Newb Network EA Aran (Full and Playing)

[thejeff]

Well, I'm not bored yet, but I won't turn down surrenders if that's what people want

I was going to be away for a long weekend anyway, leaving after work Thursday, coming back late Monday. If we can get in a couple more turns before then, it might be a good time to stop?

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd won 6 months ago, but I've certainly got Marverni on the ropes now. You'll be alive for more than two months, but I should have your forts under a siege you won't be able to break. If I can then focus on Mictlan, I should be able to win fairly easily.
Unless Ermor has something game-winning up his sleeve. He's got half again my research.

Mictlan has at least one Ice devil, which has me worried, but I don't think he has the blood income to push too many more out, while I should start to summon Air Queens and Earth Kings within a few turns.

[vfb]

Marverni is just waiting for our invulnerable hero Obelix to come along and thrash the lot of you . He's certainly taking his time showing up though.

I'll keep the server running while Vanheim is away, it's not on a timer or anything. We can either pick it up again when he's back, if there's no more unfinished business, move on to something new. Maybe 3.07 will come out by then too.

[thejeff]

Well if Obelix shows up, I will have to surrender. Though he really should spend his time fighting Ermor.

I'm interested in another game. Less so if it's CB, mostly since I haven't used it enough yet and won't have much SP time to experiment. I wouldn't want Vanheim again, though.

Maybe MA? It would be kind of fun to play through all the ages with roughly the same group.

I don't know about maps. I would prefer staying about the same size. Maybe a few more provinces per player to slow down the rush, but the same number of players?

[Tequilich]

MA would be cool with any map. I would prefer not to play CB since I have no exp with it. But ill go along with whatever.

[tromper]

I'm all for whichever era or mods - I'd like to try the Worthy Hero one especially. I suppose unfamiliarity with cb is a problem though, but hey, live and learn. Err, die and learn. So either way, as far as I'm concerned.

We all knew you won many turns ago, thejeff, don't be silly. heheheh

Regarding the Paraganos map, my gripe in that game is the clustered sorts of terrain - and my starting position was utter crap, easily steamrollered. I'm not sure what Edi 'fixed', but it sure wasn't starting position. We could always try, perhaps, a random map with slightly cranked up sites...? May take like ten map creations or so to get one that looks reasonable though. *shrug*

I've had the most fun with you guys in this game than in any other I've played, or am playing, so am willing to go with the Paraganos if ya'll decide to do so.

[thejeff]

Well, I tend to worry about my weaknesses and assume others have strengths I don't know about. I lost at least one serious battle to Mictlan and was worried he could repeat that.

So, it's hard for me to tell. Do you think this was just a case of Vanheim being ridiculously overpowered? I'd like to think it was more a matter of skill and some luck. I never felt like I was unstoppable until very recently.

As sort of a (not-quite-yet) post-mortem here's how it looked to me:
I think Vanheim's reputation helped get me NAPs early on, so that I could focus on one front at a time. That was going to be Ermor, mostly because you were growing quickly and conveniently located, but Sauromatia attacked me first.

I beat them quickly, but it took all my strength and we each only had a few provinces at the time. The poison arrows and skeleton spam hurt a lot. He pulled his witch kings back at one point when I didn't know how to stop them if they'd attacked instead. That let me reinforce and take his capital.

I was very weak right after that and when Lanka attacked, I could grab provinces from him, but couldn't touch his main blessed army. If Marveni had joined with him, as he expected, or even remained neutral, Vanheim would have been in trouble. Marveni did most of the work of beating Lanka, then got bogged down in his capital.

I had a few turns of peace then, with Marveni bogged down and Mictlan fighting Ermor. My scouts saw that Arcosephale had no troops or PD in most of his provinces. Being Vanheim made that more effective, since I could get actual armies to his castles, but much of that landgrab anyone could have done with scouts.

Then I had 3 turns before the NAPs broke. Luckily for me, Mictlan didn't attack with much if anything right away, so I could focus on Marveni first. If Ermor and Mictlan has come to terms and all attacked at together I don't think I would have lasted long. I could hardly make progress against Mictlan at first, Jaguar Warriors are not much weaker than Vanheres and he seemed have more of them. Blade wind did more than my sacreds. Wrathful skies on the other hand was a great disappointment.


I still don't think Vanheres make Vanheim anywhere near as abusive as Helheim or the other ages Vanheims. They're slower, so can be shot/cast at for longer than Vans and unshielded so arrows are more effective. The glamor is nice, but without the high defense, there isn't the synergy with the W9 bless and berserk lowers defense making it even worse. Earth works well, and helps the mages, but I'd be tempted to try just Fire or maybe Fire and a low Nature to avoid afflictions.

[vfb]

I agree that in EA, Helheim is stronger than Vanheim.

And I think Vanheim possibly had the worst starting position since it was pretty much surrounded, though Mictlan probably did get shafted with a bunch of wasteland, and Arco had only strong indies to expand into.

Vanheim did do a great job in all areas of diplomacy, military, and magic, so please don't let my whining about heims here and in other threads detract from your victory! It was well deserved.

MA sounds good to me. Any objections to waiting until 3.07 is out? Since CB sounds unpopular, I'll pass on using it if we can play 3.07. Depending on the number of players it may be difficult to find an appropriate map, so I may experiment with 15-province-per-player random maps and the 'good starting positions' perl script I saw somewhere. What about nation choice? Would you prefer random nations, or choosing your nation?

I will PM the Tyrande players who were not in this game to get their opinions too.

[tromper]

I was hoping to see the final battle between my forces and Mictlan's sieging army, but the server appears to be down.

Don't worry about your victory being deemed a mere result of your nation, thejeff, you played your cards capably.

I like to roleplay, and the nations routinely deemed as overpowered usually have an advantage when players like me are kicking around. And that's fine by me - Mictlan had been the first to insult and rape my populace. I had no choice but to respond as the plebes demanded recompense.

I witnessed a few of your battles against Arco and one against Mar, and you knew what you were doing.

[vfb]

Nope the IP has changed:

60.46.30.238

Sorry I forgot not everyone uses the domain name. Either that or DNS table changes have not propogated yet.

[Thrawn]

I'd love to be in the next game as well if there's room, you guys were a great bunch to play with.