MP: Blood Bowl - LA Marignon - Corinthian Winner !

[bbz]

Sure, Ok but since the game is about to end anyways. I am going to reveal myself. I am playing as Fomoria. I got steamrolled by marignon(well the fact that I was fighting 2 -3 nations for the majority of the game didnt help either) But he was more experienced than me and he did really well in using(abusing) mind hunts on my already poor in astral empire.

I am happy to fight some more turns as well but I know where we are heading. It feel like im on the sinking titanic, you just know that it will happen and all you can do is struggle.

[KeithZ]

This is Caelum.

I took only dom 4 to get relatively good scale and an aweken enchantress. Now I'm not able to stop Marignon's dom kill after my temples were brought down one by one.

Sorry guys, I should have done better in the war against Marignon. I made too many mistakes because of my lack of experience in the end game.

Anyway it's good game, I did have some fun and learned a lot.

[mattyburn7]

I will reveal this. I am NOT Marignon! LOL

[Zywack]

I unfortunately have to reveal the same thing!

Thanks for the fun game bbz and KeithZ! You guys tried your best against the Marignon steamroll and it's going to be the same thing happening to the rest of us soon enough (except worse)...

Unless Marignon hits the "Control 8 capitals and you win the game" clause that's stated in the first post before he has to squish more of us, anyway.

To the Marignon player: Please do state whenever you hit 8 capitals so that we can give you congratulations and move on

[bbz]

Yea It was a fun game, actually the most interesting game I've had so far. Sorry for the stales at the end I kindoff lost all my astral mages and good earth mages so my armies were not as good as they could have been. Also Mari controlled most of my territories and I didnt have a chance of reclaiming them back(and RL required more attention at the time). I will try and submit some sort of quick turns from now on so that you guys dont have to wait for me to stale.

[Zywack]

Well, after seeing last turn, I'm officially changing my vote to "Surrender". I mentionned earlier that I could probably give Marignon a few turns of fighting. It turns out I can't even do that. The biggest problems are:

1) While I did fully expect Marignon to carpet bomb with remote spells and that I did have plans in place to counter that... I didn't think they were able to do it on such a large scale, with basically no cost to their resources. And now they'll get even higher income, so...

2) I did have a 'clever' trap laid out. Unfortunately, the trap trigger got blown up without actually triggering the trap, so the main plan went out the window.

3) You know the Cleansing Bell item thingy? The 10 gem anti-demon item? I had the chance to see an handful of them in action this turn for the first time ever! Hurray! Time to see what kind of ravage they can do against demons! And they couldn't even get rid of a few imps... Let's just say that I made a not terribly wise large gem investment.

4) The largest problem is that even defeating Marignon's main armies in battle would do little to help: Their gem/slave production is through the roof, so killing armies only gives a tiny amount of time before they get replaced. Hitting their production is the only way to go, but that's only accomplishable by raiding, and they are definitively able to counter-raid and grab your own production: Even if you can somehow manage a 1-1 trades, things won't be going in your favor. When an empire gets that large, there's no key point to hit that will damage them a lot.

5) They are blood sacrificing for dominion. They are the only nation left that can blood sacrifice (Maybe Bogarus too? I'm not sure...), and even a very strong dominion score isn't going to stop that for long once they get going full-swing.

So that's why I'm joining bbz in the "Let's surrender and move on" movement. As I mentionned a long time ago, it's really inconvenient for me to do my turns during the summer so I'll be glad when this game is over (Although it has been fun). I'm not quitting though: I'll fight until either
A) my nation is dead
B) the surrender happens
C) Marignon gets 8 capitals.
so you don't have to worry. If you feel you still got a shot, go ahead and continue.


Regarding Mind Hunt... I do feel it's a problem in Dominion. I have no issue with the concept of the spell, it's just that I feel that nations without any Astral access are HEAVILY hampered by Mind Hunt. It's pretty much "Get astral or get out", which limits the pool of viable nations end-game unless they manage to get very dominant early on.

In my only other multiplayer game, I replaced a Shinuyama player that left early and somehow managed to salvage the nation from the brink of destruction... The problem is that I had absolutely no Astral access (The god I inherited had a wonderful 2 Dominion strength, 3 fire and 7 death) and I had to face Bandar Log to destroy their temples so that I didn't get dominion-killed.

So out of simple fear of Mind Hunt, I had to trade pretty much my entire gem stockpiles for Nature Gems, just so that I could summon a lot of Kitsune who can occasionally get Astral for the sole purpose of sneaking some inside my main armies. It panned out okay since the Bandar Log player didn't have Mind Hunt researched for a long time, but the simple fact that the threat of the spell existed forced me to diverge a huge amount of resources to try to counter it... And I was lucky that I actually had a nation summon that had a small chance to get astral in the first place.

[bbz]

Yea I dont mind the mind hunt concept as well. I just used my astral mages unwisely and then he took hold of the only province where I could build them and that was a gg form me.

[Zywack]

Actually, I got a question about that for a future game! I've seen in a few guides things like "Just use an independent Astral mage to forge amulet of magic resistance", or "Use independent astral mages as a shield from enemy Mind Hunt".

But I fail to see how that's a viable strategy plan. While it's only my 2nd competitive multiplayer game, I've played about 8 cooperative or solo games vs the AI. In those games, I've came across independent Astral mages a grand total of 4 times (And one of those was a 1/4 pick). That number is sliiightly higher if I include those that come from site findable only with astral, but not by much.

So in my experience, you get 1 astral independent mage per about 50 provinces. Am I simply "unlucky", and if not, how can one build their initial strategy upon getting an Astral mage when odds are they'll never get one?

[Corinthian]

OK. This thread got a bit overwhelming for a while. But I will try to answer some questions and post some comments below.

Originally Posted by Zywack

I'd be willing to play for 2 turns until it's officially over if you decide to do the devil vs the invincible moose army. It should be possible for both army to meet at province 126 by two turns. Whoever wins that fight doesn't change anything since you reach the winning condition at that time anyway... It's really to see the effect of a pile of spells I never got to play with ever before. No biggy if not.

This sounds like an excellent idea. I will bring the army to province 126 this turn. There might also be some kind of Ember lord bumming around over there. I have honestly never used one of those things before and I wonder a bit about its capabilities. Its a self buffer though so it might not mater much in the heat of a big battle though.

Originally Posted by Zywack

3) You know the Cleansing Bell item thingy? The 10 gem anti-demon item? I had the chance to see an handful of them in action this turn for the first time ever! Hurray! Time to see what kind of ravage they can do against demons! And they couldn't even get rid of a few imps... Let's just say that I made a not terribly wise large gem investment.

Those cleansing bells are not bad for the price I think. But you need something to hold off the demons while they do their thing. Another problem might be that I'm using the demon type with the most HP. They are more useful vs hell knights and demon thugs that relies on protection though.

Originally Posted by Zywack

4) The largest problem is that even defeating Marignon's main armies in battle would do little to help: Their gem/slave production is through the roof, so killing armies only gives a tiny amount of time before they get replaced. Hitting their production is the only way to go, but that's only accomplishable by raiding, and they are definitively able to counter-raid and grab your own production: Even if you can somehow manage a 1-1 trades, things won't be going in your favor. When an empire gets that large, there's no key point to hit that will damage them a lot.

5) They are blood sacrificing for dominion. They are the only nation left that can blood sacrifice (Maybe Bogarus too? I'm not sure...), and even a very strong dominion score isn't going to stop that for long once they get going full-swing.

Attacking a blood hunting operation is a ***** but can be done if you plan ahead. I think your Rocs could have won that battle with only a single F resist ring each and orders to hold in the back.

As for my blood sacrificing I am surprised at how useless it is. I have probably sacrificed about 2000 slaves over the course of the game and although I have domkilled a few people who would otherwise have died anyway, I have not managed to use it against anyone with the means to still fight back. I thought it would be more powerful than this. I mean I could have gotten some 520 devils and 800 imps for those slaves. Still useful in combination with the purgatory to keep Fomoria of my back. I'm surprised that he did not try to dispel it seeing how much it limited his strategic options. It was a minimum cast.

Originally Posted by Zywack

Actually, I got a question about that for a future game! I've seen in a few guides things like "Just use an independent Astral mage to forge amulet of magic resistance", or "Use independent astral mages as a shield from enemy Mind Hunt".

But I fail to see how that's a viable strategy plan. While it's only my 2nd competitive multiplayer game, I've played about 8 cooperative or solo games vs the AI. In those games, I've came across independent Astral mages a grand total of 4 times (And one of those was a 1/4 pick). That number is sliiightly higher if I include those that come from site findable only with astral, but not by much.

So in my experience, you get 1 astral independent mage per about 50 provinces. Am I simply "unlucky", and if not, how can one build their initial strategy upon getting an Astral mage when odds are they'll never get one?

The amount of astral mages that you can get without site searching depends greatly on the age you play in. The earlier the age, the more indy mage poptypes. I personally think it is fine to rely on idies for astral sometimes in the Early era. Crystal amazons and lizard tribes are common there. For a middle age nation like Shinu this is not an option. But you can still get astral, -stealthy astral even- from conj 6, Specters. I actually have two specters with astral running about in Fomorias lands in the hopes that he would try to mindhunt their provinces. But it is very hard to predict what fomoria feels like mindunting. I like mindhunting powerful, expensive creatures. Fomoria seem to mainly mindhunt my demon commanders and Ghouls? And those are not worth enough that I will bother protecting them.

The real problem with Mind hunt comes from nations with recruitable S3 mages that can also be healed. Like Arco. Or any astral with the Chalice or GoH. Even astral mages strategically placed will only offer temporary reprieve in that scenario.

Originally Posted by Zywack

Regarding the game, I really didn't have the best of time early game either. I figured I needed an awake god since it was a crowded game and that Patala has a weak early game so I picked a Deva with 4 Death/ 5 Blood, 8 Dominion with nearly no scales (3 heat, and 3 positive ones but that's it). The awake pretender was really a waste, since she got Limped in the first battle by losing an handful of hp, and she pretty much spent the rest of the game site searching, forging or researching.

Patala is one of few nations who can actually get some use out of the deva pretender. For most nations she is overpriced. When I were supposed to play patala in a game, I used the deva in one of my tests with great success, but with a vastly different build.

Taking death on it is too expensive for what it gives you. Taking Air 1 is much more economical and allows you to summon Dakinis who themselves comes with death magic. It also helps that Dakinis are some of the most unfair commanders in the game. Just ask mattyburn7.

Another thing to remember is that you always want at least dom 9 on an awake expander unless it is a dragon. This is because they get Awe (+0) from dom 9. Fear and awe means the deva is very hard to injure in melee and Airshield from the A1 magic protects it from arrows. Very hard to stop. And later you can give it equipment and have a monkey cast body ethereal and Luck on it.

[mattyburn7]

Since Others have revealed - I am Bogarus.

And since there were some comments on my adventures with Niefel. I will elaborate. Was a fun part of game.

I experienced an early rush from Niefel which was really bad for Bogarus as I did not have an awake pretender and just the crap troops. I needed to get some mages produced and some spells researched quickly. Long story short I did get enough researched to put a hurt on him, but it basically forced me into 1 army. Meanwhile I was getting raided like mad as he could approach from 2 directions.

Where it got fun was when I finally destroyed 2 of his armies and thought I could take the war to him. I did only to find a Niefel army slip in from the other direction and get my capital before I could get back. That led to the most desperate part (which people commented on). I had no temple (Had to protect my only mage that could make a temple). Hardly any money (desertions every turn). I think I was down 2 3 provinces (2 of which had forts). Then in a fortuitous 2 turns I was able to get back my capital after a long siege (destroying an army of his in there), I destroyed another army of his in the field and destroyed a 3rd army that contained his Pretender. back in business! I then marched on his capital destroying another army in the process) and thought he was pretty much done. At that point, AI took over. He got his Pretender called back and had more in the capital than I expected. I had only sent a small army since I wanted to get back to researching and got my butt kicked. THen Marignon moved in and wiped up Niefel.

Twas Fun. Sorry for long post.