MP Game - European War 2

[Zooko]

Next game, Gan will be back!

What are the rules for losing, exactly. I thought I had a fortress, several commanders, and two provinces. The commanders included many priests for calling Gan back. (And in fact, they had almost finished.)

I'm sure that I would have lost eventually, but I would like to know what the rules are for losing instantly.

[Cainehill]

Probably a dominion kill, where the strong dominions of your two closest friends, er, neighbors, wiped out your own. When you no longer have any provinces with a positive dominion, it's all over.

[archaeolept]

yah check the graphs. zooko had almost no dominion left at the end - should have put half the priests on preaching

better luck next game

[Turms]

New turn

[Zooko]

Jurri:

Hi! No hard feelings about you crushing me like that. I deserved it!

I'm a newbie. This game and another one currently on-going are my first two MP games.

My strategy was to have double-blessed giants and rush to attack my nearest neighbor. I took Earth Mother with Nature-9 and Earth-9, Niefelheim, Cold-3, and I had to pay a steep price e.g. Drain-3, Watchtower. I also took Turmoil-3, Luck-3 solely for the fun factor.My expansion against independents went well right away, and then I encountered Abysia and attacked without hesitation. I took a couple of provinces from Abyssian troops, but then my strategy fell apart when twice in a row Abysia's Virtue slew a giant and my entire army routed. I finally learned how to configure a non-commander unit or two to start at the rear and to hold-and-attack to prevent routing, and on that turn I got somewhat lucky and my Niefel Jarl's Breath of Winter killed the Virtue.

However, having lost dozens of giants to the Virtue (about half of them slain while routing) meant that I couldn't break the walls of her fortress. By the time I had recruited a new army (very slowly, due to my bad scales and expensive commanders), she was reincarnated and wearing a ring of protection from cold.

After that we spent a couple of turns in grinding war of attrition against each other before hastily calling a truce in order to prepare for the inevitable invasion from the likes of yourself. :-)

So I would say my strategy probably isn't very good -- most experienced players can probably figure out how to stop double-blessed giants in early game even if the giants don't stupidly rout. Obviously the lack of research, the bad scales, etc. are a huge disadvantage. Also if graphs are public, then perhaps the whole concept of "rush to attack your neighbor" is a bad one.

However, I might try it again sometime and see how it works when I do more things right. If I face a powerful pretender with excellent defense like the Virtue in early game, there's a chance that Breath of Winter, Hand of Death (from a Niefel Jarl) or Fists of Iron (from the Earth Mother) could kill it. My intent was to focus all resources (including the Earth Mother) on conquering a neighbor and only then to start research.

I think double-bless troops is a typical newbie strategy. For what it is worth I've done the same strategy in the other MP game I'm in (Argitoth's), and it has worked well so far. In that game I play Marignon led by the flaming head Baphomet with Fire-9 and Astral-9. The flagellants and paladins, plus a white knight or two are excellent against independents and against the player (Argitoth) that I've fought. However, once again I took Drain-3 and I have the sneaking suspicion that the other players -- those that I haven't tangled with -- are so far ahead of me in research that I am utterly doomed even if I manage to win this extremely expensive war against Argitoth.

Maybe the most important lesson for me to learn is not to start wars. Perhaps starting wars in Dom2 is like the game of global thermonuclear war in War Games. "Strange game, Professor. The only way to win is not to play.".

Regards,

Gan, the Great and Merciless and Permanently Incorporeal

[Cainehill]

Double blessing can work - in fact, I think it's fairly viable with Jotuns. Niefelheim though - can't remember if they still get the Jotun Woodsmen, and the Niefel giants are pretty expensive to build a strategy around (especially as they're capitol only, as are the Woodsmen). When you go so heavy on a bless strategy, it doesn't make sense to build all that many non-blessed troops....

And if your troops were routing frequently, it doesn't sound like you centered it around the woodsmen / Niefels, since once blessed they wouldn't have routed. (You _were_ blessing them, right? )

Also, Earth Momma doesn't go particularly well with Jotunheim, imo - her fatigue climbs _way_ too fast, since she isn't comfortable in the cold. Personally, I think Nature/Water works better with Jotunheim; possibly Nature/Fire, or Nature/Air (protection from all those nasty crossbows).

Better luck to you in the future.

[archaeolept]

I think double-bless troops is a typical newbie strategy.

yes yes no doubt

/me whistles innocently

;p

[Zooko]

Yes, Niefel still gets woodsman troops, woodsman scouts (commanders), Jotun Jarls (different from Niefel Jarls) and Jotun Godes. Plus Niefel Jarls and Niefel giants. Lots of good bless troops! I really like the Woodsman Scouts. They cost no more than Woodsmen -- 50 gold, 11 resources -- and they are stealthy commanders with javelins.

They *were* blessed, but the routed because all units were either commanders or bodyguards, and one unit was killed. :-P

As to which blessings to get, I searched all of the Jotunheim pretenders to see if I could get two reasonable blessings for the cheapest price in points. Earth Mother Nature+Earth was the cheapest. I would take any pair of blessings made up of Earth, Fire, Water, Nature, Blood and Astral, except not Astral+Nature.

That's a good point about Earth Mother getting tired. I hadn't thought of that.

[Turms]

archaeolept said:

yes yes no doubt

/me whistles innocently

;p

Hello archaeolept. I saw your dragon in action, he was impressive.

But I was really amazed when I tried to count how much a fire 9 astral 9 dragon costs. Urgh.
I would never have guts to pay so much for the pretender.

Care to share your scales?

Turms

I put most of my points on scales, but that did not prevent me from getting stuck in Italy...

[archaeolept]

yah, you need truly atrocious scales for something like that. really, w/ zen's scale mod included such ultradragons will cease to be viable, i think. but i'm a fan of pushing bless strats when the opportunity arises. hell, when i encountered thufir's super cyclops (A4E8N3), 140 hp 30 prot mistform mirror image 14 regen, i only lost 110 gold in troops taking him down...

the scales are so bad i was trying to avoid spreading dominion, until i started to risk dominion death - i think it was around turn 20 i was down to a combined total of 7 pts of existing dominion in the world... :O

edit: hmm, it might actually have been only 5 pts - i seem to remember having dom3 in my cap, and domions of 1 in two territories.