Going down in style

[1000yd_stare]

Ok, the situation:
Multiplayer game using the ringworld map; turn 51; I am mitclan; fighting vs Arco, with Vanhiem a temporary ally, and Caelum a distracted neighbor.
All human players, with the exception of Ctis, who is an AI desert tomb theme distracting the Caelum player
At this point I have about 15 provinces, pulling in about 150gp after upkeep; get about 5 gems of each type (except earth) per turn; some of my provinces are wholly devoted to blood slaving (0 taxes). I am practically 100% reliant on blood to sustain my forces,

Caelum is about double my size, Vanheim is a little worse off than I, from what I can figure; score graphs are off.

Arco is plainly winning, owning the bulk of the provinces, and having cast Eyes of God and Wrath of God. I have advanced into his territory, and my army of fire9 blessed eagle warriors, cross breeds, and occasional summoned devil/imp/drake has been doing well, primarily because all I have been facing are summoned Angels of the Host, fladullents, and madmen. He is summoning them behind my lines.

My spies are deep in his territory, but so far have not found any labs/pretenders/candidate targets for deep summons.

At this point, my intention is to go down in style, making myself to be the biggest pain in the a$$ to arco that I can be, simultaneously learning as much as possible.

So, I ask the board: What cunning, diabolical, clever ideas can I use to make my opponent(s) life insufferable?

To this end:
I intend to crank up taxes to 200 on these recently conquered provinces, while blood hunting.

Pillage all new provinces

Once my spies find a lab/pretender/temple, attack via provincial disaster/summons Hordes from Hell, etc.

Continue the wanderings of my one and only army deep into arco territory

Unless I convince my neighbors to give me astral pearls, ignore the globals; likewise, will not cast Astral Corruption because of the high cost and high likelihood it will be dispelled.

[Kristoffer O]

Astral Corruption.

After that there is only blood magic in the game. Else you'll be horrified (attacked by horrors). Boost the spell enough not to get it dispelled.

Then send horrors. Under the corruption many of your horrors will be doom-horrors. You can lay waste to huge armies with horrors.

[Norfleet]

A secret to winning any game is to remember that you don't necessarily have to defeat your opponent, you just have to drive him beyond his tolerance for pain and frustration. It worked for the Vietnamese, and it can work for you. A victory by refusal to admit defeat is still a victory, after all.

If you can stubbornly resist being eliminated and dish out a level of frustration and pain out of proportion with your actual strength, you can convince your opponent to give up and either bother somebody else, or fold.

Above all else, quitters never win, and winners never quit. Never give up, never surrender!

[Starfighter08]

Since dispelling spells is discussed in this thread I might as well ask how do you dispell globals here.

[Wauthan]

You dispell global spells by either casting the Astral spell aptly named "Dispell" or by casting the global spell yourself (which creates a little tugowar between your spellpower and the original caster. You don't always manage to win).

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Starfighter08:
Since dispelling spells is discussed in this thread I might as well ask how do you dispell globals here.

Either with the spell "Dispel" (under the Enchantment tree, I believe), killing the caster, or by casting a spell specifically designed to stop a particular global (for example, there is a fire spell which removes Eyes of God, and burns the eyes out of the caster for good measure ).

[Wauthan]

Good show Fahdiz! Forgot about killing the caster of the spell.

To stop this thread from being hijacked I recommend building tons of constructs and undead. Put the lot in a forward lowsupply province that's sure to meet the Caelums path. Build a fortress. He'll see a huge red square in the fortress and most likely assume that it is your main army, especially if you put some bigshot summons in there. While he's distracted sieging your fortress, which might take a long time since Caelum units eats a whole lot of supplies, take your real army and rampage trough his backyard.

[ March 10, 2004, 21:19: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[archaeolept]

though killing the caster doesn't seem to work if the caster was a pretender god, which seems to often mess up my trying to get rid of some AI's Burden of Time.

[Wauthan]

If it was the pretender who cast the spell, which is often the case with the AI, it will no be dead until it's banished completely. While it's dead it's simply on a funeral style vacation as far as the game is conserned.

[Gandalf Parker]

A sig line that I use often (and surprisingly no one has commented on) is...
Me: Some play to win or lose. Others just to stay in the game.
Them: Are we talking about games? Or about life in general?
Me: Exactly.


OK besides the metaphysical message it IS also saying something about gaming. And Dominions2 especially. Remember Data playing a game of Strategema with Kolrami? And how he won?
STAR TREK: "Peak Performance" - 4/19/89 - ACT FIVE
DATA "Working under the assumption that
Kolrami is attempting to win, it
is reasonable to assume that he
expects me to play for the same goal."
WESLEY "You werent."
DATA
"No. I was playing only for a
standoff -- a "draw." While
Kolrami was dedicated to winning,
I was able to pass up obvious
avenues of advancement and settle
for a balance."

Ive seen games of Dominions played that way. Well beside the hit-n-run tactics you came up with you might negotiate a new home from one of the other players. Some back province where they dont have alot of defence and they will let you take it without considering it an aggressive act.
Maybe someone who looks like they would LIKE to be aggressive toward arcos but not OPENLY so.