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OOrochi posted:Start the turn off with Mictlan proclaiming victory yet again. I am in a perpetual state of winning all the time, sometimes I just feel like people need to be made aware of it again. Out of curiosity, did my proclamations and battle reports posted contribute to your decision to attack Pan? Or would it likely have happened either way?
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Apr 9, 2020 14:10
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PurpleXVI posted:Out of curiosity, did my proclamations and battle reports posted contribute to your decision to attack Pan? Or would it likely have happened either way? They certainly helped me decide to launch in so quickly. Pan was probably my best target anyway due to the thrones and that the lake gave me a large safe area to attack from but seeing that they’d lost a bunch of guys made me want to swoop in and take advantage of it. All of my other targets were some combo of friendly-ish, had no easy thrones, and/or were hostile to Gath. Or was Gath, but I wasn’t going to fight them if I could help it.
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Apr 9, 2020 15:13
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The system works.
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Apr 9, 2020 22:55
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Mictlan Turn 52  Things are heating up!  So on the one hand, the SVC was a bit of a failure. On the other hand, unless Utgard did a lot of friendly fire, the horrors clearly still did more damage than my loser slaves did. Probably the smart thing to do would have been to just wholly evacuate Gintmark while I had the chance, but I didn't get where I am, outnumbered and clinging on by my fingernails, by doing the smart thing more often than absolutely necessary.  Also this poo poo keeps happening. Stop throwing toads at me, giants. It sucks.   My response is to rally the troops and set off towards Gintmark. I don't expect it to be anywhere near as easy as routing Pan, but on the other hand if I do pull this off I'll squish his PG and a lot of expensive mages unlike what Pan brought to the table, so it'll be even hurtier. Turn 53  I'm sure that Gath taking all these thrones isn't in any way alarming.    My assassin team score another small victory, and uh oh, something happened to my cap. We'll have to check that out later when we get back to the map, because poo poo got real at Gintmark! Utgard must've been patrolling and I walked right into it!   I'm definitely calling this one a win for me. His PG and the majority of his commanders are dead, shame those five Nornas escaped, since they're the most expensive part of the gang, but that's still some awesome destruction, including a ton of his cap-only Garmhirding sacreds. And oh man look at that murdering my Jaguar Warriors laid down. I'm real proud of those boys.   Sensible formations on both sides, though Utgard is displaying one of the dangers of bringing Heat/Cold Aura troops in most armies:  Heat auras don't give a gently caress about friendly fire.  Utgard should also probably have been more careful about protecting his back ranks. My eagle warriors and ozelotls are low on number but still real dangerous. I'm not entirely sure how his PG died, but I think she tried to clobber some of my sacreds and ended up BV'ing herself to death. I didn't record the rest of the fight, but it was mostly just my dudes mulching his with surprising efficiency.  Back on the world map... it makes sense now. Utgard wasn't patrolling, he was moving to my cap. When two armies try to move to each others' provinces, there's a chance they'll bypass each other, or that one of them will get trapped where it is and get attacked. It's definitely one of the more dangerous maneuvers in the game. It looks like a small number of his troops managed to slip past me and besiege my cap. That won't last long. Turn 54   I manage to do the most important part of any large victory: crowing loudly about it.  And the sieging force gets shooed away. Now I'm in a bit of trouble, though. I can't really do much work retaking anything from Utgard because my economy is too hosed to build an army and strike back, and fighting off both him and Pan HAS caused some attrition, sorry to say. On the other hand, neither he or Pan really has anything left to endanger me with for the time being, though I'm sure that given some turns, Utgard will rebuild his forces and try his luck again. Also he keeps throwing frogs at my cap.  While I consider my options, I send more seducers and assassins at Gintmark to try and keep Utgard too harassed to quickly muster a response. Turn 55    Looks like TC and Atlantis are getting in on the throne-grabbing, too. Perversely, my inability to grab any thrones earlier may well be what's keeping me from being targeted by either of them right now.   With my gold and gem economy suffering under the extremely rude attacks from Utgard and Pan, I decide to respond with a Blood-themed recruitment drive. It's time to start press-ganging demons into the military.  For whatever reason the game kept insisting that my Tlahuelpuchi HAD to be sieging the fort, refusing to let her try to hide or assassinate, and thus she ended up fighting off an entire siege breaking attempt by herself. Turn 56    As mentioned the main weakness of Horde From Hell is that all the summoned units are flying, so it's very much a roll of the dice on whether the PD or the Horde loses their commander first. Oh right and I hit Blood 7, that's about the main exciting thing that happened on Turn 56, where the previous turns' rampant aggression turned into all the combatants having spent their energies and sort of weakly trying to flail at each other. Turn 57    Time to see what good these Vampire Lords are, which is... I guess okay. As mentioned they're flying, stealthy, immortal, dom-summoning D/B casters whose main weakness is that they're basically just fragile normal dudes and thus need a posse of demons or something similar if you intend to use them as a powerful raider. They might be able to take some provinces by use of skelespam, but it'd take some degree of luck, so despite their abilities seeming to imply that they're meant to be used as raiders, in my experience their stats don't bear it out. Theoretically you could just go ahead and roll the dice anyway because they're immortal, but they very quickly get smacked into uselessness by piled-on afflictions if they get killed enough times.   The demon boobs harassment campaign against Utgard continues and... a lot of thrones have been getting grabbed recently, we should get an update on that.  Right, so Gath and Atlantis are in the lead, needing 3 and 4 thrones to win respectively, with one throne unoccupied(or at least unclaimed...) at the moment. This means that an outright throne lunge is a bit unlikely to happen unless some of these thrones are unforted or sitting on a border, since neither Gath or Atlantis can really muster a flying force for deep striking fun.  Now c'mon game, just one more chance, that's all I ask. One more chance to backstab someone before I get knocked out of this game or someone takes the win... Also no, don't ask me why the gently caress I summoned the Ice Fiends since they're weakened by everything about my goddamn heat scales. I think I really wanted the one that gets to summon free frost demons since I needed something, anything, to bulk up my forces.
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Apr 10, 2020 00:07
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Jeez Purple, with the amount of big fights you’ve been getting in you just might be the protagonist.
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Apr 10, 2020 00:47
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So, a couple things about that fight: 1) remember that vanilla commander you assassinated a few turns back? He was leading about 30 giants who had orders to hold in the back to await your fliers. After he got assassinated I moved them elsewhere but didn't give them the hold order back so they just walked forward. Whoops. 2) My pretender actually just took a shitton of damage from every single eagle warrior being in range of her and getting good rolls. PS: enjoy the toads
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Apr 10, 2020 00:55
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Agartha Turn 52  Looks like Erytheia has made their move.  This is the spell Murdering Winter. It's more effective in cold provinces (like mine).    Their army is still huge. Also, Agarthan undead summons may be a bit more trash than I thought.    A pittance of gems and an upgrade to my capital that would have been better about 20 turns ago.  On a more positive note, I've summoned this guy and have begun kitting him out. He's only got earth boots (the basic earth booster item) and a flask of holy water (which auto-blesses sacred units, note that my bless is particularly good). Turn 53  I continue to summon up undead chaff. I also lose another province, this time to some trolls Erytheia summoned.  Also, Marignon is defeated. LA Marignon is kinda lackluster, as they forgot how to build shields in exchange for a ton of blood magic.  Funnily, that happened on the same turn that the AI called their god back, so for a turn 30-50 feral hogs is just sitting outside its old cap, presumably yelling obscenities at the frog people within.   The two thrones that Gath claimed.  I also begin summoning these with my god. I've got nothing else to spend the water gems on and their decent enough chaff. Turn 54  A little bit quieter this turn.  Good news: I beat Erytheia's troll raiders. Bad news: I lost my Circle Master, which means that my only high level blood access is poor Karl.     Worse news: I lose my throne province to Erytheia's big stack. Turn 55  A turn with no battles as Erytheia settles in to the siege.   Blood 4 allows me to summon Demon Knights, which are tough like normal knights, but better because they have higher stats and native fear.   I gain a small fortune due to luck.  Well, this is worrying.   I move a small army, including my gnomes, to retake the desert. Turn 56  Just as I feared, Gath joins in the war against me.  I think that I shall never see/A poem I hate as much as a tree  Turns out that indie heavy infantry don't fare well vs. gibborim.  Small victories  Gath also debuts a thug Seren.  He's pretty well kitted out. Normal Seren armor is magical already and pretty decent, so there's no need to waste gems.      The sword grants him two high-damage attacks each round, the shield traps any enemies that try to attack him, the boots double his number of actions a round (so he attacks four times), the amulet keeps him from fatiguing out, and the ring keeps him alive during long combats. Personally, I would have switched the ring for a bottle of holy water to get my good bless on him, but I'm not sure if Gath has access to any water mages.  Abibaal here also has one of the better heroic abilities. Iron Will grants him a bonus to magic resistance that grows with the number of experience stars he has.   Meanwhile, Erytheia takes my throne and slaughters everyone inside.  I know I can't fight both Gath and Erytheia at the same time. And the last time I faced Gath it was a disaster, so I decide to make my stand against Erytheia in Wynna.  More party guests? Kinda late if they are. Turn 57  Erytheia claims my throne. Also, my blood economy starts slowing down due to lost provinces and switching to summoning blood chaff.   Gath takes another province. He also has these summons, which are moderately tough giant skeletons. The main problem is that you need to have a wasteland province to summon them, and that's not guaranteed on all maps.  Gath bounces a sage off of my southernmost castle province.   He probably chose this guy due to the horror mark.  And another probe.  "You know where I want to live? Deep underground in a nation that's being attacked by two stronger neighbors."
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Apr 10, 2020 16:50
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The best part of the Mictlan graveyard of empires is that he doesn't even have any thrones.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:26
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Ramc posted:The best part of the Mictlan graveyard of empires is that he doesn't even have any thrones. I mean, at this point Purple's neighbors still gotta go for him first because he's firmly established that if you turn your back to him to deal with somebody else he will plant an absolute forest of daggers in it. You gotta make sure your six is clear before going for the prize.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:45
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Not sure if the guy with a sword of swiftness (10w) and boots of quickness (10w) has access to water mages.
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Apr 10, 2020 19:55
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Mr. Locke posted:I mean, at this point Purple's neighbors still gotta go for him first because he's firmly established that if you turn your back to him to deal with somebody else he will plant an absolute forest of daggers in it. You gotta make sure your six is clear before going for the prize. FYI I am extremely bribeable so if you just pay me enough to not backstab you, I won't backstab you in any of the ways detailed in the agreement you make with me, which may or may not contain any loopholes large enough to roll an invading army through.
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Apr 10, 2020 19:57
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And you'll gladly point out one of those loopholes for more gems, obviously, seeing as you're a friendly neighbour and all.
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Apr 11, 2020 00:08
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Speleothing posted:Not sure if the guy with a sword of swiftness (10w) and boots of quickness (10w) has access to water mages. Honestly a major source of thug gear is killing enemies' own attempts at thugs. Those could very easily have been looted from skratti thugs.
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Apr 11, 2020 01:12
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Arcvasti posted:Honestly a major source of thug gear is killing enemies' own attempts at thugs. Those could very easily have been looted from skratti thugs. Or he could have traded for them.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:47
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 I'm only bringing this image up because the cropping makes it look like somebody is about to put sunglasses on the gelatinous cube from above.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:59
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Tulip posted:
Gelatinous cubes have four(4) miscellaneous slots, so they can actually wear four pairs of sunglasses, rendering them the coolest unit in dominions.
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Apr 11, 2020 04:03
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Arcvasti posted:Gelatinous cubes have four(4) miscellaneous slots, so they can actually wear four pairs of sunglasses, rendering them the coolest unit in dominions. deal-with-it-gelatinous-cube.gif
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Apr 11, 2020 05:12
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congeal with it
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Apr 11, 2020 05:34
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Can someone with Game mechanics knowledge point ot to me why Agartha is getting their rear end kicked so hard in battles? Formations? Not enough mages?
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Apr 11, 2020 08:36
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SavageGentleman posted:Can someone with Game mechanics knowledge point ot to me why Agartha is getting their rear end kicked so hard in battles? Formations? Not enough mages? I think it is mainly a reliance on outdated troops. They are still spending most of their time and effort on summoning cheap undead trash that the player admitted in their last post weren't getting them anywhere, and they are just sending large numbers of that chaff with minimal mage support vs giant deathballs. Eytheaia has over 30 of just one of their mage types, with a bunch of others also there. Gath also has very heavy mage support along with their already strong giants.
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Apr 11, 2020 08:57
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Yeah, LA Agartha's basic undead summons are kind of hot garbage. The only national summons they should be bothering with are stuff like the wight oracles and the umbrals/penumbrals. Once they've got a few wight oracles to lead their undead troops, they can also pivot to tossing out big "gently caress the battlefield"-spells that only hurt the living, like Rigor Mortis, which can do a lot of real nasty damage to an enemy mage corps.
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Apr 11, 2020 09:55
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To add onto this, I never really got a good income of death gems this game, which meant I was unable to get the critical mass of wights/banes/etc. that would have kept me in the game. (The chaff I'm summoning cost earth and fire gems, which I have plenty of.)
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Apr 11, 2020 14:48
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Double post, but just wanted to say that I am now not a newbad! That's right, I've won my first Dominions game as LA Atlantis. Here's my god:  As you can see, I went with nearly full scales, which allowed me to pump out my really good troops. I was also lucky and was able to get in on an anti-Lemuria coalition and got their cap, which gave me 9 death gems a turn, which is HUGE, especially in the late age where there's a dearth of gem sites. That allowed me to do stuff like spam skeletons and pale riders for chaff. I was also able to get uncontested control of the largest body of water on the map, so I basically had a place where I could build and move armies where almost no one else could reach. That also allowed me to summon Bishop Fish, which are underwater only Holy 3 summons, which helped me capture that final throne. The game actually got down to the wire. Cataclysm happened and like, three of my thrones go eaten. It was down to 4 VP (2 thrones) for the win when I claimed my last one, and was actually tied with Mictlan. I only won because ties are broken by dominion, and mine was like 2.5x what Mictlan had.
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Apr 13, 2020 17:48
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And yet he doesn't mention the part that bribing me(twice, even) played in his eventual victory. For shame.
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Apr 13, 2020 19:11
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PurpleXVI posted:And yet he doesn't mention the part that bribing me(twice, even) played in his eventual victory. That can just be assumed from context.
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Apr 13, 2020 20:18
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Technowolf posted:That's right, I've won my first Dominions game as LA Atlantis. Interesting that you really went all in on the scales. Since getting to S4 and D4 isn't that hard for Atlantis did you really use your god itself for much in the game?
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Apr 13, 2020 20:31
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OOrochi posted:Interesting that you really went all in on the scales. Since getting to S4 and D4 isn't that hard for Atlantis did you really use your god itself for much in the game? It's imprisoned so only out at the 3-year mark or so, and when it does come out, it can teleport, it's an innate caster with high prot and decent HP, and if you give it a ring of sorcery, crystal coin and 6 pearls, it can cast soul drain (at +2 pen, +3 in own dominion). I don't know if that's how he used it, but it's very well suited to absolutely trashing armies.
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Apr 13, 2020 22:22
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Tuna-Fish posted:It's imprisoned so only out at the 3-year mark or so, and when it does come out, it can teleport, it's an innate caster with high prot and decent HP, and if you give it a ring of sorcery, crystal coin and 6 pearls, it can cast soul drain (at +2 pen, +3 in own dominion). That's fair. I feel like I'm usually a bit skeptical about immobiles killing armies until I get my butt kicked by one.
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Apr 13, 2020 22:39
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OOrochi posted:Interesting that you really went all in on the scales. Since getting to S4 and D4 isn't that hard for Atlantis did you really use your god itself for much in the game? I didn't use it for that much besides casting Pale Riders and Mind Hunt (and managed to get it feebleminded before the cataclysm ever happened and never got it healed).
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Apr 14, 2020 00:58
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Mictlan Turn 58  While the big hostilities have died down, it seems strangely as though Utgard isn't willing to let bygones be bygones and give me back the territory he stole from me.    I weather some mean-spirited magical attacks in a very stoic way, steal a generic commander and stab another in the brain. Hopefully this is extremely annoying to Utgard's player, especially since he won't stop it with the drat frogs.   I believe the new global that went up from Atlantis is Dark Skies, it's one of the ones with no descriptive text, and is deceptively powerful if you have a strong dominion, since it drops hostile morale equal to the number of friendly candles in the province. Non-mindless troops usually cap out at about 15 Morale and anything with less than 10 Morale tends to run the first time they stub their toe in a fight. It also synergizes well with stuff that takes advantage of low morale, like The Looming Hell or various seducers, but even by itself it kicks plenty of rear end.  All the diseasing is also starting to add up a bit. Turn 59    As mentioned, I'm prevented from being particularly pro-active, but I'm hoping that the Vampire Lords will change that as I can toss them out without risking much, thanks to their rapid-return immortality. Look at them go, bringing another lost province back into the fold.  Meanwhile I remain bunkered up in my cap, waiting for Utgard to eventually make a move with his stack in Gintmark, and trying to delay that move with assassins and seducers for as long as possible. Turn 60   I gotta admit that this is particularly chuckleworthy as, way back, when Cobra/Pangaea was first attacking me, he went: "Ah, yes, after I steamroll you, you can take over Pangaea so the LP can continue." and this feels like the final whomp whomp in the extensive joke about how little I was actually steamrolled.     ...events of the turn do somewhat limit my gloating, however. gently caress.  On the bright side, those vamp lords will be back soon and I'm just gonna keep making more. Eventually, unless they get soul slain, I'll have a Perpetual Army Machine that I can toss about with wild abandon while laughing. Or, at least, that's the theory. Turn 61     I missed what global TC displaced with Mother Oak, but it looks like Gath and Atlantis are now neck and neck in terms of possibly winning the game. If Atlantis is also thoroughly dunking on Pan, they'll be aimed for Pan's sole throne in short order, too, as Utgard and TC probably won't be grabbing it(Atlantis has already advanced far enough to cut off Utgard from Pan's throne) and neither will I. Turn 62     My plan was to sneak a couple of vamps behind Utgard's lines and do some raiding, but apparently he was patrolling the prov I randomly picked. Son of a bitch, I must've hosed up and chosen one of his blood-hunting provinces.   I did however also start summoning Onaqui! Now, for Mictlan, I would at any time rather have an Onaqui than a Vampire Lord. Their domsummoning effect is better(beast bats rather than thralls), they're sacred, have bodyguards in battle and a blood searching bonus. They're also beefier and still have the full set of humanoid slots. Their cost is also only marginally higher than a Vampire Lords, so their only real loss is no Immortality effect. Turn 63   This turn harassing Utgard with vampires goes somewhat better.   But I'm starting to feel some downsides to using vampire lords as disposable. Reforming from immortality has a CHANCE but not a GUARANTEE to cure battle injuries, which means my vampire lords are all slowly starting to look like this guy.   The strategic situation is also looking a bit... grim... clearly I need to come up with something creative...  It's nice of Atlantis to give me some intel ammunition to abuse.  When in doubt, betray someone! I'm sure it'll work out and Utgard won't attack me at all. And we can coalition against Atlantis.  At this point you'd figure people would know better.
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Apr 14, 2020 17:04
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Clownlp already demonstrated the most effective way to handle negotiating with purple: don't
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Apr 14, 2020 17:15
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gonadic io posted:Clownlp already demonstrated the most effective way to handle negotiating with purple: don't Kinda want to point him to the next round of the Diplomacy LP, to be honest.
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Apr 14, 2020 17:52
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For the mass afflictions on vampires, once they reach a crippling level Blood Feast IS a spell that exists and all. Doesn't help all those no/low blood researchers, but the vampires certainly have enough to cast it (bar getting muted/feebleminded) as do any valuable mortal mages that got frogged. Just set aside some crappy province to do so.
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Apr 14, 2020 17:52
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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"
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Apr 14, 2020 17:53
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Agh, knew I forgot to do something. I'll go over it a bit more when I get my turns up, but I will say that Purple's betrayal and coalition with Utgard was pretty much expected. Khisanth had been the one player who had been repeatedly pointing out how many thrones I had or was near, and had been doing it for a few turns by the time I checked in with Purple. They also seemed to be the only player that had forces in the area that could oppose me in a reasonable amount of time. 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" Hey, you never know when they'll instead betray your expectations and be a faithful ally.
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Apr 14, 2020 18:16
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Agartha Turn 58  Things aren't looking good.   Dark Skies also mentions a "slight darkness" effect in battle. Not sure what sort of penalty this inflicts though.  Gath's thug continues clearing out PD.  Maybe I can lure Erytheia's main army away enough for me to recover?  Sure, this'll help. Turn 59  The "x now lives again as a wight mage" messages indicate Twiceborn going off.  Erytheia hits me again with Murdering Winter, this time killing my only commander, leaving the army stranded.  Ha! Gath's thug runs into enough PD that he can't just cut through. This is why area of effect weapons like brands are more useful on thugs.   What happened was that Abibaal got caught up on the infantry while the crossbows just shot him to pieces.     The rest of my battles don't go nearly so well.   While I can build use a PD or indie commander to lead the human troops here, any undead or magical troops will either rout or disintegrate without the appropriate leadership.  With my capital under siege, I start to fall back to Deepgorge Caverns. Turn 60  I'm really hoping that enough chaff will just clog up Gath's troops in the entrance while my remaining crossbows and mages kill them.  At least I'm not the only one having trouble.     But I got Trouble that starts with 'T' and that rhymes with both 'E' and 'G' and that stand for 'Erytheia' and 'Gath'.  Real good timing there, genius.  Hm, yes, more water gems. That's what I need.  My only real hope is that Erytheia and Gath have a disagreement on who gets my cap and wipe each other out.  I know that's not possible. So I make a dangerous gamble. I'm gonna try to use my god to snipe one of Gath's commanders. This is especially dangerous since Gath has a lot of astral mages. Turn 61  Whelp.  Atlantis edges ever closer to victory.  Bit late to start putting up gemgen globals. Although this may have been an attempt to dispel something else.  See above.  Yay?    Honestly kinda hard to feel good about battles like this when the next 3 are massacres.  I kill another of Gath's thugs.   Same deal as the last one, except his heroic trait grants him natural protection. Still doesn't help against massed crossbows.  Standard practice when sieging a fort is to send a scout or indie commander in first to see what the opponent has.  Woo.  I give my remaining conjurer blood slaves and have him start spamming stuff like imps. The only other B1 spells he could cast only affect a single square at most, and that won't cut it with the armies Gath's throwing at me.  It's time to make a decision.  No greater good...  No just cause. Turn 62  The final battle at our capital.   Erytheia massively overestimates what they need to kill that stranded army.   I barely dent Gath's siege force. I probably would have done better if my god wasn't feebleminded and could cast stuff like Control, Astral Shield, or Mind Burn.   All of Gath's non-astral mages carry the Crystal Matrix, which allows them to join communions/sabbaths without the required path. turn 63  Only one fortress remains.  Still being overwhelmed.   At least luck still pays out, even in the end.  I send off my new acquisition and the rest of my blood slaves to Mictlan. Maybe Purple can do something against Gath? Turn 63   ... turn 64    Four more turns for some...    But not for me. One of the 'benefits' of losing is that you get to see all of the charts.        
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Apr 14, 2020 19:05
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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 once knew a guy like that IRL. Played a lot of boardgames with him, both with strangers and people who knew him or his reputation exceedingly well and why he was nicknamed "the Bastard". He still won games more often than not, typically amidst cries of "wait, you're betraying me ?! But you said we were going to betray him !". gently caress, I cried that myself often enough. But surely *this time*, since I know he knows I know he knows I know he can't be trusted, and that I won't ever trust him again, I can trust him implicity.
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Apr 14, 2020 19:11
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Loving that one agarthan crossbowman in that last turn who killed the Abba with their elite sniper skills.
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Apr 14, 2020 19:43
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Kudos to Agartha for fighting to the bitter end and not going AI, especially in such a murderously complicated game as this.
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Apr 15, 2020 00:53
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Starting to catch up, but that's a lot of turns to do at once. Should have the next group up in the next day or 2. Atlantis Turns 52-57 Turn 52 .jpg) The invasion of Pan commences! But first, some cleanup of Marignon. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) My Tupilak kills the last commander in Mari’s big stack, so my Ichtyid squad clears them without a fight. Then a secondary squad clears that last province of theirs, functionally killing them. .jpg) Of course, their god decides to come back this turn and easily clears the PD on Marignon itself. No big deal, since the AI won’t ever abandon a siege and the boar can’t do any damage to the walls. I’ll just leave it until I kill the nation. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Over in the west, I clear out Pan’s PD and a bit of their troops, including the Black Bull, a B3 hero. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) And to continue the pressure, I rename a woodhenge druid to make me remember his purpose. A treelord is literally a giant sentient tree, who’s also a powerful nature mage. There are 3 unique ones and this spell lets you summon them on any forest in range. They can be a real pain to get rid of on defense, since they’re bulky, can cast spells quickly, and can’t move so they can’t lose morale and retreat away. Conveniently, Pangea’s capital is in a forest province and is in range.  For movement, I’m going to keep sailing around and concentrating forces as I can. No need to let Pan potentially catch a smaller army if I don’t have to let them.   And I also go to reinforce my siege of Pan’s throne and then storm Marignon’s final province on their throne. Turn 53 .jpg) The invasion continues. .jpg) .jpg) Gath claims 2 thrones to put them equal with me. .jpg) And my Treelord crushes the PD on Pan’s cap without any trouble. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) As I continue taking more of their provinces. .jpg) The storming of Marignon’s throne went off without a hitch, leaving them with no remaining provinces.  Though Marignon’s troops still siege their capital, In the words of a certain martial artist, they are already dead and will disappear into the ether at the end of the turn.  And for movement I keep sailing around. If Pan tries to block me by attacking directly, I’ll dodge them by heading to Ornur while my other army attacks the fort. If they stay still, I’ll be able to take advantage of my innate dark vision in the cave fight. Turn 54 .jpg) .jpg) Start off with more hype from Mictlan. I’m sure that they’re appreciating my attacking Pan. .jpg) I also summoned another Treelord on my throne. Annoyingly, this one starts out old and immediately got afflicted and turned mute, cutting his very useful N5 down to a much less useful N3. So instead of keeping him around I’m going to keep rolling the dice on transforming him into a fun chassis. .jpg) .jpg) Pan fights back, but only catches PD. .jpg) I also discover a downside of treelords. Pan tried to break out and fight it off. It beat the army just fine, but one of the Fall Bears got put to sleep during the fight. Instead of doing anything useful like trying to kill it, the treelord spent the entire fight trying to panic the sleeping bear or putting the bear back to sleep if it woke up. This went on until the turn timer hit and it killed both of them. .jpg) And then to top off the bad news, TC beats me to the nearby unoccupied throne. That’s a lot of sacred cav there too, so I can’t just easily snipe it away. .jpg) .jpg) That said, I do still make some progress.  And Pan tries to kick me off of their throne, which does not go very well for them.  I move to go take and defend Silver Wold, retake the Two Woods, and have a secondary force move to defend Marignon if Pan goes after it. Turn 55 .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Start off with some throne claims, one by me and one by TC. .jpg) .jpg) I beat 2 more instances of Pan’s PD and kill another one of their heroes.   I do a bit more scrambling around the lake and start advancing into Pan from the north.  I also take a peek over at Gath’s UW throne. It has fort but no actual defenders, so if I can get there it shouldn’t be too tough to take. Turn 56 .jpg) .jpg) A lot of site searching as I waited for a turn. I also used my D4 Angakok to get my first immortal Lich! D gems are really useful, so I probably won’t have a ton of them, but I still like getting a few Liches and/or Wraith Lords when I can. The muted treelord turned into a lion, which is okay but nothing special so I have him cast transformation again. .jpg) .jpg) Pan sends a few magic phase attacks at me with mixed results. .jpg) .jpg) And they also beat up some more of my PD and my event Ichtyids. .jpg) .jpg) But I beat their attempt to retake the Silver World .jpg) .jpg) And then beat a few more small forces.  I pinged the throne and there was not much in it, so I move to storm it.  And then with that stray Pan army out of the way I go to storm the Silver World and move in a bit further north. TC’s throne is pretty much undefended, but I don’t want to risk a war with them just yet. .jpg) I also move to make a very nice artifact that I was quite surprised to see had not been taken yet. It boosts both Air and Astral magic, as well as pretty dramatically increasing ritual ranges, with a small (~10%) chance of being horror marked each turn someone holds it. I’ll be putting it to great work. .jpg) Finally, here is the throne situation. I have a mini panic when I think that Gath is sitting on the Throne of Bureaucracy, but it turns out that Erytheia grabbed it instead. That’s much less concerning in the near term at least. Turn 57 .jpg) Lots more battles with Pan. .jpg) .jpg) Pan takes a few more provinces back .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) While I conquer even more of them, including the fort in the Silver World and the throne at Troban. .jpg) .jpg) Thanks to my 2 boosters, my Silver Adept is able to cast the global Dark Skies. And because I have a solid air income with only a few uses, I just dump in as many gems as I have to make sure it stays up for a bit. .jpg) Also, my former treelord turns into a giant eagle this time. I’m totally willing to stick with this chassis.  My only really notable move is to try and block off a force of Pan’s centaurs from moving further in.
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Apr 15, 2020 02:08
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