MP: MP YARG4, non newb LA RAND game. WL wins

[Executor]

Congrats WL, well played.

Originally Posted by sansanjuan

Ex
So you were my nemesis Pythium. Well played. I could not find the go switch for early game Agartha even in test games. I thought I might get lucky and have a run after seiging TC's cap but had no answer to those 8 ethereal hydras hitting my backside next turn. My only bright spot was later killing the 28 hydras during the siege of my cap. Curious why you didn't buff them again.
ssj

I had everything planned to perfection and than TC screwed me and turned AI. The plan was to hit you while you were occupied with TC and to have TC take on a part of your army, weakening the both of you in the process.
However, what happened was I attacked you, and TC turned AI and attacked me. So instead of what I thought would be a 5 turn blitz turned into a painful 20 turn war...
By the time I had finished with you I was still dealing with the AI TC and had to try and figure out how to attack Caelum who clearly needed to be deal with.
No comment on the hydras however, that was just dumb on my part. Didn't expect you to actually meet my army.

Anyway, Danbo;
I'm not sure RAND games are for you. The turn I throw a weak arsed punch at Caelum after a few stales to try and stop him you decide it's a good time to attack me and practically ensure Caelum wins. Not that there was much chance of stopping WL at that point anyway but at least we could have tried.

[Executor]

Originally Posted by Curious Yellow

Congrats WraithLord.
Most annoying moment was losing my crone pretender to an assasin because I had taken away her two pearls for Returning that turn.

Sorry about that!
Tried to take advantage and grab your capital before Caelum showed up but that didn't go so well.

[fungalreason]

From Utgard's perspective:

This game didn't work out at all like I thought. Early on I realized that I was in a tough spot caught between two heavy bless nations, Mictlan and Atlantis. I likely had a poor build for Utgard, but had difficulty balancing wanting some diversity and finding something that could expand fast enough on Indies-9. Fortunately Atlantis was discovered early. Bogarus was to my north, and I would have much rather gone after them (lost SC god very early), but couldn't do so with the two threats to my sides. My entire early game plan was devoted to trying to rush Atlantis early on. They could sail directly to my cap from theirs, which had me very concerned. Just as I was about a turn away from attacking, Mictlan invaded from the other direction.

I was really caught by surprise by this. Midgard (who had a substantial lead at this point) bordered them on the other side, so it left them pretty vulnerable as long as I could defend my cap. I still had to delay a bit to finish getting skratti online. Incidentally I had the worst luck. Out of 15-20 recruited only a single W3 one As expected, Midgard swooped in, and Mictlan fell. I assumed I would be next in line for Midgard, so had to keep some forces on the western front to them honest, and potentially invade if it seemed that Gath or Caelum was likely to join in. I didn't see any indication of this, so finally resumed my scheme to jump on the now weakened Atlantis (they had been at a stalemate with Ulm all this time).

By the time I was finally able to move (this is why early wars usually are terrible for both parties), Caelum had already basically begun conquering the world, and I was too income starved to do much more than defend the VP. I don't understand why everyone waited so late to do something about the obvious threat. It seemed nation after nation was caught by complete surprise, and and/or staled at critical moments. This was my first YARG though, maybe that's just how it always plays out? At the very least Wraithlord deserves major props for striking at the most opportune moments.

Most amusing moment - tricking Bogarus into trying to seduce with 5 or so Sirin and losing them all. Biggest disaster - failed storming of Atlantis. I didn't account for the monolith, and simply couldn't quite take it down. I had a few ethereal x-bows, but they died to archers or something in the siege, and my decked out Skratti got caught behind it, and didn't retreat. I think Caelum struck the very next turn, and recovery was hopeless at this point.

[Bullock]

From Pangaea:

I did a poor game because i had no plan for late stage, and used badly my SC pretender which became pretty useless. Fortunately with a strong economy and the help of minotaurs i managed to slaughter a couple neighbors (3?) who hadn't much to repel my units. I was starting to have nice stuff and army (a bit splitted into my realm) and then caelum showed up... with 3 times the ressources of everybody and some really nice items.
Despair came with the few stales of Midgard who was the only other nation who could have helped me against Caelum.

But as i said i was lacking late game strategy so it would have been very hard anyway. So congratz WL !

@Ulm: I didn't attack you because you were already fighting valiantly against several nations, it would have been a shame for a couple more provinces.

[Stagger Lee]

Congrats WL!

[WraithLord]

Thank you all for this excellent & exciting game!
The playing level and competition were high despite the deceiving early victory.
I also want to extend a big thank you to Amhazair for admining this game and to Dimaz for assigning nations

This is my first ever win in a RAND type game and the earliest I've ever one.
I credit this to perfect luck. Almost every choice I made, every guess, was right on the spot and I absolutely don't expect this kind of luck to happen again. Not soon anyway.
It also helped a great deal that none jumped me when it was still possible to stop me. Only Pythium and later Pangaea attacked me but it was too little too late.

I played EA Caelum once, in the artifacts game, and put to play lessons hard learned. Mainly re. usefulness of crow tribe.
I also took to heart Executor's observation from last YARG that I play too cautiously and decided the hell w/ caution in this game

Caelum short AAR:

- My Pretender
Caelum, King of Kings, the Hidden One, the Divine Shepherd, Lord of this World,
Prince of Insects
Caelum, Late Era
Master Druid (Body 268, 10 hits)
Magic: Nature 4
Dominion 9
Scales: Order 3 Productivity 3 Cold 3 Growth 3 Misfortune 2 Drain 2
Awake

- game plan: make lot's of money. have good resources. Concentrate on building all flying super mobile armies.
Let awake Dragon deal w/ early expansion.
Then, scout like crazy. Find weak opponents. Jump one, or even two at a time. Make the kill. repeat.

I went almost straight for construction 8. Picked up and cast two globals on the way. Not strong but enough to give my plans a push.
I got weapons of sharpness and then forged all the artifacts I could.

This got me to 6 VPs I think and I knew my next move should trigger a global war vs. me so I had to plan well and pick up courage to give the "go" command.
I decided to strike at Midgard+Utgard 1st. Midgard b/c I noticed him massing armies on our border and Utgard b/c I thought I'd get two easy VPs from him (his + Atlantis). Attacking Migard was actually a defensive move: attack 1st and have him on the defense instead of the other way around.

The attack on Utgard failed to yield the expected result since Fungalreason has put up a spectacular defense of his VP. However, the attack on Midgard was more successful than expected and I ended up taking the 8th VP from him (Mictlan) and aiming for 9th+10th (Midgard+Atlantis).

My highlights and notes from this game
- Mobility rocks. All mobile armies are invaluable.
- I was shocked when my scouts reported an evil twin of my pretender - Midgard's green dragon.
- As it happens our dragons never faced off.
- Dust to Dust, Thaum. 2 (the highest I got), killing badass undead thugs. You gotta love (or hate) that spell.
- Utgard defense of his VP. I lost two major battles to him. Kudos man, that was a great show of resilience!
- Losing the Ankh to Utgard
- Thinking Midgard is Executor's and Pan GFSnl. Yeah, I suck at guessing.
- Going from no wars to a three fronted war in just one turn due to Pythium's unexpected weak arsed punch
- And yeah, I noticed Gath attacking Pythium and thinking WTF. The guy probably has good reason to attack Pyth knowing that the game is about to be over.
- Predicting exactly when Pan will strike at me and preparing a sufficient counter offensive to break his charge. I actually attacked him on the exact same turn he attacked me.
- Raptor clan. I have a new measure of respect for this clan after this game. Esp. Raven guard and Harab elder.

Short PR:
I'll be soon starting two new game:
- House of Chains, non newb game, diplo allowed, WH mods + CBM1.94

- YARG5, EA RAND game.

PM me if you want to reserve a spot in one, or two of them.

[danbo]

Executor, I think you are not in the position to decide who fits these games and who doesn't. You along with Midgard let the Giant grow and began to stale when the time of great war has come. And now you blame me. And anyway couple of poor provinces I took from you didn't prevent you from trying to stop Caelum.

As for the Gath. First, I picked up Gath third time in a row in RAND games, it's a true miracle But the game itself was rather boring only due to my position. Tough neutrals around my capital made my expansion slow. Then I met Marignong in the battlefield and the victory was easy because Marignon didn't even had a chance against my blessed fire-resistant troops. Then I was only sitting on the fence watching graphs of Caelum grow and wondering when my only neighbours Pythium and Caelum will finally begin to oppose the obvious leader.

But I think nothing could be done as the strategy and tactics of our winner were truly brilliant. Congratulations, WL!

[Executor]

Seriously? I let the giant grow? I had no border with Caelum until he attacked Arco and that was not that many turns before I attack him. I'm pretty sure I wasn't in a position to *stop* him from getting too big.

I staled due to RL problems, I did ask Amhazir for extensions but I don't think he got them in time. Doesn't matter in the least.
I'm not blaming you for losing, like I said I doubt we could have stopped Caelum.

However,

As for those couple of poor provinces; I gave you at least several turns to *stop* attacking me before I gave up. I even let you take a fort with no opposition, but you didn't stop. Instead you kept going at me and massing troops on my border. So excuse me but how don't a fort down, several (8-10 I think) of my provinces gone and several hundreds troops on my border stop me from trying to stop Caelum? Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question...

[danbo]

Executor, while I was in war with Marignon, Ctis and you decided it's a good idea to steal fruits of my victory from me and occupied some of Marignon lands. And in my terms such actions are translated as "I'm hostile towards you". Actually I was going to attack Ctis after Marignon but you cut me access with your hydras, killing lots of my men in the process, it was another casus belli.

And besides, I didn't know that you are going to attack Caelum, instead you have a couple of stales. I understand that you had reasons for that but it doesn't change much. When I became aware of the fact you're in war with Caelum, i didn't care much already, Midgard had series of stales and was already crushed, nothing could be done.

To sum up, my logic was to hope that Midgard would put up a better resistance and in the process attack passive nation that was somewhat hostile against me and didn't performed very well overall.

P.S. And Executor, I've just realised that I was in somewhat similar situation in YARG3. In that game it seemed that I was only person to detect your potential from the early on. But no one helped me and instead Shinuyama guy stabbed me in the back. I was very very much frustrated by this, but didn't accused Shinuyama leader of anything. It's beauty of the RAND games that we can have such dramatic and unpredictable situations. So, I'm looking forward to take part in such games it the future.

[Executor]

I didn't steal Marginon provinces, I took former C'tis provinces before Pangaea did. In the end I had maybe 2 or 3 Marginon provinces and probably 3 C'tis ones. You could have easily stopped with retaking Marg provinces if you wanted to. I made no attempts to stop you from retaking them.
As for my hostile actions, I never kept any troops next to your border and didn't move against Marginon until he turned AI and C'tis started attacking him too. If you consider that hostile, fine, I would too, maybe, if someone grabbed a few province from under my nose, but that's nothing anyone else wouldn't have done, probably including you too. And it's definitely not something worth making that nation your arch nemesis and forsaking the game cause of it as you seem to have done.

And how could you not see me moving to attack Caelum, because I moved every single unit and commander I had to the Caelum border when you attacked me, literately. You can clearly see my research graph at a standstill indicating that. You can also see me losing provinces to Caelum as soon as I attacked him. In fact, the first thing I did after my two stales was attack a single province (the only one I could at that time) to declare to all the other nation and especially Midgard that I'm going after Caelum. Caelums counteractions showed pretty clearly we were in war.

And by the time you noticed Midgard stale you didn't care anymore? Dude, that was at least 5 turns in. How could you not notice me being in war with Caelum for 5 turns. Midgards first stale was on turn 41! And it was a single stale at that point in no way indicating he had given up or anything.

You could have simply taken back what you considered yours (and I would have been fine with that) and let me try and deal with Caelum. Instead you took back former Marg provinces, and I didn't react, than you took C'tis provinces, and I didn't react, than you took a couple of mine provinces, with still no reaction from me, until you finally stormed one of my forts.
So if you though I was hostile I'm pretty sure I disproved that by letting you take all those provinces from me.

Danbo, what you did in YARG 3 didn't make much sense either to be honest.
You attacked me at about turn 15, as soon as I made a move against TC. So we ended up in a 30 turn war because we still had a turtled TC between the two of us. Than you proceeded and attacked whoever was sought from you too, Arco I think, and I have no idea why. By the time Shiny attacked you were already losing the war badly. The only effect Shiny had was to grab provinces from me.

I'm not judging you play-style but I find it somewhat erratic. I can't explain your action in this or the previous YARG. Not the behavior you'd expect in a no diplo game. What C'tis, Vanheim, Svarogia and Shiny did in YARG 3 is how people should play these types of games.

And for the record, I think there is a general consensus that whenever you see an AI nation that usually translates into attack on sight before other get a change to grab *free* provinces before you. So what I did is hardly a big deal. It's one of the downsides of people turning AI.