MP: STACKERS, newbie game, (started)

[Nauquan]

I think you can expect people to be miffed when you cast burden of time. I am amazed you still take the opportunity to whine about how powerful I am.

[Amadamus]

Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd

jee, that was nice Amadamus. this is still a newbie friendly game, I haven't changed that fact. I'm also still relatively newbie, that's not changed either. the only thing that's changed is that I'm playing around with globals, but than everyone can do that, and it takes absolutely no experience nor skill to do it, so I really don't see what all the fuss is about...

funny that you didn't complain when Ashdod was dominating everybody and became huge, nor are you complaining now that our friendly hypocrite Greyjoy has taken C'tis, a rather underwhelming MA nation, and is now the largest nation, even surpassing Ashdod! so much for being a "newbie" heh Greyjoy?

seriously, if you wish to throw around accusations at the very least take a look at the facts, and don't get blinded by them! it's all there in the charts, a quick glance is all you need...

Come Blackguard, you may say your a newb now, but you certainly come across as a know it all. Can't have your cake and eat it too mate.

The point is, you have sat in your own personal lake amassed such a huge quantity of gems, clammed your *** off and now put up a global which effectly craps out the game. How many gems did you put in it eh?

You deserve to get smashed by all nations - but the map doesnt allow for it. So in essence, you have effectively won. The land nations are two busy fighting it out - no possibility of getting a coalition in the ocean and the minute its dispelled you can put it up again! So whats the point continuing?

By the way Verj, blood boots dont help - lost some key warlocks teh rest have ammased a huge amount of afflictions to be useless even waring boots.

My grumble is the whole development of the game, the subtle strategy, the wit, has effetively been rubbed out by one cheesey spell. As i said what a bore. If that counts for a winning move, then good for you - good for any one that uses it - but the spell should be called 'Waist of Time', becasue thats what it presently feels like.

[Verjigorm]

Burden of Time only affects certain things, and forces you to change strategies. It is quite expensive, at 70 death gems which means that the likelihood that you can Dispel it successfully is good. However, if he has a large enough gem income he will just replace it.

The question then becomes, what do I need to do to counter BoT without actually getting rid of the enchantment?

Can I cast Gift of Health?

Can I switch to demons or undead or another long-lived summonable?

Can I make Elixirs of Life or Boots of Youth?

Can I make some Barrels of Air, use spies to locate his caster (probably his pretender) and then destroy him?

If he's using a Master Lich/Lich you have to preach dominion out of his capitol, which adds a lot of overhead to the mission and makes other solutions look better.

BoT doesn't win the game. Everyone ages. Everyone dies--even R'lyeh (eventually... Looking at the chart their crappiest units have 500 years before old age). Even units under the caster's control. Not all nations are affected by it equally It simply shifts you away from recruited units and into summoned ones for the most part with exceptions for some nations.

Solutions by nation...

Abysia has old units, lots of them. Fortunately, they're a blood nation, so they can use boots. Since most of their old mages (Anathemant dragons excepted) come from the capitol, all that is necessary is to keep one blood mage crafting Boots of Youth each turn and all old mages will be protected as soon as they appear. Of course, since Abysians have short life spans, it will be necessary to change over to primarily blood economy earlier if it was planned to milk their strong troops for a longer time.

Hopefully Agartha has been working their strong magic in Enchantment and will be able to start putting up troops and mages made of stone. Death mages have some protection against the ravages of age.

C'tis is a death/nature nation.

Jotes have long lifespans.

Monkeys can summon long-lived mage commanders and sacred units.

Shinuyama has ample supplies of demonic and necromantic units.

Ashdod is quite long-lived as a race. Might put a hurt on some of the Talmai Elders, but... they could probably use a little kick in the rear.

As for me, I only have two provinces remaining and will not survive much longer regardless of the Burden of Time.

[Nauquan]

It wasn't cast by his pretender. His pretender is currently raiding one of my provences.

BTW. If anyone would like to teleport a team in to take his pretender out, please let me know. I can provide location and list his current items.

[freykin]

I'm probably the least affected by this, since I love the lich type pretenders so my god is fairly safe from the effects. That and I can Twiceborn all my oracles to keep them from being a waste of gold. In fact, I probably benefit the most since all my national summons are lifeless, and that's where I'm focusing my efforts on. It is a pain of a spell, though. Just be glad I haven't been able to throw up Utterdark :P.

[Greyjoy]

I'd say that Blackguard and I (and, I'd argue, at least Amandamus and the pile of consonants playing the apes) are legitimately newbie-ish insofar as lacking a grasp of some/lots of proper competitive midgame strategy. Probably. I mean, he's not out of the water in earnest yet... though with that research graph, that could change any day now. Can't say anything about Jotunheim yet, but he sure knows how to run them early game. Verj is another matter entirely, but he got smashed between two fairly formidable nations, so, you know.

MA C'tis isn't as underwhelming as it looks, I'm finding. Don't knock magic diversity, especially not when it's nature/death. But most of my success, I'm comfortable admitting now, was early diplomacy - I persuaded both Ermor and Bandar Log to leave me with undisputed control of a fairly disproportionate number of provinces, some of which took me a LONG time to claim; I think I had 27 in my sphere of influence before I murdered Ermor. That's not skill at Dominions (and, in fact, my early expansion hit a number of snags; Ermor's scouts watched me smash my head against a couple indie provinces and suffer stupidly disproportionate casualties), that's general strategy-game experience, napkin-math, and a bit of fast talking.

The game's far from over yet, though. I'd say Ashdod's the least likely to die horribly before the endgame, but (and I'm torn between chagrin and pleasure here) there aren't too many matchups left that have foregone conclusions.

Edited to add: Great post, Verj.

Also, in the initial paragraph, I kinda tripped over my words. The people I listed are ones who seem fairly competent but probably don't need to be accused of experience. Jury's out on Nauquan, I haven't seen him in action yet and you don't have to be a master to be firstish as Ashdod.

[freykin]

No mention of me in there? I'm hurt, us cave dwellers are always trod underfoot!

My signup date might show an early time, but that doesn't mean I have a lot of experience. I still have difficulty with normal AIs, and this is my second ever Dominions 3 multiplayer game.

That said, I feel I'm doing alright in it. I haven't been horribly murdered yet and that's always a good sign.

[Greyjoy]

I have virtually no idea what you're doing, Frey. My scouts are otherwise occupied and your score chart doesn't really give anything away one way or the other.

That said, you're MA Agartha and you've survived into the midgame, so at least you can either play or negotiate. And midgame golems are when things get real.

[freykin]

True, true. Before this game I hadn't ever played MA Agartha, and while I've done several SP games as them since, I totally picked the wrong pretender for what I'm doing.

I think it's that no one really views me as a threat, yet I would at the same time be a pain to conquer.

[Amadamus]

Actually, i apologise to BG for calling him a know it all - nothing wrong with learning, so putting in the effort reaps rewards.

Thinking more about it, the beef is that the map stops us from teaching the fish a lesson. I would assume that putting up such a global so early would guanrantee a swift retribution from all players. As such, there is a regulation on uses of such powerful spells. I couldn't imagine where on a normal map surrounded by 3 or 4 powerful mid game nations, yourself, comparable, would chance throwing it up in fear of being dealt with harshly.

In this situation, there is little fear of retribution and indeed a capacity for the fish to keep this and other on the way nasty globals up indefinatley.

It just seems such a pity that the shear strategy afforded by Dom3 can be so easily neutered by a spell such as this. I realise that particular nations will be effected in different ways by this, but damn, what a horrendously powerful weapon to wield with no apparent effort to obtain...