Acouchi - MA game for new players (full)

[Darkstone]

Alright,.. setting Ulm to AI.

I suppose the only way to do that is to set the Ulm email to my own, resend the turn, and then set him as AI, and then send that turn? A bit inconvenient.

[Piggles]

Lol, now I know what happens when a routing SC that won't die and has pathetic damage output is surrounded by 500 undead, and the only way out is through a tartarian. Answer: the tartarian slowly gets worn down to a nub, routs, and is followed by the entire Ermorian army. Unfortunately, the person who routs first still loses.

And I'm saddened to report that "Piggles' Revenge" froze to death while happening to be in the path of 50 retreating wights. He was destroyed by the first Ermorian unit that reached him, a skeleton. This is a poor omen indeed.

[Saxon]

Now I am dying to see the turn, but since I am at work on a really poor computer, I can only see the reports, but can not see the actual battle!

[Saxon]

Good lord, what a mess! I have to see these battles. It is not as bad as I had feared, nor is it as good as I had hoped. It is something completely different! What did you do to my commanders?!?

I also look forward to seeing who Piggles’ Revenge was. Perhaps I will have to rename a Tart after him/her/it.

[Piggles]

Sorry for not making this request sooner, but is it possible to have a 12 hour extension on account of the July 4th holiday? I'm going to be working at a fireworks stand from 8am to 10pm, and I could really use the extra time to plan out my turn. Thanks.

[Darkstone]

Done.

[Darkstone]

With the latest Ermorian and Agarthan victories, over Ulm and Man respectively, controlling the globals, and two thirds of the map, I believe we've managed a very difficult task against some incredibly tough, resilient, and crafty opponents, and this game can be declared finished.

I know Ermor wanted to do a couple more turns, but I've just sent a skeleton turn in to clean up a few provinces and not stale, and I'm not sure how excited anyone else is about continuing.

I want everyone to know that my position was mostly about getting lucky and my chosen strategy just panning out. My early game was secured due to having a very excellent position in the southeast corner, Arco to the north having a slow start and not grabbing too much land, Ermor to the west, focusing farther west when Machaka invaded, and of course an alliance with said Ermor early on.

Things continued to go well when my only other neighbor, Oceania went AI for unknown reasons after I turned back an early invasion from them, and this cemented a position I could consolidate and build towards mid/endgame.

My strategy consisted of heavy diplomacy, limited aggression and significant defensive play, really extensive scouting and scrying, and building up vast gem producers for the greater part of the game. Being left alone for quite a long time and wasting few resources on continuous conflict was a large part of that.

My rainbow pretender was able to fill in the role of casting/forging anything I needed, early on the boosters which let me fill in everything else.

This allowed my gem income to be really grow to become off the charts, and to be free with such great spells such as Earth Attack, Blight, etc. as well forging significant amounts of equipment.

I was also lucky in getting a garnet amazon site early on which let me dive into some bloodhunting which otherwise would have been very difficult.

I can't help but mention how important scouting/scrying is. By knowing who is where, and with what, let's me really pick and choose diplomacy, battles, strategy, etc. and how to best deal with a specific opponent.

Hoplosternum deserves mention for being a trustworthy ally until we needed to conquer each other to win the endgame, meister_miagi for pure resilience and character in playing and staying around in a mostly unwinnable position when I've seen other players quit, and SSJ deserves mention for making me want to pull out my hair in frustration more than a few times.

Lastly, I was lucky that Saxon turned out to be such a great and trustworthy ally, with advice and opinions that significantly improved my game. As far as I can tell, Saxon's success can be attributed to his mastery of Ermor tactics, beginning with his skillful defense against the bless-rush by Machaka. His position was further improved by Van being domkilled by mistake early on, which left a vacuum that was able to be filled by him and Machaka, and eventually, just him. Watching many of his fights through scouts, was both inspirational and educational.

Thank you everyone. You've all made a very fun, challenging, and enlightening game.

[Saxon]

As much as I have grown attached to this match, I have to agree with Darkstone. Further play is pretty much foreordained and, while the results might vary by a turn or two, the outcome is clear.

I credit my success to lucky initial placement and diplomacy. Where I started was a long way from any other capitals. Given that I staled my first two turns, I could have been in trouble, but got lucky. I had a SC pretender, which I was able to turn into a lot of early provinces.

Karlem, as Machaka, managed a quick dom kill and then came after me with a SC pretender Cyclops and those holy spiders. The same turn I ran into Darkstone, so I messaged both. Darkstone offered a much better deal and was very transparent in his discussions. Essentially, he built trust, explained a deal and explained why it was good for both of us; so I went for the deal. It later grew into an alliance, largely based on verified trust. I can not emphasis enough how critical this alliance would be to our success.

Karlem went for the rush knockout, but Ermor is the wrong nation to try that on. It has a spell called Apostasy, which essentially charms holy units. Once the spider rider is killed, the very strong spider has low magic resistance and is easy to charm. His bless troops quickly turned into my bless troops and I then pinned his SC down with my death bless, which racked up afflictions. After that, I pretty much took the entire bottom quarter of the map.

Diplomacy was critical throughout. I was able to work deals with many nations to get magic boosters and, most critically, the Chalice. I was also able to set up some good NAP and even get a few attacks made to my advantage.

SSJ, as Eriu, launched a wise attack on me with Wind Ride. He saw my lead on the graphs and figured I was a long term danger. At that time I did not have the Chalice and did not have a good end game plan, so I did not agree with him. I felt Pyrthium was the real danger long term. In any case, I had a very hard time dealing with Eriu and if he had invested more in it, it might have taken me out. Truly, two or three more of those attacks, at the same time, would have crippled me. It certainly slowed me down a lot. I was also engaged in a war with Rhyleh, which saw him stall and maul me. Darkstone and I were coordinating and Ray invaded from the north, but meister-magi still hurt us badly. It would be many turns later that Darkstone finally took him out. As Darkstone said, a great performance for a nation in a very tough position.

Pyrthium and Ulm then launched a solid joint attack against me. Ulm came by land and took a fair bit, but I was not worried. They were so far behind in research that their large armies were really just targets for spells. However, I was limited in what I could do because of a massive air attack by Pyrthium. Harbringers and a Queen of Elemental air, took massive chunks of my back territory and had me reeling. I eventually managed to get penetration items and spent a fortune mind hunting them, but eventually killed them off. I also made a deal with Hoplosternum for the Chalice, some diplomacy which led to later success.

By that stage I was getting a lot of Tarts and, though painful experience, learned how to use them. Without them and the Chalice, I would not have been able to take the next steps and probably would have fallen to the next combined attack. However, with winged boots, I was able to move quickly. The only reason I had boots was that I had traded with Man for a Bag of Wind, again, diplomacy.

I cleaned up my back yard and jumped over the water to invade Ulm and Pyrthium. I chose to focus on Ulm, as they were weaker and I hoped to get lots of gem income from them. It was at this stage that Ylvali started staling, which did mean I did not face a counter attack. I had assumed she had been saving up for a new offensive and really feared she was going to hammer me. I had calculated she could get some of the high level global astral spells up, which could have been very bad for everyone else.

Ulm had some castles in key locations, but once I got the capital, they were in trouble. I also started a dominion push, as I saw they were very low. In the end, I think Man’s dominion did the actually killing, but I made sure it was low enough to happen.

When Piggles joined us, Ulm was in the final stages of collapse, so I turned to Pyrthium. Piggles made me pay for my advances, but was not able to stop them. I have been picking provinces off and he has not been able to recover them. Piggles, you might think your pretender has me pinned in that castle. Take another look at the current dominion and what it does to his hit points and regeneration. I was coming after him this turn with regular forces plus petrifaction, paralyze and soul slay!

Also worth a mention in diplomacy is a big thank you to Darkstone. We set up a good working relationship and supplied each other with a steady flow of information and ideas. Game wise, I got a great deal, as his intelligence network was remarkable and provided me with both strategic and tactical information. Thank you again for pointing out my Wraith Lord was using his fist instead of a sword! Also, having a rock solid alliance allowed me to focus on my troubles. If that had not been in place, I am sure I would have gone down to Eriu or Pyrthium. I suspect that Darkstone would have also had a lot of problems with Arco if he had not been able to focus. More important, I gained a lot of good insights into both people and the game through our discussions.

I am very curious to see what is happening in other parts of the game. I propose that we post our last turns somewhere, so interested parties can have a look at each other’s nations. Can anyone suggest where we could upload the turns? Alternatively, I would be happy to email my turn to anyone and would be happy to receive the turns in the same way. Let me know your address if interested. I am reachable at scottis100 at hotmail . com Also, if anyone wants to discuss an aspect of the game we just played, let me know.

Unfortunately, due to family considerations, this has to be my last full game. Through diplomacy, my wife has agreed to me playing 48-72 hour turn around games without long term attachments. I am going to offer myself as a sub for the slower games and see what I can get. I look forward to meeting with you there!

[sansanjuan]

I was ready for a few more turns only to try out some end game mojo but... that said I'll concede to the Ermor/Ag Axis. So you two aren't going to duke it out?

Under "Shoulda, coulda,woulda..."

Should have done many more Plagues. I learned too late the potential of that spell. I think it could have been quite annoying even for Chaliced Ermor (Chalice can't be everywhere )

Should have amassed more ponietroopers and launched them all at once (as Sax suggested) instead of piecemeal. I did have significant stealthy forces sneaking towards Ag that would have had Dark pulling out some hair.

Should have saved death gems and cast a D12 well of misery with the Crone. Would be tough to dispel.

Could have protected my twiceborn crone MUCH better and used her more effectively. Wish I had bought enough Astral/Blood for critical mass (barely started blood economy a few turns back).

Eriu temples are only 200gp. Tried to leverage an immortal/twiceborn strategy with that. My Dominion almost suffocated Aby by accident.

I enjoyed my alliances with Aby and Man very much. They were true to their swords. We should have started working closely much sooner (all three of us vs a single smaller opponent early/mid game, then another..., then another..)

Ag's second generation marble dudes were very tough cookies. Nice recovery Dark after the lightning incident on prototype #1.

Thanks also to my enemies. Without them the game would be nothing.

-SSJ

[klagrok]

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Is it over??? As my territory didnt grow much for like 60 turns or so Yehaaaa!!!