I threw two more disease demons at it, and it survived some mind hunting, but more is incoming this round. Did you know a dome of arcane warding can block your own spells if you target enemies on a besieged, dome'd province? Remember that one because with a meaner dome that would be nasty. 83 hps and it can't heal. It moved to attack another fort and killed almost all of its own army now with Rain of Stones. Also...
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 01:52 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 13:04 |
He's got the heart of a champion.
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:05 |
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WELCOME TO FUCKIN' DOMINIONS! HOPE YOU LIKE MIASMA!
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:07 |
Nothing can reasonably stop me at this point. C'tis and Pelagia have now gone AI so it is just me and the remains of Sceleria while I mop up the last 2 thrones I need to win for real.
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:13 |
Just fyi even a diseased thing can heal back to its base HP at least by using regen in battles. It's a bit easier said than done, but it's possible!
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:26 |
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eh, the dog has n2 for personal regen and a3 for mistform, so it's pretty easy (assuming that it doesn't get mobbed by a million things)
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:27 |
He is personally puissant but poses absolutely no strategic threat to me at this point. He'll eventually die to a mindhunt or something or I will get the other thrones.
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:31 |
Sloppy Milkshake posted:eh, the dog has n2 for personal regen and a3 for mistform, so it's pretty easy (assuming that it doesn't get mobbed by a million things)
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:34 |
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yeah i guess if it's just doing rock drops battle probably end pretty quickly
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# ? Mar 27, 2016 02:46 |
Sloppy Milkshake posted:yeah i guess if it's just doing rock drops battle probably end pretty quickly I wouldn't sweat it.
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# ? Mar 28, 2016 02:59 |
On turn 101 it is finally over. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the new Pantokrator of HappyNewbie: A Volla of the Bountiful Forest, Wet n Wild gave my WC a powerful W9 bless, and also had N5 for +hp and to summon Mother Oak without a booster. When I was down to just my cap circle all those N gems basically kept me alive in the form of swarm dryads and summoned siege chaff. She also gem-genned W and N gems which ultimately let me lay down a 200-gem-overcast-plus-being-W11-with-boosters Vengeful Waters. The Map: I was super big by the end. I would have won sooner but except for 2, the thrones were geographically far from my dom push. You can see my early struggle, and about the exact moment when C'tis tried to jump me, failed, and Ulm backstabbed him same turn. For a long time I only had one fort. Then I got better. At about the time C'tis began to go down, they put up Burden of Time and Foul Air which tanked pretty much everyone but me's economy. I had a E4 Pan doing earth gem alchemy every turn, but even then my growth scales and constant expansion and patrolling kept me rolling in bucks. I put up MOAK early and site searched pretty diligently with stolen marshmasters and Iron Order Adepts. Pelagia had Maelstrom up for a little bit before it got overwritten by C'tis' Well of Misery or something. [Edit: It was my Vengeful Waters that overwrote Maelstrom.] My research was stunted, but it was also blood by the time of my re-expansion, so what I did have was mega nasty. The reason I won. My temples are 200 each. Everyone else's? 400. The economy is tanked for everyone else. I had stealthy WC squads demolishing unforted temples both above and under water. Pelagia had Vengeful Waters up for a bit, then it got dispelled by someone. That was my excuse for templing every prov I had then open-palm slamming my mega Vengeful. Pelagia told me they tried to overcast it with 110 water gems and failed. Excellent. Quality over quantity. Also a special shout-out to my prophet, who survived from turn one and is the only survivor on the hall of fame. I empowered him in Nature so he'd have a longer lifespan to dunk BoT aging. I'll probably see if there are any good IRC bits for a look-back, but here we are for now. Ramc fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2016 04:02 |
quote:<Treebot> New turn in dominions_four (71). Defeated: EA Hinnom, LA Pythium, LA Jomon, LA Bogarus Sorry I have been busy winning.
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# ? Apr 1, 2016 22:38 |
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Ramc posted:I went to the Billy Bishop school of Dom4. Gods-damned right you did.
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# ? Apr 2, 2016 02:26 |
DOMINONS_FOUR PART ONE: THE INQUISITION. WHAT A SHOW! The gimmick of Dominions_Four was twofold. The first is that it was a ‘badnations’ game, and thus used a mod that made selection from the not-so-great nations of the various eras. The second was that you could not buy up Domscore on your pretender god. I actually really liked that as it effectively removed the Domtax on making a PG. Of course no sacred spamming early, but that was never the plan for me anyway. I went for Marignon with some good scales and this guy as my PG: Hearkening back to tales of the Knights Templar worshipping a demonic head, the Baphomet is pretty much exactly that. He’s even cheaper for Marignon I am pretty sure. He has a natural domscore of 4, which is the highest possible without buying it up. F6 and S6 are to be able to cast some globals. B3 was just a place to put extra points, but eventually it ends up being a little important. The other benefits of a Baphomet were summarized here in Roland Jones’ draft LP: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3762346#post455659071 In the first few turns my expansion was terrible. I bobbled one expand and had to skip a turn, but that turn gave my army critical mass and it just kept rolling with crossbows mowing down everything. Eventually I had 4 expansion armies rolling. The map was big so there was plenty of room for me. Also, two of my neighbors (Jomon and Ermor respectively) lacked self-confidence: quote:[17:13] <Baudin> feel free to murder me quote:21:59] <jsoh> IM PRETTY SURE IF WE BUMPED YOU WOULD KILL EVERYTHING I HAVE AT ONCE I don’t take either of them up on their requests for the sweet release of death because I still had plenty of indies to kill and that less trouble than trying to dunk a player. I didn’t get into any wars and expanded very well. I made it spring of year three and put up Eyes of God (and also Eternal Pyre, but that’s just gemgen for fire.). Here is the state of the world at midgame: This is me. That throne in my cap circle is the Throne of Splendor. A level 3 throne with good domspread that gives all blessed units Awe. Zeus is parked on it, and I learn in a few turns that he happily spams rain of stones. RIP that army and my prophet. The throne to my east is the Throne of Fortune which gives +luck and some pearls I think, and I do end up taking that just fine and fort it. I am in the lead for provinces at this point, though a lot of what I have is trash. I am attacking R’leyh up north for a reason I will cover later. Gath went AI super early after it’s n9 solar disc (???) died expanding. It is getting eaten by Hinnom and Ermor. Jomon basically chills out almost all game. This is Baudin. He has a Celestial General as his PG. I see it in action once. I vaguely remember it has air and astral, but maybe Baudin can clarify. Blue and red flag Bogarus is Afrosquirrel who ends up being dog piled down to his cap circle by his enemies before breaking out finally late game. I don’t know what his pretender god is. I never see R’leyh’s PG either. Kitfox88 had gone AI very recently at this point, which is why I am taking that fort from him. R’leyh AI does better than Kitfox and actually remains a headache for a lot of people for the entire game. Ermor’s god is a Cyclops with earth magic who got a limp helping out with expansion and the nation is played by jsoh. The game and its gimmick was created by him. He is eating Gath. EA Ermor isn’t MA Ermor and thus isn’t domkill roman skeleton nightmare world. Pythium has some blood thing going on, and Oceania doesn’t really do much besides attack Bogarus, take turns very slowly and eventually go AI. Hinnom also has some blood stuff going on, and ends up having piles of demon knights. I keep thinking they are bigger than they are because their flag and Gath’s flag are so same-y. But yes. Time to check the REAL measure of how successful you are in Dom4… Ah poo poo. How do I go from here to victory? Find out next time. Ramc fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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# ? Apr 2, 2016 17:21 |
I think it is dishonest of ramc to log in and post screenshots of the advanced fully deterministic AI that is taking the turns and actually winning the games.
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# ? Apr 3, 2016 21:21 |
DOMINIONS_FOUR PART TWO: NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION I ended up getting Construction 6 pretty soon after, and with my considerable fire gem income made approximately a million lightless lanterns that kicked my research into high gear. Things stayed fairly static for awhile. Ermor (jsoh) ate Gath and self owned himself repeatedly: quote:[00:47] <jsoh> OH MY loving GOD Also jsoh got an event where an archdemon took over one of his provinces, so of course he was going to enslave it. quote:[02:34] <jsoh> AND IM ABOUT TO CLAIM THE THRONE OF ABUNDANCE about 5 turns later quote:[20:54] <Treebot> New turn in dominions_four (41) So there was that. I take the Throne of the Luck or whatever on my eastern border, and eventually get mindhunts going to kill Zeus and take the Throne in my cap circle that turns out to be Splendor. Look out for my flagellents with awe, suckers. (though, real talk, having awe on my squishy old man mages is not the worst thing ever) I look for other thrones and see the old Belial prov, if taken, would give me a border with a level 3 throne. Ermor is fighting Pythium now, with Ermor slightly winning. I've made noises that I might get involved in that any day now, but more or less that's what I've been saying about any war. I can't see so well now though as I lose Eyes of God to other globals going up. Ermor has Earth Blood Deep Well and Ghost Ship Armada up. Figuring he doesn't want another front I make an offer on the province with a large army nearby. quote:Session Time: Thu Feb 18 00:00:02 2016 Note on tuesday the 18th there in the above conversation.: [19:53] <jsoh> IM PRETTY SURE HINNOM IS ACTUALLY GOING TO ATTACK ME SOON BUT ALSO PRETTY SURE THAT IM GOING TO DEAL WITH IT . quote:Session Time: Wed Feb 24 00:00:01 2016 Jsoh goes AI eventually and Ermor begins to collapse. I've taken the Throne of Suffering I bought access to, forted it and parked my cardinal hero on it without taking the throne. As Ermor implodes, Hinnom, Pythium and I all rush into it. I luck into seizing the 2-point throne of the moon in the cap circle of Ermor. Pythium took it but was knocked off it by jsoh's AI PG. I immediately moved in and took the fort but did not claim it. I then noticed that the Throne of Abundance was held by the tatters of AI Ermor surrounded by AI Rleyh and some Pythium with no armies near. I had the unique pocket flying boat item, and gave it to a Herald to ferry a terracotta army over and spam living air with a storm staff, and a mound king with D4 to spam skeletons. I take the province A Hero. I am 2 points away from victory if I claimed all of these thrones. I have the cardinal on Suffering, a H3 Archangel on the Moon throne, a H2 Herald on Abundance so I forge the unique item the Immaculate Shield to give him +1H for claiming purposes. Now I just need two more points. My PG is now at this point. F7S7B4. He's been casting lesser horrors and making boots of youth for my wizards. I have Thaumaturgy 9 and decide I will cast ASTRAL TRAVEL to move a massive army onto the 2-pt throne in Hinnom's cap circle near my border and seize it, as it is unforted. I have no idea what is actually NEAR there as my scouts aren't near it yet. I... didn't expect this opening to come up where I had enough thrones. Except my PG is 'too immobile' to walk through the Astral Travel gate. It's no big deal though. I have my mindhunters, and with some eq-swapping they get up to the requisite Astral 5 and I send in two armies, my teleported PG and a few teleported support mages and take the province. The war zone where I teleported in. I am in the cap circle of Hinnom. He has no Demon Knight stacks near me, but two research stacks and his PG. I prepare. I teleport more mages in. Fly some in. One of my Heralds with boots of quickness flies 5 spaces/turn to get there to help lay down defense. I put a zillion PD in. I set everyone to claim thrones. This is it. Armageddon. The final battle. Where is the earth shattering kaboom? There Isn't even any fight reports for any of the throne provinces I took. What... happened? I even had defenders in the throne of abundance on the off-chance Pythium flew some vampires at it. quote:[14:40] <Treebot> New turn in dominions_four (71). Defeated: EA Hinnom, LA Pythium, LA Jomon, LA Bogarus They... forgot to take their turns. O-okay. My combat scripts. I was loving ready for an epic throwdown. It just never happened. The state of the world. I’ve expanded a little into AI jsoh’s Ermor to get at their thrones. Provinces. I was always pretty big. I steadily made and took forts as I went. Most of my provinces were kind of trash, but I did ok. You can see the gemgen globals and Throne of Abundance swapping hands. Hinnom had them last, all the good it did them in the end. Research! I was doing very well in the end, keeping up with the leaders. Hinnom and Pythium aren’t as high up there, but blood nations so they’re just chucking it all into vampires and demons. It availed them not. My dominion was huge. I was bleeding into Hinnom and Jomon pretty well. I templed pretty much every non-border territory. It’s not he size of your army, but how you use it. My armies mostly existed to screen for my wizards in the end. I added terra-cotta soldiers to the mix just because they don’t perish to fire storming. I won. It turned out pretty much noone was paying attention or comparing notes and all my paranoia was once again unfounded. quote:01[21:36] <Ramc> I was all set with elaborate scripting and mages defending Ramc fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 03:04 |
I am in some other games too. 4623gp in troops and commanders lost or seduced. WELCOME TO PANGEA EVERYBODY PARTY
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 05:18 |
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I did the same thing with Marignon. I think people were comparing notes and chatting about me; they just weren't anticipating how quickly I put myself into a throne victory position for a final-turn triple cap. I doubt it will be possible to do that in Corn, though, due to the throne setup. The jsoh chat logs have brought me great pleasure. What is best in life? I will tell you: the wails of thy Dominions 4 adversaries. I hope his Great Sage dies in a lab explosion.
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 08:35 |
Good writeups RAMC
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 19:33 |
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If you think mages just shrugging and ignoring their scripts is bad, wait until one of your armies suddenly decides ten dudes with spears are dangerous enough to be flattened with 100+ gems.
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 19:46 |
My personal preference is "our army has 100 chaff, they only have 10 mages, lol who uses gems" *is flattened by infinite skeleton army*
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 21:14 |
Libluini posted:If you think mages just shrugging and ignoring their scripts is bad, wait until one of your armies suddenly decides ten dudes with spears are dangerous enough to be flattened with 100+ gems. I almost forgot this gem from the game and your comments reminded me- quote:Session Time: Sun Mar 13 00:00:02 2016
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 22:42 |
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Ramc posted:I almost forgot this gem from the game and your comments reminded me- honestly this actually sounds like a pretty clever idea if you're under siege imo
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 23:32 |
V. Illych L. posted:honestly this actually sounds like a pretty clever idea if you're under siege imo Intentionally triggering gem use is definitely a thing you should do.
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# ? Apr 8, 2016 23:38 |
What does set it off? I've sort of assumed the relative hitpoint totals of the respective armies.
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# ? Apr 10, 2016 03:37 |
Ramc posted:What does set it off? I've sort of assumed the relative hitpoint totals of the respective armies. That's only one piece. It also values mage paths, gems and items. I had a Pan named "gently caress Your Gems" with equipment in every slot and a handful of harpies scripted to retreat triggering gem use in a large enemy army.
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# ? Apr 11, 2016 16:45 |
Is that R'leyh's PG in my candles? Oh man he isn't looking so hot... wait... do I have a dryad in that province? Can it beat a bunch of fish and shrimp? ...
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 01:17 |
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The Tentacle Monster wasn't even remotely interested in the Furry Loli
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 02:08 |
Enjoy posted:The Tentacle Monster wasn't even remotely interested in the Furry Loli Absolute realism was never a Dominions 4 priority, I don't think.
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# ? Apr 21, 2016 12:58 |
Dryads and Swarm are bullshit. This game needs more indep heavy infantry with weapons of sharpness slamming into formations of Hoburg with giant strength.
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# ? Apr 22, 2016 17:31 |
quote:<Teens>: you know ctis is one throne from winning rn right Waiting for the next turn to go up, to see if this is true. (I am C'tis)
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# ? Apr 26, 2016 17:41 |
Ramc, you should go take over Roland Jones thread as well.
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# ? Apr 26, 2016 22:57 |
Donkringel posted:Ramc, you should go take over Roland Jones thread as well. I had forgotten about that LP. If I must.
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# ? Apr 26, 2016 23:15 |
quote:<Roland_Jones> Ramc: I paused my LP for a moment because I thought RoughDraft would be over soon, but then it... Wasn't. quote:[18:55] <Baudin> AfroSquirrel: ok so we need to kill ctis Ramc fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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# ? Apr 27, 2016 01:05 |
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It's kind of amazing seeing someone go from "what how do I do anything" a couple months ago to "oh, I guess I just win all the games now"
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# ? Apr 27, 2016 01:23 |
quote:<Baudin> GG Will try to do graphs and an after action report in the next few days anyway.
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# ? Apr 27, 2016 03:38 |
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biosterous posted:It's kind of amazing seeing someone go from "what how do I do anything" a couple months ago to "oh, I guess I just win all the games now" But he's just so nice you can't help but want to ally with him.
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# ? Apr 28, 2016 10:28 |
Ramc is actually modpud.
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# ? Apr 28, 2016 17:15 |
HUMANITY: WHAT… IS MAN? Humanity was a gimmick game. The gimmick was, if it wasn’t obvious, that the only chassises you could pick from when making your Pretender God were human ones. Archmagi, enchantresses, freak lords, great sages, etc. They are generally unpopular because they are fragile and have low starting dom score. Cobra Commander was my PG. I picked C’tis, the lizard man nation. Normally you want an awake expander for C’tis because their armies are kind of anemic, but after consulting with dark oracles made my PG imprisoned with a N9E4 bless and good scales. That way I could use my beefy sacreds with extra hp and regen to expand early, and still have them to act as a nasty second or third line once skelespam came online. The 2 pips of air magic were to forge some useful items like flying shoes- which were key to my win, and to cast Rain of Stones (it never came up). I kind of like it because the Human-chassis dom tax was smoothed out. As far as I know, noone was insane enough to try and turn one into an awake expander. The map was also fairly crowded, with about 11 provs per player instead of 15. Things got ugly early and Abysia and Asphodel were getting wrecked very early on by neighbors. This chat with Tien Chei player LWindy sums up much of the early game. quote:01[13:36] <Ramc> Hello neighbor with a big army on my border Later Lwindy would get into spats with Jotun and Vanheim, and come out the worse for him. He publically bemoaned his fate of losing a big army to the giants and I checked the turncout to see if the NAP was expired. It was. Before all this I did manage to get the Throne of Knowledge. It was easy because it was in my cap circle and my toxic dom had been diseasing and killing the defenders since turn 1. Do you know what also isn't immune to toxic dom? Sages. So many would come to study, learn and die of malaria. Eventually I got a dude with a cureall elixer to hang out there but it was bailing out the titanic. If anyone was wondering- and I certainly was- your PG seems to be immune to toxic MA C'tis dominion even if he isn't cold-blooded. Nazca got beaten down to his cap and put up Burden of Time, (which stayed for quite awhile). I put Gift of Health up, but Man stole it not long after and kept putting up gemgen globals. I was able to cobble together the gems and paths to cast Ghost Ship Armada which was hilarious and just added to the chaos of the knock-down-drag-out fight as everyone went to war all over. I, myself, took down TC in a lightning war where I took two of his 3 forts over 2 turns, and Pan took the third to 'cut off another front for C'tis' but effectively it just coup de grace'd TC. TC threw his army against mine in a last desperate bid then went AI when it lost, giving all his gems to Pan in thanks for invading him. Outside, Jotun and Arco went AI eventually leaving Man, Van and Pan all trying to murder each other and eat indies while I ate indies. Nazca eventually built up a giant stack of zombies in his cap over a million turns and took it marching late, seizing two thrones from Pan and adding to the chaos. I quietly got up to 4 thrones eating indies. Pan, it bears noting, was terrifying the entire game. I had a very early NAP with him that I maintained the entire game and thank loving god because: quote:[22:13] <AfroSquirrel> welp Even if there was at time suspicion. quote:[21:23] <AfroSquirrel> Ramc why are there undead ponies and lizard sacreds on our border? Pan ended up very big... quote:01[20:34] <Ramc> Yeah. You are already mega big too tho And because of this Man and Van and whoever else more or less ended up throwing themselves at Pan trying to slow it down. Noone could really build forts or temples because sooner or later a stack would burn all that down. quote:19:26] <AfroSquirrel> also my lack of research is starting to hurt now Man eventually put up Call the Wild Hunt which messed with Pan even more, as dryads are sacreds. I bade my time until I hit Conjuration 9 in research and put up Well of Misery, then I lunged ahead at the final two thrones I needed. One was on my border with Van and was barely protected. I drove a giant wedge of Marshmasters and my PG at it anyway but was barely opposed. I sent Ghost Riders to clear the way toward the other throne I needed in Van's cap circle. I used flying boots to hop my prophet over forests to avoid the wild hunt. I was able to clear the PD off the throne with Ghost Riders and then hit the then-empty province with some birds to take it. This means when I move in my army it has an absurd amount of PD backing me instead of whatever amount he’d have 50 points of Province Defense backed by a ton of skelespammers, foul vapors, rigor mortis, howl, bottled elementals, regenerating/reinvigorating sobeks and even the serpent ward spell that makes everyone immune to poison so I wouldn’t vapor all those horse archers. He puts out some token resistance but he gets steamrolled. I move to seize the throne and the agonizing wait to see if I win commences. Claiming the throne happens at the very start of the turn. My concern with the moving my army in was his PG would bust out some sort of battlefield-wide effect and zorch my H3 prophet. But now that I am on there, that throne is getting claim so he’d have to kick me off the province entirely for me to lose the throne. This didn’t happen obviously. I had absorbed TC, parts of Jotun and Arco and blitzed a good chunk out of Van. I never really got involved in any drawn out war while everyone else killed each other to death. Province graph. Pan was expansive, but constant war and trading of provinces meant he never really got infrastructure like forts and temples down. Fort Graph. I however, was rich and unbothered so I was able to make plenty of forts. So. Rich. My upkeep wasn’t so bad because my actual armies were relatively minimal. All skeletons, all the time. Man had a few gemgens up- Stellar Focus and Mother Oak. I mostly just systematically took and searched land from TC then AIs. Eventually I got Well of Misery up pretty late, but it helped fuel my skeleton push. I probably didn’t really need it. Noone bothered me and I got the Throne of Knowledge and the sages it brings early, then started making skull mentors. So it’s obvious that I’d have the research lea- wait. Hold on. How did MAN end up with like double my research? How did they lose? (answer: they got bogged down in a brutal forever war with Pangea) I could afford a lot of temples and spread my dominion all over. I HOPE YOU LIKE MIASMA Look how small my army was. Big deal. SKELETONS Now my prophet, let me get a screenshot of him. Like Happynewbie he survived from turn on- wait where is he... Wait hold on go back to that message page screen. Zoom. Enhance. ... Oh no. It’s okay. Uh, well he has a bottle of living water and can regen and oh poo poo is that 40 ethereal dudes? oh no oh no oh no oh noooo NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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# ? Apr 29, 2016 03:04 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 13:04 |
God that game was ten different kinds of poo poo. I had two regular connections out of my cap, one of which was a level 2 throne - this after remaking the map once because I'd started with my cap adjacent to another player. Despite this, elephants carried me to one of the highest province counts early. You can see me peak in the early bit, being tied with Vanheim and Jotunheim behind Pan. Unfortunately, I was never really able to bring all that to bear - I was constantly being nipped at by my neighbours, and bled troops like a motherfucker. I was able to fend off Vanheim and Nazca reasonably well with mercs, a cut off retreat, and some evocations, but when Asphodel went AI his remaining armies decided to retard smash me...and therein I learned that plant elephants are proper bastards. I lost three major engagements to asphodel and their goddamn carrion beasts, including significant numbers of mages. Around that point, Nazca put up Burden of Time and I had my second fort sieged. I decided then that this game was nowhere near worth giving a gently caress about anymore and went AI.
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# ? Apr 29, 2016 13:57 |