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Akratic Method
Mar 9, 2013

It's going to pay off eventually--I'm sure of it.

Any day now.

OOrochi posted:



Also, my former treelord turns into a giant eagle this time. I’m totally willing to stick with this chassis.

Wait, why is tree bird now?

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OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

Akratic Method posted:

Wait, why is tree bird now?

There's a nature spell called Transformation. When cast, it turns your mage into a random animal chassis. Since it's not too expensive, I had my old treelord cast it and transform for fun.

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




OOrochi posted:

There's a nature spell called Transformation. When cast, it turns your mage into a random animal chassis. Since it's not too expensive, I had my old treelord cast it and transform for fun.

This both resets the mage's age to 'young' for the chassis and removes the upkeep. It's really good on old/expensive nature mages.

There's also the small chance that you get a really good thug/SC chassis out of it.

Kobal2
Apr 29, 2019

Technowolf posted:

This both resets the mage's age to 'young' for the chassis and removes the upkeep. It's really good on old/expensive nature mages.

There's also the small chance that you get a really good thug/SC chassis out of it.

There's also (or at least there used to be ? Is it still the same in Dom5 ?) a non-insignificant chance to turn your expensive mage into an ant. Or a mindless abomination of melted flesh and random animal parts. Details !

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

OOrochi posted:

There's a nature spell called Transformation. When cast, it turns your mage into a random animal chassis. Since it's not too expensive, I had my old treelord cast it and transform for fun.

Another important thing is that if you Transform a unique summon(whether that be with Transformation or with JBBM/SILT's various "become so and so immortal"-spells), they stop being that unique summon. So now there's another summonable Treelord up for grabs, meaning that Atlantis could in this case summon all three, Transform his "favourite" of them hoping for a good chassis, then keep resummoning him each time. It's a decent side strategy if you're summoning some uniques for their paths rather than for their innate abilities(since obviously those are tied to their form).

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
Prevents them from being wished away, too, iirc

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Kobal2 posted:

There's also (or at least there used to be ? Is it still the same in Dom5 ?) a non-insignificant chance to turn your expensive mage into an ant. Or a mindless abomination of melted flesh and random animal parts. Details !

Here's an interesting video about how Transformation (and Twiceborn) work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gJiQ0bJPOk

Broken Box
Jan 29, 2009

Akratic Method posted:

Wait, why is tree bird now?

'Cause he's tree as a bird now
And this bird has spells to change
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh~~

GokuGoesSSj69
Apr 15, 2017
Weak people spend 10 dollars to gift titles about world leaders they dislike. The strong spend 10 dollars to gift titles telling everyone to play Deus Ex again

Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:

I admire Purp because their entire gimmick is being a joyful backstabber but every time someone is like "Hmm, but surely this time they won't backstab or betray me"

I don't know I've played Dominions games with them and I think they're actually pretty trustworthy, as long as you expect them to do whatever is best for them at the moment, which is really how all Dominions diplomacy should be conducted. Purple doesn't break actual non aggression pacts or anything that I'm aware of if you get them to agree to it. The only thing maybe is that their lips are a little looser than some other player's if you share your plans with them in a PM, but I've seen that backfire more times than just the game this LP is about.

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.
Okay, now to catch up.

Atlantis Turns 58-64

Turn 58




Start off with a successful cast of Dark Skies. Since my dominion is pretty strong, it’s going to be pretty hard for anyone to invade me without chunks of their army running away.



Pan sends some horrors at me, though they don’t too much.



There are a bunch of battles against small forces of Pan’s or Pan’s PD. I take a casualty or 2 from most of them, and take a good chunk of provinces and besiege Pan’s cap with an actual army.



I keep taking provinces, move to reinforce my sieging force on Pangaea, and send Mother Hydra up to the nearby lake so she’ll be ready to claim TC’s underwater throne when I take it.



And over in the east I start really gathering forces in Valrest. Erytheia’s throne (formerly Agartha’s throne) is inside sailing range from the province, so I could hit it in one move. Hopefully Erytheia leaves it somewhat lightly defended so I can snap it up.

Turn 59



A few more battles as I start cleaning up Pangaea.




Pan attempts to break out of their cap and fight me on the open field. My boosted protection, morale decreases, and massive cold fatigue damage means that I only take a few casualties as his units either freeze in place or rout. My communion of Forgiving Fathers also now loves to spam Enslave Mind, so I steal a few of Pan’s random troops and commanders as well.
I’m not exactly sure why they broke out instead of holing up for a last stand in the fort, but I’m definitely not complaining.





I clean up a few more provinces.



And see what looks to be Pan’s last army besiege one of our former border forts.



I ping the fort in Pangaea itself as I have another scout ferry some gems forward to the army.



While I attempt to block Pan’s last army from rampaging through my core provinces. If they do move, I have armies nearby to block them, and if they don’t I’m confident my army in Lama can deal with what they have.



Over in the east I get a bit concerned about Gath. I’m seeing a lot of goats running around and I’m sure that there are even more in areas I can’t see. Though they’re a bit far away for now, I think I’d have trouble getting enough forces in my area to oppose them if they tried to attack me in the area near Bogarus.

That said, I might not need to fight them at all if I can grab thrones quickly enough. I currently need 3 more thrones and have access to 5. One of them is Gath’s underwater throne shown in the bottom of the photo. As Atlantis, I’m pretty strong underwater, so I’m pretty confident I could grab it from them without too much difficulty. I’d just have to fight through the fort in Terryn to reach it.



Another one is lightly defended one held by TC in Lithia. If that fort hadn’t finished this turn, I probably would’ve gone to grab it with my force in Omur.



And the reason I would’ve done that is because Pan’s throne in The Barren Crags is up for grabs, and I don’t think anyone could beat me to it right now.



And the 3rd easy throne is another TC held one in the Typhian Sea. They haven’t built a fort there and essentially have no defenses so I should be able to grab it at will.



And finally, there’s Erytheia’s new throne across the lake. I don’t necessarily want to fight their big communions if I can help it, but I think it’s pretty likely that I could crack the fort and take it before they retaliate. As long as Agartha keeps them distracted at least.



And finally, I’m not 100% sure if this was due to a glitch or not, but I just felt the need to show off the absurd amount of resources my capital has right now thanks to Riches from Beneath.

Turn 60



I keep popping out immortals with Liches and Worm Mages.





I take a few more of Pan’s provinces and clear their sieging force off of my fort. Those snipers seem to consistently do a number on my Forgiving Fathers, even with some buffs.



Though they do keep raiding and take another province back.



I ping their capital fort. Without that force they broke out with, there’s not too much to threaten me here.



Their god could do some nasty things with blood and astral, but doesn’t have any pearls or slaves. That could obviously change but I’m hoping it doesn’t.



The other notable unit is a Hamadryad. They’re pretty powerful nature mages (basically a slightly weaker, non-unique treelord) that start with a bunch of harpy bodyguards. Nature magic is generally very supportive, so without a big army to back up I’m not that worried about it.



For movement, I’m sending some guys up to threaten the Barren Crags throne next turn. I’ll also be storming Pangaea itself.



And then I’ll continue gathering forces to threaten Ery’s throne if/when I think its advantageous.

Turn 61



A good chunk of things happen this turn. One slightly annoying thing is that Pan dispelled my Riches from Beneath! While it’s not crippling, and I definitely preferred them to do that vs dispel Dark Skies, it’s still a pain.

Other things are that I have Mother Hydra claim my recently taken throne, and TC casts Mother Oak. Generally a bit late for a gem gen global, but it’s cheap so I can see the reasoning.



Also, a thing that I’ve never seen before occurs. I was building a random cheap artifact sword and it turns out someone decided to build it at the same time and beat me in whatever tie breaker decides who gets it.




Pan attacks me in a random province and attacks me in Pangaea again, but I fight both attempts off.



And then the storming of Pangaea goes well. Not too many casualties at all.



Pictured: The last moments of Pan’s god.




I also have a notable event in the lake by Marignon. Despite only building one fort in the lake, events have now given me three free ones. Though the troops and mages from the event are all purely aquatic so they won’t be of much use.



After a brief moment of indecision, I decide to move the my forces from Oakbeach south to go after Lithia.



While my group from Pangaea goes after the throne in the Barren Crags and the groups in Copos and the Royal Green head north to make moves on TC’s underwater throne.

Turn 62






Start this turn by receiving a mission and a lot of things from Agartha. Definitely can make use of most these.


There are also a bunch of small battles as I continue eating up Pangaea, though none really worth showing off.



I move to besiege Pan’s throne in the Barren Crags and also split my army a bit. Partially to keep taking Pan’s provinces, partially because the army was starving and I’d rather not have everyone get diseased.



A bit more north I move to get next to TC’s throne and keep Pan’s forts under siege.



And I, totally inconspicuously, keep sticking things in Valrest. It’s a very good thing that all of my guys resist cold, because a preemptive cast of Murdering Winter could otherwise do a ton of damage to me.

Turn 63



Comparatively not too much happens. Mostly more cleanup of Pan.



Though they did put a ton of money into the PD on their throne. But without mage support, it still falls pretty easily.




I get lucky with a 1/15 chance for one of my Worm Mages to get a level of earth magic. I use a cheap booster I had sitting around to make one of my favorite artifacts, the Soulstone of the Wolves. It’s expensive, at 65 gems to make, but I have a very large N income thanks to Pan searching their territory. The artifact itself auto-casts the spell Howl in battle, which is always helpful and can be really nasty if your opponent doesn’t expect you to throw it out.

Additionally, it also lets whoever holds it cast a 15-gem remote attack spell that summons a werewolf and 15 wolves (or 30 in a forest). While it won’t beat armies, it can pretty consistently beat PD and can be used to take provinces, block movement, kill lone mages and just generally be annoying. It’s also great because you can ferry it around through labs, so it’s very easy to get it where you want it to be.




I gather forces right next to TC’s thrones. Both of them are lightly defended, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to take either of them.



I see that Erytheia has a pretty sizable army right next to their throne. Definitely makes it a bit more difficult to snipe the throne away. Right now all I can hope is that they move it away.




With that army sitting there, I decide to change things up. I have one of my Silver Adepts gateway a bunch of Cave Grubs over to Tirannea. I’ve had a small-ish sized force sitting there to deter Gath and Erytheia for a while now. I’ve also built the artifact the Flying Ship, which lets the user fly with an army for a good distance. And conveniently, Gath’s UW throne is within range for me to fly a force from Tiarannea to the throne in one move.



And finally, I’ll be doing a few things in Valrest. I have quite a few Angakoks in the area to sail over next turn.
I also have my treelord-turned-eagle loaded up with N gems and another fun artifact: the Amulet of the Doppleganger. It makes the user stealthy and lets them attempt to seduce enemy commanders in the province. So for a cost of nearly 50 gems, I’ve basically made an inferior Dryad. Still, it can be fun to load random things up with the amulet and it can definitely help if you manage to take out important commanders.
Additonally, I have my god there, summoning one of the Kings of Elemental Earth. They’re powerful earth mages who can do lots of useful things, from strong in battle buffs to useful rituals like spawning a full castle out of nowhere or assassinating people with Earth Elementals. My god can do this too, but it’s nice to have more options.

Turn 64



A bit of a quiet turn in comparison, but that’s mostly because it’s a prep turn.




There are a number of further battles vs. Pangaea, including taking the throne and another fort.



Mictlan also rudely sends a few vampires to kill my mercenaries. I am absolutely shocked that Purple would attack me after we just had a friendly chat.



Interestingly, I also see that Jomon made a move to get a foothold in Erytheia’s lake and then fought off the force Ery sent to kick them out.



Helps that they have one of their heroes, who they’ve really invested in. Jomon’s been in a pretty poor position for most of the game, so I’m really hoping they can stick down there.



For moves, I advance on TC’s thrones. If I get both of them, then I win. I also have backup plans of Gath’s underwater throne, which should be easy, and Erytheia’s throne as a backup backup. Though I don’t move to hit either of them this turn.



And, just because I’m feeling a bit cocky, I send this out too. With 3 likely shots and 1 slightly less likely one, what’re the odds that I can’t pull it off?

Kobal2
Apr 29, 2019
It's pretty amazing to me how good Ice Guards seem to be, as chaff goes. I mean I'm sure the deathball snowball effect plays a part there, and Assartut seem to be more killy (but a LOT more deathy too).
Still, impressive results & numbers, for recruit anywhere assholes.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Yeah, this game has given me new respect for LA Atlantis.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Ice Guards are ludicrously good basic infantry, and are a significant reason why Atlantis is one of the most powerful nations in LA (not certain of the exact spot, but almost definitely in the top 3). And while some powerful LA nations have taken significant nerfs (LA Ulm's Vampire Count engine comes to mind), Atlantis really hasn't. That they have rather good, rather beefy mages helps a lot too. Oh, right, they've got a fairly good and inexpensive assassination spell that's unique to them AND easily researchable, in a modded game where the typical universal assassination spells have either been basically nerfed into uselessness or are incredibly high on the research tree.

Not to take away from OOrochi's skillful gameplay, but this really is Atlantis' game to lose, because the map generator spawned an absolutely idiotic amount of water that they could occupy (and shortcut through) basically unopposed - and water provinces have a tendency to be very rich in gold to afford even more troops and mages (a decent number tend to have good gem incomes too). Seriously, go look at the graphs posted last page again, and they've had a massive lead in basically every category for a long, LONG time now - part of that is that no one really ever attacked them (probably at least partially because they're a pain in the rear end to attack even early game territory due to Ice Guard), but another is that they've had a huge amount of territory they could just take and build up that was basically completely safe from potential attack regardless.





edit: They pop up very often in LA video LPs, and even when they don't win they're almost always in a very dominant endgame position. They're extremely powerful in general, and incredibly difficult to knock out as well due to the combination of very good amphibious troops and how few other nations can actually cover both.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Apr 15, 2020

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

Kobal2 posted:

It's pretty amazing to me how good Ice Guards seem to be, as chaff goes. I mean I'm sure the deathball snowball effect plays a part there, and Assartut seem to be more killy (but a LOT more deathy too).
Still, impressive results & numbers, for recruit anywhere assholes.

They do cost quite a lot for your average chaff at 16 gold and 32 (or 39 for the shield) resources a pop. But they're almost certainly still undercosted for what you get.

I've also been essentially spraying water gems through a hose to freeze any fort or area that looks to be a significant fight with Wolven Winter, which gives them an extra 6-ish armor. And most of the fights against anything more than PD have also had Stygian Rains up, which gives my guys another 15 prot against non-magical attacks. So a big part of the reason that they survive so well is that they're running around with 29-ish (or ~40 if they block with the shield) prot vs people who attack with like 16 damage attacks.

Lord Koth posted:

Oh, right, they've got a fairly good and inexpensive assassination spell that's unique to them AND easily researchable, in a modded game where the typical universal assassination spells have either been basically nerfed into uselessness or are incredibly high on the research tree.

I totally do agree with what you've said, but the gimmick of the newbads are that they're totally vanilla. So though I do have the Tupilaks, all of the other spells like disease demons etc. are available too.

Kobal2
Apr 29, 2019

Lord Koth posted:

Ice Guards are ludicrously good basic infantry, and are a significant reason why Atlantis is one of the most powerful nations in LA (not certain of the exact spot, but almost definitely in the top 3). And while some powerful LA nations have taken significant nerfs (LA Ulm's Vampire Count engine comes to mind), Atlantis really hasn't. That they have rather good, rather beefy mages helps a lot too. Oh, right, they've got a fairly good and inexpensive assassination spell that's unique to them AND easily researchable, in a modded game where the typical universal assassination spells have either been basically nerfed into uselessness or are incredibly high on the research tree.


Well, all of this is true... But they also only have 2 magic paths (I'm not even rating their F/A/E access, that's fake ; S is mere W communion fodder). And if one of the two (D) is one of the Three Big Lategame, they don't really have a hyuuuuge access to it anyway ; and the other becomes kind of dickless as soon as the enemy gets some form of cold mitigation.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

OOrochi posted:


I totally do agree with what you've said, but the gimmick of the newbads are that they're totally vanilla. So though I do have the Tupilaks, all of the other spells like disease demons etc. are available too.

....PURPLE TRICKED ME EVEN OUTSIDE THE GAME!!!! :argh:

Or to be more specific, and what I've been basing my understanding on, was when talking about Mictlan's summons in their Turn 2 post, Purple analyzed their summons using the JBBM blood slave costs when looking at their relative quality (notably in the comparison between Ozelotls and Tzizimitl). And one of the other JBBM changes is that Disease Demons were arguably basically nerfed into near complete uselessness. So whoops, running on false information.


Kobal2 posted:

Well, all of this is true... But they also only have 2 magic paths (I'm not even rating their F/A/E access, that's fake ; S is mere W communion fodder). And if one of the two (D) is one of the Three Big Lategame, they don't really have a hyuuuuge access to it anyway ; and the other becomes kind of dickless as soon as the enemy gets some form of cold mitigation.

I kind of disagree on that second point, because there's a fair amount of stuff water can do that doesn't actually involve cold damage... and from a strategic standpoint, it's a lot harder to boost global heat levels than it is cold. Like what's the Fire equivalent to Wolven Winter? I thought there was one, but skimming through spells I can't find it. There's Hellscape, but that's nation-exclusive - though yes, Abysia could seriously annoy an Atlantis player by spamming it at their above water forts. Other than that, for global slots there's Second Sun, but cold has Utterdark as a Second Sun equivalent, along with Theft of the Sun and Illwinter present as national spells (Illwinter's on two LA nations now). Plus, pointing back to that early/mid-game strength, they generally have the strength to stumble across SOMETHING to increase their magic diversity by the time it really becomes relevant.

For the first point, yes Atlantis is not one of the strongest late-game nations, but they're still pretty decently powerful then while also having an incredibly strong early and mid-game - much more time than most nations, even disregarding that they're still pretty strong late AND have the UW fallback that's basically impossible for most nations to assail at any point. There's Lemuria, which is generally incredibly powerful at any stage of the game, but Atlantis hard counters them pretty well for a large chunk of the game. Also, well, it's Lemuria and there's a reason they're usually banned.

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

Kobal2 posted:

Well, all of this is true... But they also only have 2 magic paths (I'm not even rating their F/A/E access, that's fake ; S is mere W communion fodder). And if one of the two (D) is one of the Three Big Lategame, they don't really have a hyuuuuge access to it anyway ; and the other becomes kind of dickless as soon as the enemy gets some form of cold mitigation.

I'll disagree with the FES access being fake. While you're not going to get a lot of non W rituals out of them, Forgiving Fathers can totally cast the big combat spells in a communion. 1 master and 4 slaves will get you a firestorm, army of gold/lead, or any of the astral spells that aren't Unraveling, Arcane Domination, or Master Enslave. While you're not going to beat out like Erytheia or Arco in terms of spammability, you can definitely get what you need out of them.

The A access is fake though. But that's okay, because it gives you Wailing Winds and Winds of Death on any A random Angakok with a skull staff and 3 gems, and those are ridiculously useful.

Lord Koth posted:

Like what's the Fire equivalent to Wolven Winter? I thought there was one, but skimming through spells I can't find it.

It's Breath of the Desert, an F3 A1 evo 4 spell.

Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer

OOrochi posted:

I'll disagree with the FES access being fake. While you're not going to get a lot of non W rituals out of them, Forgiving Fathers can totally cast the big combat spells in a communion. 1 master and 4 slaves will get you a firestorm, army of gold/lead, or any of the astral spells that aren't Unraveling, Arcane Domination, or Master Enslave. While you're not going to beat out like Erytheia or Arco in terms of spammability, you can definitely get what you need out of them.

The A access is fake though. But that's okay, because it gives you Wailing Winds and Winds of Death on any A random Angakok with a skull staff and 3 gems, and those are ridiculously useful.


It's Breath of the Desert, an F3 A1 evo 4 spell.

It has been a while but I can't think of many nations that have access to those paths.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Mictlan

Lord Koth posted:

....PURPLE TRICKED ME EVEN OUTSIDE THE GAME!!!! :argh:

Or to be more specific, and what I've been basing my understanding on, was when talking about Mictlan's summons in their Turn 2 post, Purple analyzed their summons using the JBBM blood slave costs when looking at their relative quality (notably in the comparison between Ozelotls and Tzizimitl). And one of the other JBBM changes is that Disease Demons were arguably basically nerfed into near complete uselessness. So whoops, running on false information.

This one is my bad, I thought I made sure I only posted vanilla versions, but some JBBM might have slipped in there.

Turn 64





So in the DEEP LORE of Dominions, each elemental realm had three royalty, but one of the Earth and one of the Fire got corrupted by bad magic. The Earth king by Blood and the Fire king by Death. Pedoseion here is essentially one of the Earth Elemental Royalty, but with Fear, better Regen, and E4B3 rather than plain E5. He's also the sole source of Illearths, which are blood-soaked Earth Elementals with slightly less Protection and slightly better regeneration. He's more or less purely getting summoned because, again, if this drags out, even a trickle of Illearths could give me beefy front line to clog up a wall breach or something similar.

With Earth/Blood as a reasonably rare cross-path, he's also nice if you need someone outside of your PG that can produce Blood Stones, and if you have access to Blood Stones, Earth Boots and Conjuration 8, you can be a terror to all non-Caelum nations by mass-producing summoning Troll Kings, boosting them to E5 and spamming Earth Attack to whittle away non-flying enemy commanders in a very efficent way.



As revealed, I'm also(temporarily) honouring my bargain with Utgard and attacking Atlantis, at least until it looks like Atlantis won't clinch an instant win and/or until Atlantis pays me to do something else.



The plan is to do a bit more raiding and then maybe if Atlantis is sufficiently distracted by other nations, I can muscle my way in and wrench that throne away from him. Actually having a throne for once in this game would be pretty rad.

Turn 65




This about defines a cocky move, Atlantis is more or less asking every nation to come dunk on him to prevent him from winning. He may get what he's asking for.





Territory changes hands. My raid and Atlantis' raid both succeed, and Utgard takes back the territory that I briefly raided away from him.



Part of the plan is to isolate the Barren Crags so that any fleeing Atlantean troops end up completely destroyed, not merely relocated. It's about my best choice of actually doing some serious damage. The main army also moves out to do some damage, enough time wasted.

Turn 66





Atlantis continues the countdown while Patal retorts with some sass.




The Atlantean raiders are crushed but my move-out is delayed by some offensive treelording from Atlantis, which is, as mentioned, often a very powerful move. The only problem is that the better offensive Nature magic options(Howl, for instance, and Polymorph) require nature gems and the treelord won't have any of that. So it'll rout PD and nothing more. The pro move would be to already have a scout in the prov with a pocketful of gems, of course, to hand over to him. But that seems unlikely to be the case here.



The two treelords with mixed paths also show up with some chaff, the E/N one with boars and the B/N one with Dire Wolves, which makes them somewhat more dangerous.




Atlantis fails to pin down my raiding vampires as they claim yet another province for the glory of Mictlan!



Whatever, that Treelord gets to hang around until someone feels like dislodging him. Meanwhile, it's time for the last brave stand of Mictlan.

Turn 67






Judging by the continuing countdown, it sounds like no one's managed to put a serious dent in the Atlantean plans just yet which... isn't good. Mictlan's troops aren't particularly burly, so I'm not gonna be bringing those walls down in one turn considering the forces Atlantis has present to reinforce them.

Still, give me some time with succubi at work and I'll wear them down and-



What? No. NO. IT'S ONLY FUNNY WHEN I DO IT. MY CAPITAL IS IN A FOREST AND ALL MY MAGES ARE SACRED WITH HOLY RANKS. You aaaaaaaaaaaaaasshoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooole.

Indiscriminate globals can be fun, but in this case it's probably a poorly chosen spell for Utgard. Atlantis isn't particularly... foresty, and there are even odds he'll be blowing up coalition allies with it rather than Atlantean priests. Good thing I'm moving everyone on to a loving mountain this turn!



God, attrition's done a number on me since I fought Pangaea. Consider that my army has essentially had zero replenishment except for summoned commanders since then due to my economy being crushed.




I presume the scout is a misclick from TC who intended to plant a military observer there to keep an eye on what was going down.




A global/thrones overview. What did Wild Hunt displace?



Time to go woodcutting.



And between my poor inability to replace commanders and all those frogs, disease might actually be the decider on this siege even before I get to the storming part.



I'm also clearing all of my H1 bloodhunters out of the woods, pronto. I don't have any hope of replacing them if Herne starts hunting them down. As H1's they'll be low-priority targets, but still targets.

Turn 68





Oh thank God that the coalition actually did its job despite the 11th-hour nature of its assemblage.



A succubus gets the cold shoulder.



A bit of pruning clears up my cap, sadly Pedoseion didn't manage to Hellbind Heart the treelord like I was hoping for.



And a relatively small probing force from Atlantis causes unexpectedly nasty casualties. Probably a combination of my troops already being half-dead from disease and elemental summons.




Goddammit Herne keep those dogs on a leash!



Knocking out those two load-bearing commanders also gave Atlantis some respite at the Barren Crags(uncommanded troops do not contribute to siege strength), though I'm pretty sure I would not, at this point, be able to take it anyway.



Still, I'm gonna reinforce the siege with a big pile of slaves. At least I can make it as costly as possible for Atlantis to dislodge me.

Khisanth Magus
Mar 31, 2011

Vae Victus
Hey, minor spoiler but Herne does more damage to Atlantis than everyone else combined. So I stand by my casting of Wild Hunt.

The_Final_Stand
Nov 2, 2013

So cute and cuddly
I'll be honest, I was sorta expecting next turn to be "Atlantis Wins" with a smug "jk gath and tc suck"

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Dammit, I love Herne more than anything, but I also love LA Atlantis and was hoping they'd win.

Snipee
Mar 27, 2010

Khisanth Magus posted:

Hey, minor spoiler but Herne does more damage to Atlantis than everyone else combined. So I stand by my casting of Wild Hunt.

Also, it looks like it knocked out one of their globals? Anyways, I’m rooting for an unexpected Mictlan victory out of nowhere, but anything that frustrates Purple is a good decision.

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

Hunt11 posted:

It has been a while but I can't think of many nations that have access to those paths.

There aren't a ton. Assuming you meant for Breath of the Desert, in LA basically only Ragha, Bogarus, Erytheia, and Phlegra have the crosspath before very late game or empowering, and only Ragha could do it without a booster (unless you get absurdly lucky with an Erytheian royal).

Snipee posted:

Also, it looks like it knocked out one of their globals?

Nah, Pan dispelled one of my 2 globals during the previous update, so there was just a free slot.

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.
Atlantis Turns 65-68

Tun 65



Oh boy, let’s see how this goes. Turn starts off with me claiming Pan’s final throne.



And Someone really tries to kill one of my Angakoks with Vengeance of the Dead. Thankfully, their death paths and good magic resistance make it pretty difficult to actually kill them for a while.




I win a few small fights, including a quick magic attack on Mictlan.



Continue to get bothered by Mictlan’s vampires.




And I witness TC absolutely wreck an army of Gath’s over by one of Gath’s thrones. Admittedly, TC committed a lot more to the fight but it’s still a pretty huge victory.




But the real events of the turn are my throne pushes. I teleported a Golem into TC’s underwater province, mostly to hide my army. The Golem isn’t too crazily geared, just 1 cheap artifact sword, and the rest were things Agartha gave me or I’d gotten in random events. In retrospect, it would’ve been a much better idea for me to have sent this to TC’s other throne.

Anyway, my army moves in to the province and occupies it without any problems.



Attacking the other throne goes well too. Only PD defending it, and I have enough cave grubs there to crack it in 1 turn.



There were only like 3 Ancestor Smiths in here and neither TC nor Utgard have forces nearby that could stop me, so I’ll just storm it.



My flying ship attack on Gath’s underwater throne starts off well. The cave grubs will let me crack it in 2 turns, and I’ll use the free turn to teleport in a few Forgiving Fathers to help the storming. I’m not expecting Gath to be able to put up much resistance down here though.



For other movement news, I have my golem pop out of the water to hopefully catch that army of barbarian horsemen. With the lifedrain from the Athame, Quickness, and a bunch of astral boosts, I’m pretty confident that it could take them out if they don’t move.




Over in Erytheia, I send my army to sail over to their throne (and have a guy cast Wolven Winter to cool it down) as I have a bunch of assorted mages jump into the lake itself. Erytheia’s big army is still there but I should hold all of the thrones I need next turn, so I might just be able to have a fun big fight to end the game. I have just enough siege strength in the sailing group that I should be able to crack the fort in 1 turn and storm it next turn too.

I also have an Angakok that I kitted out to be a very basic thug cloud trapeze into Embracer, just to give my army a spot to retreat to if things go very wrong.

I also send out all of my research mages near the Erytheian border to attack, just for fun. I’m not sure if I had maxed it out by now, but I’m essentially finished with research by this point.

Turn 66



AKA “The turn where things start to go wrong”




Start the turn with my countdown continuing and Patala sending back some sass.



And I have Mother Hydra claim TC’s underwater throne.




A treelord that I sent at Mictlan for fun beats their cap’s PD, but a werewolf raid does not beat their hordes of slaves.



And Mictlan’s Vampires keep beating up PD.



I take what should be Pan’s final non-fort province. I’d love to knock them out fully, because that would let my cold dominion spread through their lands really quickly and provide me some support if the game continues.



But they cling to life with a final group of 5 Centaur Sages who beat my stolen Pan troops and take another province.




And I see another battle between Gath and TC, which goes a bit worse for TC than the first one did. Gath brought a lot of magic to this fight and it paid off well.



For throne things, my invasion of Erytheia goes well. The throne’s PD falls and there are not nasty surprise patrollers.







And all of my other battles against them go off without a hitch as well.

Heading over to TC’s fort, I spy a curious sight.



TC’s god, with a good chunk of gems and a bunch of lighting-immune zombies have teleported in before I stormed.



TC throws out enchantments that cause constant lightning bolts to strike the battlefield and poison to spread everywhere. I was not necessarily expecting this, but think that my troops should still cut through, even if there are a ton of losses.



But then another mage of theirs throws this out. I, like a fool, had stuck a few Mournful into my larger squad because they were sitting around. Mournful have terrible morale. They lower the squad’s average morale, it routs, and then everyone else runs too.



Not the proudest moment for Atlantis. But that’s okay, I still have 2 other shots at thrones. I’ll still be storming Gath’s almost totally undefended throne. Hopefully Erytheia also moved that army away from their throne and I can just take that one.



They didn’t move the army. Something must have tipped them off that I was going after thrones. I also calculated my siege strength to be too low, so the small force of crossbowmen they kept inside the throne fort was enough to keep the walls standing.



That’s fine. I’d rather not risk my army if the game’s not in the bag so I’ll have my big stack retreat a bit and I’ll regroup at the bottleneck between my territory and Erytheia’s, maybe if I threaten their cap they’ll move their army away from the throne or something.



Over in the west, I see an army of Utgard’s that very much can fight off what I have in the region. I have most of the survivors of the storming retreat back to the Silver World where I have reinforcements coming from my capital. I do move to keep a token force on the throne and also move to take TC and Utgard’s lakes because I am amphibious and they can’t stop me.



A 3rd complication now is Mictlan’s army right next to my newest throne. This one is not as bad, solely because I already have the throne. In the cold, with the morale penalty from my global and backup from my spells, I’m pretty confident that my troops could grind through whatever Mictlan can throw at me. Especially because I can throw out things like Antimagic to keep me safer from Blood Vengeance.



And finally, I move to kill Pan once and for all. I storm the fort in White Peaks, have PD in the surrounding areas, and am moving in to take their province.

Turn 67







Start off with even more messages. My countdown continues, Patala sends out more sass, and Mictlan turns into a cartoon.



Utgard casts Wild Hunt too. This isn’t too bad, necessarily. I do have a lot of guys in forests, but the only real issue this causes is that, because my throne near Bogarus is in a forest, I can’t keep any Angakoks directly inside it. But that’s okay because I can just keep them in the lake nearby or in my capital instead.



Pan’s Centaur Sages survive another day.



Erytheia’s stack of a lot of mages kicks my token guard off of their throne.




I’d sent 2 Tupilaks at TC’s throne. Sadly, neither one gets a kill.



And then Utgard rudely knocks my token group off of TC’s fort. A hilarious thing that I didn’t realize happened was that TC also had their god break out of the fort to kick me out. He was kitted out to expect a few small guys, not a bunch of angry giants. So the giants squashed him.

The god was twice-borned, so he just came back as a Wight Mage, but it’s still funny.



Over in former Pan, Mictlan advances their army on the fort. That’s a bunch of sacreds, but I still feel confident.




And over on Gath’s throne, I’m greeted by some surprise guests before I storm. A Seren and a Kohen Gadol, kitted out to thug a bit. The Kohen’s especially annoying because it has an armor that auto-casts Soul Vortex, which drains the life from anyone nearby.



I win, taking a decent amount of casualties and using all of my gems on water elementals and buffs, but that’s fine. That’s probably all that Gath can send down here, so the throne itself should be easy.



But surprise! Gath has another friend for me in the fort, a brand new Golem!



It buffs for 2 turns and then casts this, which constantly damages all non-mindless (aka non-golem) units in the battle.

Without gems, my Angakok goes off script. And, being a death mage with 2 or more paths, it spends the entire time summoning skeletons, who the Forgiving Fathers then spend their turns buffing instead of doing useful things.



Eventually, the Astral Tempest kills the Ice Guard, causing the mages to run away and then die because there are no friendly provinces nearby. RIP to my backup throne attempt, my 40 gem flying ship, and a bunch of other sundry things too.




And then to top things off, I start getting hit by the Wild Hunt attacks. They don’t do much of importance right now, but it’s still annoying.

With that, it’s time to start fixing things.



I realize that I have no air random Angakoks by my capital to defend that throne, so I have this guy in the Pan throne fort kitted out and told to break out with some guards.



His job is to cast this spell as many times as he can before he gets nicked. The ring he has will then teleport him back to my capital, safe from harm and ready to be used again.



Over in TC, Utgard has a big army sitting on the throne. If I’m lucky, they’ll decide to take it for themselves instead of just fighting me. Either way, I keep gathering forces in the Silver World to help fend off an invasion.



Erytheia’s throne is currently not really an option. If I’d been thinking clearly, the smart thing to have done would’ve been to consolidate all of my forces in the lake, then march on the throne again while I had mages from my cap and nearby forces rain remote attacks on the stack.



But instead, I’m panicking a bit about declaring war on the whole world and failing all of my throne pushes, and I notice Gath’s other throne. They’ve kept it pretty lightly defended throughout the game, so I decide to go after it instead. I have my big army plunge into the lake nearby to make its way down.

Turn 68



And I continue to scramble on this turn.




Patala keeps mocking my countdown and I declare to the world that my lunge failed and that they can resume their regularly scheduled in fighting. I think they’ll buy it.




My army on the underwater throne starts getting hit by Vengeance of the Dead casts and Forgiving Fathers are a lot less good at killing dead guys than Angakoks are.




But on the plus side I do finally kill Pan’s sages and an Angakok freezes a Succubus from Mictlan.



Mictlan also kills my treelord without much effort. I only belatedly realized that they’d need gems to do anything more than be annoying and had a scout move there this turn with gems. Just a bit late.



On the throne province, the guards hold up pretty well and my Angakok gets 2 full casts of Wind of Death off before a beast bat bites him and he disappears to my cap.



Pretty acceptable casualty ratio, I’d say.



I also have a second idea to deal with Mictlan’s stack. Murdering Winter is great at killing people sized units with no cold resistance, which is conveniently what Mictlan has lots of. It’s expensive at 40 water gems a pop, but should be worth the price.



Sadly for me, Utgard does not take the throne, but instead moves north. That one Norna casualty is from the heat aura of a Devil. Really proves to me that half the time auras will screw you over instead of help.



And Utgard launches another Wild Hunt attack on me. Thankfully my Angakok’s guards stick with him and they fight off the pretty weak attack.



With Utgard on the move, I consolidate guys and try to figure out my options. I think the key for any fight would be to get them inside my dominion to kill their leaders’ morale. Because the vast majority of their units are cold resistant, my basic strategy of freeze things and stab the icicles probably wouldn’t work too well.



Over in Erytheia, I keep moving toward Gath’s throne. I couldn’t sail down because I’d abandon the Forgiving Fathers, who I think would be very important to any future fights.



I also start moving basically everything I have in the area towards the throne in the Forest of Springs.



Because I see an army of Gath’s on the border. Se’irs and Gibbors are both great counters to my strategy of “be really tough to kill and then slowly stab the enemy once they pass out from exhaustion” and Gath’s player has been really good about bringing any and all supplementary magic that they can to a fight. I know that this is relatively small for now, since there are more Sages than Se’irs, but I still want to be really careful and not lose my throne if I can defend it.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Man, that stack of Kohen Gadols from Gath are really doing work. It feels like they've had 200 to 500 kills in every fight they've been in.

It's also pretty interesting seeing all the various tricks people were whipping out in desperation to keep their thrones from Atlantis.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
Today's Important Lesson: 4 turns out is too soon to announce that you're gonna win the game.

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

impressed with the two-punch combo of two sacrificial thugs exhausting the enemy followed by a golem to finish them

Khisanth Magus
Mar 31, 2011

Vae Victus

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

Today's Important Lesson: 4 turns out is too soon to announce that you're gonna win the game.

It's not like it was a big announcement, I was giving people an ETA to an Atlantis win in discord every turn trying to get a coalition together. Sadly everyone was too busy fighting each other until it was almost too late.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Khisanth Magus posted:

It's not like it was a big announcement, I was giving people an ETA to an Atlantis win in discord every turn trying to get a coalition together. Sadly everyone was too busy fighting each other until it was almost too late.

I, too, was telling everyone to stop attacking me and attack someone else.

Funny how it didn't quite seem to work.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Khisanth Magus posted:

It's not like it was a big announcement, I was giving people an ETA to an Atlantis win in discord every turn trying to get a coalition together. Sadly everyone was too busy fighting each other until it was almost too late.

I suspect that in the minds of most Dominions players there's a big difference between "hey that guy is gonna win, you should hit him" and "I am gonna win"

Just saying

Tuna-Fish
Sep 13, 2017

V. Illych L. posted:

impressed with the two-punch combo of two sacrificial thugs exhausting the enemy followed by a golem to finish them

This was mostly born out of desperation. I'd been meaning to move some defenders into the fort for the whole game, but just never got around to it. Then Atlantis sieges it, claims they are about to win the game, and I suddenly have literally nothing in the fort, and most of my stuff that is good at fighting underwater just can't make it there until they kick down the door. The thugs were built with the items I had laying about, and I was very pessimistic about my chances of winning the fight until I realized that by teleporting the golem into the fort, I get two fights in one turn, and if the first assault just lives long enough, the mages are going to exhaust all their gems. It was still quite close, with the golem being unable of healing in any way, and going below half hp before the Atlantians finally routed.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


PurpleXVI posted:

Man, that stack of Kohen Gadols from Gath are really doing work. It feels like they've had 200 to 500 kills in every fight they've been in.

It's also pretty interesting seeing all the various tricks people were whipping out in desperation to keep their thrones from Atlantis.

I think it's banishment against the whole ton of skeleton spam.

Arcvasti
Jun 12, 2019

Never trust a bird.

wiegieman posted:

I think it's banishment against the whole ton of skeleton spam.

I'm pretty sure they're also casting Fire Storm.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Arcvasti posted:

I'm pretty sure they're also casting Fire Storm.

If you think about it casting Fire Storm is just banishing people BEFORE they turn into skeletons.

Ramc
May 4, 2008

Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Spectacular.

Ramc
May 4, 2008

Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Colonel! The gates are breached. This siege is coming to a head.

Good work Eric, according to reports Atlantis is on the verge of winning the Ascension War.

Almost time to wrap it up, eh Colonel? Once Atlantis seizes the th- wait is that--


the gundams of the patriots

MASTER ASIA!

The steel butcher? He's still alive? I thought he was imprisoned after the last Ascension War!! he dropped a colony on the planet!!!

He was imprisoned, but the old cages are weakening, Eric! And what's more the bless he offers largely doesn't care if he is imprisoned or not!

Blood Surge... Withering Weapons... Cold, Fire and Poison Resistance... On his sacred cavalry archers that is a potent combination, and even reinvigoration for his sacred mages...

Power comes at a cost Eric! Misfortune 3 is a terrible burden to carry. The scales are largely positive, though, and Order will offset some- but not all- of the Misfortune.

And being Imprisoned it would be a long time before he could effect the course of the Ascension War... but he's here now... but what could one man do...


hahaha if i dropped a colony... why would i spare any of you?!?!?!

My God.... He's insane! get out of there, Eric!

Activating astral parachute, Colonel. Eric out.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
:allears:

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
An 11th-hour miracle. Thank you Ramc.

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PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Mictlan

Turn 69

Nice




I mean, maybe if you hadn't attacked me in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation, goatbaby!




Atlantis hits me with ice and werewolves. I'm surprised Murdering Winter didn't get more kills against my shirtless dudes in the cold, it's probably one of the strongest remote-attack spells, in my opinion, since it doesn't throw out a limited number of attacks, but instead hits a percentage of troops present in the province.






A mixed bag of bullshit this turn. Got a free mage, which is something in short supply, and Atlantean werewolves keep giving me trouble. I gotta admit to some irritation because I can never get any good traction with that spell, and yet here he is, kicking my rear end with it.

Fighting Atlantis looks like the sort of thing that won't turn out well for me, so I review the details of my agreement with Utgard, which only specifies that our NAP lasts until Atlantis is down to 2 or less thrones. It doesn't specify how long I have to stay at war with Atlantis. So when he contacts me, we agree that I'll stop hassling him and instead he'll give me some stuff/let me retake some provinces and we'll attack TC together. This seems like it will work out much better for me, plus if it gives Atlantis the breathing room to actually win the game, it'll be much funnier if one of my betrayals contributed to it.

Turn 70



I melt down all of my earth and fire gems for money, since earth gems are close to worthless to me and fire gems are worth a lot less than people who can actually fight.




The vampire lords being alright raiders, but I still feel like they're not a particularly great summon.



Maybe if I get lucky and just pour everything on TC's cap, which is basically right next to mine anyway, I can clinch a decent win of some sort? At the very least I can finally revenge myself for TC dishonourably bullying me multiple times this game. The small stack I'm moving on to his cap is succubi there to try and steal some of his horny old man mages.

Turn 71



Here come the bribes from Atlantis! Mmmmm, yes, delicious bribe money.



One of my vampire lords almost had more affliction icons than stat icons, so I suicided him on to an Atlantean province to get him resurrected with hopefully less.



Another prov was empty of troops, as agreed.



By genuine accident and not me being a dick, I had forgotten a single leaderless thrall on the throne Atlantis had taken from Pan, delaying his breakout by a turn.




TC attacks an Atlantean province the same turn I try to retake it and my poor vampire lords pay the ultimate price yet again. Goddammit vampire lords, suck less! You didn't get a single kill!




Turn 72





Whoops, that failed seduction will tip off TC that I'm incoming. Then again me actually attacking him would do the same, so no big loss.




God, the joys of actually having positive income again! I never thought it would happen.

Turn 73






It's been mentioned before, but LA TC's heavy cav is some real scary poo poo. I'm glad this group went down without causing more damage.




Atlantis has been making real quick progress on TC, I don't think he even really needed to turn me to make this happen, mind you, but I like to think he did. With TC's other forts and nearby provinces becoming rapidly locked down, my plan is to just rush in there, sit on his cap(and hope he doesn't have too many patrollers active) while attempting to eat his commanders with succubi and infernal diseases, TC has mostly fragile old man mages, so it should be able to do some damage.. But if possible, I'd prefer to fight his army in the open field. He might try to rush out after me, so I'm gonna raid up a bit more of his cap circle to see if I can't bait him out.

Turn 74






Maybe I should have been fighting TC all along, this seems to be the only drat war that's been going in any way as planned all this game.



Except for the part where I forget TC has the option to patrol with some troops that have Spirit Vision. :v:



But this at least means he's got his goons out patrolling for succubi, so if I attack, I should have a chance of crunching most of his troops outside of his fort! Except...



TC tells me to please stop attacking his cap because he's got a funny spite thing he wants to do against Atlantis. Out of respect for a fellow spite-fighting brother, I decide to pull back and watch the fireworks from a distance. Hell, if he distracts Atlantis long enough, maybe I can get a chunk of the fishpeople, too, now that my economy is on the rebound.



Also odds are Atlantis will clinch the win next turn or shortly thereafter, anyway, I can't imagine him not having one of these two uncapped thrones.

Turn 75



Unsurprisingly, it turns out I was right.

So, what did I learn this game? Well, I feel like I learned a few things.

Firstly, God, dear Christ, gently caress LA Mictlan.

Secondly, I think I finally understand how a blood economy is meant to work now.

Thirdly, if you gotta play LA Mictlan, don't rely on an imprisoned incarnate bless unless you want to be a funny spite-fighting rump state by the time expansion is over and probably for a while after.

Lastly, betraying people is hilarious.

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