YARG - Yet Another RAND Game [Isokron's Midgard wins!]

[WingedDog]

rdonj

No, no, no, 'capture and hold X capitals for Y turns' is a different story, unrelated to victory by VP's There's a white bar at VP's score graphs in game, when someone's VP's graph reaches it - *pouf*, game over.

[TwoBits]

Yeah, we should cut Maerlande some slack: He subbed into a game - which is a very cool thing to do - with a very unusual setup, and we can't then really blame him for not adhering completely to the rules (after all, he didn't mention any specific nation, etc.). I for one didn't peg him as a sub, mainly because I lack the attention span necessary to follow this thread attentively (crap, this game has gone on long enough for me to forget most of what happened early on). And besides, his questions are largely irrelevant at this point anyway

[WraithLord]

Maerlande, nobody's chastising you. At least not as far as I can tell.
All rule systems have their gray areas and corner cases. There's nothing wrong with you asking. In a game such as this an astute player may guess the identity of other players based on nuances such as they way they like to expand or fight etc. So while it's true you could ask in a different way or thread I don't think this is a cause of much fuss.
I for one appreciate your agreeing to sub. Keep up the good work and if you have further questions re. victory conditions then just ask rdonj. If he ain't sure he can contact me and we'll iron it out.
In YARG2 I'll post the recommended way to ask questions in the house rules section so it'll be clearly defined.

[Dimaz]

So, who is our winner? I bet it's WL

[WraithLord]

Nope. I'd have thought it was you but now I know better

[WraithLord]

ok. Now that the game's over we can remove the masks. I was playing Bogarus. Here's a short AAR:

Prior to this game I'd no experience with Bogarus. I had no idea how it plays so I set out to experiment and at the end went for an awake E4 Wyrm + good scales build.
The Wyrm made my initial expansion a breeze. Unfortunately I was hit by Arco from the north while my armies were expanding on the south so it took me a while to swing back and hit Arco hard.
Meanwhile Ctis has intervened and I was content to let it finish Arco.
A mistake since Ctis cont. by attacking me. Ctis with W9 bless but little research didn't seem like much of an obstacle to stellar research Bogarus thus came my 2nd mistake - underestimating Ctis.
So I thought, no need to open the after burners and squish Ctis. I can take my time with it while running longer term projects in the background (research, forging & summoning).
As it was, Ctis was led by a very competent player and the war that ensued lasted for the rest of the game. The war was actually fun, it had everything: raids, skirmishes and huge battles, mind games, surprises, disappointments and tragedies aplenty for both sides.
Now Ctis is almost dead (thanks Patala for that extra push ) but the war with Ctis practically neutralized me the whole game so I could only watch in horror as Midgard made his way to victory.

At times it felt like there were two games. One in which Midgard and the rest were playing it out and another - my private hell, shared by my hated cellmate - Ctis player

[WraithLord]

congratz Midgard!

Come forward all. I want to know who's who

[WingedDog]

Rejoice, True God had ascended! My congratulations to Midgard.
I did enjoy the game, even if I didn't have chances to win and played as a background most of the game. Credit to my opponents.

My personal discredit to Tien Chi player for total pacifism, and to player subung Patala after Executor (not the last Patala player, whoever this mysterious person is) for not even trying.

List of the players to the studio, please!

[Raiel]

Originally Posted by WingedDog

...
My personal discredit to Tien Chi player for total pacifism...

Believe me when I tell you that there is no toungue, mortal or divine, that can adequately express how thoroughly distraught I am to read this. Indeed, I suspect that the culmination of my entire existence has passed me by in complete ignorance.

----

When I joined, I did so as a n00b with a solid understanding of tactics, a decent understanding of strategic movement, but little
to no appreciation of just how important a good long-term strategy is in this game.

I knew nation selection in this game was random, but I figured that with only three nation in the late era that I definitely didn't want to play as, I was safe. Unfortunately, late age TC was my least favorite nation. I've since discovered some things I like about them, but long after designing a rather poor build for this game.

On our first start, I had a great start position that I could have made work even with my poor design. The restart, however, left me starting in a pass (almost dead center of the map) and surrounded by terrain that completely neutralized one of the few TC advantages I was prepared to exploit: strategic mobility.

I eventually attacked Gath to the north and was rebuffed with only a minimal effort... I then ventured east against Utgard, taking the vast majority of his territory and enslaving much of his armies, but could never be sure I was set to take his cap without exposing myself to the other nations around me. Just a newbie's jitters perhaps, but there ya go.

Gath invade just a couple of turns before I was ready to cast AN and start an invasion of my own, but the game was pretty much decided before this.

Overall, it was a learning experience that was almost fun. Thanks guys!

[WraithLord]

Isokron, you did a find job getting to victory in this game. And there were those who thought bless nations would rule the day given the game's settings...

Thank you rdonj for agreeing to steer the next YARG. So far we have on board from this games player's:
- Dimaz
- Clahan
- WL

Anyone else interested in securing a spot?- I'll probably start enlisting openly tomorrow so speak up now if you're interested.

Edit, an observation re. bless nations in this game. They evidently didn't fare that well. From the finishing nations and in good state were at least three non bless builds: Pythium, Bogarus and Midgard. At indie 9, low income, no diplo and hard research that's quite interesting.