Warthog - running

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Because I pretty much immediately moved all my stuff up to attack Ermor when you crumpled and it's taken me a long time to siege/storm all your mostly empty castles with reserve forces. You're down to one castle but it's apparently got all your leftover strong flying demons/imps in it which takes more manpower to breakdown the walls than I have troops available for that duty with me trying now to take as many Ermorian castles as I can before I have to actively fight everybody else.

You know what else it has? the vale of infinite horrors. Seriously, you don't want it =P

[Baalz]

So, victory conditions weren't specified, but I'm in control of about half the map now and have been destroying at will everything not hiding in a castle for some time. Does anybody really have any hope of doing anything other than guerrilla defense as I roll over everything else?

[Baalz]

So....I take it there are no objections to me declaring myself the winner? I'm not going to take my next turn unless I hear otherwise (they take considerable time with my size).

[Dark Kitty]

I may still have one or two cards up my sleeves... If you don't mind going for a few more turns, I would be curious to try them (however if everyone is bored with the game and wants it over, I don't mind declaring you the winner now)

[Fantomen]

After examining the current turn and measuring my power, I'm declaring Baalz the winner now.

We could probably put up a good fight for a while me and Dark kitty, but it's obvious to me the that Baalz would still win in the end.

And frankly I don't feel like playing it out either when I feel the outcome is predictable, I'm a bit burned out on Dominions and have a hard time getting all turns in in other games.

Sorry Dark kitty, your plan was admirable but it'll have to linger in its platonic perfection.

Well played everyone. And congrats to Baalz, I only regret we didn't get the opportunity for a midgame war between us. I was hoping for that when you signed up, but I guess we'll be toe to toe in some other game instead.

[Baalz]

Thanks for the game guys! @Fantomen - maybe we're fighting right this second in No Wankers.

@Dark Kitty - I'm curious what you had in mind if you don't mind sharing. I had so many resources (184 gems and 92 blood slaves came in this last turn), artillery (earth attack, mind hunt, ghost riders, hoard from hell, seeking arrow) and nearly immune to everything (~30MR Cold/Frost/Lightning immune) SCs ready to teleport/trapeze anywhere, along with air drop army killer mages (staff of storms + wrathful skies and firestorm, rain of stones, bloodletting) that I couldn't really think of anything you could do to cause me enough damage to even overcome how much income I had for one turn. I figured you undeniably could cause me some losses on defense by fighting in castles and the water, but I couldn't imagine you successfully every going on the offense, same for Fantomen.

[Dark Kitty]

Well, Baalz has well deserved his victory (and Fantomen is right, you would certainly have won in the end), congratulations

It was nice and very instructive to finally cross blade with vets, I hope I can fight you and Fantomen in another game soon (and do better)


My "plan" (which was more of a few ideas) was not THAT good, plus I didn't tell Fantomen everything so I suppose she is merely patting my ego^^ (what a nice and feminine touch, /me purrs) :

My main problem was your SCs, so I was going to start using my starpawns (they stayed in my castles all game, I didn't use them in battle, except a few times) to try and kill your SCs (although admittedly your SCs were very tough, I think half a dozen penetration boosted Starpawns casting Paralyse, Enslave Mind and other nasty stuff from the back could have taken a few down), mostly in my dominion since I supposed you couldn't afford to fight too long in it and risk not being able to order your commanders (I'm curious, how inconvenient was insanity so far? how about you Fantomen?) and continuing my "guerilla" in your backyard with more flying stuff (you have probably noticed I was targeting your temples to weaken your dominion in the long run)

I was going to cast Arcane Nexus and WoM (well, I was actually going to "offer" WoM to Fantomen because I had seen how difficult her SCs and thugs were to deal with and I had other gems to make SCs, thanks to the Endgame Diversity Mod), useful for various stuff including spamming Dreams of Ryleh on your commanders and making Void Spectres factories.

I was going to start using my gems to make good well-equiped SCs/thugs instead of economical ones (which didn't work, either against you or Fantomen (I think I have learned what real SCs/thugs should be like from seeing you two play, I'll have to practise in the next game:P))

The long term idea was to wear you down : that Fantomen and I "contain" you while I tried to slowly choke you with Harvester of Sorrows and Void Spectre (kitted out to be able to take your 10 PD provinces) : cut your money and make it unwise to use gems to compensate, make your commanders sick and insane (or dead), in short try to make your empire impossible to manage so you would crumble... :P


However I think it would have probably necessitated a more experienced hand to execute : LA Ryleh is not so easy to use and I didn't play it well. Upkeep quickly became a problem, I should have played more agressively instead of sitting on firepower (stockpiled gems and great mages) doing nothing. But with what you describe I doubt it could have been enough...

Thanks for the game (and thanks to BvG for the help )