Troubling Times: Game over, Marverni wins

[yandav]

Originally Posted by Amhazair

Sigh... Looks like it's Agartha's turn to go missing without a trace.

What is it with people randomly disappearing withou a trace this game? I had heard people complain about that before, but can't remember ever seeing it happen once or maaaaybe two times in one game.* (Of course, not being a game admin in those games might mean I just didn't pay much attention.)

I'll go whip up yet another Looking for Sub post in a minute. People with diplomatic ties with Agartha who might have heard something from him since the pause to find an Ermor sub feel free to share. Also, any of his neighbours who can add to what I can tell potential subs are very wellcome to do so. (Agartha is a bit out of my scouting epicenter.)

I'll add a few hours to the timer so I can assess the situation again after getting up tomorrow. (In the first place because of Agartha, but also to be sure Zeldor fixed his turn acceptance issues.)

* A clarification: the surprise here is about the lack of notification. I've seen people leave games all the time, but usually they at least left word, and very often found their own subs too.

It seems that the Agarthan player disappeared the turn after I attacked him.

[Amhazair]

No worries. I pretty much expect a small delay every turn.

[Zeldor]

He has enough forces to put a good fight, so I really doubt it's that.

Maybe TT is just too much for some people? Ermor disappeared, now Agartha, earlier we had prolems with C'tis and Abysia.

And there is no winner soon. Sure, Marv has nice lead, I will be fighting Helheim forever, but I think that VPs are set too high to make it work. Especially with it being EA game.

So maybe it'd be a good idea to call it a draw, wait few weeks and restart the game with CBM 1.8 [less micro] and with more reasonable victory settings [for 40 VPs you need to control like 25-30 provs for 3 turns]. And make it MA or LA [so less crazy nations].

[PriestyMan]

Its the map. Faerun is cursed. its such an awesome map, but its just cursed. no game can ever be succesful on it.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by PriestyMan

Its the map. Faerun is cursed. its such an awesome map, but its just cursed. no game can ever be succesful on it.

Phah! I don't believe in curses. And moreover we'll break the curse too. Not that there is a curse. Or a malediction either.

Anyways, I've had some PM's about subbing for Agartha, and we should have a sub soon. I'm just lacking final confirmation and e-mail address to get things rolling again. Going to bed now though, so it'll have to be tomorrow.

Hah! In your face, stupid curse. Not that I believe in curses, mind you.

Unfortunately it looks like Zeldor is also demotivated due to the unfortunate stale and not very happy with game settings in general, and is also planning to find a - possibly temporary - sub for him. Not that this a sign of any nonexistant curse or anything. Just saying.

Anyways, I just wanted to make sure the people still playing are actually still having fun? I know I am, and I do have the impression others do to, and as long as that's the case I don't mind doing the occasional merry-go-round to find a sub if someone drops out again. Just feels kinda pointless to do so if the people actually in the game allready feel it's a drag of some kind, so just checking is all.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I'm sorry to splash some cold water, but I really think a game as large as faerun is not advisable.[...]

Originally Posted by PriestyMan

Its the map. Faerun is cursed. its such an awesome map, but its just cursed. no game can ever be succesful on it.

Hah! Hah, I tell you.

In other news, I had more or less considered writing an AAR for this game, and actually started writing along with the start of the game, but very much as I expected I didn't get very far. (Though I can help anyone intrested in an AAR of the first 10 turns. ) What can I say, I'm a lazy person. I'll post a quick overview of my game tomorrow or so.

[yandav]

I wad going to spend 999 gems next turn to try to overwrite your Arcane Nexus: how many gems did you spend?

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by yandav

I wad going to spend 999 gems next turn to try to overwrite your Arcane Nexus: how many gems did you spend?

Less

In fact I had cast a relatively small nexus, (around 250 gems if I recall) with the idea to overcast it to 999 myself next turn too with the help of the gems it generated. I did get less pearls than I expected though, ("only" 190, while had hoped for 300'ish and expected 250 by taking my gem income and multiplying it with the total # of provinces.) so I'm guessing I would have delayed my overcasting a turn, meaning you would have gotten control.

I also have a "literariy critique" type question: As I said, I had started writing an AAR for this game, but discontinued it due to it being a lot of work.

I still do have the ambition of trying it sometime though, perhaps for a smaller and/or no-diplomacy game (No promises, I am a lazy bum, and at 31 I don't think that's likely to change.) and thought it would be intresting to see if anyone would be intrested in reading this kind of AAR before going through the effort again, or if most people would think it far too long-winded or something like that. So, attached the result of my labors to this post to see what people think.

[Hrum]

Originally Posted by Amhazair

...it would be intresting to see if anyone would be intrested in reading this kind of AAR before going through the effort again, or if most people would think it far too long-winded or something like that. So, attached the result of my labors to this post to see what people think.

Amhazair, thanks for posting this! I finished reading it and quite enjoyed it. I am sad that it stops right when the action between you and your neighbors seems poised to commence.

Nevertheless, what you provided is both an AAR of your early game, and sort of a proto-guide to early expansion with Marverni. Add more to it about your first war or two, and you would have near on a full fledged Marverni guide in AAR form (from someone who won the whole shebang with the strategies detailed). How awesome would that be!

In spite of my not playing in Troubling Times, I've been looking in on this thread once in a while since I was curious how the game would shake out with so many players on such a large map (BTW, I just looked at the mapfile to see what indies were added to Myth Drannor. That looks like that was a nasty one! Did anyone take that province and how gnarly was it? At least there weren't any demons flying around, so that's something to be thankful for, I guess... Just a huge TNN army accompanied by gryphons and sidhe thugs & mages - oh joy. ).

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed reading about your first 11 turns in the game and if you choose to add to that (albeit I imagine somewhat more summarized than the detail you included for those early turns) so that we can all hear about how Marverni progressed to victory, I would be eager to read more on this from you. I've never tried Marverni before, and didn't really know much about them before reading your AAR, and now I'm thinking I may need to give them a try at some point.

[Verjigorm]

This game has been going for fewer turns than smaller games that I have played, and I think has been about average (given the small sample set of MP games I've played since returning to Dominions) in comparison to these other games.