Cripple Fight! - And the Lame shall inherit the earth!

[Gregstrom]

Cripple Fight II - Lames Without Frontiers?

[Calahan]

Well played again Zeldor. You didn't have quite as much fire-power at the end as I envisaged, and a few less clams than I thought too. But you certainly had a lot more Pearls stashed than I hoped, which would probably have meant a shorter life for my Nexus than I'd have wanted. (unless I got lucky on the rolls). Shame real life has gone nuts for me in the past week or two. Wouldn't have minded at least trying to deviate your freight-train a bit at the end


@ Meglobob/Valerius - I let turn 85 host intentionally since you had both submitted turns. So, who gets the final bragging rights for the sequel as a result of it then?


I've sent a PM to Burnsaber with a final update for the Original Post. Having to sadly step-out of the sequel as my Real Life free-time has become a drought in recent weeks, with no rain expected until 2010 Have offered my admin deputy duties to Burnsaber again for the sequel though if he needs them. And if the cast will have me


Post-Mortem

Good game everyone. Certainly had it's ups and down moments for me. No way I should have survived my early dog-pile to make it as far as I did, but the details of that event has already been logged. Left my final move too late in the end to make a difference.

My grand plan, and the only play I saw to offer me a chance, was a 999 Nexus overwrite. Which was on course to happen by around turn 78. But then that second lot of dual Armageddon's happened around turn 73/74, and I suffered a ridiculous hit to my research. I went from roughly 700rp per turn, to less than 250rp. Had one fort with 30+ mages in it reduced to just 5 mages. That random roll set was a real kick in the guts. This then meant my plans were delayed by ~7/8 turns, as getting the research done for the Nexus was always the lagging factor. But this delay meant an extra ~1200 pearls for MA Atlantis. And that's a hard gap to make up

This game also marks the second on the bounce where I had no Nature income at all the entire game despite full searching (CarCrash was the other). At the end I had just +2. And was on zero until around turn 40 when I gained a +1 income from a LA Atlantis fort. And then managed to get +2 around turn 60 when I finished off Bogarus. The struggle both these games were without Nature was not something I want to experience again in a hurry. And in this game, that Nature income was topped off with a final non-clam Astral of +11 and Death +6 Had plenty of Fire and Air gems though. Something like +50 +25 on those. EA Ermor without Death gems is a tough prospect for sure

But lessons learnt, and experience gained for the next campaign. A campaign I'm sure to encounter you all again in soon. If I'm not doing so already



@ don_Pablo - Good to see you around again, and hear you are ok Also wondered what happened to you, since you were doing more than fine in both this game and "Legends of Faerun" when you disappeared, so guessed it wasn't a usual case of bailing. Good luck for the sequel if you sign-up for it (EA Ermor are free given that you'd be in need of a new nation)


Finally, I'll be taking the game off the llamaserver towards the end of the weekend. So last chance to let me know if you want it to keep going for any feuding reasons

[Zeldor]

What S did you use for Nexus? I'd overwrite it next turn with S11, so no rolls could help it if you had less than 10.

Nexus income was not so great, in the beginning it was <100, 70-80 most of the time. So it took ages to get a return. Later it got better - 120-150 [and about 180 when forge went up, so I guess the cost was about 250E]. Probably mostly because I started to wish for gems and forge/summon like crazy.

When I took over I had no big expectations. Extremely bad nation, pathless Kraken as a pretender... at least previous player killed another water nation fast and built some foundations for mid-game. But I think that other players' underperformance was also a key factor [Atlantis being top1 in research I mean]. Getting some diversification was tough.

I did some fixing - site searching what was missing, setting up clam factory, putting Maelstrom as research goal, securing some piece of land to get a place to summon stuff... also had lots of mages waiting for something, so decided to help Ermor with his struggle and attacked Gath. Resistance was surprisingly small, so I didn't get a chance to finish my grand army [iron dragons, siege golems, aboms...]. While fighting Gath and after I was consolidating power, getting artifacts and clamming more to put Nexus up.

With Nexus it was S3 hero that appeared few turns earlier, so 1 empowerment less Later I wished for that R'lyeh S5 hero [the one that enslaved Atlantis] as another wisher.

Of course when I put Nexus up, Abysia attacked me [hard to blame him] and I was really not prepared for that. He was at least 50% stronger at that point and I lost some land pretty fast. If he pushed harder at that point, it could have went otherwise. But I managed to prepare defences within few turns and counter-attack. You see results now

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

What S did you use for Nexus? I'd overwrite it next turn with S11, so no rolls could help it if you had less than 10.

Used a S6 base. But that, like a boosted S11, means nothing with regards the +5 per level bonus you get for being over the global path requirements. As only base level counts for that bonus (Micah taught me that from my brief time in Artefacts). So if I'm correct, it would just be a straight roll-off if you put up a 999 Nexus with anything less than a S10 base. And didn't see any S10 base casters in your roster, unless I missed it And even if you had a +5 bonus, I'd still have some chance of keeping the Nexus with a good roll (if my understanding of the dispel mechanics are correct. Which is from the manual)

Not sure if the current global holder wins a draw or not though. I assume the holder does, as in theory the global needs to be beaten I believe, not tied with.

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Nexus income was not so great, in the beginning it was <100, 70-80 most of the time. So it took ages to get a return. Later it got better - 120-150 [and about 180 when forge went up, so I guess the cost was about 250E]. Probably mostly because I started to wish for gems and forge/summon like crazy.

The poor-ish Nexus income is because I was hording my gems all the while you had the Nexus up Think my Nexus income was close to 200 IIRC. Summoned 2 Troll Kings and forged a few Air Boosters, plus some other long overdue stuff the same turn I put it up. Was going to follow with more Troll/Sea Kings and something Air-gem wise in short order to maximise return from the Nexus while I still had it. Probably spam Fire Snakes as well just for something to do with my huge Fire income. Predicted I'd have the Nexus for 5-6 turns when I put it up, but like I said, didn't expect you to be sitting on such a pearl stash.

Originally Posted by Zeldor

When I took over I had no big expectations. Extremely bad nation, pathless Kraken as a pretender... at least previous player killed another water nation fast and built some foundations for mid-game. But I think that other players' underperformance was also a key factor [Atlantis being top1 in research I mean]. Getting some diversification was tough.

I did some fixing - site searching what was missing, setting up clam factory, putting Maelstrom as research goal, securing some piece of land to get a place to summon stuff... also had lots of mages waiting for something, so decided to help Ermor with his struggle and attacked Gath. Resistance was surprisingly small, so I didn't get a chance to finish my grand army [iron dragons, siege golems, aboms...]. While fighting Gath and after I was consolidating power, getting artifacts and clamming more to put Nexus up.

With Nexus it was S3 hero that appeared few turns earlier, so 1 empowerment less Later I wished for that R'lyeh S5 hero [the one that enslaved Atlantis] as another wisher.

Of course when I put Nexus up, Abysia attacked me [hard to blame him] and I was really not prepared for that. He was at least 50% stronger at that point and I lost some land pretty fast. If he pushed harder at that point, it could have went otherwise. But I managed to prepare defences within few turns and counter-attack. You see results now

Still bashing MA Atlantis as a nation then don_Pablo will have to confirm this, but I think the entire build was designed to win the underwater blitz duel. So pathless Kraken seems odd, but it certainly did the job, with full water control by turn 11. Think Baalz also went for pathless Kraken in his MA Atlantis guide. So guess it must have some good merits.

I had to pay you a heavy tribute to get you to attack Gath instead of me. Which of course gave you the ready made land base you needed. With hindsight I probably gave you too much, but at that stage I really was on the brink having used up every stored resource I had to get to the winning stage against LA Atlantis, while holding the front against my Eastern foes. Another few turns and I would probably have been in an improved enough state to bargain a bit harder. But at the time I didn't think I had much choice other than to cough up the large blackmail being asked

Agreed there was some very uneven play around the place. But not surprised MA Atlantis had such a huge research lead, as they were war free from turn 11, and had more than enough resources and space to build a very useful empire. And during this peaceful MA Atlantis time, everyone else was expending a ton of resources in their respective wars.

But the lead MA Atlantis had still had to be converted, which you did admirably. Still surprised how quickly Abysia went down, as I had them well in front at one point. Was even predicting all those anti-Armageddon Fire Plates I was forging would come in very useful when the inevitable fight with Abysia came

[Valerius]

When EA Atlantis was knocked out so early MA Atlantis had a safe base from which to clam, research and choose whom to attack. Combine that with a player as good as Zeldor and I don't think the result is surprising.

As far as the research failures of other nations keep in mind no one else had that safe base. I'm really not a fan of the implementation of water nations in D3 so I'm glad a water nation won since it means one less for CF II. Combine that with no clams in CBM 1.6 and it should make for a good change.

But I think the rest of us failed in not all attacking MA Atlantis once the Nexus was cast. Zeldor's mastery of diplomacy wins out again.

BTW, Calahan, Meglobob gets the win the Tir/Machaka war. I could have dragged it out for a while but Machaka was gaining in power each turn while I was losing strength rapidly.

Meglobob, really nice work in destroying my economy. Zeldor's Armageddons finished it off but you had already done the majority of the work. No more Sidhe Lord thugs/anti-SCs for me.

[Zeldor]

Calahan:

I don't think you are right on that. Boosters count for globals bonus. Of course I'd test it before casting and I'd empower if needed. I don't want to end liek that Abductor I wished for - there is bug that he comes in 2nd form, which results in diseased and pathless SC after GoRing, huh.

You got so many pearls probably because I was spamming a lot to make a blow to Abysia that turn. Like gettind demiliches, lots of remote attacks, etc.

When it comes to that attack on Gath - I was also thinking about attacking your Ermor. Simple because it was easier and closer target. But I thought that Gath and Bogarus are stronger than they were and eliminating them why they are somehow distracted with you may be a better idea. I didn't consider attacking you later much. I rather expected you to jsut fight TNN if Abysia attacks Machaka. And I didn't expect to see Arco die so fast to Abysia, so it also left me with no time to prepare against Aby or do anything else.

Valerius:

Yeah, I am a bit addicted to diplomacy, got it from playing other games earlier. I think I am better in diplomacy than in actual fighting [it got really better recently, especially with RAND, but still doing some unnecessary mistakes].

I am not totally sure that Armageddons were worth it... Abysia did not have the big blood economy I was afraid of. But well, looking now it helped a bit probably.

I am just happy there are no more clams in 1.6. Sure, some nations still needs some boosts, but game should be better and more pleasant.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Calahan:

I don't think you are right on that. Boosters count for globals bonus.

I'll be honest and say I've never tested the bonus path part of the global mechanics. But in a conversation I had with Micah a few months ago, regarding the Forge of Ancients my nation put had up in the Artefacts game (I was a sub for last few turns), I asked how many Earth boosters Baalz had used on my E9 God to put it up with. E12/E13 etc. And he said none, unless Baalz wanted to waste the boosters, as it was only the base magic level that counted for the bonus, and boosted levels didn't give you any bonus.

I was surprised to hear that as well, but since Micah is just about the most reliable source around for Dominions knowledge, I have little reason to doubt he's correct. (and haven't had specific need to test it myself since)

[Zeldor]

Burnsaber:

When it comes to 2nd edition, I think you should include those with 0.5 victory in HoF too. I think those are draws, not wins, so they shouldn't even be there. They all should have been here in the first place. That's hmm... 3 more nations?

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Burnsaber:

When it comes to 2nd edition, I think you should include those with 0.5 victory in HoF too. I think those are draws, not wins, so they shouldn't even be there. They all should have been here in the first place. That's hmm... 3 more nations?

You know, I thought about that when I made the fisrt game, but EA Oceania is in those 3 nations! I really just can't make a game where one player must play EA Oceania.

Because that would be just utterly evil. Like "killing kittens for fun" type of evil, and I like to think of myself as a man of some morals and common decency.

[Valerius]

Got your eye on one of those nations, Zeldor? I'd prefer to stay with the original criteria. Makes for a faster game with one less water nation (advantages in my opinion). Also, if you are including LA Caelum in that count ... well, I don't think any version of Caelum is weak.

But I mainly hope we can play with CBM 1.6 as the only mod and not get into a discussion of compensation for the lack of clams.