MP: YARG3, non newb MA+ENP2 RAND game. Executor's Ulm winner on turn 76

[TwoBits]

It's over? Well done, Executor!

Yeah, I was Svagoria. And Calahan's comments, while typically acerbic , were fairly spot on - I didn't really know what the hell I was doing.

This was actually the first mod nation I've ever played in MP, and definitely the first look I'd ever had at Svagoria. So yeah, as the game progressed, I really had no idea which direction I should be heading in.

Oh, and I did not know that Svagoria's free-spawn had an Upkeep cost! Damn, would have been nice to figure that out earlier in the game...

Add to that, I was in the midst of some severe Dominions burnout. That's why I had Rdonj find a sub, because I knew someone could do better with Svagoria than my half-assed, partially on autopilot leadership. So I'm not surprised that under Calahan's superior leadership, Svagoria was able to mount a surge.

Oh, as far as war decision making, I too was hoping folks would go for Ulm sooner. I was really disappointing when I saw Van and Eriu go at it, and I thought the only chance would be for Eriu to get put down quickly (seeming the weaker of the two), so the survivors could face Ulm before it was too late, so I jumped in against Eriu as well.

Eriu proved a tough nut to crack though, and my flailing around with crap like mounted archers with Flaming Arrows vs. Storm/Arrow Fend did not help

Oh well, not sure what could have been done against Ulm even with a quick victory over Eriu and a fully engaged C'tis. But I'm glad Svagoria and Van as least gave Executor a little run for his money

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Curious Yellow

Re: Wraithlord.

I had to really go back and look at the turns, because it happened half a year ago and I couldn't remember exactly how our war started except being sure that you started it.

At turn 43, I was fighting C'tis and we were both finishing off Marignon. Turn 44 you suddenly teleported in and took provinces 142 and 155. Granted none of them belonged to me at the time (they were Marignon's), but suddenly you took two provinces that pretty clearly were going to fall to me as spoils of war, and the two provinces didn't even connect to the rest of your empire! I felt I couldn't really let that stand, but didn't want to go to proper war with you. So on turn 45 I attacked just those two provinces to take them back and hoped it sent a message that you couldn't just snipe provinces from my back yard like that. Apparently you took it as a declaration of war, but in my mind it was just a natural response to your actions.

As for why I failed to attack Ulm - I wasn't really positioned to do so. Thing is that Pangea wasn't dead and my grasp of the Eastern part of my lands was really tenuous. I had no forts there and didn't think I could hold Ulm/Ashdod back if they attacked me. On the other hand I was bordering C'tis who had three capitals and I thought I had a decent chance of taking him down. So to me he was a natural target - and I was really hoping you and Svarogia would team up and go against Ulm.

ok. now I understand. yes I took two provinces that would have likely fallen to you. I remember at the time being uncertain of your plans re. me. Specifically I was afraid that if I'll attack Ulm you'd join up against me. So this raid was also sort of a test - if he lets it pass then he wants peace (more accurately knows that a war between us would be a disaster).
Regardless of this, in non diplo games if I get attacked then it's war. Plain and simple. Did it not occur to you that this will be the end result?

[WraithLord]

rdonj, many thanks for your superb administration of the game and thank you all for the game!

[Executor]

Sorry about that Twobits. That was a, rather big, mistake by me. I was misinformed but I should still have tested this out so it's only me to blaim in the end.

WL, I'm pretty sure I would have attacked you too under those conditions. Grabbing provinces doesn't look especially friendly and inspiring to me.
An example must be made!

[WraithLord]

Even at the cost of starting a war you cannot win and surely losing the game?

[Executor]

Probably. I've been known to do stuff against my better judgement.
Fairly sure I managed to effectively eliminate myself at least a couple of times out of principle and revenge.

[Calahan]

I'm with Ex as well WL. I hate province poaching as both the attacker (in most cases apart from as a rusher) and the defender (in most cases and especially as rush defender).

As the attacker (but not as a rusher, as rushing has special conditions) it means someone is basically saying to me "Oh hi there, you've done all the hard work in killing that guy, so do you mind awfully if I help myself to a few provs by joining the war at the 11th hour and denying you of some spoils?". That's like an action movie where the Cavalry arrives just as all the fighting ends and the movie is fading out to the closing credits. With in this case the Cavalry expecting to take a share of the glory.


So if I was in clean-up mode in a RAND game, and someone suddenly poached a few provinces, especially if they were well out of their zone, then I'd likely react with potential hostilitiy as well, and do exactly as CY did. Capture the poached provinces /only/ and see if the poacher wanted to make anything of it. As if I wanted to start a war, and had the capability to launch a huge first strike, then /only/ going for the poached provinces should send a pretty clear message of my intentions IMO. As if I had really wanted a war then I certainly wouldn't have started it in such an underwhelming fashion, and for that reason my actions should be fairly clear in that I was only (re)claiming provinces that I felt I had a very strong right to, or very strong need for (eg. empire split in half without them. Or precious resource, such as Astral mage for non-Astral nation)

If the poaching was just of some stray provs well inside the poachers borders, meaning it was just a border straightening excercise, then I might turn a blinder eye. But otherwise no. Far too many players are opportunists when it comes to pinching others prey, and innocently think there's no harm in grabbing a tiny slice of the pie for themselves. Never the case in my experience.


And as defender I hate it even more, especially in rushes. In two RAND games I was fending off a powerful nation when poachers turned up to make my life harder (impossible) by squeezing my income and cutting off my counter attack options, which did nothing except make the attackers life easier. The theory is that you're depriving the rusher of extra provinces should they win, but I'm fully convinced now, after being the unsuccessful rush defender twice, that this is just BS.

As the rusher is likely happy to have a few less provs to reduce the effect of the leaders tag his rush will have, and so reduce the chance of a ganging. (I know I've been happy to see poachers when I've rushed). Plus as the rusher a few less provs means less time needed to clean-up and move-on, and less provs for the defender means less resistance and so easier to take down. And whenever I see this happen, a few less provs from the rusher has never once weakened the rusher, as if they've had the capability to rush someone, then when they want more provinces they simply declare war on their next target and take them. They couldn't care less if their rush netted them only 10 of the original 12 provs their target had. The capital is all a rusher really cares about, and making sure they take it asap so that they don't get bogged down in a prolonged first war. And often the rushers next target is the poacher themselves who conveniently moved their borders closer to the rushers force sitting in the newly aquired capital, and doing so allows them to reclaim the poached provicnes as well. Two birds with one stone, how convenient

Too much poaching gets done as an automatic responce to seeing a neighbour going down. Once again showing Dom players are generally poor at making strategic decisions, and often act well in advance of doing any actual thinking (RTS syndrome perhaps). The only thinking they tend to do is after the game in hindsight "yeah looking back now I shouldn't have done that obviously stupid thing. I really should have thought more about it at the time, but I just thought what the heck".

[Curious Yellow]

WraithLord, I think this highlights the difficulty of communication in a no-diplomacy game and trying to get your actions to speak for you.

In your world, this happened:
Turn 44: Vanheim: "Hey Eriu, do you want to go to war with me?"
Turn 45: Eriu: "Yep"
Turn 46+: Vanheim: "Then war you shall have!"

In my world, this happened:
Turn 44: Vanheim: "Hey Eriu, can I grab these two provinces that rightfully belong to you?"
Turn 45: Eriu: "Nope"
Turn 46+: Vanheim: "This means war! Blood and sulphur will rain from the sky! I will shove storm demons so far up your posterior that you will be sneezing lightning bolts! You will rue this day, rue it I say!"

[Calahan]

@ Twobits.

Lol, at one point I was getting so frustrated with the position that I started to convince myself that the original player had some clairvoyancey skills and knew that I would be taking over for them at some point, and so initiated a cunning plan to get back at me for something With my fixation in particular being on the S5 Oracle.

As the only reason I could see for S5 was to piss me off with being so close to being a gem Wish caster, and yet so far without being able to get my hands on those precious artefact boosters. And the only Level 9 hit was Alt, to further dangle the S5 non-Wish capable Oracle in my face! If S6+ then perfect, S4- and I wouldn't care. But S5, S-fecking-5!!!

I felt like a donkey chasing a S9 carrot

[WraithLord]

Ok. There's a lesson I learned the hard way. I'll make sure no to make the same mistake again.
Basically I misjudged CY's reaction and over-reacted to it.

Now, to some fun guessing game. What would have happened had me and Eriu hadn't gone to war?

Who would've attacked Ulm first?

I know I was afraid to do so b/c I didn't know whether the others would join me or attack me instead.