Mara - EA game for newish players - full

[IndyPendant]

At this point in the game, I've got the most territories by far--I think I owned over 50% more than the second guy. Which, I discovered, is *not* a good position for the guy in the middle of the map. And my research sucked; I might have been at the lowest in the game. My Dominion was only below average, at best. My gem income was piddling. Etc etc.

But I had the most provinces, and so the biggest target painted on my forehead. *sigh*

Tien-Chi and Oceania, for the last little while, had been busily two-teaming Lanka and gobbling up his territories. Something I wasn't unhappy about, since Lanka and I had the worst non-war relationship of all my neighbours (*cough* can't imagine why *cough*). I was also a bit nervous about C'tis, who was sitting pretty in a corner, and quietly never fighting anyone at all.

In all honesty, I wasn't surprised that Hellheim attacked me, cuz I was his only land neighbour. I was just surprised at the *timing*. My war with Marverni was just winding down, after all, allowing me to concentrate on him exclusively--and he was *much* smaller than me, on pretty much *all* the graphs. It was like a five-year-old challenging me to a wrestling match. I offer Hellheim a chance to withdraw his forces and resume a NAP (I don't *want* another war, dammit!!! : ) but he just tells me I should retreat north.

Yeah, right. *sigh*

Shift gears. Again. (Research? Vhat iss diss ting, 'research'?) Start moving my mini-armies down south, and use my fliers' mobility to gobble up a bunch of his provinces guerilla-style, hopping about everywhere like frogs on steroids. I notice he's had even *more* of a barbarian-uprising problem than I have--and then, finally, take a look at his scales. Good gods. Turmoil, Sloth, Death, Misfortune, and Drain. ALL at 3! Wow.

I start pressuring Yomi to take out Marverni once and for all, saying I'll have to do it if he doesn't just to close up that front. Finally, Yomi tells me he's got "one last thing" to try that "should do it". Next turn he slaughters Marverni's defenders. The turn after he takes the castle. Wow. Good tactic, whatever it was...: )

Eventually, I get a large army moving down to Hellheim's castle and besiege it. Then promptly get booted out by his army and sooper-dooper 600-point-buy-or-something SC Pretender. (And yes, contrary to forum posturing, I got my butt handed to me.) Nervous again. Hellheim starts moving north. Oceania and Yomi declare an end to our NAPs.

Oh, come on! Will I *ever* get a break?!?

At this point, I would probably have been ready to throw in the towel--except for C'tis. The puppet master. The evil vizier, hiding behind the king's curtain and whispering in everyone's ears. He had been my best, quietest neighbour--not even taking advantage of no less than THREE barbarian uprisings on our common border, and entering into a lucrative trade with me over a number of turns. He messages me to say that everyone's conspiring to attack me, but he wants to enter an alliance with me. Together we can take out our enemies one by one, and only then turn on each other. All I have to do, is attack Yomi first, and he will join in. Then, I 'only' fend off everyone else attacking me while we both attack Yomi, then the others one by one. --Oh, and that I give him a 'one-time gift' of 60 gems to help solidify the agreement.

Uh huh.

I'm more than a little skeptical of a 'plan' that has me being everyone's focus while C'tis cherry-picks foes and gobbles up provinces in relative safety--but I don't have many options by this point, his plan is plausible--and just might work. Certainly, without his help I'm going down. So I agree. And then start firing dozens of private messages, to every remaining player. Feeling like I'm tapdancing over a sea of spearpoints, desperately holding the slavering wolves at bay just beyond the firelight, I try my best to carrot-and-stick discourage Yomi and Oceania in particular from attacking me. I even get Oceania to renew our 3-turn NAP--only to have him break it again. And I eye C'tis suspiciously, noting that Oceania broke it shortly after I informed my 'ally', C'tis, that we had renewed it.

Hrm.

Meanwhile, back to Hellheim. I Hurricaned his home province no less than FOUR times. Then I did the exact same thing to Hellheim that I did to Marverni: I figured he would be making a bee-line for my home province--and if so he would then attack this province here, next. I move all (and I do mean, all) of my forces to that spot, ratchet up the PD to 50(!!), change my casters' spell selection to better handle undead, and gamble a small force on attacking the one province he controls neighbouring it--so that if he routs, all die. And I *still* lose. (Did I mention how much I *DESPISE* Caelum's laughably pathetic army units?!?)

--But! I killed all but about 15 of Hellheim's units, while retaining roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of my own army and most of my leaders. Hellheim's army was kaput, at least--although he still had his mega-powerful Pretender. I knew he couldn't continue to move forward, and I was about to move the remainder of my army into that province to try to wipe him out for good...when I stopped. And considered. And realized what *I* would do in his situation--which was sneak back through a province I control, under glamour, to his home province and turtle up. So I gambled. Instead of moving to attack, I set my army in that particular province to 'Patrol', increased its PD to 20, and moved the rest of my army to that province. And sure enough, I catch one of his three remaining leaders there, destroying the remainder of his army--and, as an added bonus, catch his pretender, and slay him as well! Hellheim was finally, finally out of the game; all I had to do was mop up the remaining pieces. And it only took nearly all of my military strength to do--

Oceania attacks.

*sigh*

[IndyPendant]

I still haven't been able to research much at all. So I decide, this time, to change that. I basically rant and rave at Oceania a while, promising to drag him down with me if he attacks anwhere other than my southern territories, and apparently intimidate him enough to succeed in stopping his advance beyond those southern provinces--which have all been taxed at 200 for like 20 turns (hey, I didn't actually think I'd be *keeping* them that long! : ), causing 300+ unrest (that's how I did it, btw, Oceania...: ) Oceania doesn't declare an NAP or anything; he just...stops attacking me. Bad news is, he gets Hellheim's capital, and the final kill. Ah well...

And I begin to realize that I just have not been enjoying myself lately. I've been spending more time in Private Messages than actually playing the game, and I'm a builder at heart, not a warrior--yet all I've done this *entire game* is fight, fight, fight, and...oh, btw, fight.

Around this time, Tien-Chi begins sending me PMs asking if I'm okay, and if there's anything he can do to help. I guess he was nervous, watching my province-graph plummet. What he didn't understand was that a) I didn't want to fight anymore, and b) the only way I could avoid fighting was apparently to STOP HAVING THE MOST {CENSORED} PROVINCES! : ) Yomi ends our NAP, but says he isn't interested in attacking me; he just wants to jump on my corpse if it looks like I'm going down, without feeling guilty about breaking his word. --Oh, and could I be so good as to tell him if I'm going down, so he can snap up some of our neighbouring provinces, and not 200-tax them into oblivion?

*blink*

I...have to laugh. He's direct, I'll give him that!

So I make use of the break by building mages. Screw the army, I need to research, and I want to build, and I have only limited funds...so I'm building. Start producing Eagle Kings and Harab Seraphs. And...notice that the disease messages I have been getting are continuing. "This province loses xxx population to disease." Wait, what? I had assumed that was Hellheim! But Hellheim is dead! --Hrm. Then my *leaders* in my castles finally start to get diseased, not just random provinces. I go heavy on the patrols in my home castles.

And lo and behold, expose a Harvester of Sorrows in one of my castles--and owned by C'tis. That turn, he sends me a private message stating that the Harvester was on its way to Yomi, and sorry about that. Now, take a look at Mara; the Harvester was exposed in the Kingdom of Dhara (69). Notice anything strange about that province? Yep, it's not on the way to anything! When I call C'tis on that, he starts babbling about not knowing there was a castle there, cuz the Harvesters fly-3. And that he 'didn't know' they would cause diseases so fast; I guess by that, he was trying to say that he figured if he kept them moving, they wouldn't cause harm. Yuh huh. I threaten him out of my lands--and since he apparently didn't want a war with me at that time, he complies. I pretend to be 'mollified'--but I don't pretend well. I'm not mollified all that much, and I'm pretty sure he knows it.

So much for the 'alliance'.

And my 'fun' meter drops down another notch.

I'm realizing that my attempt at researching and building leaders is pretty much too little, too late. I don't have any real gem production, I'm too far behind on research, my army is the second-weakest in the game, and I'm spending half my time stomping rebellions. And yet...a strange lull sets in, for everyone. No one attacks anyone.

Yay! I can build!

C'tis tells me he's ended his NAP with Yomi, and he'll be attacking in three turns. Will I join him? *sigh* Yeah, I will...but since I no longer trust C'tis at all, I'll be waiting for him to attack Yomi, thenkyouverymuch. And...lo and behold, three turns pass, and C'tis doesn't attack Yomi! Oh, and look! Now that I've exposed C'tis, the "Diseased Province" messages I have been suffering for over a year have completely stopped! Shocker!

Meanwhile, Oceania is building more and more forces on our borders, and Tien-Chi is slowly coaxing me into a mutual, simultaneous strike against him. I agree, cuz Oceania is the biggest threat atm--but I'm made nervous by the fact that C'tis is *also* building on my borders. Both his Harvesters sit on our mutual border, there a ton of chariots in the middle province, and his castle has a huge number of summons. We have an 'alliance', but would he hesitate to break it if it would suit his needs? Yeah, right. Yomi has really given no indication he would attack me--but he also has huge armies on my borders, and he and I don't even have a working NAP!

For no particular reasons--nothing anyone has done, in particular--my 'fun' meter slowly ratchets down a bit more. I begin to think that maybe I'm just...getting burnt out.

I decide to try one last tactic. I've researched Evocation-7, Construction-6, and Alteration-7. Let's try boosting my Eagle King's air magic, getting a couple Staffs of Storms, casting Mist Warriors, and nuking everything with like 20 leaders and 80 Iron Crows. Meanwhile, my elephants will go underwater. We get it timed up, and I move into position, finally ready to coordinate with Tien-Chi. Tien-Chi mentions that he has been moving forces into a province that neighbours two of mine (alarm bells), positioning himself so that he can 'pretend' to be attacking me *alarm bells*, but we will attack at the same time *ALARM BELLS*.

And...I just don't care all that much, anymore.

Which is probably why I move my flier-army, but in rearranging my magic items, accidentally cancel my underwater-elephant army's move orders. Tien-Chi sends me a 'what-the-heck?' message, but I'm already too nervous about Oceania. They're going to attack me. So I tell him he can join in on my attack if he wants, or wait a turn while I prove that I will attack Oceania. Since C'tis *still* hasn't attacked Yomi, 8-10

And--despite the fact that I have *no* armies on his borders--the same turn my flier army destroys one of Oceania's, and move my elephants into position for an underwater strike--Tien-Chi takes two of my provinces. Yep, *my* provinces. Not Oceania's. Shocker. Again. Tien-Chi sends me a message along the lines of "you were taking too long, so I figured you weren't going after him, and attacked you instead". Yuh huh. Just another filthy liar. And, just to add icing to the cake, barbarians rebel that same turn. For like the 1293847123947th time this game. In one of my home castle's neighbouring provinces.

Still, there's a little good note in this--I now want to destroy Tien-Chi. C'tis might, just possibly, have *somehow* been telling the truth earlier. Tien-Chi's betrayal is unequivocal and total. A brief resurgence of interest in the game! I send a PM to Oceania telling the absolute truth--that I had attacked him preemptively cuz I knew that he would be attacking me soon if I did not. That I no longer *care* if I win or lose, so long as I get to take down Tien-Chi in the process. That I even would offer him to join me against Tien-Chi if he wants. Oceania says he's going to 'take a small bite' out of me first, then hop aboard. I warn him that I won't tolerate more than a truly small bite; if he wants some vengeance, that's understandable, but unless he wants

And, well...you all know what happens. Next turn, Oceania's 'small bite' is like 1/3 of my provinces. Tien-Chi destroys 1/3 of my armies, Oceania blasts the leader-army down to roughly 3/4 of its strength. C'tis moves his Harvesters back into my provinces. I am no longer a contender in the game. I could repel Oceania *or* Tien-Chi--but not both. I'm done. Kaput.

Thank. *GOD*.

These MP games have soured Dom3 for me, for a while at least. I'm just not good at MP games with strangers. Too much betrayal, backstabbing, and downright vicious evil. It's just...not my style of game. I'm going back to GalCiv2 for a while. : )

More power to you. Have fun, the lot of you.

However, one thing about this writeup: it's been both cathartic, and head-clearing. You know what? I'm not going A.I. yet. I'm not going to make it that easy for you.

Yomi, you've been the *only* one that's stuck to your guns and played completely fair. (Oceania, you came close, but...I just can't forgive that last landgrab. And I did make you a promise I intend to keep to the best of my rapidly-reducing abilities...: ) So this turn, I'm giving you everything I own. Go ahead and take my provinces; I'll fight to the death against the others, but let you have whatever you can conquer without a fight (including the castles). (Assuming you're interested, that is!)

I lean slightly in favour of Yomi's winning. Oceania is a close second--but I did promise I would do my best to take you down with me if you attacked, Oceania! Since I can't do it myself, I'll try to help Yomi do it. Keeping my word, and all that. But, best of luck you two. May the best player win.

I certainly have learned a *lot* from these two MP games. (Including the fact that I hate them. : )

[IndyPendant]

The end. : )

Not sure if anyone's going to read all of that through (it's one *heckuva* long read!), but I enjoyed writing it regardless.

Have fun!

[parcelt]

Ahem.... isn't the idea behind a write-up normally that you do it once the game is finished?? You know, so not to give away anything that could still be relevant to others?

Too bad you don't seem to have been enjoying the game though. I'd think with everything Caelum went through, and considering how well you've been doing despite difficult starting position, etc, you'd have had more fun?

[Warhammer]

Maybe I should have bolded the afterwards.

[sum1lost]

I don't think it gave away anything I didn't already know about. I've been aware of harvesters for some time- patrols went up as soon as a province of mine had the such and such people have died event.

[Warhammer]

It still would have been better if it hadn't been posted yet. I was thinking after the game. There are a few things in his posts that would be very different from my point of view.

[IndyPendant]

I was not even thinking about any game-revealing strategies. Like I said, this was a catharsis for me, and I also wanted to at least try to explain why I was dropping out of the game. This *is* "afterwards" for me. : ) I suppose this is a bit more 'believable' than a he-said-she-said "We had an NAP!" "No we didn't!" type of thing.

On the other hand...I do find it interesting that the two biggest backstabbing liars in the game (at least, from my point of view) are also the ones objecting the loudest to my writeup being released 'early'. And your objection is based on moral grounds, no less!

Wow. Interesting sense of ethics, there. : )

I am eager to see this game from other viewpoints. I can't help but wonder how many other darkened-room dealings there were that I *wasn't* aware of...

[parcelt]

Jeez, you really seem to hold a grudge easily. I mean, just a little accident with that harvester (whether you believe my explanations or not), and now I am a biggest backstabbing liar?? We also had some mutually beneficial dealings earlier in the game, IIRC?

Anyways, if that's how you want to take it. I should say that if little things like that, or discussions about NAPs and whether they're violated or not, etc, are such game-ruining experiences for you, you're better of not playing MP (as you mentioned yourself I think). Too bad, I thought it was a nice game.

[Warhammer]

The game from everyone's viewpoints are going to be dramatically different. I was hoping for a post-game from everyone because this has been such a great game, from my standpoint.

What has separated this game from the other Dominions MP games I have played has been the diplomatic aspect. Diplomacy has played a much larger role in this game than in any of the other games I have played (a whopping total of 2, one before, and one I started after this one). Anytime you have diplomacy in a game, you are going to have a he-said/she-said post-mortem. People view things in the context of their surroundings.

I'm going to have a fair sized post-mortem when all is said and done. I'm going to go turn by turn to do it, because things were nuts for a while.

If this game turned you off from MP Dominions, I would suggest trying another game. But, be forewarned any game that has as much diplomacy as this one did (my other Dom3 MP games you could hear a pin drop), is going to arouse passions.