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

[Immaculate]

Well, regardless of any differences, its certainly nice to see some cross-fertilization. I just wish SA didn't require you to give them your credit card information or i think we'd see a lot more of it. Also the SA forum mega-thread is a really horrible way to do things. (having said bad things about SA- i must say i really like the goon players i talk to on theDemon's ICQ)

[Soyweiser]

my 2 cents. I'm happy that there is more contact between the two communities. We might not all agree on everything. But difference in play styles and ideas is interesting.

[Immaculate]

I've extended the turn lengths since they are taking a bit longer and it looked like maybe a few of us would stall- including myself.

[Corinthian]

Turn 6: Confusion reign.

This is one of the turns were my recollection of what happened is different from what I saved in the H2 file. Possibly because I sent in a modified turn to the server and forgot to update the archives. I will be correcting the mistakes as well as I am able.

Three battles happen and once again no one dies. If only we could go on like this forever...

Oooh and I also won the bid for Dante's Stingers. A completely generic heavy infantry company of 30 men. They are useful because they can often expand on their own against weak indies with modest attrition.


Only two giants this turn to compliment the three already in garrison. But why? Were did all my money go?

Oh that explains it. R'lyeh is expanding southwards and I was antsy that they might try a sneak attack upon my capitol. This early they might knock me out of the game if they succeeds with that. I raises the PD in my capitol by ten points to 35 just to be safe.

Otherwise nothing much happens. Expansion continues according to schedule. Though I am not entirely sure why I did not split the southern force that so valiantly defeated the barbarians in to two groups, and attacked two provinces? Possibly because I was not entirely sure who was beneath me and weather he was powerful? I could have used a big expansion force in case I would run in to an enemy expansion force? I know there is someone starting two provinces down but I have no idea who it is.

Turn 7: Second contact of the bad kind.


Expansion continues to go splendid. Only casualties are four mercs who dies to lion tribe arrows and..... Wait? What is this? Two battles in the same province?

Oh... Well I guess I know who my eastern neighbor is.


My veteran warriors fought bravely. They battled to the last man without ever retreating. The only ones who left the field were my force commander and my cute prophet. But they were too important to die needlessly so they will just have to bear the shame.

Overall, I think my troops held up well against the enemy onslaught. The main problem was that the enemies were so numerous that they overwhelmed the Fir Bolg warriors 16 points of defense. And the enemy used one of Marvernis new national priest spells: “Strength of Boars” witch increases the strength of every friendly unit on the battlefield by 4. Meaning that almost every hit was a kill. The warriors held for a while as the slingers pelted the naked enemies with great results. But the warriors were soon overrun and the slingers who lacks the warriors high defense were cut down before they could flee.

That is one heck of an expansion force to conquer a province that my scouts told me contained only eight troops though. Almost looks like an invasion force to me. This worries me. Granted, Marverni got less than half my number of provinces and barely a third of my income. But I cant think of any other reason for such an army. Maybe he got an ally in R'lyeh?

To settle my worries I got in contact with Bluemage142 on IRC. I might have talked to him before this turn but I dont remember. I still have no chat logs, but I imagine the conversation went something like this:

Cori>: Hello there new neighbor. Thats a mighty army you got there.
Cori>: I hope you are not planning to invade me.
Workmage>: Haha.
Workmage>: Well, I was planning to.
Workmage>: But dont worry.
Workmage>: I will change my orders as soon as I get home.
Cori>: That's a relief.

See!? This is the power of diplomacy! Not that I think it prevented an attack, but rather that I was made aware of the attack. Armed with this knowledge I contemplate my options.

I imagine various places Marv could attack and how to counter. But eventually I just decides to play it safe and focus all my efforts on this mysterious province I just noticed, Nardago. The strange thing about this province is that it has much higher income that what should be possible. Normally a province generates 1 gold for every 100 population a province contains. This province generates 43.6 gold too much. Or if you account for the fact that the province loses 5% of its income due to the heat then it might even be 50g too much. It took a long time for me to figure out why this was so. There are no visible mines in the province. And positive sites tend not to do anything unless you find them or unless they modify scales. Eventually, after a long while, I remembered that there is a random event that increases the income of a province by 50g permanently. This province must have gotten that event while it was still owned by the indies.

Anyway, I send my other expansion force of 5 giants to it and reinforces it with 28 points of PD.


You have probably noticed that I'm building a lot of PD. This might seem strange as most people consider Fomoria to have terrible PD. And in a way they are right. For the first 19 points of PD Fomoria only gets one giant militia and one Fir Bolg slinger per point of PD. The secret is that the PD gets much better at 20+. There, it will also get 2 Fir Bolg Warriors per point and those things are awesome. Furthermore, slingers are good versus the naked troops of Marverni and they all have between 12-13 MR, witch is great against R'lyeh.

I send some fresh giants up towards the future front. Meanwhile the mercs and those giants too far away to get to the possible war in time, get to continue to expand. I finally remember to split the southern expansion army in to two, but I do not attack downward as that would put me inside the cap circle of whoever lives there. It is a bit strange that they have not yet captured a province located next to their capitol. But never the less I cant afford a two (three?) way war at this moment so I ignore them.

R'lyeh continues to expand southwards. I can only see 30 troops in the water and none elsewhere so I doubt he is in on any particular attack of Marvernis.

Ever so slowly, militia is being herded towards the capitol for some mysterious purpose....

Oh yea. I should probably state some irrational goals for this Let's Play. I'm told that's a tradition.

Here are my irrational goals that I had for this game:

1.Fomoria must be the biggest! No other nation can have more provinces on the province chart. If they do then I have to rectify that quickly. I will expand like crazy and then remain biggest for the rest of the game.

2.I must have the Isle of Balor. Or possibly Balor must have the Isle of Balor. Whatever.

3.I must never sign a NAP. This is mainly for the sake of the LP. If the wars get predictable then the LP gets boring. This will make for more excitement and random chaos. Although it will make thing hard on me as people tend to gang on the biggest player. Again, whatever.

[LDiCesare]

TURN 12:


I expect to have my capital besieged this turn, to face some burning ones with my minotaurs in the north.
He doesn't attack my capital but instead moves 4 Annointed of rhuax to face my northern minotaurs. Wow. 28 rp lost. I destroy a lab earned in a lucky event in the swamp north of Pangaea. No point gifting it to Abysia. [i]And a good idea to geet rid of it as I won't keep that province and may not see it back before long.[i]
A battle showed me that minotaurs against burning ones will lose in equal numbers, but my 12 minotaurs killed 2 of the 5 burning ones backed by 4 flare-casters. So, minotaurs can stand agaisnt burning ones and deal some damage. That's good to know.
I'm researching to get tangle vines and fire resistance next turn. Some sneak attacks behind Abysia's back to see what we can do. Recruit a dryad, some sneaky monkeys and minotaurs. I bring my prophet back near where her smite and dom spread can be useful. I try to blood hunt a bit more. Blood burst would actually be useful against a few burning ones but it's not like I'll ever research it. I'll face a lot, unfortunately, so I'll more likely stick with long term plans of alteration magic next. And that's really long-term. Abysia spent some PD on provinces at our borders, but not inside his realm, so I'm attacking 2 inner provinces this turn.

Overall, I am slowly losing my territories while Abysia is committing everything to fight me, leaving himself open for Arcoscephale to strike soon. The next updates will reveal how poor a tactician I am but will likely be of little interest to those who don't enjoy the sight of turtles.

[Immaculate]

Arcosephalae
Turn Ten: Sledgehammer

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Peter Gabriel. About time I say!

So last time I posted, I was outlining an assault on some crystal amazons after herding all my forces together. I was expecting them to be tough so I threw lots of pixelmen at them.


We do suffer some losses- a lot of mind burns and a few arrows.

Getting back to some diplo.



I actually got pretty nervous about this and wasn’t sure if it was a declaration of war or not. I asked some other players to see if they got similar messages and they didn’t so I expected war. I then wrote to Corinthian to ask him straight up if it was a declaration of war and he said no. But then I asked him for a NAP(3) and he said “he didn’t believe in them for a LP”- which actually makes perfect sense but drove my paranoia considerably.

So yeah…



Remember those philosophers? They are sort of doing what they are supposed to do… hitting the books hard that is… and it seems to be working. Caelum is out-nerding me… but not by a lot.



And here is what the map looks like for a minor corner power.

[Immaculate]

Arcosephalae
Turn Eleven: Separate Ways

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Journey.

On turn eleven we are still taking only one province per turn. I do manage to take the province without too great of causalities however.



I also begin construction of a fortress on the province that had crystal amazons.



So we are also planning an assault on a province with a truly large number of barbarians protecting it. I had made a deal with Corinthian to let me have that province- probably he didn’t want to spend the manpower to that many barbs.



Winter strikes. There are two philosophers that gain the ‘diseased’ trait. This will hurt my research rate when they invariably die.


So, by this point I had tested some other arco builds, being very dissastified with the rate of expansion. I conclude that the sloth build for arco may have been viable in earlier version of the game but that the rate of income modification from the production scale is too great and impoverishes the player. Also, it greatly limits he rate of initial growth by limiting the number of troops one can hire. The strength is supposed to be that you save money by researching with philosophers instead of oreids or mystics but I would counter that with a production build you will make a lot more money because you will control way more provinces. The other end of this is that philosophers are old and you lose the research edge with nothing to show for it but dead philosophers; they cannot cast spells. If you choose to do your early research with mystics or oreids, then you can use them in battle… and you don’t lose them to old age.

All in all, I am very dissatisfied with my build but then again, I knew that it would be difficult to expand without an awake pretender and decided to proceed with it anyway. That was a mistake. If I were to do a sloth build again I would have taken an awake pretender. But more importantly, I would have taken a production build. I would be glad to hear someone argue the opposite point but that’s how I felt at this point in the game… and still do.

[dojango]

yeah, I think the big point behind the arco sloth build is that you reseaarch some quick buffs & gear for your awake SC god, turning it into a destroyer of armies as quick as possible (just watch out for turkeys).

[jotwebe]

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 10

Soundtrack: A. Avkhimovich: The Sound Theory: 07. Brainfuzz


TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The triton cannot hear the tritoner;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

~~Wllii'am Bt-Ler Yts, the Poet Mind Lord

Penned to commemorate the worrying happenings in Lake Fortune last
month, this poem should turn out to be strangely prophetic. Worse
things are coming.

In the Great Blue, a Skallhög, king of the sea trolls, has sent one
of his captains to take the province.





Our troops are nowhere near. Our province defence consists of a traitor
prince and his henchmen, all two of them. The attacking army consists
of a lot of sea trolls.



The outcome is unexpected.



Did I write unexpected? I lied.



Not all is gloom and doom, however. On land, R'yeh's finest continue
their foray on land, after having reduced mighty Ermor to picturesque
ruins. They turn north to storm-swept Bolfagon.



The outcome is... unsurprising.



The next target is fair Saeborea. It is defended by cavalry, maybe they
will be more of a challenge.



There is also some diplomacy. It appears that Corinthian (Fomoria)
directed both Bluemage142 (Maverni) and me (R- wait, you should know
that) to the same provinces in his north. Not sure if I mentioned it
already or forgot, but when Corinthian claimed Komoroo/the Isle of
Balor, he suggested me to expand into Numecria/Ermor.

The interesting bit about the geography is that there is no land
connection east from Bolfagon; the peninsula is only reachable via
Numecria. Or amphibious units. Or sailing.

Numecria also is the easiest path for Maverni to reach Fomoria ~~ there
is another connection further inland, but it is via a mountain
province. So Corinthian gains some protection and ideally causes me and
Maverni to get mad at each other.

However, we agree to be flexible about those provinces and work
together if and when we go to war against Fomoria.

This becomes a lot more likely a little later, causing me to revise my
turn. Originally Yöt-Webbogoth had orders to return east and liberate
The Great Blue once he got there (three turns later), but news from
Immaculate changes that.

He reports to have received a threatening message from Fomoria, and
suspects he will be attacked soon. I change orders to send
Yöt-Webbogoth north, where he will build a fortress off Fomoria's coast
and defend against possible aquatic incursions.

Offensive operations will have to be done my regular troops, since I
can't make amulets of the fish yet.

[decourcy]

The poem was inspired. Thanks.