RAND Game - Fomoria Wins!

[WraithLord]

Congratulation Micah, you played very well.

As for myself, I have made a strategical mistake of attacking Yomi thinking it will be an easy pick, instead of Joining the attack on you. I think my help could have made a difference, but you took the VPs too rapidly and I was too late for that to happen.

Very good, action packed game, thank you Pasha for hosting.

[quantum_mechani]

Congrats Micah, it was a pretty wild and fun game for me, though I must admit I'm not overly disappointed it's over.

I have to say I was somewhat surprised who ended up being which nations, the only one I guessed right was Jurri. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear from other player about how the game looked from other perspectives, and what other people's player guesses were. I was feeling a bit bored and decided to write a slightly dramatized account of the game from the Abysian perspective.


Episode I, The Lizard Menace

The trials of the Abysians were more or less determined from the very start, with both the Vanir and C'tissians having capitals within two provinces of the great volcano. It was around halfway through the first year of the ascension war the first blood was drawn, the C'tissians invaded and the relatively small Abysian army was forced to withdraw to the capital while proper evocations were researched. After a number of turns of raiding and preperation for the attack C'tissians finally risked the attack on the capital the Abysians were hoping for. By then the Abysian god, the Prince of the Wastes, had awakened, evocations were ready, and events had raised the province defense to near maximum levels.

Episode II, Attack of the Vans

After the ensuing massacre, the prospects of the fledgling Abysian nation swiftly dealing with C'tis and building an empire seemed bright. Unfortunately, the very next month, when the Prince of the Wastes first set foot out of the capital, a sailing Vanir army equipped with thunder strike and a blessing of death sailed out of nowhere (or rather, out of Vanhiem, which it just so happened was just a one turn hop across the lake). The Abysian army could not hope to withstand the thunder strikes by themselves, and while the Abysian god could laugh in the face of lightning, the wicked weapons of death wielded by the sacred troops were another matter. But at least the cave castle was in no danger of a breach in the near future, and the mages prepared in safety, while a wrathful god stuck outside the walls could do nothing but wander about raiding and killing the lizard armies that littered the countryside (the lay of land was such capital besiegers blocked the only route to the lands of Vanir). The wandering god was more successful than the Abyssians could have hoped, and once mercenaries were hired, they soon began running out of suitable C'tis provinces to raid.

Chapter III, Revenge of the Abysians

It should note here that back during the C'tis war the demons of Yomi had made an abortive attempt to take advantage of the situation and procure a Abysian territory adjoining the capital. Unfortunately for them, a hunch on the part of Abysian leadership preempted the attack, and it was defeated the very turn of the suprise invasion. At the time there was little in the form of reprisal that could be considered, and it was simply considered fortunate no further aggressive actions emerged. Now though, Abysia had a rampaging and exiled God with little to loose, and sparsely defended Yomi border to the south.

Episode IV, A New Hope

So the Lord of the Wastes and his mercenaries turned south, with still greater successes, taking perhaps a half a dozen provinces without meeting significant resistance. During this time the mages in the capital had the satisfaction of watching several armies of C'tis (no doubt convinced the Vanir had stolen their prize) virtually suicide themselves against the Vanir's thunder strikes. The Vanir had meanwhile breached the walls of the capital some time ago, but for some reason timidly held off. This was agreeable to the Abysians, in the meantime the mages had summoned a host of summer lions and researched falling fires. When shortly after Van finally decided to storm, the battle swung miraculously in the Abysian's favor, with summer lions drawing all the thunder strikes, and evocations whittling away the troops. In the end, not a single Abysian mage was lost in the battle and the capital was once again free.

Shortly after, the remaining Van provinces around the capital were tentatively mopped up, while meanwhile the Lord of the Wastes an his mercenaries pushed ever farther south. This was the brief golden age of the Abysian empire, the threat of a new Van army making another grab at the capital was ever present, but prospects were one again hopeful.

Episode V, The Oni Strike Back

Inevitably, the Dai Oni started trickling in from wherever they had been occupied at the start of the war. At first in small numbers the Abysian god was more than a match for them, but as the number and level of equipment increased he was often forced to retreat (though over the course of the war, his eye shield blinded more Dai Oni than could be easily counted). In any case, the Lord of the Wastes could only be in one place at a time, and the war's front was slowly pushed back. The bright spot for the Abysians was that scouts reported that both the Vanir and C'tissians had plenty of problems and were themselves in danger of being overrun. In an effort to deliver a decisive blow, the Abysian god finally prepared with new weapons dared a direct trapeze on top of a group of Dai Oni atteptting to sneak around him to the capital. Unfortunately this proved to be his last foray, and he was overcome. A new siege of the capital started shortly.

Episode VI, Return of the Pretender.

With the number of priest-mages at the capital, the pretender's return was swift, but the loss of magic and equipment was great a blow. When the Oni breached the walls (much faster than the Vanir had done), the number of Dai Oni outside greatly outnumbered the party that had killed him the first time. Abysia did, however, have one new secret weapon. Early in the war, one of the first provinces captured contained a magus temple, a quite lucky find considering how meager the resources available for site searching in the Abysian homeland were. As the war went on, the temple changed hands several times, but in the turmoil about a half dozen magus were produced, and all made it safely back to the capital as the Oni advanced. With a few gems set aside for eyes of the void and spell foci, a communion was set up, with magus the very few warlocks at the capital. Soul slay was researched just in time for this desperate Dai Oni countermeasure to be up and running on the day of the storm. The communion proved quite pivotal to the battle, and though several mages and summer lions were killed, this siege too was defeated. At first there were worries of a new attempt on the capital, after all more than half the Dai Oni had escaped with their lives. It soon became apparent however that Yomi too now was facing another aggressor, as troops of T'ien Ch'i appeared on the Yomi border.

Epilogue

By this time the Abysian people had come to be quite cynical about the concept of peace, and their expectations were not disappointed. Scant turns after the Yomi defeat, the greatest army yet to find the walls of Abysia materialized with no warning. The skirmish outside the walls showed a frightening force, one with numerous SCs, every flavor of support magic, and most terrifying of all to the lava born, fir resistance. The towering giants were well prepared and inexorable, they breached the walls the very turn they appeared.

The walls of Abysia were known the be the bane of many an army, but with virtually all of the troops dead from patrolling on the turn of the attack, any hope of victory seemed beyond a miracle. So, reluctantly, the escape tunnels were prepared (a titan needs a rather large one) and pretender and mages alike retreated once more into exile. In the months after the escape, the strange one eyed invaders showed little interest in the surrounding countryside, and the exiled Abysians gathered around the occupied capital and plotted their return...

[DonCorazon]

Excellent tale, QM. I was C'tis in this, one of my first games (MP or SP). I had no idea what to do with C'tis but learned some valuable lessons. I plagued Abysia for a short time, but after getting whacked, especially seeing the power of Van, the C'tissian troops became quite despondent, and it was over before it began for the lizard folk. I was happy to enjoy a bit of rampaging and not to be the first one out, though most of my game was really just a prolonged death.

Congrats to all.

[Meglobob]

Well done Micah on your win.

Sorry I had to drop out when I did as Sauro, thanks Shmonk for taking over. I had hoped to keep playing this one game but real life would not let me.

I do not think it would have made any difference to Fomoria/Micah winning.

I guessed Cainehill was playing Caelum and Micah was playing Fomoria by about turn 30'ish.

I thought Jurri was playing Oceania (wrong), Amhazair was playing Ulm (wrong) and did not have a clue about other nations/players.

I spent most of the game being scared of Ulm early on and later Fomoria, largely because I had never played Sauro before in SP or MP and I only had a 'standard' strategy for them. The poison archers are great for early game expansion thou. I did get all 3 air queens, 2 earth kings and the daughter of typhoon (disappointed it was not a commander) which was cool. I had a very, very lucky starting position. I was very unlucky with astral gems, arcane probed 60 provinces and got less then 10S income and I only discovered one special site giving me illusionists.

Well done to Fomoria for overriding my well of misery the turn after I cast it!

[Micah]

What gave me away Meglo? Just curious what you picked up on from my play style. I noticed your excellent start as well, was hard-pressed to keep up with you.

Would have done some more damage to you if I hadn't had to take out Ulm, even though having to project power all the way to the other side of the map with you in between was really difficult (luckily Fomoria's crazy teleporting powers could handle it with enough gems to fuel the machine).

How many gems went into your well? I tossed all 211 (IIRC) into mine, figuring it'd be a sure bet as an overwrite...Figured I'd be fighting more with you at the time as well, so the huge gem swing was worth losing out on short-term stocks for...I actually ended up alching death gems at the end of the game for pearls and air gems for my cap-taking teleport squads, I felt sooo dirty doing that to death gems =)

[PashaDawg]

I have a backups of all turns. So, if anyone wants to review any turns, etc., just let me know. The master password would allow you to look at other player turns. (I will delete the files in a week or so.)

Pasha

[calmon]

Congratulation Micah, well played!

Oceania wasn't the nation of my choice and i start the game with a big pretender design mistake. Choosing an awe wyrm without any magic and good scales was definitivly wrong!

The wyrm helps a little for early expansion but the good scales were wasted and the missing magic cost me a lot of gems for empowering.

I had a order/growth 3 but was hit by the old scale bug at the start of the game and later by the newer scale bug. I ended up with only 34.250 population in my home province by turn 51. I never got a pop losing event and thats a real shame for growth 3!
In addition my good dom 10 is also not as good for water nations because water provinces tend to have a lot of neighbours which let the own scale spread in a very poor manner (and have to fight a lot of enemy dominions).

The lack of good magic paths like death, astral and the non-magic pretender hurts me a lot. I build up some clams and had a lot of fetishes but ended up to use my astral/fire gems mostly to empower mages or converting in other gems.

Also water nations aren't a fan of this map. There are only "sea" provinces and not one "deep sea". I "voice of tiamat" very early but found nothing great in quality and quantity. And for my taste there were to many land nations home provinces on (or near) the coasts

I was sure Ulm was played by Jurri but was really unsure for the rest.

The game was fun to me. I like the victory conditions and the non-diplomacy part. I'm undecided about the random nations, maybe secret bets are possible or at least some nation exclusions.

However, i would really appreciate a successor!

[WraithLord]

I would also appreciate a successor but hopefully one that will start after May ('cause I'm on vacation late April through May).

Also, I would like to review the game turns for fun and maybe also for learning something more. So, Pasha, can you please send me the files?

I'll take QMs example and give a short perspective of the game from TC standpoint.

Lately I've started to take a liking to good scales pretender on order,growth and luck and bad scales on production and research. So I chose an imprisoned rainbow+scales master lich.

The research decision really hurt me as I was far behind and this translated to limited tactical and strategical options and I think is one of the reasons it took me so long to bring down Yomi (though not completely by game end).

The game started for me with easy indie expansion then grabbing some of Agartha and later killing Van. Then I started to look for next target and here came my biggest mistake, I've decided based on my scouts and the score graphs that Yomi will be an easy target that I can capture and only then move against Fomoria hoping that the other nations will restrain Fomoria.

When I realized that I should put my energy against Fomoria I was already locked in bitter war with Yomi and though ever so slowly he had succumbed, he was giving a hell of a fight , valiant and crafty, costing me great resources.

[Amhazair]

Nicely done Micah. I managed to only own one scout province during the entire game, so I saw a lot less of the action than I usually do, but what I saw (and I managed to catch a few big battles) certainly looked frightening.

I was unfamiliar with Yomi, and I worried about the early expansion before the game, but after much doubting, in this no-trade game I decided not to forego the magic diversity of a rainbow pretender. In the end expansion went moderately okay, though not stellar, and my early war with Agartha went okay too, though again not stellar, and T'ien Chi managed to swoop in and claim the VP from under my nose.

With Dai Oni and a rainbow pretender at my disposal I had allways felt confident I had all the tools I needed for a strong end game (and I still do), but somewhere along the way I forgot about the midgame, and before I realised it I had run incredibly behind in my research and I never managed to recover from it.

Then Abysia decided to be a royal pain in the *** (that'll teach me to try and take advantage of a wounded oponent without having the intention of following through with it) and T'ien Chi's invasion meant that once more I wouldn't be able to finish them off. (2 of the blinded mages later did manage to end up in the hall of fame though, thanks to rain of stones. That was fun. In fact this was the first time ever I had the opportunity to use this spell, and it worked even better than I expected. Several hundred troops and a couple dozen mages can no longer testify to that)

Finally T'ien Chi defeated me comprehensively. I wasn't afraid of the individual armies he sent at me, but he outguessed me and I didn't manage to catch them in the beginning, was totally and utterly outraided and my lands just melted away around me.

Lessons learned:
* Don't mess with someone unless you intend to make sure he never recovers.
* Do not forget to monitor your research closely, even for a little while. Before you know it it's too late to recover.
* Raiding, raiding, raiding! I knew this already obviously, but Wraithlord forcefully reminded me of it, and took it to a whole new level.
* Dai Oni's rock! Once you get some research going they're amazingly versatile.
* Some people's reputations seem justified. Somehow, without ever playing with them, I guessed Jurri to be Ulm, and Micah to be Fomoria.
* Meglobob still thinks I'm awesome.
* I still have a lot to learn before I'm as awesome as he thinks I am.
* RAND games are fun, playing games whit the top-notch oposition I encountered is fun, Pasha is a great host, and this was a great game. Thanks to everyone involved.

Edit: this

he was giving a hell of a fight , valiant and crafty, costing me great resources.

is obviously good to hear. Though my hope of defeating you vanished quickly, I definitely had great fun trying to make things as painful as possible for you.

[WraithLord]

How was everyone able to tell Jurri was playing Ulm and Micah playing Fomoria???

I was utterly wrong on the guessing department. I thought Jurri was playing Yomi (wrong), Amhazhair playing Oceania (wrong), Calmon playing Sauromatia (wrong).

I was only right on Micah playing Fomoria, b/c I guessed a player with so many victories must have a very aggressive style.

Anyway, again, this was a fun game and I'm looking forward to RAND2.