YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]

[Dimaz]

Well, first of all, thanks to our admin rdonj and game organizer WraithLord for very interesting game. Also I want to say in the beginning that it’s clearly Psycho and not me who deserves main part of the victory. In fact, I lost in this game almost a year ago
Some words about that first part. I got Yomi (another thug nation after Gath in YARG1) and my planned strategy combined Baalz’s size-1 goblies and Dai Oni thugs. Expansion went pretty good (those goblins are great at it) but the start position was in the middle of mountains and caves so even with one of the top province count I was in the middle by the gold income. It hit me immediately as there was not enough gold to hire both Dai Onis and goblies. And their strength is in numbers, as you know.
My neighbors were Lanka, Ulm, Sau and Vans and the Van was in the map “corner” so it was pretty obvious that we started to fight (I don’t remember who attacked but it doesn’t matter). Soon I discovered that in tests my goblins fail to kill his infantry in reasonable numbers so I started sneaking all around and taking the undefended provs while researching const and buffs for Dai Onis. One turn IIRC I had all the Van lands except the castles. But I had no means to kill his army yet. After some time when research was finished I started adding Dai Onis to goblin groups and had pretty good chances to finally deal with Van but at this time Sau attacked with lots of archers and Witch Kings. I wasn’t prepared for it and after some battles lost pretty quickly.
Then, after long time, I was contacted by Psycho who asked if I can sub his TC who had a leading position. I looked at the turn and decided to help. TC position was really strong; he had some unfinished business in the west (monkeys and Ctis) and a war with second big power in the east (Ulm). The only thing that surprised me was that he didn’t have lanterns with fire global up and has been researching with his cap mages and fighting with ordinary ones.
First of all I started forging lanterns with everyone who had F so there was some drop in research graph after switching the players, but after that I moved lots of the (now free) mages to the Ulm cap that was sieged before I joined. On the west front, after some unsuccessful attempt to storm Ctis, I was able to finally do it. Also, monkeys were able to break my sieging forces and moved to my neighboring castle and tried to storm, but I ported some EA guys there so he received 3 or 4 RoS on the first turn and the storm failed, after that it wasn’t that hard to take them too.
So the west front was secured, I hit my target of 1000 RP/turn and had the strangest situation never encountered before in Dom: I had too much money. All the research was done with cheap sacred mages with lanterns, but it was hard for me to find those mages any other task – 2W and WS can do some tasks in battle, but D, WN, WA – well, I think it’s possible to use them with success, but I don’t know how – in late game. So I completely stopped buying anything except Celestial masters, W5Es and some indy mages (iron adepts mainly). So I had several thousands free each turn. I started castling like crazy and in the end I think all the lands I had originally were castled almost completely.
OK, so the west front was secured, but what about Ulm? I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug. I lost ton of cap-only mages, fortunately the pretender survived. Another Ulm castle, Fever Fens, was also sieged and it was in the middle before my cap and Ulm’s; I concentrated all the remains there.
Ulm decided to counterstrike and used flying banes to capture lots of (not castled yet) lands, I started to use golems to hunt them, but it was a trap – one turn he killed 3 or 4 golems with duelers there. After that I started to act more cautiously so part of TC lands were under Ulm rule for some time. Also I started hiring Ds to put with PD everywhere to spam DtD on banes but it wasn’t that effective.
However, at that time we had AC in play which I think also influenced our war. I had S mages with all the important combinations so I was forging gear for bane thugs/golems without fear of losing the hammers and the forger; also as I had Iron adepts I started MHing those banes so he had to retreat eventually. Somewhere at that time I tried to storm Fever Fens but he had very strong force there so I lost again.
Now we are approaching the final part. I had the chalice from the beginning so the obvious route was to go for tarts; VH research made it not that easy, but still after some time I got the con9. Also I had the ench site near cap where I summoned several Liches; it was during AC period so some of them entered the neverending death cycle (I saw it first time, when horrors attacked them several times – one during forge/cast phase and another one during horror attack phase) and several permadied in Fever Fens storm (I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s). Anyway 2 Liches started to summon Tarts each turn; while Ulm prepared another raiding party, now with Harvesters of Sorrow. Somehow I managed to deal with them and it was the time when the Ulm ownership switched. New player made several mistakes and lost many valuable items and commanders on me, after which I stormed the Fever Fens again. I have to say that I wasn’t prepared for 6 RoS during turn 1 so my battle plan failed almost completely; however I had 6 or so fully geared tarts and several banes there and 2 Liches somehow survived so one of the main part – 4*Undwad mastery with all pen boosters – still worked so in the end Fevers Fens became mine. After that I ignored the Ulm army in the next castle and move to the cap, taking it without much effort. Now I had all the roads to Ulm lands open, I moved there and the turns became like 1) equip 2 new tarts 2) send teleporting ones 3) send moving ones 4) forge equip for 2 tarts and Gate cleavers 5) repeat. That’s how it ended.
Also someone tried to wish away the chalice from me (2 times) but I got it back pretty soon both times. And in the end I was wishing for gems every turn and captured Conj site from Ulm so even more tarts.
In fact I was somewhat afraid of Rlyeh because he had easy access to some of my caps and of Fomoria for the same reason. But they played as they played and TC won. I’m not sure they had the chances anyway; I had pretty strong Tart force, many Iron and silver adepts and other stuff. I’ll attach the trn file to this post.

[WingedDog]

2 Psycho/Dimaz

Originally Posted by Psycho

That battle on Ulm's capital was the weirdest thing I ever saw - another case of bad replay. In the replay, iron adepts aren't very successful, the buffs go off and the whole Ulm's army is slaughtered with maybe 2-3 W5Es dying on TC side. In the battle report, however, Ulm loses 3 units and the whole TC army is dead, except the pretender. Crazy.

Originally Posted by Dimaz

I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug.

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!

Originally Posted by Dimaz

(I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s

The secret of this trick I reveal with pleasure: dominion from preaching spreads before the battle, while dominion from temples/prophets/pretenders - after the battle. And I was preaching with about 12 priests of different level out there.

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by WingedDog

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!

Hehe, I loled at this. But seriously, I don't know about your tests, but like you said ankh was in play, phoenix pyre as well, and also there were redundant casters for all crucial buffs. I would love to see what actually happened there. In retrospect, we should have tested, then we'd know that magic duel targeting is random and probably just send pretender to try and take out a few iron adepts. But that was the time when the transfer of command occurred - bad timing for TC.

Edit: Oh and also, you shouldn't have known what army was there, but unfortunately the golem that was supposed to clear pd got a crippled affliction while doing it as well as one of your pd guys. So he was chasing this last pd member for about 20 turns and eventually died due to time limit. Now that battle was retarded.

[Slobby]

Wrap up time

To say that I was non plussed about getting Fomoria is an understatement. After getting Jot in the last YARG and going E9N6 for the first time I didn't care to be at the helm of another giant race where E9N6 is supposedly a no brainer. And so with trepidation I went with an imprisioned Divine Serpent E9N6 T1L3M1. In hind sight a minor bless from a rainbow would have been better.

My opening was non stellar, I actually failed to attach turn 5 I think and staled. That said I then had Marv's PoD on my cap, but took it out with ease with N. Champs. I then decided to counter with everything I had and eventually ground out Marv with the use of sailing/call of the winds. So all of a sudden my opening situation actually looked pretty good I had a good chunk of territory, a second cap, and some astral.

I then looked around at my neighbors. TC was in the south east and seemed to be as strong as me. TNN to the north - definately not someone I wanted to fight due to glamour raids, and our affinity to Air magic (a feeling which stuck with me most of the game). Ermor to the East - many a times I thought of going after them, but all plans that I came up with posed the possibility of costing too much for little gain. That left Helheim to the west, again a glamour air nation, and ideally not something I wanted to deal with.

In time Helheim went after Mictlan and so I decided on a multi approach attack, using my sailing kings, and the few W kings that I had who I kitted out to be SCs. The attack went great. Some raids but all in all Hel decided on trying to cripple Mictlan.

So with Hel out and my TNN/Ermor/TC neighbors being the same I then went after Mictlan, which went great until I started sieging his cap. Mictlan had over a hundred vamps and strong dominion and so I couldn't dent his walls and was getting attacked by vamps every turn. To minimize the losses I had to cast gem rec battlefield spells, and so as the useless siege went on I was spending gems for no gains. For awhile I actually thought of withdrawing to think of something else, but then buckled down and analyzed what I had to work with that could possibly end in my victory. I tried fighting dominion for awhile but that didn't work. Mictlan also had the habit of sending the vamps out to raid and then sneak them back into the cap, which allowed me to start penetrating his walls, so I tried timing a crumble, but that didn't work. My last resort was...siege monkeys <3! At least that's what I decided to call the pale ones that I recruited en mass. And as soon as the monkeys started showing up leprosy spam began. The monkeys did the trick and I was able to breach the walls and take the cap, but the cost to the Fomorian war effort was pretty heavy. Gem stocks were low and my large stack in the west was riddled with diseases and dying.

For a time I was elated! I was tied in terms of caps with TC and Ulm and the TC/Ulm war was stalemated! If that stalemate continued I could pick away at my neighbors and secure the win. I had eyes on everyone, thinking of my next step, but then Ulm was subbed and the flood waters broke.

An aside on my views of TC. I watched many a battle from when they fought Hinnom, Kailasa, and Ulm. It became more and more apparent as I viewed them that I was behind in terms of power. I had some unmarked champ thugs, and just a smattering of SC W-Kings most of the game. My luck on the kings generally resulted in getting the A4D2 variety or the A3D3 variety and so my attack forces pretty much relied on moving large stacks around backed up with Air buffs. I felt that tactic against TC would fail as they had Air as well and a whole lot of other paths which I pretty much lacked, so win on the battle spell front. Then when TC started sporting his djinn and bane lords and tarts I was out classed on the thug/SC approach as well. Finally TC had a huge income and just put forts up everywhere...not great for a quick attack approach, especially since TC had astral as well and so could gate troops to wherever I attacked. Credit to Psycho/Dimaz as they set my tempo! I would watch what TC had and thought holy **** I'm behind! I need to catch up! I set up two tart factories, multiple morrigan factories, a gargoyle factory, played around with hidden in snow, demi liches, fairy queens, troll kings, etc...spend spend spend!

All of this was going on after Mictlan and before Ulm was subbed out. I started planning on an invasion of Arco. Many an hour I sat there planning. Taking stock all the troops, mages, spells, I had access to, planning attack vectors, etc. Truly that was the most fun I had in this game.

But then the Ulm defense broke and all of a sudden I had to think of something...quick. I contemplated taking Lanka or Van from Ulm, but 1. My western forces were still plague ridden, and 2. I had that Rlyeh beach head to worry about...worst case scenario I go after either and Rlyeh goes in and takes Mictlan, cutting supply and wiping out my west. I then thought, well I know I'm not the only one scouting out TC/Ulm. Probably Rlyeh is too and that beach head is going to go and grab Lanka!

So I turned back to my original plan to take Arco and then included a staggered attack on TNN, of course modifying my forces to account for the 4 way attack on 2 medium sized powers. Finally it was time I had sights on being on Caelum and Arco in two turns. Niefelheim in 3 turns and TNN in 4 turns, with the plan to then blitz Abysia or Van for the fifth and the win.

Seeing how both TNN and Arco lacked domes on their caps and had the majority of their forces parked there my idea was murdering winters/leprosy on TNN caps and flames from the skies/leprosy on Arco's cap. So essentially nuke what they had and go in. TNN no problem as they went AI after that. Arco thought the same thing as me and nuked my Arco force with FftS's. The Caelum force broke through but with the Arco division wiped out there was no more point...TC had won.