AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[LDiCesare]

I hope the others will post their AARs too, they are likely going to be more interesting than mine.

Summary: Pangaea is very good at turtling.


TURN 19 :
I alchemise some more gems to pay the troops. I still don't understand what Abysia did in Tir na'n Og. He's got no defenses there, no troops, so I'll try to take back the province. Whatever deal they think they have with R'lyeh matters little. Arco's god was assassinated by the abysian prophet. Too bad. Fomoria is building forts like crazy. I'm still turtling. I'll have alt 2 researched by the end of the turn and still don't fear for my fort yet.
I also send an in-game message asking Helheim for blood slaves in exchange for gems for blood saccing.
He hasn't got any to give me or isn't willing. Anyway, my best allies against Abysia are ultimately Arco, Caelum, and Abysia's all-eggs-in-one-basket strategy.


TURN 20 :
I stumble upon Fomoria's PD. Looks like he's patrolling with chaff lucky event militia.

That's overkill for my poor scout!
Abysia bought the wolfkin reavers to try to tear down my walls. Good move if it actually works. A test with god's enforcers shows they don't seem to actually besiege anything. The reavers are definitely useless on the first turn since they are still not making any progress at harming the walls so far, but it may change. I have 122 units + commanders inside the fort, he's supposed to have 160 units outside it. I have 250 defense. I will summon vinemen this turn. They suck at defending walls, but I can have 48 of them, which will count as about 5 defenders and that's more chaff for the actual battle.
Abysia is also bringing in some wolf tribe warriors. He'll eventually get numbers, but at a cost. Since I'd burn my lab if he storms, this will be 500 more gold. What with the loss of most of his provinces, this early war will not have benefited him at all. He might be building a fort in 4. I took back the island province R'lyeh left to Abysia for some unknown reason.

This is very interesting in fact. For some reason, in all the tests I ran, mercenaries seem to be worth nothing at sieges. Maybe Helmut Sappers manage to do something, but the others never haad any effect at all. So I would advise to never buy mercs to try to breach walls, it seems not to work.

TURN 21 :
Despite all his troops, Abysia still doesn't start breaching my walls. He's never going to do it at this rate. I only got 5 maenads this turn however, what with that nasty order dominion he brought. In case my fort walls started crumbling, I can cast Iron Walls if I have an E3 wizard, which would require earth boots. So I research constrcution. I'll reach cons 4 in 8 turns, build boots in 9 and cast iron walls in 10 if needs be. This is obviously the most exhilarating plan ever designed, but that's the only one I have. I mean, Abysia will be dead if they keep using 6 top tier mages to just besiege a fort for 10 turns or more.
I'm a bit concerned that Arco didn't attack province 4 however. I suspect a fort may be being built by Abysia there. I realise province 13 is defended by a single misbred and no PD. What? I'll strike there. I go back to preaching and researching.
Caelum didn't answer my offers to attack Abysia.
Actually, Abysia never grasped the concept of building forts in this game.


TURN 22 :
Well, not many people posted their AAR. Only Helheim, Marverni and I.
Yes, that's the turn we started posting AARs. Today, we're far from the turn 30+ we should have reached if people stuck to the initial rules about posting AAR 20 turns after they were played
Things went better than expected.
Which doesn't mean much, actually.
Not only did I take the province Abysia had left defenseless, but I also kept the one I took back on the island. With my PD of 1, I bet his army of 1 commander + 3 light cavalry, killing one, which caused the rest to rout. That's a very useful 1 gold investment. I decide to up the PD's to 3 in my provinces. This could get rid of a fourth 20-some-gold horseman after all. What do you mean I'm working with scraps? A PD of 3 is massively impressive. I'm obviously going to win the game with such grand investments and decisions. Or not.
My dominion is up to 3 black candles only in Pangaea, with 5 maenads and still unbreachable walls.
In addition to my new province, Caelum has attacked Abysia, taking 2 provinces. I am quite sure he'll turn against me afterwards, but that doesn't matter much, as he won't hurt my walls any more than Abysia and I might actually pay him to get some land back.
Actually Caelum will have been turtling at least as much as I have been, probably more if that's possible, for the whole game.
Now, I go into conjuration rather than construction, in order to be able to summon animals. If I can get wolves, I can sneak them out of the capital and take some actually defended provinces before the walls fall.
I have no idea what to do with my monkey troops. They have no province to take back and cost money now... I'll go back to Tir na n'Og, to take out whatever province R'lyeh forgot to defend. He lost another one to indies this turn. I don't know if he picked turmoil/misfortune... Oh, no, it's true, that's my dominion. If my luck was actually his misfortune as it's supposed to be but apparently not, it would be even better (try to ask Calahan to get accurate infos on that topic). Bad, isn't it? I wish people knew a deterrant when they see one, but R'lyeh and Abysia apparently didn't. Although I can't blame R'lyeh for profitting from the spoils. He is the dangerous one by the way, since he can bring enough chaff to take my fort down whereas Abysia never will. Anyway, I want to point out that my stinky dominion has managed to steal 2 provinces from R'lyeh to the indies so far. I mean turmoil here. Of course, he's bringing his dom back there so the effects won't last forever, but still.
I keep a scout on the Abysian capital. It's not very useful, but I'd love to see it stormed by Arco. Ichtyids, archers, chariot archers, pegasi, amazons. Amazons? It means Immac has found some juicy indies. I wish I knew what kind of amazons they are.
Anyway, I'm still turtling, nothing else to do, but I'm pretty confident by now I'll survive Abysia.
The next picture shows ownership of the various provinces. It's actually generous to R'lyeh, which seems to have one less than shown. Those inside thick borders are certain. Those outside are guesses, but I think they are fairly sure.

I'll also bring an animated jpg of what I thought the borders were for all the game when I post the last turns.

TURN 23 :
Abysia keeps trying to take the same province he didn't manage to take before, but with less troops. Since I tripled the defense, he unsurprisingly loses. Maybe he's paying too much upkeep and tries to get rid of his expensive and useless light cavalry? Likely not, since he recruited the boar mage and his mercs this turn. But he left the wolfkin reavers go.

Also, Arco 'scouted' province 33, checking the PD there. Abysia lost 2 more provinces this turn.
I only got 3 maenads this turn, but there are only 2 black candles left. I will create some vine men and next turn I can summon bunch of animals if needed. Vine menare quite useless at repairing walls but, for some reasons, lions are great. I mean, errr... don't try to make sense, lions are strong, so they are good masons.

TURN 24 :
Fomoria has announced they would annex Marverni. Good. They won't strike Arco, so they can still fight Aby.
Conj 2 researched. I'll summon some animals in order to actually do something.
Berserk boars take Pirenna. My 3 PD kills 10 of them. The other 3 PD is beaten by Abysian light cavalry for a change.
I see a battle in Runia (can't remember where that is. I expected Fomoria/Marverni AAR to show it if it was relevant). I don't know if Fomoria stealthy army was caught by patrollers, but they were easily slaughtered by a large Marverni chaff. Fomoria still took 8 Marverni provinces.
Oh, and my walls still hold fast. the good news being my dominion is back up at home.
Apparently, Abysia moved his army north to take back the province lost to Caelum.
Arco has been doing something stupid. Attacking a 20 PD abysian province with a lone oreiad. WTF? Of course she was slaughtered.
I see that province 121 is defenseless. It's Marverni, so Fomoria should take it next turn. Also, Marverni proper is under siege by Fomoria. Abysia's dominion is falling. If he doesn't preach, he could be dead in 4 turns, but let's not hope too much. In fact it looks like he'll be preaching to survive for the rest of the game and it's way more than 4 turns.
I'm short on gold, so I'll try to break the siege with my centaur archers, a dryad and the revelers plus some maenads and vine men. I should logically fail as abysians will bring back their troops from the north, but this should kill the centaurs and thus I won't have to worry about upkeep costs. The only problem is I'll lose a dryad along with them, but that's affordable. I might even win if Abysia tries to take back other provinces rather than persisting on my capital.
I leave one monkey in Pirenna, in case Abysia moves without putting any PD there. I'll move in the island and see if I can take back land from R'lyeh.

TURN 25:
I killed my troops as expected, but still have to pay more upkeep than I earn. I'll attack R'lyeh this turn with the monkeys. I'll then have to bring back the monkeys home to repair the fort if it's getting damaged.
I somehow killed 1 out of 10 enemy commanders, but the battle replay doesn't show which one. I doubt I could have been lucky enough to kill an annointed, so it's more likely one of the 2 indy commanders who burnt himself near abysians.
My dominion is back up in my capital but I lost 10 out of 250 fort defense this turn, thus I'll summon chaff. I got 5 stealthy wolves out of my summon animals, so repeating this I could hope for 20 wolves per turn to try to sneak out, but that's a huge cost for a smallish army. I'll also get 10 lions or so per casting, with str 15, so they are worth 2 attackers each, so I should repair 80 more points this turn when I get 40 lions. Plus the birds, wolves, spiders and however many maenads I can get.
In other news, R'lyeh is attacking Fomoria and Marverni is defending itself.


TURN 26:
I got a bit carried away with my animals. They need food and I don't have enough. I'll have to sacrifice another commander or get out with some wolves. I'll build some cauldrons of broth. One cauldron feeds 100 troops, so I need three of them and can keep my armies well-fed.
I took R'lyeh's province back. There's a lab there (thanks to that random event), so I'm tearing it down, pushing taxes to 200%, and retrieving a Piercer that I put on my monkey. I don't remember building this item, maybe I got it from an event. Whatever, the commander will be using it instead of just staying behind his soldiers.
Abysia is back to preaching, but my dominion is still positive and my prophet is back so she and the 4 dryads will preach again. that's a bit less than what he's got outside the walls I believe, but with the temple, temple bonus and start province, I think I can get more candles. Of course, neither of us does any research during this time.
Arco has breached Abysia's walls, but Abysia's prophet is utterly scary. He probably can't beat a whole army by himself, but... probably.
I'd also like to take back one province from Caelum. I mean, he doesn't do much to attack Abysia, so I might as well take what I can back and people who don't put any PD on their provinces deserve to lose them. I'm asking him since I don't want to cross him. He seems to be turtling, but I'd rather stay on his good side. I propose 5 water gems for that: He answers "That's fine, I think... Let me check the map." I suppose it's ok so I do that.
I also send a message to Abysia to try to convince him that besieging Pangaea is stupid. I don't have very high hopes of convicing him.
Here is the conversation:

Well, since Abysia has no hope of surviving now that there are 3 forces allied against us, we have no option but to at least make life hellish for our neighbors.

If we had some hope of survival, maybe there would be a point to negotiating a truce out of this stalemate, however, between Caelum and Arcosphale's opportunism, we may as well take somebody down with us and make things as painful to our enemies as possible.

Okay, I'm going to lose animals to disease because I forgot the cauldrons, so I'm not saying the exact truth. I'm just one turn off, however. I would also like it better if he concentrated on someone else. As for the other two opportunism, I think the word is badly chosen. Leaving oneself open for invasion by Arcoscephale wasn't calling for opportunism. It was suicide. Rushing someone whose forts are notoriously the hardest to storm out of the whole game is also slightly silly. You can shut down Pangaea, but you can't kill them. Not unless you have hordes of chaff to take down the walls, and I think only R'lyeh might manage that in the early game. So attacking me was always going to cost Abysia the game because it was a strategic suicide, which ends up saying he played like "I'l committing suicide, but I'll take out my unlucky neighbor down with me". Thanks a lot.
Damn. I'm whining again. Oh, well...

TURN 27 :
Abysia lost his fort. Marverni lost a second fort. Fomoria's income has lowered a lot this turn, though.
Marverni armies were slaughtered. So were Abysia's. Caelum (what did he do?) and Arco lost a lot of troops too. I'm actually third in troop numbers, but I have a third of my troops diseased, despite what I told Abysia and because I misplanned.
R'lyeh is first in troops, but that's probably mostly freespawn. Then Fomoria comes a close second. These are mostly unmarked and some Fir Bolg from what I saw. So they are Not chaff, and back with thunder strikers and lightning bows, he's quite scary. R'lyeh, Helheim and Caelum should band together fast to get rid of him because I don't think Marverni will survive for more than a few turns.
I get a province thanks to Caelum, so I have some income. R'lyeh will take out my province on the island next turn. Then, I'll be doing some scouting and calling back my god. My prophet should go preach in Abysia's lands and, with Arco building a temple, dom kill should be possible.
I'm still turtling. Told you so. I get out south to check which province too attack next: the island or the province straight to my south.