MP: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. Game Over. Supplicants Triumph!

[chrispedersen]

rlyeh would truly be hosed:

Sea provinces are low resources, and do not benefit from adjacent land provinces. so rlyehs income is forever minimal.

The capital resource bonus is frankly irrelevent to me, although I know that some others like meteorite guards.

land province mages are limited to starchildren. Great assassins. Lousy researchers.

The usurpers suffer from a lot of other weaknesses as well. Their signature strength (astral) is widely found on independents.

Lizard shamans, Amazons, all of the metalic orders.

finally, CBM of course removes clams; sure every nation is hosed that way - but rlyehs mages are more geared to clams than anyother nation in the game, probably.

[ano]

Yeah, it seems that Mictlan would give the Usurpers team more flavour than R'lyeh. R'lyeh is designed as water nation and should be played as water nation. Actually all of their troops are quite crappy and not cost-effective with one exception - the Crab Hybrid which is aquatic but helps underwater expansion a lot. (Some people may say that Shambler Thralls are cool but even though they may be cool there're always better recruits. Not a matter of discussion now, anyway)
As a balance adherent, I'd rather see Mictlan in the Usurpers team but of course it is not me who decides, so it's just an opinion.

p.s. Actually I just can't wait for a fight and I'm willing to face whoever and whatever if that makes the game start sooner

[ano]

Also, S-W is a very good and natural bless for Mictlan and that may compensate for the potential weaknesses of the Usurpers. Again, just a side opinion.

p.s. I'm advocating for Mictlan just because I hope Chris will take it

[chrispedersen]

laughing .. thanks ano = )

I've told sept that I'll play if he adds mictlan to the usurpers;
I've also said I'm a masochist because the usurpers are *terribly* weak.

That being said... even tho I'd like to captain, I don't have time - so I'm hoping squirrel will step up and show me how its done = ).

That said, I have a number of .. intrigueing ideas for the usurpers = ).

[NooBliss]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Usurpers (and Rlyeh with them) can clam all they want since we dont use CBM?

[ano]

NooBliss
Yes, they can. Just like everyone.
chrispedersen

That being said... even tho I'd like to captain, I don't have time - so I'm hoping squirrel will step up and show me how its done = ).

Well, I also hope that squirrel will step in and the game will start. Don't want signup last for ages. Mictlan instead of R'lyeh sounds good though, probably, it also has to be restricted a bit.

[DrPraetorious]

The usurpers "official" paths could be astral/air, and then the R'lyeh -> MA Mictlan swap would make a lot of sense.

[Septimius Severus]

Been held up with other things for a bit. I am updating the pretender choices now following the rubric ano suggested earlier and upon which I agreed and there seemed to be no objections.

1. All 10 magic path rainbows will be removed.
2. All pretenders restricted to taking no more than level 3 on non-native paths (native paths = the ones your pretender comes with standard)
3. Pretenders who native path conflicts with the primary path of any team and/or the merc will be/remain excluded.
4. Restrictions on Ashdod pretender revert to max of level 6 on Earth and Nature.
5. No further changes will be made to the pretender choices unless all captains agree.

Regarding the Usurpers, though R'lyeh is the "Cannonical" Usurper, Mictlan has good Astral access (though not as much initial native astral gem income as any of the others), so they would likely be a good choice if R'lyeh is replaced and Chris, Squirel, or someone else wants to captain them. I wouldn't mind.

Mictlan has a reasonable nature/forest bias both in terms of theme and path (more so than T'ien Chi'), so I probably wouldn't change the secondary path to air due to the conflict with the AI team's primary air dominance. I'd just need to change the team pic (showing an Illithid), but that is a minor change. The theme of mental/temporal magic still applies to any astral based team and the thaumaturgy school.

If R'lyeh stays in, ahh no problem as well. I might connect their underwater cap with the nearest corner sea province which would at least allow them to move their aquatic only units around a bit.

Adding more underground lake cavern/water provinces is a bit tougher since I want to do it without any image editing, want to limit the obstructions to the land game (and AI), and keep them evenly and stragetically dispersed. This is the reason they are located in the corners where their disruption is minimal. Adding 4 more cavern type sea provinces to the north/south/east/west center edges of the map remains a distant possibility, but I likely won't bother if R'leyh is out.

Sea provinces were more of an afterthought on this map, and the merc is something a test, but should be fun. Altantis and R'lyeh were chosen as they both have a good number of amphibious units.

I am opening up the Deva's den and merc hq to all players. A single player on each team will still remain the contact person in regard to retaining the merc's services (either captain or advisor) to prevent confusion or conflicting requests for services from different members of the same team.

Will post another message when the teams&themes have been updated.

Lets try to get the last few people in the game, and an advisor or two or some alternates would'nt be bad either.

[ano]

Oh, cool! Am waiting for Chris and Squirrel.
W9S9 seems frightenting though
Probably Mictlan will be the only uber-blessed nation.

upd: do I understand it right that Mictlan can't take W9S9 on an Oracle because Oracle doesn't have native W?

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by ano

Oh, cool! Am waiting for Chris and Squirrel.
W9S9 seems frightenting though
Probably Mictlan will be the only uber-blessed nation.

upd: do I understand it right that Mictlan can't take W9S9 on an Oracle because Oracle doesn't have native W?

Oops, made a booboo on my previous post. Currently the primary and secondary paths of the Usurpers are Astral and Water. If Mictlan comes in, I'll have to see how it would affect the secondary path, but the presence of Bandar and Mictlan might push the secondary path toward nature/forest more than anything. Which works great for me, and would offer more protection to the mercs primary path of water.

Yes, under the currently agreed rubric, an available Usurper pretender would need native water to be able to take anything above level 3.

Now if mictlan replaces R'lyeh, the secondary path of the Usurpers will likely change and a few pretender choices will need to be changed on that team (hence the above restrict to pretender changes would not apply until after).

So do you want me to wait to see if mictlan will indeed replace R'leyh by the prospective captain or should I change the teamsandthemes temporarily now?