Preponderance - Big Team Game! [1-2 subs needed!]

[namad]

i don't think anyone suggested we declare anyone the winner ever....
didn't zeldor just suggest "draw" ? then again i feel this game is really interesting because there are so many powerful unmolested late game positions which can fight eachother i've never actually played any game of PBEM late in the game ... at all... but overall interest seems fairly low.... seems almost like only me and psi are gungho and thinking it is fun

it would be a lot easier to get a sub for the midgard/abysia position if we knew if it was a sub to play both or a sub for each or a sub for one of them... as far as i know atul has said he wants to continue playing as long as he has a partner? did that become false? why hasn't la caelum or pythium gotten their turns in yet?

[Zeldor]

From what I understand atul cannot play even 1 nation competitevely on a level to challenge Caelum teams or try to win. So best thing would be to get a sub for a whole team.

And Caelum team is way way stronger than anyone else. QM and Micah can do a lot when they have enough time to do their turns properly And you all know what's on the central island.

[PsiSoldier]

I understood that it wasnt that Atul didnt want to play but because his hand was injured and in a cast and he was unable for the time being.

But then I didnt talk directly to Atul either thats just what it seems that I read in one of his posts when this started.

[PsiSoldier]

If that is true though that Atul is still interested but simply cannot because of his injured hand/arm than I'd personally like to just put the game on hold for however long it takes him to heal up if he is still interested like I said. (Although I fear that could lead to more problems but...)

I really hate it when games get to this point, but its definitely not over and wouldnt be even if Midgard was never to return. Bogarus and I together could easily challenge Caleum We have almost 100 more gem income than caleum and the two of us probably have more clams and blood stones as well despite micah's chest puffing and thats not to mention Bogarus's unique artifacts. Micah may not think much of them but throw Mari or one of the other still living nations like Vanhiem into the mix and Caleums future doesnt look certain at all.

If it was the overwelming will of everyone in the game just to end it I'd conceede but its not, We have broken Yomi/Mictlan and besides them the only one to stale in recent memory has been Midgard/Abysia. So everyone else is still plugging away at it.

[Micah]

Both of the top 2 teams have no wish to continue this game. The map is too large and the game has gone on too long for any sort of reasonable resolution.

At this point in the game gem income and provinces have been pretty much completely decoupled because of the prevalence of gem generating items, so raiding and even taking over land and forts wholesale does almost no economic damage to the losing side, while saddling the attacker with the horrendous penalties associated with going second in a late game situation. The amount of micromanagement is off the scale, and my nation will shortly be running into hard limits such as the size of the lab constraining forging.

I'm currently up to making 14 clams a turn, and I'm sitting on 170 of the things already. I have been steadily empowering a new clammer every turn for a while now (I took a short break just now to get a third wish caster.) In another 15 turns or so I would be adding 30 clams a turn to my stocks and using the rest of my lab slots to outfit a seraph and a tart every turn, and turning the rest of my pearls into abominations, while burning at least 4 wishes for gems every turn (I'll have the clams to do that in another 7 turns at this rate, without additional clammers). I don't even have a clue what I'd do with the rest of my gem stocks (100 F/E and 70N after clam costs just from wishes). I really have no interest in trying to manage the sheer amount of things that I'd have to summon every turn just to keep my gem stocks from exploding. I actually had to tell QM not to give me any blood stone forgers since I was worried about my lab limits, and clams are better.

That being said, I don't really have any illusions about being able to take on the whole world at once, but given the current diplomatic relations we have I don't think that would have come to pass. Midgard's team is still a lot nastier looking on the charts, and given that no one has mentioned that they were PLANNING on attacking us in the next few turns I think we would have been able to play the diplomacy game well enough to prevent a massive ganging. My claim to a probable win was just based on what likely would have happened if the game did play out to the bitter end, since I think we would have had about a 75% chance of taking a win here with Midgard's team out of the running. Obviously now that I've come out and made our case we'd be subject to a massive ganging, but as I mentioned, this game is pretty much dead in the water already. I've played enough games at this point to have a pretty good sense of when they're pretty well decided, and I think this one is close enough to that point to ask for a concession given the issues with a lot of staling.

Psi - We went through this concession dance in the last team game we were both in. If I recall correctly you didn't manage a single victory against me from the time I asked to call the game until the end. You certainly have more to work with this time around, so you'd likely do a lot better, but as far as track records go I think I have the edge here on making accurate predictions about game state.

This post brought to you by the absurdities of gem generating items and stacking forge bonuses.

[namad]

it's not a matter of 75% chance to probably win....

it's a matter of the fact that you have no chance to win anytime soon whatsoever... it's not clear to be an easy victory in any way.... (then again if you have 400pearl income why not just try to win in the next 10turns ? )

you guys had a 75% chance to win from like turn 15 just because you are the best players but we still didn't quit (i mean seriously i never once thought anyone but you would win... but that didn't make me think the game wasn't going to be fun)

if atul quits that would make it so that people would possibly gang up on qm?.... and if atul doesn't quit... he's a fairly good player who could probably put up a 999forge with e9 caster right?

i mean i don't even see the post in which anyone mentioned they thought anyone would be the winner... what page of the thread is it on?


we definitely can't make the people who don't want to play... play...

i haven't thought i could win since turn 20... seriously no chance all game at all

i'm only interested in playing because this has happened in all my games and so i've... never been able to witness any of the cool late game stuff...

[PsiSoldier]

Yeah in that game I didnt have a clam farm at all and the situation was entirely different, I had gone for a massive bless that was actually geared more towards a small map and not a large one like we were on. My clam farm in this game isnt much behind your own, Granted I dont have a forging site to help out like you do which obviously gives that advantage to you but your 170 Clams really doesnt put you that far ahead of me, and I'd be willing to bet that your teammate isnt doing any clam forging of his own so that 170 accounts for your entire teams supply of clams.

If I'm the only one to speak out about keeping the game alive then I suppose we can let it die, after all I am by myself with no teammate I dont have too much chance but there are things I could do that would ROYALY **** you up and all your forging and set you Way back. Obviously I know where you are doing your forging and by default where the majority of your forgers are which is a disadvantage to you in its own right. And there are things I can do that Domes will not protect against and I'm not just talking about armageddon, there are other nastier target specific things that can be done as I mentioned to Zeldor in a PM

[PsiSoldier]

I wouldnt mind having Zeldor take a look at your turn to verify all your claims as well. I definitly wouldnt be conceeding without that at least.

[Micah]

Namad: "but that didn't make me think the game wasn't going to be fun"

It's NOT fun anymore, which is why the top players in this game have all abandoned it (Atul and Homer were bored with the game before they quit, and were doing halfhearted turns, and obviously QM and I are done since I've revealed our position). The map is too big, the economies and recursive gem generation are out of hand, and late game defensive advantage is too much of a hurdle for this to end in anything resembling "fun." My projected income from clams would hit 1000 on turn 100. Managing that many gems effectively is more or less completely impossible, and the game would become about who is willing to spend more time on turns than anything else. There IS no "cool late game stuff," it's mostly just tarts, aboms and seraphs running around beating on each other with defensive blood magic meaning no one can make an effective attack because of Banish/Claws and first turn defender advantage.

Psi: Assuming you don't have a forge site I'm making them for about a third of the price you are. That adds up pretty quickly. QM and I divvied up the blood stones and clams, so no, he doesn't have any clams, but he's been making over 10 blood stones a turn of his own. We could easily up that, especially if I chose to start wishing for blood slaves instead of gems, but I get 6 clams out of a gem wish, so it hasn't been a priority to divert over to slaves.

The major limiting factor on my clam farming has been N, not W. Actually forging them is dirt cheap, and the reason I say we're in better position is because of the rate of expansion we have, not where we are now. I'm adding a new clammer or wish caster EVERY TURN as it stands, and even if you could, I'd still be saving 270 gems/turn over what you'd be spending to clam due to forge bonuses.

I'm sure there's plenty of nasty stuff you could have done. If anyone had actually been doing any of those nasty things to us for the past 10 turns while I was setting all this stuff up I'd be more inclined to give them some weight in the consideration of relative positions, but now that it's somewhat after the fact I'm really not impressed.

At the end of the day though I really don't care that much if I get a win here or not. I'd obviously like it, but if people are going to get bent out of shape about calling the game with a decision instead of calling it a draw I guess I can't do anything about it. One way or the other though the game needs to die. It's been a great lesson in some of the exploits in the game engine, and now needs to be put out to pasture and shot.

[atul]

I think the game was a blast in the beginning. Conquering fourth of the map fighting mostly people going AI the moment they lost first time is what did it to me.

And Psi, I got the impression your plan was to wait for me and team Caelum to duke it out and then go for the win. Wouldn't have happened. No reason for either team to fight each other while there are smaller fish to be caught first. Like, proxy war.