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[Drago0661]

Turn 41

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Got conjuration 6.

Looks like those longdead + niefel giants and nefiel jarl were raiding.

Time to intercept.

No sign of Hinnom.



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Army of Lightning (with even more corpsemen!) will move with Nora to intercept Nefielhiem's army.

Recruitment
2 Harab Seraph.


Research: 178rp - Conjuration 7 in about 4 turns.

[Drago0661]

Turn 42

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I intercepted Niefelhiem's army successfully, everthing but the Jarl died, so the Jarl routed.

I'm not sure what Niefelhiem is going to do now. Either be annoying and siege my forts so he can raid in a different direction, or just run away.

I see Hinnom again.



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Army of Lightning will stay put (site searching and patrolling so they do something), I have more access to provinces from here so depending on what Niefelhiem is up to I can do something from there. If i'm lucky he will move to where my army is thinking i'll move it somewhere else.

Recruitment
2 Harab Seraph.


Research: 188rp - Conjuration 7 in about 3 turns.

[Drago0661]

Turn 43

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Right, a lot happened, let's see.

Hinnom pelted my army with fires from afar, no notable losses.

Niefelheim tried teleporting in with 3 s2 mages in an attempt to kill my predender in the form of magic duel. Turns out 1 s4 beats 3 s2.

Niefelheim then attacked with a air random Jarl, the gifts from heaven missed... but he was overwhelmed by Ghost Wolf spam from my Eagle Kings. There were reinvig 4 on both sides of the battle so it was a LONG..... fight.

Hinnom Sent a remote attack spell to take one of my provinces, a devil commander and an imp. This tells me he is atleast at blood 5... great.

Niefelheim seiges 2 forts.

Hinnom moves towards seiging the fort in 24.

Multiple armies... great...

Due to the sieging i couldnt pay upkeep 3 guys deserted... (didn't tell me who).

On the brightside 1 found a gold site (75g/turn) and +2 water income in that province i searched. Yay?



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Going to summon a Mount King to lead the extra corpsemen I have.

Gonna stop making corpsemen, I'm gonna start using those air gems for forging amulets of the fish for Ryleh.

Army of Lightning will stop the siege at fort 31, as that seige is actually doing damage.

Recruitment
0g - no recruitment, I've alchemised some earth gems and put some PD in the province my army is in. hopefully it is enough against those imps + devil commander.


Research: 207rp - Conjuration 7 in 2 turns.

[DSMatticus]

We'd like to apologize to Niefelheim for the recent accidental border skirmish. We thought it was clear we'd be reconnecting our territory.

[Ikeren]

Nah, our bad, trouble keeping track of that stuff.

[Drago0661]

Turn 44

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Can't pay upkeep... again... 2 units go, not sure who did but its annoying. I need to start taking back provinces.

Niefelheim tried to magic duel Nora again with 1 guy, and failed.

I took care on Niefelheim's sieging force no problem, the Air random Jarl routed.

Hinnom's imps have retreated for now. Although I see an army of his nearby.

that jarl that was sieging my cap moved to fort 32, annoying.

Clam count is 9 now.



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Time to send out a party to get back some provinces. That mount king with 50 corpsemen, an Eagle king and some Harab Seraphs (one with a staff of storms) should to the trick.

Army of Lightning will move to kill that jarl that routed, and take that province he is in.

Recruitment
0g - no recruitment, I've alchemised some earth gems and put some PD of 1 at the seiged forts - stops a seige by scout atleast :/

Research: 195rp - Conjuration 7 done next turn, I'm also grabbing Thaum 3 next turn for teleport, Nora might need it.

[Ikeren]

I have just received a job that is high paying (300$/day or more) that I am well suited to and have had in the past with other companies, but did not expect to or wish to take again --- circumstances dictate that I do. It will require me to be in the wilderness and have computer access only at a rate of one in six days.

I would like to find a sub for this game. It should be someone indifferent to Dragon0661, Fectin, and DSMatticus.

The world as of turn 44:
Nefielheim leads the provinces over Hinnom (slightly), is second in forts (half of Ryleh), Leads the world in income (slightly above Hinnom and Ryleh), Leads the world in gem income, is slightly behind Hinnom, Caelum and Ryleh in research.

About to beat Pangaea (AI), and Caelum should hopefully be a few turns away from defeat. At peace with Hinnom and Ryleh, but no NAPs.

[Drago0661]

Turn 45

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Conjuration 7 done.

Thaumataurgy 3 done.

Can't pay upkeep... again... 1 unit goes.

A seeking arrow and a Diseased demon takes out more mages in the lightning army.

Niefelheim tried to magic duel Nora again with 1 guy (while she was in a fort, so the PD killed him), and failed.

2 Armies from Hinnom now, gonna move my mages from for 32 to 31, yay for flying.

I also know that 2 armies are on their way from Nifelhiem. I hope Ryleh helps soon...

That jarl is sieging my capital again...

Clam count is 9 now.



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Mini army of lightning will get ready to take some more provinces from Niefelhiem.

Army of Lightning will move to kill that jarl that routed (or try to again), and take that province he is in. Aswell as get into position to defend fort 24.

Mages from fort 31 will move to safety in fort 31. Having only 1 army sucks.

Recruitment
0g - no recruitment,

Research: 124rp - next goal: conjuration 8.

No graphs guys, sorry, haven't got the time at the moment and nothing much has really changed.

[Drago0661]

Turn 46

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Conjuration 7 done.

Another diseased demon from Hinnom.

and a remote attack spell of demons that failed, because my miniarmy was there.

The Jarl that was sieging my capital has retreated to a nearby province, Niefelhiem was probably hoping to intercept my army.

I payed upkeep for once!



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Mini army of lightning will return to the capital, I plan on retaking the provinces by fort 32 that hinnom has.

Army of Lightning will move to get ready to defend a possible siege on fort 31 from Hinnom, and I know Niefelhiem in on his way from the northwest.


Recruitment
1 Harab Seraph

Research: 184rp - next goal: conjuration 8.

[Drago0661]

Turn 47

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Conjuration 7 done.

2 Seeking arrows from Niefelheim - one kills the mount king that had corpsemen with him... and another injures an Eagle King

Another diseased demon from Hinnom - it takes out the mounted king that was carrying my corpsemen, so they are stuck in province 43.

and a remote attack spell of demons that take another province.... that's annoying.

A Jarl solo's the province i just took with my lightning army :/


I also got a message saying: "you undead troops in *insert name of province that the lightning army is* by a holy for native to this province." - Anyone know what this is talking about? Because most of my corpsemen are dead...

Ryleh has also begun to make their move, so far they've taken 3 provinces from Niefelhiem, let's see what happens now

I payed upkeep for once again! (only just)



Orders:

The Naiad will forge a clam.

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Mini army of lightning is without much needed chaff, i need to get a mount king to fetch those stranded corpsemen (so i will summon one at my capital), and make more corpsemen at the capital and at fort 23 will return to the capital.

Army of Lightning will move to defend fort 24 from hinnom, with some help from quite a few casters from fort 31.

The equipped Eagle Kings are script to cast buffs and act as thugs, there are a few Eagle King casters spamming Thunder Strike, but most of the casters will be herab seraphs spamming lightning bolt.

The army Hinnom has is mostly archers apparently, too bad that my army travels with a staff of storms.


Recruitment
3g - no recruitment

Research: 144rp - next goal: conjuration 8.

[Korwin]

[Drago0661]

@Korwin

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There is no holy site that i have found in that province, but then again i haven't searched it for holy sites. Even if it hasn't been searched do would the effect still be there?

Turn 48

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Can't pay upkeep... again... gaddamn that raiding.

3 Jarls take 3 provinces... sigh.

Hinnom uses fires from a far again, twice. I think the casulties were just mainly chaff.

2 disease demon tried attacking 2 different Eagle Kings, but they just gets blasted by lightning or cut down.

Hinnom's main army has moved again, Time to go after it.

And Ryleh presses on into Niefelheim's territory.




Orders:

The Naiad can't forge a clam this turn, not enough gems.

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Mini army of lightning now has chaff, Time to take back those provinces around fort 32.

Army of Lightning will move towards Hinnom's army. If they siege fort 31 I can cut them off. I'm also sending an Eagle King to meet with the army of lightning, I need more Thunder Strike while most of the other Eagle Kings are acting as thugs.


Recruitment
0g - no recruitment

Research: 126rp - next goal: conjuration 8.

[Ikeren]

I've got a sub, Orion, if no one objects.

Can game host get Orion's income.

[Korwin]

@Drago

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oh yes. Even if not found. The sites are there.
Its a big pointer if you have cold scales and in an province with Dominion from you its hot, to search for Fire Sites.
Same applies for Death scales, growth and cold scales.

Oh and if you have an province with High unrest, without unrest causing event its an pointer for an crappy blood site

[Orion]

my email is my user name .anderson@gmail.com
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A Broken SkyIdentity Crisis

[DSMatticus]

[Orion]

so who's in charge of sending me the map and the turn file?
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A Broken SkyIdentity Crisis

[DSMatticus]

Mister_Sinister is admin, he may not be following the thread anymore. You might want to PM him.

[Mister_Sinister]

I am still following, but I'm unsure as to what I have to do here.
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Everything I learned about DnD, I learned from Frank Trollman.

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Kaelik wrote:

You are so full of Strawmen that I can only assume you actually shit actual straw.

souran wrote:

...uber, nerd-rage-inducing, minutia-devoted, pointless blithering shit.

Schwarzkopf wrote:

The Den, your one-stop shop for in-depth analysis of Dungeons & Dragons and distressingly credible threats of oral rape.

DSM wrote:

Apparently, The GM's Going To Punch You in Your Goddamned Face edition of D&D is getting more traction than I expected. Well, it beats playing 4th. Probably 5th, too.

Frank Trollman wrote:

Giving someone a mouth full of cock is a standard action.

[DSMatticus]

I think you can change the email that a player's turns get sent to. Or maybe Ikeren has to do that? I have no idea. I'm also not sure when Ikeren wanted his sub to take over, not sure when he's leaving for his job.

[Drago0661]

Turn 49

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Conjuration 7 done.

2 Seeking arrows from Niefelheim - one kills a Harab Seraph that had corpsemen with him... and another injures an Eagle King

2 Disease demons - kills to harab seraphs at my capital.

AT this rate I'll run out of mages...

More raiding and a siege with just Jarls from Nefielhiem... joy...

And Ryleh's attacks on Nefielheim seem to have been stopped by Draconians.



Orders:

Eagle King will forge an amulet of the fish for Ryleh.

Sent the amulet I made last turn to Ryleh.

Mini army of lightning will move to start taking some provinces back.

Army of Lightning will move to towards Hinnom's Army.

Recruitment
0g - no recruitment

Research: 149rp - next goal: conjuration 8, 3 more turns.

[Drago0661]

Turn 50 - Final Turn and Thoughts

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Conjuration 7 done.

2 Disease demons get killed by James Bond and an equipped SC Eagle King.

A lesser horror is killed by my army.

4 Fires from afar... I lose a lot of chaff.

More raiding and a sieging with just Jarls from Nefielhiem...

Hinnom fight my army for once!

But its too little to late for me. Also those remote attack spells have withered down my army, the small amount of chaff gets ploughed through by a lot of chariots, which in turn just kill all my backline mages. The SCs still live and fight, but the lose of so many Units make them route.

The one thing keeping me alive is gone now. I have no money to rebuild, its gg for me. Even with my national summons coming online in a few turns, they cant solo that army...

So the guerilla tactics from Hinnom and Nefielhiem worked... that's well frustrating that the enemies were running circles round me. But then again a 2v1 is a 2v1.




Orders:

Give everything to Ryleh! clams, hammers, 100+ astral gems and more. Maybe they can do something with that.

Going AI

Thoughts on the game:

If i had to say what I did wrong the most it was the reliance on the crossbows (Foe's Vision) and teaming with Pangea.

The lesson from the Crossbows:
if you have battle magic use that instead, for it is many times better.
The crossbows didnt even kill the sacreds and missed most of the time (even with aim) and the quickness made them fire once every 2 turns, and even that wasnt enough.
another lesson learnt about sacred giants: Kill them with Fire Lightning! (in my case anyway), but seriously, just kill them with battle magic and not in combat.

Lesson with Pangea:
Don't team up with a nation that can't even handle an enemy nation 1v1.
No offense to Mister Sinster who was play Pangea, but the decision to go to war with Niefelhiem when we were both ill prepared (i made a mistake but i could handle the sacred giants with lightning bolts, as you saw), was stupid.

While I did agree when I was talking with Pangea, that nefielhiem was the scariest nation and the biggest threat to me and Pangea, we rushed things and went to war far to quickly.


Improvements for future games:

This is basically what I plan to do in future when I play Caelum. Please note that this game was the firet time playing them outside of a bit of testing against AI in single player games.

My Pretender:

In the end orion was right about the e9 bless, it wasn't needed. The temple guards are not lightning immune, so when my biggest strength: mass air battle magic, comes out and I roll out with Lightning armies, the temple guards would just get fried with lighting as they have no resisitance. The reinvig is still needed, but as i found against niefelhiem who had both cold and lightning immunity, I need some paths in fire as well, even if it is just for the firebrand, gotta equip those SC Eagle Kings. If i had ready firebrand access, maybe, just maybe an equipped Eagle King could have taken on those lightning immune Jarls 1v1. That would have helped.
So if i was the redesign my predender it would be a dormant great enchantress with e4w4 with some nature+fire+air paths with scales Order3 Cold3 Magic1, Magic one helps the research of all the relatively cheap harab seraphs, from research 4 to research 5.

Changed game plans from this:
Early expansion plans are basically going to be archers + temple guards + mammoths as a single expansion party, then using the mass expansion strat of Eagle Kings soloing provinces to expand at the end of year 1.

Mid game would be the lightning army and SC Eagle Kings

Late game: national summons and global rituals


Thoughts on the other players:

Pangea:
Already said my thoughts.

Ryleh:
While I can understand playing the neutral nation can have its benefits, and i'm not sure how the rest of the game will pan out, but i think if you were as afraid of Niefelheim as you said you were in our PM, you should have acted with me and Pangea sooner, but then again Pangea and my actions were too rushed and ill prepared, so it might be our fault anyway.

Hinnom:
Well your guerilla and raiding tactics worked in griding me down, those fire from afar and disease demons add up when I can't replace the loses. But i felt you could have done a lot more against me. I only saw 1 Ba'al fight an army of mine, never to be seen again. Ba'als are your major SCs and have astral for teleport shenanigans and major raiding. If there was one thing I was mostly cared of from Hinnom it was the Ba'als, much like Nefielhiem's Jarls. to be honest in a 1v1 fight between Jarls and Ba'als i'm not sure who would win.

Nefielheim:
As with Hinnom your guerilla and raiding tactics worked in griding me down, and that was the right choice to make, as the Army i had, when it was at it's peek, could crush your's and Hinnom's. I wanted to kill you first because you has access to the imunnity against the 2 elemental magic paths i have access too, air and water. If Hinnom hadn't joined in on the war with you this would have been a different game, as my battlemagic could take you 1v1, and the raiding and seeking arrows would have been managable from just you. Just saying, because Hinnom deserves credit (this is mainly in reference you you saying earlier: "Whateves. I would hae soloed em both, but I guess some help might let it go a little swifter."). You played well, I made a big mistake with that early attack, not really much else to say.

Graphs:

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Provinces:



Forts:



Income:



Gems:



Research:



Dominion:



Army Size:

My army is dead, going AI. GG.

All players in the game feel free to read all the documented turns.
And any readers also feel free to post thoughts on the game too, feedback is appreciated.

[Mister_Sinister]

I pretty much agree with Drago's analysis. I played like a complete scrub, which wasn't helped by the fact that Pan is actually a trickier faction than it appears. I also massively underestimated the raw, crushing power of Niefelheim - I won't do so again.
_________________
Everything I learned about DnD, I learned from Frank Trollman.

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

Kaelik wrote:

You are so full of Strawmen that I can only assume you actually shit actual straw.

souran wrote:

...uber, nerd-rage-inducing, minutia-devoted, pointless blithering shit.

Schwarzkopf wrote:

The Den, your one-stop shop for in-depth analysis of Dungeons & Dragons and distressingly credible threats of oral rape.

DSM wrote:

Apparently, The GM's Going To Punch You in Your Goddamned Face edition of D&D is getting more traction than I expected. Well, it beats playing 4th. Probably 5th, too.

Frank Trollman wrote:

Giving someone a mouth full of cock is a standard action.

[DSMatticus]

@Drago

The Caelum-Pangaea alliance scared me. You guys represented like ~40% of the provinces at time of declaration, so I thought you were going to slowly grind Niefelheim down and leave me a tiny little nothing trapped between your nations. Not that Niefelheim winning is much better. And I personally thought you were the most dangerous faction on the map to me; I didn't really mind getting into a scrap with Niefel giants (sounds interesting), and Pangaea maenads really aren't going to do anything to sacred giants, no matter how many buffs you layer on them or how many hundreds you throw around at a time. They're chaff you put in front while you hope you have enough pans to sleep spam giants outcold. Incidentally, Pangaea did that once after they went AI, and it cost me a minorly-decked out commander. After that, I just backed them up with more sacred giants instead of being an idiot.

About the time you got frostbrands, Pangaean AI was throwing around the hundreds of maenads they'd saved up and taking some provinces, which is why my armies kind of disappeared about that time. PD alone didn't really work, so I went to go reduce the numbers, and after that I decided I'd wait a few turns before coming back with a bigger army that could survive some lightning spam (which, when we finally fought, that is exactly what it did, so that was a good call for me). I also started trying out my blood spells; hordes from hell both for sniping provinces and to build fliers I planned to give attack rear orders. I completely failed to realize you had a staff of storms, and storm was active from turn 1 so even as the defender they wouldn't get a single turn of flying. Stupid of me. I should have been using them for raiding the entire time, they were useless as I planned to use them.

But mostly, I was never as aggressive against you as I should have been because:
1) Niefelheim and I didn't coordinate for shit past my first few attacks. Anytime my army got near you, Niefelheim would beat me there. So I'd pick a new target and then so forth and so on.
2) I lived in perpetual fear of your massed eagle kings, and backed away everytime they came near.

The last few turns were a joke; I marched my army up north to meet you, and wasted 2 turns of movement saying "oh, Niefelheim is about to take that, go back" or "oh, there's his army, need to go somewhere else." Then you started taking my provinces, and, well, let's be honest; your caster-chaff ratio is heavy on the caster side at this point. And you didn't have enough chaff to keep me back. So I upped my PD and put my army there. I honestly thought you were bum-rushing for my capital or something; I expected you to go the other way.

On the matter of Mel'qarts and Ba'als: Melqarts come with decent armor, so it saves some forging time and gems, which I was low on when I started kitting out. Astral mel'qarts also have enough astral to cast the same buffs I would with the ba'als. But yeah, I totally have astral SC ba'als sitting around that I just never got a chance to use because both you and Pangaea could murder my SC's (frostbrands, sleep spam). And teleport raiding is a nice idea I'd considered, but seriously; how many provinces did you have to raid? How long did you hold a province once your army left it, on average?

I was close to using my fire ba'als as battle casters, which I thought might be a good last resort way to take out your eagle kings.

[TarkisFlux]

I appreciate the continued posts Drago. Most of them die out around turn 10-15 around here, and the mid game becomes this thing only heard secondhand. Thanks for keeping this one open to everyone.
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Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
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