The Gaming Den

WHELP... that was dumb. I was in the middle of finishing up my orders and suddenly: A wild family conversation about the future appears! Cue three hours of tears and budgetary analysis! AND A STALE TURN!

So dumb.

Whatebbs. I would like to apologize to K, for not being a worthy opponent last turn; I swear I'll do better. Honest.

I've now offically won a battle against sacred giants. Long-term still isn't looking good, though.

Yeah, game over for Arco, I've gone AI.

Yep. That was smoothly played. If you had made it to the midgame, I'm sure you'd have done some serious damage to me.

Either way, I am impressed and respectful at how early you got a functional Gifts of Heaven communion going, and it's accuracy. I remember using it elsewhere, and finding it profoundly inaccurate. Guess it does have a strong tendency to target high HP targets.

Lucky that I got an army in front of your escape attempt.

Yeah, I picked a Great Sage pretender for pretty much exactly that reason. That gave me both pretty impressive research on my pretender himself, and a bonus to all of my other researchers. I actually probably spent too much time dicking around on other research paths and recruiting Astrologers without making sure I had enough Mystics as slaves. You might have noticed that my frontline combatants included a unit of Wights.

I'd also set a bunch of mystics to cast Acid Rain, but I'd badly misjudged distances. Should probably have set them as slaves instead, then I wouldn't have microwaved my slaves in the first engagement.

You also didn't know I was down there --- you sent scouts north, I imagine, and didn't have a big scout network?

Actually, I didn't have many scouts; I was mostly relying on my dominion scry effect.

However, I should have been working on that plan anyways, because my national troops are pretty good in the early game for most purposes because repel checks.

Oh, as for the accuracy thing: my Communion wasn't actually very accurate. Each casting drops three rocks, and I had several casters, so I'd get a few hits a turn. Since each hit simply erases a very expensive sacred giant, that was reasonably effective. As I recall, the targeting formula is more complicated than just HP of target, but whatever the details it will send Gifts From Heaven after sacred giants pretty reliably.

C'tis is investing in construction. We can already make Clams of Pearls, supply point boosters, reinvig boots, horror helmets, eye shields, and rings of water breathing. Soon, we will access to construction 4 as well. If you are interested in trading, let me know.

Seriously? Tien Ch'i has had Construction 4 for a while. If people need magic items made and are willing to pay in gems, we can do that.

-TC

The armies of Ermor had a bad day in Abysia. It cost the lives of 227 of their own units to take the lives of a Wolf Archer and an Ogre.

Both the Wolf Archer and the Ogre will be missed as they were scheduled to be wed to each other on the following Sunday.

Ermor simply could not let that that happen.

Hey, Name_here, if you're still interested in subbing for Ermor, PM me with any questions and I'll supply a debriefing of my current resources, strategy, agreements, and password.

Huh, I've sent in my 2h file twice now, but no response. Maybe llamaserver is just being sluggish.

Wait, just got the turn, nevermind.

C'tis has Construction 4 researched. If you're interested in trading for frost brands, thistle maces, crystal coins, etc., let us know.

As each turn goes on, I think "damn, I am not actually very good at this."

I'm kind of bemused at the number of indie provinces, let alone the number of indie-held Thrones. It's year three, guys.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I'm kind of bemused at the number of indie provinces, let alone the number of indie-held Thrones. It's year three, guys.

Hey now. Some of those indie thrones are defended by empowered titans and over a hundred magic beings. They will get taken down... but not by regular expansion forces.

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I'm kind of bemused at the number of indie provinces, let alone the number of indie-held Thrones. It's year three, guys.

My excuse is that some asshat invaded me on Turn 12 with far too few units to actually win.

The price of early war is not just in lost units, but in lost chances to site search, build infrastructure, and mass enough troops and research to conclusively make war in the mid- and late-game.

Ikeren wrote:As each turn goes on, I think "damn, I am not actually very good at this."

Don't worry, you're in fine company. I just realized Foul Vapors was the same school as Raise Skeletons, and that's supposed to be an iconic MA C'tis spell. This game's probably going to be the first time I actually cast it.

C'tis is likely to come into conflict with T'ien Ch'i in the coming months. If another nation is willing to provide us with a map of their current territories and troop dispositions, we are willing to trade gold or gems for it.

I think I did decent in my early war, though only time will tell.

So Hicks has agreed to pass Ermor to me starting now. Could you see to the requistite hosting voodoo and delay the turn a bit?

name_here wrote:So Hicks has agreed to pass Ermor to me starting now. Could you see to the requistite hosting voodoo and delay the turn a bit?

I could, if you PM me your email address.

Just for the sake of clarity, I'm totally for name_here taking over for Ermor. Hopefully when this is all over, and it should be inside of 18 turns, I'll get to do a recap of the first two years for Ermor for the folks at home and K, but doing that now may compromise what name_here wants to do with your local friendly undead hellscape. Good luck guys.