new game: two versus two -- After Action Reports

[Zooko]

:-(

The routing rules are kind of irritating. If all of your troops are killed our routed, then all of your commanders will also rout. Likewise, if all your commanders are killed or routed, then all of your troops will rout.

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

Thats why i stoped having my leaders in the middle of the horde.

[Zooko]

When I started the server (from the unix command line) I didn't give it any switches concerning victory points. If you look at "options -> show game settings", you'll see that there are no options concerning victory points or other alternate victory conditions.

Yet on the map there are victory points visible in certain provinces.

I don't know what this means.

Since we are playing in teams of two, it seems unlikely that any game-ending victory condition will be achieved by any one nation. So I think we can pretty much ignore the victory points, except that you should be aware that provinces which contain a victory point spread dominion as if there were a temple in that province and as if you had a current maximum dominion level of 5. (But it doesn't increase the number of temples you own -- it just spreads dominion as if there were a temple there.)

Unless the buggy nature of these victory points means that they *don't* spread dominion, since victory points aren't supposed to be in the game at all.

Regards,

Bwughy the Great

[Zooko]

Here is a list of some of the changes in the spell mod. Go to this thread and scroll down to the end:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...fpart=all&vc=1

[Zooko]

Arc and I have gotten the "sharing trn files" trick working. I send my jotun.trn file to him in e-mail, and he watches my turns. Let me know if you guys want help to do that yourselves.

--Zooko the Administrator

[Zooko]

Well, I think the Arcoscephale/Jotunheim team is certain to win over the Pythium/Marignon team at this point. Marignon has only four provinces left, one of which is his home province which is under siege. Even if he manages to break the siege, I don't think he will last long with both of his enemies attacking him at once.

Meanwhile Arcoscephale has around twice as many provinces as any other single nation.

Do you guys want to concede?

Regards,

Zooko

[Zooko]

A critical event in the war between Marignon and Jotunheim was when Marignon attacked, lost the battle, and lost three Grand Masters plus a handful of Initiates. The same army had earlier conquered a province from Jotunheim, but the difference was that this time Jotunheim had a Niefel Jarl there who cast Rain first thing. Rain doubles the fatigue of all non-underwater-casteable Fire spells, and so each of the three Grandmasters cast Flare twice, after which they each had 184 fatigue, and never moved again. Oh, I forgot to mention that the province was cold, which also increases spellcasting fatigue.

I wonder if the Rain added-fatigue effect multiplies the cold added-fatigue effect? Because 97 or so fatigue per casting of Flare is a lot!

Regards,

Zooko

The rain was killer. I should have thought of it though.

[Zooko]

It is a nice tradition to discuss the strategy of a game after it is over so that others may learn from it.

My strategy was simple: recruit Niefelheim giants which have high number of hit points and are sacred, and use the Green Dragon Pretender with 9 Nature magic to give those units regeneration and berserk. By attacking fearlessly with those sacred units, my starting Jotunheim army, a Niefel Jarl, and the Green Dragon Pretender, I had the highest number of provinces every turn until turn 15 (with the exception that one turn my partner Arcoscephale had a higher number of provinces).

Then our strategy went into phase 2 when Jotunheim came into contact with Marignon. In phase 2, I focussed almost all of my resources on damaging Marignon's armies and depriving him of provinces, even though this was risky and expensive for me. I lost a lot of units in two separate losing battles, including my Pretender, but more reinforcements from my home castles arrived, I recalled my Pretender, and I was able to prevent Marignon from retaking his provinces by committing almost all of my armies, including my Pretender, plus a huge provincial defense (20, 26, and 32 provincial defense in three of the contested provinces), and a Niefel Jarl casting Rain, as discussed earlier.

The point of this strategy was that even if I lost, my reckless attack would probably have weakened Marignon enough that my partner Arcoscephale could finish him off.

This strategy pretty much worked. Pythium apparently tried to help his partner Marignon, since a couple of assassins from Pythium attacked my commanders at various points, but basically it seemed to me that Marignon was overwhelmed by facing two enemies.

My partner Arcoscephale and I traded gold, gems, intelligence, and magic items quite vigorously throughout the game.

So one lesson that I draw is that if you play a two-vs-two game, you have to have good scouting or other kinds of intelligence and watch out for both of your enemies coming at you at once. If you see them coming then -- I don't know what to do -- get into a defensive posture and encourage your partner to attack their rears?

Perhaps the map was too big. I never had any contact with Pythium, and I think the contact between Pythium and Arcoscephale was limited. So perhaps it wasn't fair to Marignon that he happened to start in a location where, in 40 turns or so, both of his enemies could reach him, but his partner Pythium couldn't reach either of them.

This was the Inland map with 150 ? provinces. That's 37.5 provinces per player, which seems way too much to me.

Too bad there isn't a wraparound map with only 100 provinces.

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

Gratulations!

I really really had bad misfortune in the game: My Strategie was to build many nation units(rich world) and to get as many Provinces as possible quite fast, meanwhile my Archlich should
serach the newly conquered provs for magic sites(75% magic sites in the map), then i would later(after round 10 or so) cast ashraic record(with my Archteutorgs to get as many sites as possible and to cast all my hording spells.

The problem was that in the north where 2 Provinces with 25 Heavy Cavaleries(and som infantrie) and in the south 60 Babarians... so much about my strong nationforce...

My temple was destroyed in turn 3 by a random event and i FOUND SO DAMM FEW SITES!!!!

But it was fun, i would be interrested in playing again with you, maybe on the Sundering, the map was really to big

Griffin