Mongoose - Starting (at last!)

[Sensori]

WonderLlama said:Arco sent me his blood slaves when he went out. I'm not really sure where he got them. I guessed maybe he took them from an abyssian commander in battle, though I'm not sure if that's possible.

Nah, it's not possible. Could've been an event, though. I doubt he got them through blood hunt considering you were the "good guys". ;p

As far as coming out of the castle goes, I was planning on it originally, but then I discovered my fountain can't even patrol/ break siege. Somehow I though I had patrolled with one before. So that was a nasty surprise. Can't see myself breaking out without it.

Yeah, I knew you would probably not come out there, which is why I tried to force the issue, fully aware that I was going to probably lose. The extent of the loss, however, was a bit of a bummer - only like 10 mages (luckily they were the guys that mattered) survived. On a positive note, I have a LOT of cash to spend now!

All in all, I think if you ever showed up outside your home, your guys would die in an insane barrage of spells. So that place's probably the safest for you until your dominion runs out. ;p

But if that's all you... How the *beep* have you gotten hundreds of astral gems and a bunch of others while pretty much under siege? That makes no sense.

[WonderLlama]

I'll explain where the gems are coming from after the game.

I'll also save this turn file aside somewhere. After the game is done, I'll post it so everyone can see the actual battle.

[BigandScary]

do you have a clam economy? Where would you get the resources?

[Loren]

I did send him some blood slaves. They were from a random event.

[Sensori]

BigandScary, from the fight I gathered that he does not seem to have a *large enough* clam economy to explain it, unless this has been going on for a very long time (somewhat likely - how could've he had 400+ astral gems *during* the siege?). In fact, his clam income seems to be pretty much the same as mine. That's the thing I noted.

And my clam income, combined with my astral income, would be enough to cast one Wish per 3-4 turns. Sure, if I alchemized everything, I'd have more at my disposal - but I don't. I guess I could've just turned to Wishing, but I didn't feel the need. It won't take a lot of work to change that, however.

And WonderLlama, I knew how the fight would go when I went for it, but I went for it anyway. All in all, after watching it, I found it to be even more anticlimatic than I originally thought it would be. All I could hope for was that the Master Enslave would, for some reason, not go off - which it did. Same with the Undead Mastery. Damn AI working at the wrong time. I also could've attacked with a smaller part of the army, making the Master Enslave and Undead Mastery not go off with some luck. But that would've been far less fun (and far less upkeep releasing).

I saw the Undead Mastery guy and the Master Enslave guy before I attacked (that's why I attacked with that lone skelly leader in the first place, I wanted to know what you were packing) - and I knew how powerful the effects would be, especially with the Master Enslave guy having 5 in penetration. There was no doubt in my mind that I'd fail when I sent the turn in. Yep, I knew I would, unless you had done some seriously stupid choices in magic. As a result, it's nowhere near the end of me - I have much stronger armies brewing in the back. I just wanted to try if that bunch of suckers could pull it off, which it did not. ;p

EDIT: After thinking about it a bit, I can see how you could pull it off better. You thought you could hold back - which meant casting things (a LOT of things, like that Sea of Ice which was (and still is) pointless) you didn't really need in the grand scheme of things. You, apparently, didn't take into account that Arcoscephale and Marignon would only end up serving as speed bumps. There was nothing they could've done against concentrated, planned efforts to destroy them one by one. Their low research (especially Marignon's) were big problems for them I'd say.

And where I threw gems away at three to four different sides (Arco, you, Marignon, Ulm) in an attempt to weaken them and/or keep them at bay to help an ally, you only worried about Abysia while strengthening your own powerbase in the back. But in the process you left me virtually unscathed and let me bring about huge (free) chaff armies with which I flooded over Arco, seeped into Marignon and slowly (well, not that slowly - you didn't even try to stop me) made my way into your lands as Abysia chose to put his power into use elsewhere. This leads us to a somewhat funny situation where I can throw a numerically large army at you, make it bleed to death at your doorstep and call it acceptable losses.

[BigandScary]

this is a mystery. I will be very interested to learn his secret.

[Sensori]

Well, it's not that much of a mystery once you think about it - my and his gem incomes might have been nearly identical for a long long time, but he had two nations working as a buffer zone whereas I had to constantly react to his, Marignon's, Ulm's and Arco's attacks and throw all kinds of things on them (Mind Hunts, Earth Attacks, the works).

That obviously stunted my growth (and I mentioned it to Abysia quite a few times), while I knew that Caelum would probably be growing stronger. But now that he only has one safe province to work in without getting bombarded to hell... Well, it was all for naught. And now this game has turned into a "Wait till Caelum dies a Dominion death" game. :-p

[WonderLlama]

Ouch! I was fine with my Forge of the Ancients dispelling any other enchantment out there. Including my other ones. Just not the earth well. I figured I had a 4/5 chance. And I certainly need to gamble. Ouch!

[WonderLlama]

Sorry about the delay. Llamaserver wasn't accepting my turn last night for some reason. The first time I got a "Pretender not found" (or something like that) error email. The second time, I got no response at all. And didn't know it hadn't worked until this morning. But I sent it in again, and it worked.

[fabio80mi]

Np wonderllama btw your defense so far has been heroic, after losing all your province except the capital in like 5 turns you're proving to be very hard to beat definetly