AAR: A Gentlmen's DAR with the Ogres

[Trumanator]

Why hello good sirs (and ladies of course), and welcome to my feeble attempt at a During Action report. Although you no doubt have already read the DAR of my esteemed colleague Cleveland, for form's sake I will provide the information on what exactly this newfangled invention is.

What is a During Action Report (DAR)?
A DAR is precisely what it sounds like: a living AAR for an MP game that is continually updated each turn as the game progresses.

How does it work?
I will provide my .trn and .2h files to anybody interested in following the game ("tourists" - thanks for the idea Gandalf!), and give a brief rundown of each turn in this thread. These updates will surely be chock full of piercing insights & hilarious commentary ().

There will be a 2-turn delay, to keep outsiders from submitting unauthorized turns.

How to I participate?
You already are! All reports will be right here, possibly indexed if I have the patience for it. All files will also be here, if you really want to follow along at home [if you're new to MP, just download the files & unzip into a folder within your dominions3/savedgames folder; it'll then show up under your existing games]. If you don't yet have Dominions 3, don't worry, I'm sure some these fine individuals will get you a copy in exchange for money.

Won't providing all your files ruin the game?
This has been made possible by the gracious cooperation of the fine gentlemen of the Tophats game. These scholars, recognizing the need to encourage our younger generations of Dominions players to take the MP plunge, have all agreed not to glance at this thread or otherwise communicate with you tourists regarding this thread. Therefore the games integrity is intact, allowing me to divulge all the juicy details of my flawed strategies for your amusement.

Why are you doing this?
Lots of folks give back to this great community - some make mod nations, some make maps, some write guides, some admin MP games, etc. This is my own paltry attempt to give a little back. I figure this is a great way to show those new to the game, or those on the MP fence, what the MP game is really like without having to commit. Cause let's face it, volunteering for your first MP game is a bit intimidating. Hopefully this will take Fear of the Unknown out of it, and encourage a few new faces to join our MP ranks.


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I'll try to keep the updates simple for those new to the game, but strongly encourage vets to participate. If you have any questions, suggestions, criticisms, etc, please feel free to speak up. This is supposed to be a learning experience, at least for me

Preface

Now we undertake to examine the Strategic Overview:

Tophats is an 11 person MA CBM game on an unusual map. The map is a planetary wrap-around with a bunch of islands connected by underground (cave province) tunnels. All 3 underwater nations are here. It’s a game for Gentlemen, so no lying, cheating, backstabbing, or other such fun is allowed.

Now, one might initially be at a loss as to how any real gentlemen could be so crude as to take command of the OGRES of all peoples. However, one uses such resources as one has, and the ogres are eminently suitable for conquest.

Now overall, the ogres have excellent blood hunting capabilities, a number of very good low level national spells, some great summons, and an unrivaled ability to push their dominion. My intention is of course to leverage these into world domination while attempting to cover for my admittedly distinct weaknesses. These weaknesses include horrid research from my recruitables, a lack of variety in combat strategies, and an occasionally difficult expansion phase.

Now, there are of course ways in which to accomplish these goals. One of the principal ways is to leverage the wealth of lvl 0 blood spells that I have available. Bullgorger gives all my troops in its aoe increased strength, which will enable them to power through all the shield parries they will encounter due to their average att. skill. Trollguts and Toothcracker give my units regen and stoneskin in a much smaller area, suitable for applying to small groups of elite units. Once I have managed some lvl 3 blood research I gain access to Mawtribe Warriors, an easily massable sacred summon that will form the bulk of my midgame armies. To make up for my abysmal recruitable research, I will be summoning great numbers of henchfiends, who provide a much better research value, and will also be able to provide me with lanterns and mentors when I gain access to them. My national Yeti Shaman summon will provide me with eminently thuggable chassis for raiding.

Ogres really do not have great research requirements. Most of the things they want are either low level or concentrated in a few schools. For this game, I plan to reach blood 3 quickly, as it will give me access to my excellent mawtribe ogres. From there, I hit conjuration 2 for both dark knowledge and yeti shamans. A quick detour to const 4 for boosters, dousing rods, and mentors rounds out my research goals. From there I will hopefully be free to finish out blood. I harbor great hope for reaching the blood uniques, since this game lacks any other real blood nations.

Ogres have a lot of things that a pretender can do for them. Their mawtribes like a decent bless, they have troubles with research, and their expansion for those crucial first couple turns can be difficult. Obviously you can't cover all of these. Some things I considered were a rainbow bless to give both magic diversity and blesses, or a cheap combat pretender to really kick off expansion.

What I actually ended up doing was take an awake N9 Dragon, with dom8, Or0C3G3L3Dr3. Now you might look at drain 3 and think "preposterous!" However, the ogres have a dominion similar to Mictlan's, which means I can hide from it. My plan is to establish some areas of my empire as research centers, and others as bloodhunting areas. Once I have reached mentors and lanterns this will become less crucial. The N9 bless will impart a significant regen to my sacred mawtribes, and also serve to improve their attack skill and protection. My sacred mages are not really battle mages, so that disadvantage is mitigated. The Dragon will help me expand quickly, bringing blood hunting provinces online in short order.

Thank you very much for perusing this poor DAR, and any advice will be greatly appreciated!

[Trumanator]

Sorry for the delay, but I'm going to attach the first three turns now to make up for it.

[Trumanator]

Here are turns 4-5. Please please comment, as it's hard for me to keep this up if it seems like noone has anything to say!

Edit: Oh, and if anyone could explain how to edit the thread title I would appreciate it.

[BandarLover]

My guess is Cleveland's thread gets more comments because of the little extra flair he puts into the updates, while you simply provide the game turns with no commentary on your strategy. That being said, please don't stop handing out the turn files, some of us (or just me) are HORRIBLE in MP play and enjoy looking at the turns to get a sense for how an MP veteran plays, commentary or no. Thanks to both of you for doing this.

[Trumanator]

well, I guess there are two parts to this: 1- There really isn't all that much happening other than expansion, and 2- I am providing them on a 2 turn delay, which makes it difficult for me to keep straight. Is cleveland providing them as he receives them?

[rdonj]

Cleveland has released the first 3 turns so far. What he's doing is explaining what's going on, the decisions he's making and why, and talking about his general strategy. If you want to do a DAR more like that one, I would suggest taking notes during your turns, or even making your DAR reports in their entirety as you're taking the turns and just hold onto them until later.

[BandarLover]

Oops, I had forgotten everyone involved in the game agreed not to look at these threads. So I shall not speak of Cleveland's thread anymore lest I let slip something he does not want the other players to know about, even if they are a turn or 2 behind the actual game. I just really like the idea that you 2 are sharing this as the game is going on as opposed to waiting until the end and then just posting an 'I did this to win' thread.

[sansanjuan]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

well, I guess there are two parts to this: 1- There really isn't all that much happening other than expansion, and 2- I am providing them on a 2 turn delay, which makes it difficult for me to keep straight. Is cleveland providing them as he receives them?

Good work Tru. You might want to add a little chatter on why you did specific things.
-ssj

[Trumanator]

Well I took rdonj's advice and am doing a bit of commentary immediately after the turn. I'll post it when I post the next couple files.

[Ballbarian]

Thanks! Looking forward to following the AAR/DAR.