Glory (MA game)- game is live

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by fungalreason

Just curious..... how many pearls did you have by the end, Jim? I'm guessing it's near a thousand

Most turns, the Nexus was providing ~150 Pearls, it was ridiculous. I was holding 350 in reserve, so on the new turn I typically had around 500.

Since we're done, I'm going to come clean, because this has been really bugging me. I did NOT cast the Nexus with many extra pearls. It was a calculated risk, but also (being rather new when we started this game), I thought Dispel had to beat the total # of gems used in casting. So I thought say if you cast Nexus with 150 pearls, someone would dispel with 151, not 31 as it seems is the case. So, R'lyeh could have quite easily taken it down and kept it down, if they had chosen to do so.

All the globals make a pretty funny story, actually. I had not planned on them, other than the Deep Well, which I considered pivotal to MA Agartha success. My pretender was an Enchantress, 6E6S4N. Kind of a weird build, but the magical flexibility she gave me, made the game possible. On the way to the Deep Well, I decided to leverage her extra pearls into the Stellar Focus (which Marignon would later quietly dispel to put up the Second Sun), just for fun. By this time, no one else was casting any globals other than the Mother Oak, so I decided that since I had no one to use my Nature gems other than my pretender, that GoH would really help out my mages - that choice is really what kept me competitive through the BoT (and 2 Leprosies on my capital).

Eventually, with again, no one to use my Pearls except my pretender, I looked at my assorted gem stocks, and decided that since I was surrounded by people who it would be inconvenient to go to war with, and I was so small and inoffensive, I would see if I could get away with the Nexus. Well I did, and as you said, it was a turning point in the game. After a few turns of stocking up and getting my affairs in order, I started funneling 75-100 Pearls to Marignon on most turns, and once I got Wish, I was in fact Wishing Gems, to create and gear more Marble Oracles - and still able to tithe pearls regularly to Marignon, for whatever nefarious purposes he put them to.

R'lyeh was really pissed with me in the late stage of the game. He didn't border very much on Marignon anyways, but he seemed to devote as much resources as possible to cause my destruction, while Chris happily dissected his empire.


I suppose, as R'lyeh was AI and almost destroyed, it would have become increasingly hopeless (unless someone had Dispelled the Nexus, but then I would recast with ~500 Pearls), but it just seemed that you had an awful lot of powerful combatants out there, Fungal. But then, without much Astral magic, you would have been hard pressed against my Oracles, let alone all of the crazy things that Marignon had out there.


Well, good game everyone, I had fun! <3

[fungalreason]

Yeah I had a ton of SCs... nearly all the blood uniques and a ton of artifacts. But there's no way I could have kept pace with that gem income. I thought you guys were probably both wishing when I saw the seraphs, and I didn't have any caster capable of it. If I had only known the nexus didn't have that many extra gems.... it's unfortunate I chose to kill the Well, and hope someone else could take down the nexus.

My last resort was to cast a 400 slave astral corruption, and hope that I could catch the guy putting up all the globals with a horror. But since he was wishing, that probably wouldn't have been too effective.

At any rate, it was a fun game. Good luck in the next one!

[chrispedersen]

Early in the game, I had let it known to some that I had tried a dispel - and failed with more than 300 gems. This became accepted wisdom - and it was funny when it was reported back to me.


I had three wish capable casters - but I was only wishing about every other turn.

[Calahan]

I think Atlantis missed a real chance in this game to do great things. During play-testing, I came to the conclusion that Atlantis could be very powerful if they -

a) Started on their own (as in no water nation near them)
b) Got enough nature gems early on to empower, summon Naiads, and spam clams.

And my guess is from the start location and magic sites, Atlantis could easily have done b) by turn 20. When I took over around turn 50 odd, Atlantis were sitting on a gems pile of 300+ Water and 200+ Nature. That is a hell of a lot of missed clam potential.

If the game had continued, I was either going to attempt a huge astral corruption casting via Moon Mages (or a co-ordinated effort with Jotun), or at the end Atlantis had about 50 clams (I was forging 2-3 per turn from turn 60, plus inherited a dozen from R'lyeh) so I was going to save up every gem for a 999 casting of the Nexus, and just hope I could keep it up long enough to store up enough gems to recast it once Agrtha/Marignon had dispelled it. Although if I did somehow manage to keep the Nexus up, I doubt I would have stood any chance of fighting off the attack it would have brought upon me.

[chrispedersen]

I have been scrying you ever since you went more or less neutral.
I had noted the location of the eludian assassins... the moon mages.. and you had one square, where your gem income was astronomical. I was envious of your recruits!

A partial reason for the stockpile was he had been trading them with me....

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

R'lyeh was really pissed with me in the late stage of the game. He didn't border very much on Marignon anyways, but he seemed to devote as much resources as possible to cause my destruction, while Chris happily dissected his empire.

I wasn't pissed at you. I had just lost my previous game due to the nexus. Coming into this game, I saw I was up against the nexus once again. Marignon DoWd me once I took over, it was clear that you two had an alliance and I was faced with choices.

1. Give up provinces to Agartha and join in a 3 way alliance against Jot. Not ideal since, being the new comer, I would a) be the most likely to be targeted after Jot was finished up b) I would be at a severe disadvantage in racing to take Jot's lands being a water nation c) the nation with the nexus would become stronger and eventually unstoppable.

2. Try to put together an alliance to stop the Marignon/Agartha alliance. I approached other powers and they declined.

2 would have been ideal in helping ensure a victory for Ryleh.

Having already turned down option one I was to go it alone against the fearsome duo, despite holes in my research namely evo6. I thought I would be able to manage at first...then the Seraphs showed up. At that point there was only one thing left to do...stall long enough and try to kill your great enchantress so that the nexus would come down.

It's funny I barely thought about dispelling it. The previous game I tried that route since it was an oracle camped in the heart of enemy territory, but in the end all I accomplished was wasting gems. So this game I tried to side step the dispel and tried leprosy and finally in one final desperate attempt armageddon.

It's sad that in the end the game ended due to a bug, however, imo, it would have ended with Marignon/Agartha for the win regardless. Although it would have been interesting to see which of the two would have won a head to head war once the rest of the world was split between them.

[JimMorrison]

Well to be honest, the original plan that I had offered to Chris, was that I wanted to see him win (since he had such a powerful start, and I was so small). With all of those Pearls going straight into his Seraph production, and with the hideous ravaging that I was taking from R'lyeh, it was highly unlikely I could have even dreamed of overtaking Marignon in a 1v1 fight.


But, although you did stay stuck on me with a vengeance, I was more referring to the original player (too lazy to check first post to remind me who). He was really angry with me at the start of the war, and it affected his judgement somewhat. But I played the turtle, and he was afraid to go "all in" against me, as if he sensed that was exactly what I wanted him to do, so I could find his weakness and exploit it. But, he avoided that fate by just trying to wear me down, and in the meantime Chris just started dismantling R'lyeh with great speed.

I don't even think he much likes Marignon, it's kind of funny really, cause he played them to the hilt.

Oh and at the end there, my income was about 700, and my upkeep was over 1000. It sucked pretty badly. Though if I hadn't been getting an allowance from Marignon, I probably wouldn't have been sending him all those Pearls, so I could have found a buyer for some I'm sure (though is that self defeating? sell someone the Pearls they need to Dispel your own Nexus.....).

[chrispedersen]

Yeah. I *hate* Marignon. All the good races were originally taken, so I signed up for Machaka - but then two other people asked for it.. sooo I gave them Machaka and took.. Marignon.

Mostly to make a point.

Don't get me wrong - marignon sucks. No magic diversity, and old age mages. But my usual advice to players is - pump out the flagellants and crossbow men asap. Those were essentially the only national troops I ever built.

Ermor tried to pin me in - and when I offered a very reasonable compromise - splitting Vanheim - well when he declined he was essentially one of the perfect opponents for me.

Flame arrows, holy pyre, fireballs + flagellents with fire weapons...

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I have been scrying you ever since you went more or less neutral.
I had noted the location of the eludian assassins... the moon mages.. and you had one square, where your gem income was astronomical. I was envious of your recruits!

Atlantis had some really nice provinces. Moon Mages for Astral3, Death, Blood, and all Astral booster needs. A 20 Conj + 20 Ench site for Summons/Rituals. 'The Bowl of the Lost' for free Bane's. Plus a number with high gem income provinces. And all of them should have been easily obtainable/defendable from where Atlantis started (all on coast or in SE corner). Which is all yet another reason I think Atlantis missed out bigtime, and why I'm even more annoyed I had to drop them, and this game, on turn 1

A partial reason for the stockpile was he had been trading them with me....

Think it's a great idea for Atlantis to trade for Water+Nature gems but not so great if those gems just end up sitting there gathering dust "Won't somebody please think of the clams", oh sorry I mean children

But well played Chris + Jim. You were both in a very strong position when I subbed in, and that wouldn't have happened without good play and cunning diplomacy So hat's off to you both (inserts a smilie lifting some sort of hat)

[chrispedersen]

Yeah you had the most incredible sites Cal.
But the original player was dueling with either pangaiea or Ermor much of the game.

I was aiding Pangaiea = ). Anyway - why not join us in
Even More Machiavelli?