Good game, everyone.

[Psycho]

Valerius, I see you have ended this game. Thank you for being an excellent admin and keeping a watchful eye on the game at all times.

My pretender was a E4F4A4 Dom9 phoenix. He was there to cover the missing paths. High dominion was to make my eventual blood sacrifice push more effective and to enable more use of vampires. Also, he was a teleporting defender in my dominion capable of annihilating smaller armies with spells. Another idea, which I didn't get the opportunity to do, was to raise pd high in a province I anticipate an opponent will attack and cast flaming arrows with him.

At the start I fixated on conquering three provinces - 123, 85 and 27, which would enable me to cut off a significant amount of territory for myself. I was mostly successful and had a lead in provinces, but then TC rushed Ulm. Unfortunately those provinces were all wastes and swamps and I had big problems with cash. Very few were suitable for blood hunting as well. During my wars with Arco, Marverni and Fomoria, I recruited practically noone. I relied on mages I recruited during expansion phase and undead.

First war was with Acro. I was allied with Van and Fomoria. Acro had a big research lead and proved a good opponent. Congrats to Juffos. He was able to hold the three of us for a long time with his communions and PoD pretender. I forged mentors and hurried to constr 8. Arco was first there, but didn't forge any of the good stuff, so I took it all. And then hurried to conj 9. I defeated PoD with Djinn casting fire elementals and Arco gave up. After casting well of misery, my allies Van and Fomoria turned on me, with the help of Marverni.

In the meantime, TC managed to fight off three opponents. He defeated Pangaea while holding Rlyeh and Mictlan at bay. Congrats to Radioheart for that.

On the other side I got some elemental royalty. All I could afford, since I spent gems on unique items and started a tart factory. Marverni came with his huge armies and sieged my factory, but lost. I slowly started pushing into his territory while Fomoria and Van were mostly pestering me with rituals. I also sent my SCs to prevent Van from taking Arco capital which was the barrier between us. When Marverni was nearly defeated, Fomoria attacked with his 2 armies which were all he had and lost. One to horror harmonica, the other to barathrus and androphag archers. Then in a short time both Marverni and Fomoria went AI and I started growing rapidly. I finally had the money to buy some mages and troops. Also in Marverni lands I found the steel ovens and mount chaining (40% blood bonus). Van started taking over Fomoria and soon we had our first serious fights.

TC was attacked by Tir and finally started losing some battles, to my big relief. Valerius did a great job against him where an alliance of three failed before. But then Jazzepi took over TC and made a great comeback defeating Tir and Mictlan. Also congrats to both Valerius and Jazzepi. Rlyeh stepped out of this war at about the time Tir entered. He lurked under the waves, put up the forge knowing nobody would attack him at that point and clammed. And that brought him into great power later. Congrats to you too Executor. But I was also clamming in my steel ovens and forging fetishes, which nobody suspected I think. I also had an S5 tartarian who was wishing when he wasn't insane.

At first Van started losing badly, but then he equipped an ice devil prophet very well and won a first major victory over me destroying an army of mine and killing a HoF tartarian and EK. He started playing more cautiously then, hiding inside castles more. And I was afraid of the ice devil, since he was ridiculously powerful in cold dominion, so I took my time. Slowly I was taking him over and this last turn I managed even to take out the ice devil. He also proved a good opponent, so congrats to you Aethyr as well. Although, it puzzles me that you never once tried to magic duel my astral tarts.

In the meantime I was moving blood mages into Van and Fom lands to blood hunt. They had so many provinces with about 6000-7000 population. I summoned nearly all blood SCs in my blood discount province. Summoning 3-4 tarts per turn for a long time. Forging jade daggers and putting up temples and castles around my empire. I still had to get makabiel and three more ice devils (those were planned for this turn and next) and then was going to stockpile blood slaves for dom push. I had 2 enchantress sites, 2 sorceress sites and one high magus. I recruited all of them each turn. Sorceresses are definitely the best indy mages, they have so many uses. Also this last turn I was going to storm Van's castle with 20% conj bonus site, which, oddly, he wasn't using until the last several turns.

And then TC suddenly attacked Rlyeh's capital and the game abruptly ended. It was great fun for me and I am sad it's over. I'd rather still be playing this one.