AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[LDiCesare]

TURN 5:
Very bad news.
Abysia is expanding like crazy, beelining trying to find someone to kill I suppose.


My small army has been slaughtered: those damn satyrs have realy low morale.


I site search and bring a shield to my god. He's going to have to move south and teach a lesson to Abysia if they want to rush me. Not like it will work, I kind of forgot he is weak to fire to begin with. I send a Pan to him who will site search the mountains next. I send another Pan, my commander and a hundred soldiers, mostly maenads, to take out those nasty horsemen in the south. With the Pan casting Panic like crazy, I should get rid of them.
Anyway, I send some diplo to Abysia. He will get out of my place and not go farther east or it's war. Not that I'm likely to win an early war against him outside my dominion, but I simply can't afford to have him 1 or 2 provinces from my capital.
I recruit a dryad and some minotaur warriors because these are about the only troops I have which could hope to get past abysian armor. Berserk centaurs might work, but they are more expensive for less hit points. Against normal sized troops, I hope trample will be enough. If there are burning ones nearby, then I'll need centaurs but I'm really not going to go anywhere if that's the case.After some tests, minotaurs can cut through burning ones, but they die like flies doing so. Centaurs aren't any good against them. Basically, I have no trroop that can stand against burning ones.
I decided to look at the map and starting positions. Abysia is trying to block me in the south, which doesn't matter if I can get the island, and going towards the map center, which will prevent me from going north. We will never be able to be friends. I think he has to rush me, otherwise he forces me to attack him and he'll just have problems. It looks like I'll have to build some revelers to teach him what sneaky bastards mean.
Abysia answers my diplo:
"I have revised the Abysian troop orders accordingly. I see no need for trading for nature gems at this time and will let you know if that changes in the future."
This can mean he attacks me or he retreats. Whatever, it sounds more like a cease-fire. I had proposed a trade of N for F gems. I don't need them now, but it's a friendly offer that can't hurt and may come in handy in the long run. The phrasing of the answer is very interesting by the way. As I said, it's a cease-fire, meaning he's repositioning troops but he's not saying he won't attack.

[Immaculate]

Arcosephalae
Turn Four: Enjoy the Silence

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Depeche Mode (click the turn name- I hope you are all doing this- its VERY important)

The arcoesephalan expansion party fights a tougher opponent this turn and losses are incurred. The light, javelin-throwing infantry on the flanks met the enemy a few squares ahead of the heavy central infantry and got decimated pretty quickly. I’m not very good at scripting yet but hopefully I will get better. As a result of the bad scripting the barbs overrun my left flank and get to the squishy slingers and kill a few before they finally rout.



To make up for the losses incurred, I am sending reinforcement from the capital to help with the next battle. These reinforcements are led by a philosopher since that’s all I had available.



On the overhead map you can see that the barbarian leader I hired is heading out to the capital so the next set of reinforcements don’t have to be led by a philosopher. That’s 18rp lost just by sending him out to fix up our numbers. Oh well…



otherwise a quiet turn. I’ll maybe try and post turn 5 right away too. Maybe.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Immaculate

Arcosephalae
Turn Four: Enjoy the Silence

Small point of critique, setting one of your guys to guard commander to draw fire might actually lure the enemy archers towards your commander. (The archers lock on, and run after him).

With some bad luck this will get your commander killed. Or your prophet. As the guard commander dude runs past him.

Personally I would have just used one of the javelin dudes set to run away. And put your commander in the top or bottom row.

[Immaculate]

Arcosephalae
Turn Five: Girls on Film

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Duran Duran (damnit I cannot overstate how important it is that you hit that turn title link)

This attack goes better. I fixed the scripting a little bit and the chariots do a great job to trample the light infantry and chase the fleeing heavy cavalry.



Normally I would continue expanding around the capital to secure some resources but the heavy cavalry to the north seem too tough so I am sending my expansion party (plus chariots) eastwards to fight some wolf-tribe warriors and claim a low-income wasteland province. Meanwhile my philosopher is heading back to the capital to hit the books.



Not shown here I am also recruiting another barbarian commander to help shuttle forces around.

Things are pretty quiet for arco for now so there is not too much to write about. At this point I can see from the graphs that I am not doing too well relative to nations like formoria, r’leyh and others… that doesn’t bother me too much yet though (that will happen later).

[Immaculate]

Seriously, if you are lurking this thread- have at 'err... who do you think is looking strong/weak, doing well/bad, making good/bad decisions?

[Warhammer]

Been really busy here with stuff going on, realize I am late. Will fill in pictures when I get a chance.

Turn 2
What lies beyond our lands? Who will be the first to be converted? A province devoid of independent troops, this is an excellent development!

Our first target is the province of Halbathria. This is an undefended province which is ideal for us at this stage of the game. The income is not great, but the resources are good, which will be a benefit if we get enough cash to make some additional troops over and above our Eagle Kings.

Now would probably be a good time to discuss my pretender.



This is my pretender. In addition to the above, I have taken scales of O-S3C3G1L3D2. I have taken sloth since we’re not building a ton of troops. I have taken Cold 3 for obvious reasons, we prefer it. Growth and Luck are for additional income, and drain was to gain additional points. Plus, any combat in my dominion I would like additional MR for my Eagle Kings since they are Magic Beings and subject to some nasty spells.

Regarding magic paths, I have decided to take an E9S4N4 bless. Why? First, we are relying on the Eagle Kings which are sacred units, the E9N4 is great for them. The E9 for additional protection and regeneration and the N4 for regeneration and to keep afflictions from piling up on them. The S4 helps their magic resistance, plus I knew I needed some S on the pretender.

Why do I need S, and why did I focus on Conjuration first? Well, there is this nice unit called a Yazad.



These guys are better than any of our standard units. They are summoned at a 1:1 astral pearl to unit rate. They are 100% lightning resistant and they have a cold resistance of 50%. They are sacred and have awe. All the blessings that are bestowed upon my Eagle Kings are also bestowed here. These guys are the ideal escorts for my Eagle Kings. My expansion strategy will be to save up enough pearls generated by my pretender, and then on turn 5 or 6, summon the Yazatas. I can send out 3 Eagle Kings with 2 Yazatas as escorts. By then, shock wave should be researched and I can rain down lightning on independent troops. There are two unit types I fear, barbarians due to their higher than average morale, and archers. Anything else, I should be able to handle with little to fear.

Added Bonus, turns 3 and 4!

Turn 3
One item I noticed in the Hall of Fame. Abysia has received their hero Malphas. That is not a good sign. He is a very strong commander. Also, it appears that my neighbor to the north is Helheim. This is not great, but not terrible. His glamour troops will not do well against my archers, and my troops will not do well against his ground pounders. We’re best finding other avenues of advance.

Turn 4
Not much has happened this turn.

Essentially we are continuing our build towards a quick strike force of Eagle Kings backed by Yazatas. We move our research to alteration in these turns to get Mirror Image and Stoneskin.

[Mightypeon]

Personally, I only go to Dominion scores of 5 if I am either the only blood sac nation in the game, or if there is no blood sac nation and I have an awake pretender with perhaps inquisitors.
I am not a fan of death scales either, and would not really go with rainbows unless I happen to be MA Ulm. But then, I am largely playing goonmods now, who have excellent divesrity available from Nature, Death and Water, which clearly is not the case in CBM.

[Mightypeon]

Personally, I only go to Dominion scores of 5 if I am either the only blood sac nation in the game, or if there is no blood sac nation and I have an awake pretender with perhaps inquisitors.
I am not a fan of death scales either, and would not really go with rainbows unless I happen to be MA Ulm. But then, I am largely playing goonmods now, who have excellent divesrity available from Nature, Death and Water, which clearly is not the case in CBM.

[bbz]

It doesnt really matter if the orders of the other armies are to attack. Opponents creatures won't reach his front in one turn and the armies will move forward essentially protecting the aboleth for normal non-magic battles.

Oh and some creative criticism: I really like the way Marverni forms his posts. I prefer having all the pictures in one post rather then having to click on some link to see what happened it makes it easier to read.(otherwise it has been nice AAR and really good for new players(Helheim's descriptions of the basics)). So keep up the good work.

P.s As I support Fomoria GoGo Giants GoGo! :P I'd love to see some more posts from Corinthian

[Roland Jones]

Oh, something to note, you may need to adjust your forum settings in order to see my images in the posts instead of as links. If my images show up as links for you, go check out your settings and look for something like "Display images", and check it. I don't know why displaying images are off by default, but they are apparently.