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

[rdonj]

Well, had calahan still been playing, he seems to have been well in favor of heading in. I don't know what blanketthief was planning, but I read the "dossier" (longer it was than gandalf's beard!) calahan passed on to him, and let's just say that there were strong hints leveraged within that an attack on ulm would be the most prudent course of action.

It seems like the fear of being the first to attack the leader in the YARG series has been a pretty constant curse... everyone knows who the leader is, but is afraid to go in first and get smacked around for their trouble. Of course, that's a pretty natural fear. But it's interesting to see how many times the same scenario plays out. It probably doesn't help that even in diplo games, there's always that one nation that thinks it's a good idea to attack the guy who's trying to bring down the leader.

[WraithLord]

The charts put Eriu a close 2nd place to Ulm. So I assumed he will attack Ulm first.
The longer Eriu didn't attack Ulm the more suspicios I became of his intentions towards me.
Talk about making your fears come true.

[Calahan]

I think it, as always, comes down to having some faith in, and knowing, your fellow players. And being able to id them well before this point in the game (which is a big part od RAND format). When I subbed in and checked the unrevealed player list I immediately saw.. (no offence mockingbird and Curious Yellow, I've played less/no games with you guys to be able to predict your actions)

WraithLord
Executor
don_pablo
TwoBits
Slobby

...were all still playing, and since I know all of these players are also multi-game vets of RAND games (besides whatever other playing skill and intelligence they possess), I had strong faith in them following suit if I initiated a leader attack. Didn't know which nations these guys were playing, but odds were high they would be playing the main remaining nations (or at least the majority of them). If those fives names were replaced with five unknowns, then it would certainly cause me some hesitation. I might well attack the leader anyway, and if someone then attacks me then that's the way it goes, and I'll just have another name to add to my idiots list after the game.

But given the names of those remaining, I doubt if any attack on Ulm in this game would have resulted in the attacker being seen as a sudden target. Wish my resolve hadn't been shaken on turn 68 now, but oh well, honestly doubt Ulm could have been stopped by that stage. Delayed probably, but not stopped. (and think it would have been a shame if Ex had not won due to being delayed and quitting with MM overload)

[WraithLord]

I wanted to attack Ulm from very early on, I even gave the attack orders twice and aborted them right before sending the turn. It all came to blind trust issues my thoughts were:
A - why is Ctis turtling? Is he waiting for the right moment to attack?
B - why doesn't Eriu attack Ulm already? Is he planing to "grab" one more nation before that?

Next time I'll jump the leader re. Of consequences as Calahan suggested

[TwoBits]

Originally Posted by 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

That cracks me up

S5 Oracle? Well, that was probably the end result of my debate as to whether to go with an awake SC or uber-scales, as a way to get decent expansion w/ Indies-9. Probably had some leftover points or something

Besides, if you're willing to blow 100S gems on Wish, what's 60 more for Empowerment?


Oh, and like others, I wanted to go against Ulm earlier, but I also was hoping someone else would go first

[Executor]

It's nice to know one inspires fear.

I had my fair share of complaining to rdonj around turn 70ish. Sorry about that rdonj btw.
Constantly asking for delays. Complaining about burnout from the massive mm.
At one point, when everyone attacked me, I lost faith. In that instant I though I couldn't possibly win the game as I started slacking off, not paying attention. Told ronj I wouldn't mind for a sub if there was such a masochist out there. But then I came to my senses and figured, hey, everyone's already attacking you, why just not go for the caps and end this? And so I did.

Anyway, I'm wondering at which point did you guys notice I was going for a quick VP grab?

[Calahan]

@ TwoBits

I would only have been wishing for gems so that I could manipulate the gem stocks. So not blowing them. But I did consider empowering in Astral though due to the reason you gave. "It's only Astral gems"

In the end though I decided to check out Const 8 first in the hope of some S-boosters still being there, and upon hitting I found the Forbidden Light hanging around to solve the problem??! (@ All, seriously what the hell was the Forb Light doing being still available?)

[Korwin]

I had Svarogia for the last two turn.
I suppose it was better than to let them stall those last two turns.

I did use one master enslaver, the other wasnt ready...
I should have teleported every S3 mage into the siege, but I dont really think it would have made an difference.
Maybe if I had concentrated all my forces on one fort.

One thing I need to say:
Holy **** that was an impressive ~18 pages introduction to the game I got.
I wanted to redo my first turn, after reading it, but was to slow/lazy.

Second turn I saw two VP provinces sieged and breached (did I miss that the first turn? Am I that clueless?).
Short participation...

[Valerius]

Interesting post-game analysis all around. One more question: what kind of usage did tarts get (particularly applies to the nation[s] that had the chalice/GoH)?


@rdonj: I'll have to look at the current Itza and see if I still have the OMFG reaction I first did (I refer to it as my Hinnom reaction ). But you bring up an interesting point with Pythium - maybe it's not so much that mod nations tend to be off-the-scale OP but that the average level of power is higher than the average level of power for base game nations? I also think they sometimes have too many "specials" (things like magic weapons, recuperation/healing, etc.) - these things are great because they help make nations unique but add too many of them and it gets to be too much. But I make no claim to be a mod nation expert so perhaps I'm wrong in my impressions.


Also, note to self: never have Cal sub for me. I can see the postgame commentary now:

"Supposedly Valerius is something of an idiot savant when it comes to glamour nations. I can now confirm the idiot portion of that description is accurate. Let's start with the W4 bless. This was probably taken because it will be a big help defensively when the thugs get swarmed. Or maybe because it will help the elite sacred troops Eriu doesn't have. After all, why take some S magic or even better scales when you can waste points on a useless bless? But through some fluke you may actually reach Constr. 8 first. Of course forging somewhat useful things like the chalice or gate stone will be out of the question since you've done nothing to diversify from your national magic. And even the things you can forge will have to wait a few turns since why bother forging the requisite boosters ahead of time so you're ready to go when you reach Constr. 8? Speaking of research, why have all your mages that aren't otherwise occupied actually research? Just for fun leave some of them on 'defend' orders. I've seen worse positions in my time - by newbs. Actually, many newbs play better than the incompetence on display here."

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Valerius

@rdonj: I'll have to look at the current Itza and see if I still have the OMFG reaction I first did (I refer to it as my Hinnom reaction ). But you bring up an interesting point with Pythium - maybe it's not so much that mod nations tend to be off-the-scale OP but that the average level of power is higher than the average level of power for base game nations? I also think they sometimes have too many "specials" (things like magic weapons, recuperation/healing, etc.) - these things are great because they help make nations unique but add too many of them and it gets to be too much. But I make no claim to be a mod nation expert so perhaps I'm wrong in my impressions.


Also, note to self: never have Cal sub for me. I can see the postgame commentary now:

"Supposedly Valerius is something of an idiot savant when it comes to glamour nations. I can now confirm the idiot portion of that description is accurate. Let's start with the W4 bless. This was probably taken because it will be a big help defensively when the thugs get swarmed. Or maybe because it will help the elite sacred troops Eriu doesn't have. After all, why take some S magic or even better scales when you can waste points on a useless bless? But through some fluke you may actually reach Constr. 8 first. Of course forging somewhat useful things like the chalice or gate stone will be out of the question since you've done nothing to diversify from your national magic. And even the things you can forge will have to wait a few turns since why bother forging the requisite boosters ahead of time so you're ready to go when you reach Constr. 8? Speaking of research, why have all your mages that aren't otherwise occupied actually research? Just for fun leave some of them on 'defend' orders. I've seen worse positions in my time - by newbs. Actually, many newbs play better than the incompetence on display here."

That reminds me of another thing that was removed from Itza, the magic weapons on all the recruitables that used to have them :P And from most of the sacred spawnings. Before the various nerfs to them Itza was probably the strongest non-Amos nation I've seen. Like, if pythium was a 10, Itza was probably a 12. Now it's probably more like an 8. Still strong, but actually comparable to real nations now. 8 may be overestimating them, even.

As for the power levels of mod nations in general - yes, that seems to be the predominant trend. I think there are a number of reasons this tends to be the case. Some are at least semi-conscious, others are not. For example, when experimenting with new ideas it's easy to come up with things that seem okay on first glance, but turn out to be horribly overpowered in practice. Like when sombre had the skaven commanders able to summon allies of various recruitables. Having recruit everywhere freespawn causes balance issues, but back when they actually had that ability, the community didn't realize how big of a problem they could be. Now we do :P And the skaven have become, IMO, probably the best quality mod nation we have right now. Thematic as hell, maybe even a little on the weak side, and so much fun to play. Well, for me anyway.

It can also be very hard to price things properly before seeing how the nation performs in real games with human opponents. So what usually happens is a mod nation comes out significantly stronger than intended and gets hit with the nerf stick a couple of times before it reaches a reasonable status. Mod nations just don't get as much testing as regular nations do, so it's little wonder if they're just a bit buggier. Don't let old-style Itza and stygia ruin your perception of all mods though. They're not really representative of the currently played mods.

Erm, sorry for going off on a mod-induced tangent. That wasn't a bad Calahan impersonation, but I think there's too much sarcasm. Calahan isn't so subtle... he's all about manifesting that vitriol