Summer Madness, a game of strategic exploration.

[binarysolo]

It was an epic battle indeed, with a third of Yomi's Dai Onis dead in the field and Fomoria's blessed forces damaged and plagued (a lucky plague roll from the Ark robbed Fomoria's pretender's sight at the last turn before he cast and retreat).

I was exceptionally impressed at how Fomoria w/ a bless strategy ended up getting defended by Ossa against a tech/item-superior Yomi. Definitely beyond my expectations, as I hoped that my support to Fomoria would merely slow down Yomi as he invaded the nation. Good job though... though I don't think I'd be able to call a winner in your war just yet.


Should the game have progressed, and given that I was counting on doing this should Yomi's SC legion be smashed, I have (this turn) queued up about 8 seeking arrows on #97 (capital) to break the domes, and a smattering of Earth Attacks and Mind Hunts on the surviving Dai Oni stack. I'd drown my Stellar Focus caster via teleport and cast Astral Nexus the turn after. And oh I would cancel my NAP-3 with Yomi and get Atlantis to do so as well. But all that's just in theory now.

[binarysolo]

And here are my chronicles, my confessions, and my journey:

EA Arcoscephale, w/ awake 4N4D4B Vampire Queen, 3Tur3Slo3Luc2Dra

Early game
NAP with all neighbors -- Yomi, Ermor, Atlantis; chose defensible borders over excessive expansion, though still tried to aggressively take lands with army and immortal flying VQ. Yomi, Ermor both had amazingly storng early games; Atlantis felt weak but I wanted no distractions from sea. Forged a secret alliance with R'lyeh to eventually take out Atlantis when time came.

Forged a Stone sphere, used it to determine rough locations of other players. Noted Tien Chi in defensible island; forged NAPs with Pangaea, Hinnom to avoid complications of amphibious assault. Allied with Atlantis to take out Tien Chi island.


War VS Tien Chi (~1 years, 2 seasons):
Amphibious landing took him completely by surprise; early battles took out half his communion mage force. TC starts deploying Fog Warriors ad nauseum and the war grinds to a standstill as I sacrifice forces keeping him bottled at his capital, moving around with constant raiding, till I ready my aerial anti-mage force + my own Fog Warrior counter. Managed to finally crush his remaining forces using "attack flyer" on the main BE/communion mages and casting Fog Warriors myself.

Dedicate heavy research towards artifacts; nab a few pivotal ones for own usage (Gate Stone, Flying Ship, Soulstone of the Wolves, The Sickle Whose Crop is Pain). Soulstone pivotal in shift from high-maintenance myrmidon/chariot formations to no-upkeep, stealthy Wolven chaff + massive communions. Soulstone stunningly good over long run given Werewolf commanders who are stealthy, have better-than-human HP/regen, and can summon more wolves per turn. For the 40 or so turns I had it I got ~1000 wolves and 40 thugs out of it... I can't say enough good things about it, it's ridiculously good for nations needing chaff armies to supplement their mage force. Start empowering mage hero for S9/Wish to ready for endgame Astral Nexus/SC summons. Littered the lands with scouts and sceptics.


War VS Ermor (~2 seasons):
Join with alliance (Atlantis, Pangaea, Yomi) against Ermor. Wiped off the last vestiges of Hinnom, then warred against Ermor. Nab southwestern Ermorian territory as the Old empire struggled to fight off the hoards of Pangaean manikin and the relentless flying SCs of Yomi. Offered potential alliances to turn against Yomi should Ermor incentivize with the Chalice, Scepter of Dark Regency... but to no avail.

Race to build Ermorian artifacts after his fall. Didn't get the Chalice. Made sure the balance of power in the water between my two water allies were in place till I were to take advantage of it. Readied assault on Fomoria but hostile Pangaean globals + dompush of doom made me set my sights elsewhere. Secured most Elemental Royalty and diversified to Blood; thank goodness, since every other surviving race had better SC/thug chassis. Hit research peak.


War VS Fomoria (1 month)
The Fomorian pretender cancelled his NAP-3, abdicated his godly throne, and went missing. Yomi swept across his lands and I decided to join in on the spoils. One turn in the new pretender sued for peace with me, and after consideration decided to supply him with some money, items, and equipment in trade for gems and the promise for him to be at war with Yomi. Creatively "babysat" a few Fomorian provinces and gave back the taxes to make sure his rear provinces weren't raidable by Yomi's flying SCs and I suppose give the illusion that I was attacking Fomoria with Yomi. Made my own preparations to invade Pangaea soon afterwards.


War VS R'lyeh (2 month)
Persuaded R'lyeh and Atlantis to push against Pangaea as his dominion was enveloping the world. Decided that my water allies were not gonna last against the domcrush. After getting him to boat all his land forces across to Pangaea, I did massive teleport/cloud trapeze/gate attacks versus R'lyeh to seize all his land holdings one turn before he was domkilled, while somehow managing to stay in his good graces (we had no official NAP, granted).

With S9 hero in hand, managed to convince Yomi to trade me the Chalice instead of having me Wish it off his hands. (Incidentally, I never cast Wish a single time in the game despite the ability to do so... was saving up for Astral Nexus.)


War VS Pangaea (3 seasons)
Rallied my aquatic allies vs Pangaea, starting off with anonymous Ghost Rider raids, Mind Hunts, and Earth Attacks to disrupt his army backbone... I delayed my entry into the war "due to my NAP", hoping Pangaea would eliminate my dominion-weak water allies and I can waltz right in via cloud trapezing oreiads with water suits. Atlantis was 3 candles away from being domkilled. Oh well, in it for the long haul now.

Dissolved NAP with Pangaea; surprisingly effective use of Undead Mastery, Army of Lead, Arcane Domination alongside 10-12 mage reverse communions w/ power of the spheres and various elemental boosting magics so each typical rainbow slave ended up with 3F3W2E3S with an occasional 4th path thrown in. Closely astral window-ed all conflicts between Yomi and Fomoria to see how I could disrupt Yomi's efforts (via Leprosy, Ghost Riders, Baleful Stars and Dream Horrors) and when I needed to enter the war (either to loot Fomoria's carcass or to obliterate Yomi's weakened SC stragglers with Mind Hunts and Earth Attacks so the equipment doesn't return to fresh generals).


And so it goes...

[SciencePro]

congrats to the winner(s)

[Elegy]

Grats on the win. I'm still bitter about you tricking me into attacking Pangaea then stabbing me from behind. :P (j/k)

To be honest I overestimated my own ability to maintain dominion with all those chaff-generating priests that come with Rlyeh and didn't treat Pangaea seriously enough until it was too late. Oh well maybe next time.

[iainuki]

I feel like I should add my own wrap-up to this game note. My variant strategy was, obviously, a living pillars bless. I knew it was a bad idea, I just didn't realize how bad an idea it was. The major problem was that everyone else in the game took dominion that ranged from "high" to "maxed," so from the very beginning of the game I was struggling to avoid dom-kill. Urraparrand greatly exacerbated this problem because the water twists around in one-province-wide channels, meaning it's virtually impossible to hold dominion in the water, even if you have strong dominion. I think the take-home message is that even in a variant game, low dominion is not a viable strategy, but especially on this map.

My other problems stemmed from plain terrible starting luck. While I was taking my initial provinces around my capital, I had independents recapture one of them, and then not much later independents killed my capital's PD and besieged it for a turn. Between these and having to puor money into temples to avoid dom-kill, my start was abysmal. Moreover, the living-pillars bless is a rush build, and I didn't have any good choices for rush targets: Yomi was close but not easy to overwhelm with living pillars, and Hinnom, Pangaea, and Arcoscephale's capitals were all too far way by the time I managed to find their capitals. From the situation in the first year, I could tell I was more or less not a contender in the game.

I tried making diplomatic overtures to R'lyeh, but they went to war with me. However, while living pillars are useless against gibodai, BK/BQ thugs are quite good and so while I was initially frightened, once I saw how long it would take R'lyeh to reach my capital, I figured I could manage to hold them off, and I did. However, the war with R'lyeh accentuated another feature of the map, which is that the distance between our capitals was so long that by the time either of us managed to reach the other's capital, we would have in place a counter to whatever we were using. (Yay for water movement.)

Meanwhile, I'd be frantically trying to avoid being attacked by anyone else, and had succeeded. I helped get Arcoscephale to go after T'ien Chi, and participated in that war to an extent. I also, somehow, ended up starting to organize the grand anti-Ermor coalition that characterized the midgame. I gladly took Arcoscephale's offer of a mutual win since I knew I wasn't going to win in any conceivable universe. On the whole, I'm amazed Atlantis managed to survive to the end given how terrible my start was. The best summary I can give of the game, I think, is that it was a learning experience.