MP: Operation Anchorage [Game Over - Abysia Wins]

[SciencePro]

After-action report for Operation Anchorage.
Players (middle age):
SciencePro – Abysia
Ghoul31 – Ashdod
Lebarjcak - Vanheim
Juffos – Pythium
TwoBits (subbed by Wrana)– Mictlan
Thunderbird – R'lyeh
Quitti– Atlantis

Sorry if I am remembering any of this wrong. Some of it is based on hearsay.

The first fighting in the game was the two ocean nations going at it. Thunderbird was a noob playing his first game so I didn’t expect him to do very well against the experienced Quitti. But I was surprised when Thunderbirds’ R’lyeh triumped. Apparently Quitti lost his pretender early due and couldn’t recover. Quitt fought to the bitter end but R'lyeh eliminated him – a great accomplishment for a first game.

Next Ghoul31’s Ashdod marched into Juffos’ Pythium with a bunch of dual-blessed giants. Juffos, who was far ahead of everyone in the game in general, counter-punched with a big communion that paralyzed most of the giants and enslaved the rest. Ashdod went AI, leaving all of his territory. At about the same time, Lebarjack’s Vanheim attacked Pythium also (or was it the other way around?)

As Abysia I decided to take advantage of the situation and took about half of AI Ashdod’s land including his capital. Juffos didn’t want me to keep the capital so he sent most of his communion after me. I was able to turn them back with all my early-game fire gems spent in a big fires from afar attack. R'lyeh and I had agreed to be allies so he attacked Juffos also. Twobits might have helped out too. Basically, Juffos got way ahead in the early game then everyone ganged up on him. Sporting? No. Effective? Yes. Juffos fought until he was down to just a couple provinces then cast Wrath of the Gods and went AI. I can’t say I blame him.

At this point, R’lyeh, TwoBits, and I ganged up on Vanheim. He couldn’t stand up to all three of us and went AI. TwoBits went on a diplomatic campaign to convince me or R'lyeh to abandon our alliance. But we both decided to stick together. On the turn I was attcking TwoBits he had to quit because of something called “real life.” Warna came in to sub.

Warna was very strong tactically and did a great job holding me off even though I was much bigger at the time he entered the game. I sent all kinds of arch devils and elemental royals at him but he cut them down. But I just had so many slaves that I was able to use horrors to take most of his territory. But I couldn’t finish him off so instead I just shifted all my resources to blood sacrificing. That worked really well and I dom-killed the two AI’s and both the remaining human players. On turn 79, it was time to rejoice because a true god had ascended.

Thanks everyone for playing! It was my first game admining and my first MP win. I’ll see you all in another life…

[cleveland]

Thanks for the AAR! I learned the hard way how difficult it can be to organize your thoughts & motivate to put one together, and certainly appreciate it. Congrats!

[thunderbird]

GG and congratulations. You were spot on in the AAR. I would add a few of my failures. Quitii did get very unlucky early on, loosing his pretender. I failed to effectively follow up and he was able to cost me dearly over time even though I eventually "won." I learned how important research is, and made some very basic errors in this game. In any event, your blood sacrificing was a great move as I had trouble maintaining my dominion being surrounded by land provinces....a good move against a sea nation I think.

[Wrana]

Congratulations!
Good game. Sorry for not posting at the time, but I had (and still have at times) problem with net connection so I had to rely on ingame messaging engine.
And yes, as I said, blood sacrificing was the best way for Abysia as neither MA Mictlan nor R'lyeh have any sure way to counter that. I tried raiding, but it was just too slow with my lack of cheap thugs.
Thanks also for explaining why TwoBits didn't help Vanheim.
To R'lyeh: BoT doesn't kill instantly, it needs a time to work. And, with Abysia's mass of slaves it was a trivial matter to make a number of Boots of Youth. Even in my own position I'd lost just a few mages to it.
As for my own performance, it wasn't very good, sorry. At one moment I almost lost an interest which could impact my playing style. Still, I hope I provided something of challenge considering my lack of experience in Mictlan and of understanding of TwoBits' Pretender. Which was far from bad, by the way - he just decided to go into Blood instead of pursuing his initial strategy, I think. And MA Mictlan isn't precisely a Blood power.
Still, I made another mistake in postponing researching for artifacts when I saw you'd already had some. And while Wish and Nexus allowed me some breathing apace, I think I would be better off with artifacts ans Tartarians before that.
Thanks for a game, guys! And always give your SCs high MR!

[SciencePro]

Thanks for posting guys. It was a fun game and I learned a lot. see you!