Ermor MP Battlefield Game - FFA /CLOSED/

[Cohen]

Isn't 325 gems of Empowerment and not 135 ???

After, I didn't understood very well the formula for Raven Feast, even if I've done some trials.

May Illwinter Staff tells us the results of the check of unconsistencies?

[archaeolept]

yes, well.

I guess I can't say its much of a surprise. just a bit sad.

[Stormbinder]

All right guys.

Time to tell the truth.

Each and every word that Norfleet have uttered in this thread was a lie. We have iron proof of it.

Norfleet has somehow managed to cheat in out tournament game. Cheated HUGE way. His gem counts are beyond wildest dreams.

But he had made three fatal mistakes, that were his undoing. He should never play with graphs turned ON (and he almost never does, now we know why). He should not be *that* greedy when cheating. And he forgot that we have Master Password ON in this game. (actually I forgot about it myself originally ). But after Last turn, when he demonstrated small glimpse at his gem count, and I have become very suspicious, we all (5 other nations) agreed that the game is lost and we are ready to admit defeat. So we have looked in his file to make sure that there is nothing fishy there. What we discovered was absolutely struggling.

In this MP game, with regular settings, Ermor's file shows that he at this moment, by turn 23, he verifiably has 4861 gems worth of summons, gems and equipments!!!

He has almost 850 none-death gems in his treasury alone, while having virtually no regular gem income whatsoever. (He currently has 36 none death income this turn, and he had ZERO no-death income 7 turns ago). And no, they are not Astral and has nothing to do with his Clams, since he only have grand total 24 of them, and making them 6 clams per turn atm )


Kristoffer's numbers are correct but not complete. The total numbers are much higher.

I have spend 4 hours analyzing Norfleet's file *very* carefully and I have double checking everything, when we got this file few days ago. Mose had made a copy of this file, in case Norfleet will try to "hack" it once again and he send it to Illwinter. Here is the complete breakdown of most important numbers for you:

At this moment, on turn 23, Norfleet verifiably has:

2890 gems worth of none-death gems in equipments, summons, treasury.

That includes: 1395 gems worth of none-death equipments, 875 none-death gems in Gem Vault, 100 gems in summons (2 AQs), 270 none-death gems worth of Empowering Dusk Elders (empowering: 2x30 Earth, 50 Nature, 80 Air, 30 Astral, 50 gems of unknown none-death type), 250 gems for casting 10 Archaic Records (only for the Last 7 turns, you can guess why ). Up until 7 turns ago, he had ZERO none death gems income, and only had death income from his capital

At this moment, on turn 23, Norfleet verifiably has:



1956 gems worth of death gems in equipments, summons, treasury.

That includes: 1705 death gems in summons, including:

46 Dusk Elders
28 Spectral Mages
7 Wraith Senators
3 Wraith Councils
1 Wraith Centurion
13 Shadow Tributes
5 Spectators
2 Banelords

Other death gems usages verifiably visible from Ermor's file are: 225 death gems in equipment, 26 death gems in vault, 15 death spells casted this turn (3xArouse Hungers). total death count is 1956, by turn 23. Total death gem income on turn 23 is +15, out of each +10 was from his capital. He didn't even bother to search any of his lands for death gems, until 7 turns ago, when he started to try to cover his trails, to avoid looking too suspicious to other players.

Together it is 2890 none death gems and 1956 death gems by turn 23, grand total 4861 gems. And this is only things visible and verifiable now from his file during this current turn.

His grand total gem income on this turn 23, is +36 in no death gems, +15 death income(including +10 from his capital). 7 turns ago, and for the first 15 turns of this game, he had ZERO none capital regular income. And he currently has 24 clams on his commanders. It is very obvious he started making them 4 turns ago (he made 6 this turn). You can guess why .


In all his "explanations" above, Norfleet lied through the roof.

Norfleet has paid for 26 castles (450 GP each, 23 labs, 23 temples, total 20900 GP worth of buildings by turn 23.) His average monthly income for this game was 200 GP per turn.


Few more points, although they are completely unnecessary of course. He does have 19(!) Dwarven Hammers though, on turn 23. He also have at least 200 more earth gems worth of empowering Earth and , total 600+ Earth gems alone. His grand total earth income for the duration of the game is 18 Earth gems [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] (he currently has +5 Earth income, and had zero 7 turns ago)

His grand total gem income for the duration of the game, from all magic sites was 346 gems. Of this he only "officially" had 126 none death income, grand total That leaves 2890 - 126 = 2764 None death gems totally unexplained. His 24 clams, even if he had them all on turn 1, could only produce 528 astral gems. He had no other item or creature related sources of gems.

He also has no sites that give any type of bonus, for forging or for magic schools.



Norfleet said he used fetishes to fund his Castle/building construction, worth 20900 gold.
He has ZERO fetishes.

Norfleet said he got his Death gems by using his Raven Feasts with his A4 Sorceresses.
He has ZERO Sorceresses, A4 or any other types.

I can go on and on for a long time, but that's enough.

You now has the numbers now.


At this moment, turn 23, Ermor has *at least* 4515 gems completely unaccounted for. (4861-346). That's 205 "extra" gems per turn, for first 22 turn.

I am not even talking of 900 "bonus" gold per turn, for 22 turns.

He has only ONE mage capable of casting Raven Feasts.
Most of these "bonus" gems are NOT death gems. He has practically no gem income, very few clams, zero fetishes, zero blood stone gems, zero bonus sites.


All I can say we are very lucky that we have discovered this thing so early, on turn 23. In 40 more turns it would be almost impossible to proof, and most of you would say " Oh yeah, that's just Stormbinder accursing Norfleet of cheating once again", “Oh well, that’s just a sore loser syndrom” Just like Cainehill already managed to do even on this thread…



Also we are very lucky that this time Norfleet was forced to play with graphs, which he always said he hates (surprise!) , that he forgot that we have master password and that he didn't expect the game to be finished so early. I also what to thank Archaeolept for giving me idea about master password, after Norfleet refused to show us his file, to Cohen for sharing master password with us and contacting Mose, to Mose for all he have done to help us expose this ugly cheating, to Illwinter to taking the matter very seriously and posting the results here and to Zen for allowing to keep this thread on the board despite his initial suspicions.


I have promised I'll keep it to pure numbers. Now you have all numbers I can give to you. You do the thinking.


With best regards,
Stormbinder

[Norfleet]

Suppose I was able to alter my .2h file so that my indy commander (say) had the order "Forge Ring of Wizardry". It would be hard or impossible for the server to calculate whether I had actually spent gems in the process, and it probably doesn't check to see if the commander had astral level 5 either, as it trusts the Dominions client to check that sort of thing. Comments?

It would definitely check if you spent the gems in the process, since gem-spending counts are a part of the cheat detection as of 2.12. I can't imagine how you would manage to do this, however, because the files are encrypted and checksummed, nor what purpose it would serve, since the alarm would be sounded. At the moment, the alarm is actually rather overzealous.

[Norfleet]

What I would like to hear are the answers to several specific questions regarding Ermor nation in that game, which is controlled by Norfleet. These are not questions that originate only from me, because each of the other 4 players who are in this game, and who have been cooperating against Ermor all along, would like to know the answers to them as well.

In just this single battle, the Ermor have used 470 gems worth of equipment and summons

You exaggerate: Let me run the breakdown for you.

3 Wraith Consuls: 35D apiece x 3 = 105D
2 Bane Lords: 10D apiece x 2 = 20D
5 Wraith Swords: 7D apiece x 5 = 35D
3 Dusk Elders: 20D apiece x 3 = 60D
3 Banners: 15D apiece x 3 = 45D

Total: 320 D

4 Starshines(one Banelord is hatless due to lack of funding): 7S * 4 = 28S
5 AMA and 5 Pendants: 6S * 5 = 30S OR 10S * 5 = 50S
(real cost somewhere in between - item is cheap, astral abundant, lack of hammers, not always hammerforged)

Total: 58 to 78 S

Jade Armor: (3E + 3W) * 5 = 15E + 15W OR (5E + 5W) * 5 = 25E + 25W
Wing Shoes: 3A * 5 OR 5A * 5 = 15 to 25 A

Total: 15-25E, 15-25W, 15-25A

Total: 423-473 Gems

As you can see, it hits 470 gems only by the pessimistic outcome. Death gems represent the bulk of the expense, and that's the real issue to focus on, as the other gems represent chump change, and the second largest expenditure, unsurprisingly, is astral. Gee, where do you think THAT comes from?

Now, according to the graphs, my current gem income until tha Last turn was about 50+% of Ermor's. As those of us familiar with mathematics may remember from college years , the total gem income for each nation in the game is equal to the area under the Gems Income Graphs. ( in other words it is integral of the graph function).

You are ignoring the following:

1. Explicit gem income represents the minority of my gem income: I tend to dislike reliance on explicit income due to the fact that it reveals one's hand in a scoregraphed game. Therefore, I deliberately conceal income through the use of the tactic you so despise, clamming, and fetishing.

2. Luck bonus: Ermor is Turmoil and Luck. I am hit with 2-3 randoms a turn, every turn, the entire game. Having half of your (zero) population die in a "get free death gems" event is pretty cool. Finding fistloads of gems is sweet, especially when they start the clamforge. $1500 free = 3 free castles.

3. Geography: I started in the east-central flatlands of Karan. Many plains. Good population, at least a dozen 10K+ provinces to burninate.

4. Raven Feast: My second research target pursued alongside construction was Conjuration. An average feasting yields 40D, and I'm creating both corpses to feast, and revenue, through burninating the countryside.

5. Natural income: My average income has fluctuated between $200-350 a turn. This represents a castle or temple every turn or two, as I do not pay noticeable upkeep nor recruit.

6. Alchemy: Surprisingly, luck has been with me this game. I have not had to alchemize many gems.

The graphs in our game are very clear. If we take the total amount of gems collected by our two nations than it is very clear that I have collected about 60% of total Ermor's gems for the duration of the game (I am only talking about regular gem income from the sites, since nothing else is reflected in the gem graphs). Add to this the fact that Arco, Pythium and Jotunheim have been sending *all* their gems to me, since I was spearheading and coordinating our anti-Ermor efforts, than I had in my possession about 70% of the gems that Ermor had.

If they sent you everything, they are very clueless. Furthermore, being newbies, they are not really familiar with gem generators, and they have not searched much. The contributions they send you are negligible. Their military efforts have been similarly humorous, as they've lost entire armies to construction teams and fly-by shootings. I have mostly ignored them.

Now keep in mind, it is just turn 22, standard MP magic 50 frequency. But the thing is, my nation could not afford half of the 470 gems used By Ermor for summons and equipments that they used in just this single battle

This single battle. Not just any ordinary battle, but the Big One. I committed everything I had on the tap at the time. That was the entire elite guard.

Some of these additional gems could have come from random events (Ermor is playing Luck 2 turmoil 3, so he would quite a few events). Some of these gems could have come from Raven Feasts, which Ermor could used on some of his high population provinces while he was actively murdering the population. And finally some could come from Clams, since we all know that Norfleet loves to clam hoard. However clamhoarding is not easy to do for the Soul Gate Ermor, since they don't have any water or even astral income, and lack any water 2 mages.

You're forgetting that I wrote the BOOK on Ermorian Clam Hoarding. Alas, it was rejected by the publisher, so it's not available for public consumption. But who was it who brought the clam-hoarding matter to prominence on the chat? What was I playing at the time? That's what I thought.

That was several months ago. The undead never rest. Do you think I haven't refined my crude newbie methods of yore in the course of SEVERAL MONTHS? This inquisition is absurd. Can't you just accept your loss?

[Zapmeister]

As you can see, it hits 470 gems only by the pessimistic outcome.

You should probably add in the cost of the hammers (plural since I don't think one hammer would have supported that many discounted items).

[Norfleet]

Yes, but the hammer cost is unimportant to the accounting of what was used at the battle. Vanheim should have hammers also.

[Zapmeister]

Yes, but the hammer cost is unimportant to the accounting of what was used at the battle.

No, Stormbinder was calculating how many gems you must have spent to put that battle together, and that cost includes the cost of the hammers.

[Norfleet]

However, the hammers were not brought to the battle. They are also used for other purposes, and are only borrowed to forge armaments. If you want to confuse the matter some more, at least one of those items was stolen from an indy, and another one was an inheritance from a recently deceased prince. I can't remember which one was which, though, but they weren't very expensive items anyway.

[Stormbinder]

First, thanks to everybody for keeping this thread polite. The purpose of it is purely informative, and I don't want to see any flames anywhere around it. So please keep strictly to the numbers and informative discussions.

Now let's talk about some numbers:

Norfleet wrote:


You exaggerate: Let me run the breakdown for you.
...

Total: 423-473 Gems

No, I do not exaggerate. I said that " 470 gems is the total cost of summons and items without using the Dwarven Hammer ", and I have said that "using the hammers on some items will lower the total cost, by not by too much".
Your numbers show that this is correct. Based upon your description on what you have used your hammers upon, the total cost of gems and summons used by your empire would be about 440 gems total. Thank you for confirming it.

As you can see, it hits 470 gems only by the pessimistic outcome. Death gems represent the bulk of the expense, and that's the real issue to focus on, as the other gems represent chump change, and the second largest expenditure, unsurprisingly, is astral. Gee, where do you think THAT comes from?

Honestly I don't know. That's why I am asking you. But it is clear that you are hinting to massive use of Clams. I have no doubt that you have some clams at this point. However it is clear that it could not be easy for you to clamhoard as Soul Gate Ermor.

First - your only stable water income or astral income in this game (exculding astral income from clams later on) did not come until 7 turns ago, because you didn't search for *any* sites until 7 turns ago, for the first 15 turns of this game. The graphs show it very clear.

Second - the only mage capable of clamhoarding that you had in the begining was your own pretender. And I am sure your GK pretender with 6 schools of magic at level 4-5 would have better thing to do than to forge clams every turn.

Based upon reports of your neigbors scouts, as wel as my own scouts, your GK spend most of his time conquering indep provinces, as should be expected.


You only other realistic option to make clams would be to wait until your reach Con6 and than make water braclet for those Dusk Elders who have water 1 as their single random pick. Going to the extremes like forging Water Robe(20 water gems, 15 with Hammer) or empowering your Dusk elder to water 2 (30 water gems) would not be economicaly feasable by turn 22.

This, and the fact that you had zero astral or water income from the sites (just because you didn't search for any sites until 7 turns ago), means that you could not possibly produce a lot of clams by now, and therefore could not have a lot of astral income from them yet.

Do you agree with these observations?

Now, according to the graphs, my current gem income until tha Last turn was about 50+% of Ermor's. As those of us familiar with mathematics may remember from college years , the total gem income for each nation in the game is equal to the area under the Gems Income Graphs. ( in other words it is integral of the graph function).

You are ignoring the following:

1. Explicit gem income represents the minority of my gem income: I tend to dislike reliance on explicit income due to the fact that it reveals one's hand in a scoregraphed game. Therefore, I deliberately conceal income through the use of the tactic you so despise, clamming, and fetishing.

Norfleet, it has nothing to do with me. I am just interested in some specific in-game questions, that's all.

You mentioned Claming and Fetishing. Do you mean that by now, the current turn 23, you have a lot of both Clams and Fetishes? If so, that please give us some numbers, since otherwise these are just general statements that doesn't tell much.

And don't worry, I am not asking you to count each and every clam and fetish in the game (although you are most likey to keep them in just one or two places, since there is no point of spreading them around, at least at this stage of the game). Instead all you need to do is to do a "pool" command on Fire and Astral, that just distract two numbers from each other. Very simple, isn't it? If you already did "pooling" in this turn and pooled all your gems in your treasury - it is not a problem either. You can use "unmake changes made this turn" command (that you can just use "quit without saving" so your original turn would be preserved) and do "pool" again. Or you can just give us aproximate number.

So - how many Clams and how many Fetishes do you have in your Empire by now, turn 23? Aproximate number is ok, if you can't calculate the exact number.

2. Luck bonus: Ermor is Turmoil and Luck. I am hit with 2-3 randoms a turn, every turn, the entire game. Having half of your (zero) population die in a "get free death gems" event is pretty cool. Finding fistloads of gems is sweet, especially when they start the clamforge. $1500 free = 3 free castles. ).

How many 1500$ events did you have in this game? And are you saying that all money to fund your 20 or more castles (450GP each), with the aproximately the same amount of temples and laboratories (200+200 GP each), came from the random events?

Also do I understand you correctly, that you are saying that you didn't use alchemy to fund these constructions? I though you have said yesterday that:
"When I alchemized to fund the construction of my buildings, I mostly used firegems from my fetishes". Is it correct?

I am just trying to make sure that I understand you correctly.

4. Raven Feast: My second research target pursued alongside construction was Conjuration. An average feasting yields 40D, and I'm creating both corpses to feast, and revenue, through burninating the countryside.

Puting "average 40 Death gems yield" claim aside - how many Air 4 Casters capable of casting Raven Feast spell do you have? Air 4 is very hard to get for Soul Gate Ermor early on in the game. Or are you using your pretender to cast these Raven Feasts?

Also how many Raven Faests total have you casted by now? Again, you may give aprox. number if you have to.

5. Natural income: My average income has fluctuated between $200-350 a turn. This represents a castle or temple every turn or two, as I do not pay noticeable upkeep nor recruit.

The information about your income is correct. Although you average money income per turn for the duration of the game (your total money income devided by the number of the turns) is in 200-250GP range, as it can be clearly seen from the graphs.


So please tell how many castles you have by now, turn 23? And I assume you have both temples and labs in almost all of your castles, correct? Again, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I am just trying to make sure that I understand your explanations correctly.

The graphs in our game are very clear. If we take the total amount of gems collected by our two nations than it is very clear that I have collected about 60% of total Ermor's gems for the duration of the game (I am only talking about regular gem income from the sites, since nothing else is reflected in the gem graphs). Add to this the fact that Arco, Pythium and Jotunheim have been sending *all* their gems to me, since I was spearheading and coordinating our anti-Ermor efforts, than I had in my possession about 70% of the gems that Ermor had.

If they sent you everything, they are very clueless. Furthermore, being newbies, they are not really familiar with gem generators, and they have not searched much. The contributions they send you are negligible. Their military efforts have been similarly humorous, as they've lost entire armies to construction teams and fly-by shootings. I have mostly ignored them.

This is correct Norfleet. In fact it was the first MP game for all of them except Cohen. The gem income that they have been sending me was mostly from their capitals. I've choosed to spend a huge ammount of time explaining a lot of things about Dom2 to them in emails ang guiding them, instead of "crushing them under my feet", as you said you would did in my place, and they all are very grateful.

Nevertheless, they all (except Abysia, which was controlled by Cohen who knows how to search) have been sending me all their gems for the durations of the game. That's why, as I said earlier, without their contributions my total gem income from the magic sites was about 60% of yours, and with their 3 nations sending me all their gems it was about 70% of yours.

Speaking of which - please tell me what is your current regular gem income from the magic sites, without clams/fetishes?

And how much of this is Death gems income?

Now keep in mind, it is just turn 22, standard MP magic 50 frequency. But the thing is, my nation could not afford half of the 470 gems used By Ermor for summons and equipments that they used in just this single battle

This single battle. Not just any ordinary battle, but the Big One. I committed everything I had on the tap at the time. That was the entire elite guard.

I agree, this was an important battle. You have eliminted the only force who came even close of treatining you, and with wining this battle you have won the game. My congratulations.

However my point was that you have used 470 gems worth of summons and equimpent in this battle, or 440 gems asuming use of Dwarven Hammer to forge expensive parts, as you said you did.

My entire gem income from magic sites for the duration of the game, which is based upon graphs, including all gems send me by 4 other nations ) could barely cover half of these gems.


However, what is much more important, that if my guess is correct, you may have as much as 1500 gems worth of summons and equipment elsewhere in your Empire, in addition to the 440 gems you have demostrated with just 8 of your commanders, that you used in this battle.


Is this correct?

Some of these additional gems could have come from random events (Ermor is playing Luck 2 turmoil 3, so he would quite a few events). Some of these gems could have come from Raven Feasts, which Ermor could used on some of his high population provinces while he was actively murdering the population. And finally some could come from Clams, since we all know that Norfleet loves to clam hoard. However clamhoarding is not easy to do for the Soul Gate Ermor, since they don't have any water or even astral income, and lack any water 2 mages.

You're forgetting that I wrote the BOOK on Ermorian Clam Hoarding. Alas, it was rejected by the publisher, so it's not available for public consumption. But who was it who brought the clam-hoarding matter to prominence on the chat? What was I playing at the time? That's what I thought.

That was several months ago. The undead never rest. Do you think I haven't refined my crude newbie methods of yore in the course of SEVERAL MONTHS?

Excellent. I am glad to hear it. Than I am sure you'll have no problems answering these simple, polite and specific questions that I wrote above. I am looking forward to hearing your responses.

With best regards,
Stormbinder