Acouchi - MA game for new players (full)

[Piggles]

Just submitted it.

[Saxon]

All,

You will be pleased to hear that Piggles has already managed to upset a number of my grand schemes and has jumped right into things. Looks like we have a good sub in our game!

Also, has anyone seen a little old lady wandering around in their lands? SSJ seems to have lost his pretender...

[klagrok]

Going on vaca for a week so Xanatos is gonna sub for me

[Darkstone]

Email address set up for the sub.

Edit:

Also, what happened to Ulm? He staled last turn, and looks set to stale again.

If he stales again, and doesn't show up to ask otherwise in the next 48 h, I'll have to set him to AI.

[sansanjuan]

Saxon said:
Piggles,

SSJ has a good approach to things and this has been a huge learning experience for all of us. I am not sure I agree with him that the writing is on the wall, but he is correct in pointing out that Ermor is not your friend! Saxon will be friendly, but The Unhappy One (my pretneder) will not... I don’t know what Nero has out for scouts, but generally speaking, I have the continent to the south of you and have been moving north, pushing you and Ulm before me. Over the last four or five turns, I have been focusing on Ulm for various reasons.

You can feel free to attack me as we are at war and I imagine there are a couple of provinces you will want to as clean up quickly. I had been raiding in your back areas. In all fairness, you need to know that the castle in the north which is being seiged by some hawks has an income of over 300 per turn. You might want to look at lifting the siege, which should not be a big problem given that I have no support in the area. I think it is around 15% of your total gold income.

You should also look at the use of Fog Warriors with your main armies. It is a highly effective tactic that was being used against me in pretty much every battle. Also, learn about Communions (there is a great thread on the forums you can search for) as it is a real strength of your nation.

Finally, my main armies are chaff undead (no surprise there) and I have Tartainians. I have the Chalice, so the feeble mind problem does not exist for me. That means you will face SC who teleport or fly over the front lines. I have found this tactic very different than SP and had to adjust. SSJ taught me a lot about it, the hard way…

You also need to be careful of my mind hunts. You have the astral to defend against it, but you have to pay attention.

Also, you have a decent position. I have considered your nation the most likely to win for quite some time, but was able to knock out a series of your SC harbingers and air queens which turned the tables. I was optimistic I was going to be able to take Nero out, but far from convinced.

I hope this helps. It is all things Ylvali would have known or guessed, so I am happy to share. If you have any questions or just want to chat about the game feel free to post or PM.

P,
Very nice summary from Sax. You might want to summon some scepters (with both stealth and astral) and have them travel in stealth in your big armies. They can surpise mind hunters. Learned that in my other game.


Cheers,
-SSJ

[sansanjuan]

Saxon said:
Also, has anyone seen a little old lady wandering around in their lands? SSJ seems to have lost his pretender...

Sax,

She wasn't much to look at (especially after the earth elemental played patty cake with her ).

She was designed almost purely as a late game wild card (D10 + rainbow) but I couldn't get the air/fuel mixture quite right...

-SSJ

[Saxon]

Ulm staled again, I have not heard anything.

SSJ, I found the death blessing very helpful against Karim's early rush, but only mildly useful otherwise. I had taken it to be thematic and in a rush to get the pretender in. Not sure I would go with it again. Have you found it interesting?

Also, on the stealthy astral, it is a nasty idea. Against a nation like Piggles, who have astral all over their national mages, one expects it, but against some other nation, it could make a mess of things. Of course, with the Chalice, it is not such a big deal in this game for me...

[sansanjuan]

Saxon said:
Ulm staled again, I have not heard anything.

SSJ, I found the death blessing very helpful against Karim's early rush, but only mildly useful otherwise. I had taken it to be thematic and in a rush to get the pretender in. Not sure I would go with it again. Have you found it interesting?

Also, on the stealthy astral, it is a nasty idea. Against a nation like Piggles, who have astral all over their national mages, one expects it, but against some other nation, it could make a mess of things. Of course, with the Chalice, it is not such a big deal in this game for me...

Sax,
There were tested reports in some forum thread that the death bless transferred to ritual attacks if you had the ritual caster wear a Shroud of "BS" . I have not seen that antecdotally in my rituals. With D10 carrying a 400% affliction chance I figured many cheap rituals would become devastating. Also late game undead mastery with D10 mage + a couple items would make large late game undead attacks moot (assuming you could get the spell off). I figured at that level it might even work on tarts.


-SSJ

[Darkstone]

Alright, this is the last chance for Ulm. I'm postponing the game for 12h. If he doesn't show up by then, he's AI.

*sigh* Though I do have some sympathy for Ulm since his original ally dissapeared...

I believe I am correct to assume that the general etiquette is that if you feel like you've lost the game, you don't just stale, but ask the admin to turn you AI. So whoever is beating you doesn't have a twice as easy time of it.

Edit:
SSJ: I've heard similar reports about the Death bless, and believed it verified.

As for Undead Mastery, that seems quite useless against 26 MR tarts even with max penetration gear (since the spell is MR+). I believe it's use is more against the undead hordes of Ermor... or even EA C'tis.

No, against Tarts without an undead horde, I'd probably be suggest spamming control the dead.

[Saxon]

I had heard the death bless applies on attack spells, but had not heard about it with rituals. It is hard to tell the impact in the game, as the opponent isn’t usually keen on telling you just how bad you hurt him!

As for announcing you are dropping out, I agree it would be polite to let others know. I was impressed at how meister_miagi stuck it out with R’lyeh, even when in an impossible spot.

I suspect this is a common problem, especially with new players, as the time commitment involved in a game is big. Further, one can know they are in deep trouble for a long time before actively being knocked out. At 72 hour turns, it is only 10 turns a month.