MP: YARG3, non newb MA+ENP2 RAND game. Executor's Ulm winner on turn 76

[WraithLord]

"Turn 68 - I capture the Eriu cap and a huge force of yours arrives in 156 (the prov next to Eriu cap), made up of mainly the large force that captured 169. I am then forced to converge a large force on the Eriu cap to hold the walls in case you attack. (I was seriously thinking of attacking Ulm this turn while Shiny still had some life left, but this made me forget all about that)
"
what a sad misunderstanding. I had 0 intention of taking anything from you. Not w/ Ulm easily getting away w/ the game. How stupid and short sighted would such a move be???
All I wanted from early on is attack Ulm. I was happy I finished conquering two nation by turn 40+ and were it not to Eriu attacking me I'd have attacked Ulm.
Now, for sure w/o help Van would have perished but I gathered that any sensible player would join against Ulm.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

"Turn 68 - I capture the Eriu cap and a huge force of yours arrives in 156 (the prov next to Eriu cap), made up of mainly the large force that captured 169. I am then forced to converge a large force on the Eriu cap to hold the walls in case you attack. (I was seriously thinking of attacking Ulm this turn while Shiny still had some life left, but this made me forget all about that)
"
what a sad misunderstanding. I had 0 intention of taking anything from you. Not w/ Ulm easily getting away w/ the game. How stupid and short sighted would such a move be???
All I wanted from early on is attack Ulm. I was happy I finished conquering two nation by turn 40+ and were it not to Eriu attacking me I'd have attacked Ulm.
Now, for sure w/o help Van would have perished but I gathered that any sensible player would join against Ulm.

Yeah, I was 90% sure you had no intention of attacking me. But because I had very little game history to go on, I wasn't 100% comfortable with taking the risk of ignoring you. Plus a huge factor was that I could see no other reason for those troops moving from 169-156, since the only purpose I could deduce of you putting a large force in 156 was to give you attack options against the Eriu cap. I think if you had moved those troops to anywhere else I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but that province at that time was only neighboured by all of your provs and my Eriu cap (and one other insignificant prov of mine).

So there was literally no other purpose for those troops being there I could see, and moving in a "towards me and away from Ulm" direction, other than having eyes on the Eriu cap. Perhaps another great example of how even one misjudged troop signal can have a real unwanted impact on another player.

[Executor]

Yeah, I assumed you picked up a nice amount of my items.

[Executor]

No idea why Shiny never used his vamps.
I think his vamp queen met an untimely end in one battle where he tried to RoS or earthquake my large army but failed due to a first turn army of gold and got killed in the process. I had converted the province by that time.

There was an attempt to stop my army at Eriu but it failed. I don't think Svarogia realized I was going for the win until it was too late. No teleported mages also.

As for Man capital, there wasn't much stuff, but there were S mages and the master enslave Arch Devil there. Mainly, I had to defeat my own army there to capture the fort.

As for the boots of plains. **** that was a stupid mistake! My Bane Lord got attacked twice that turn by Horrors (bet you didn't know you could get attacked multiple times by horrors under AC? Well, neither did I! Nearly lost my pretender that way).
Managed to kill a Doom Horror in the first round but got killed in the second by a regular large Horror.
Anyway, I changed his damn battle orders to attack instantly, forgetting Armor of Virtue would not react in this case since it has a retarded AoE1 returning autocast mechanism that takes a turn.

Oh, yes, btw, (this one can go into the Hall of Doh) I also managed to lose Al Kazim to a bunch of tritons. Yes, an equipped buffed Al Kazim lost to about 50 tritons due to a lucky shot and damn poison.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Executor

bet you didn't know you could get attacked multiple times by horrors under AC?

Oh I knew that as rdonj can testify in the huge dossier I left for successor

[Executor]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Oh I knew that as rdonj can testify in the huge dossier I left for successor

Yes! But did the same Doom Horror attack you multiple times in the same turn!?

I like the idea of a cripple rand. I vote for that next.

I actually never got a chance to use Iron Angles sadly.
Initially spent all my gems on the Forge, than on forging than managed to cast Earth Well. I hoped to start summoning them at that point but than Eriu overcast it. After than I figured it's best just to stockpile earth gems in case someone overcasts or dispels my Forge. Always kept about 300 in reserve before the AC came up.

[Valerius]

Another interesting thing about this game is that you had several mod nations. Any feedback on how they fit in? I have admit that I'm wary of mod nations because despite their frequently excellent quality, I'm never sure what OP surprises are hidden inside them. I think part of it is just mod makers getting caught up in their creation - it's tough to leave things out, not because they aren't thematic, but because it would just be too much. But I may just be scarred from seeing rdonj's Itza and Exec's Stygia in the Tourmaline game. And I thought my own nation of Haida Gwaii and Alugra, that defeated me, were plenty strong as well. The only one that I remember thinking was weak were the Ogres because they were so one dimensional - really tough troops but absolutely horrible magic IIRC (this was several years ago so this may be out-of-date from how these nations are now).

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Another interesting thing about this game is that you had several mod nations. Any feedback on how they fit in? I have admit that I'm wary of mod nations because despite their frequently excellent quality, I'm never sure what OP surprises are hidden inside them. I think part of it is just mod makers getting caught up in their creation - it's tough to leave things out, not because they aren't thematic, but because it would just be too much. But I may just be scarred from seeing rdonj's Itza and Exec's Stygia in the Tourmaline game. And I thought my own nation of Haida Gwaii and Alugra, that defeated me, were plenty strong as well. The only one that I remember thinking was weak were the Ogres because they were so one dimensional - really tough troops but absolutely horrible magic IIRC (this was several years ago so this may be out-of-date from how these nations are now).

Itza and alugra have both been changed since then. Alugra mostly had some small changes that went a long way... encumbrance added onto the smiths, things like that. But they don't seem anywhere like OP to me right now. Itza lost the ability to recruit their sacreds altogether, and their slann cost EVEN MOAR now, due to having the temple guard as retinues (one off domsummons). They still have plenty of good points, but I wouldn't call them pythium 2.0 anymore :P

Stygia, on the other hand, remains exactly as it was and is a testament to Amos mods everywhere.

[Slobby]

Game over congratz Executor!

Mmmm recap, pretender wise took the VQ with earth/air/death/blood, and went with Baalz goblin strat. The idea for the VQ was to get vampires plus have a nice immortal teleporting rain of stones caster. Issues with the VQ: the domsummon for vamps is incredibly low - sucked balls really, the vast majority of those vamps she blood hunted for and summoned. Near the end when fighting Exec I decided to get father illearth instead of a vamp lord...big mistake as father illearth was taken! And with that I just had my VQ to lead my vamps around...and I felt she would be better off in defense to cast spells then run off with vamps that Exec could just slaughter at his whim.

Early progression - launched a double assault on Arco and Arga then Ashdod came in to which my reaction was screw you if you think you're taking Arga lands! Which led to Ulm and I beating down Ashdod.

That brought it to mid game Van Sva and Eriu were fighting one another Ulm was just chilling and so was Ctis. From my point of view Ulm was the leader and I felt the desire to take him on but how? No diplo and Ctis apparently turtling and Ulm being big and bad.

I then summoned some Harvesters of Sorrow with the idea of making Exec think that Ctis or Van was messing with him, geared em up and snuck them through Vans lands to have them approach Ulm from Van/Ctis territory. Sadly I got over ambitious and just when they were right there Exec caught me sneaking in some largeish goblin raiders and war was on with no help in sight.

Then having a good idea that it was Exec I was against I felt it fitting that I try an aggressive volcanic erution attack to mess with his eco. (still playing mistletoe because of your arma spam Exec!) That didn't seem to work out I figure Exec just cranked his taxes because I noticed no noticeable drop in his income, and I hit him with ALOT of volcanic eruptions.

Mono a mono it was no contest. Grendels and Treants running around, large Ulmish armies with tons of commanders with bows and army of gold plus other buffs. I had nothing to fight that. All I could do was raid and try to force Exec to take one province at a time.

Which as some of you have asked about me not sending my other force to defend the cap...there was no point in doing so. His army would have won and then I would have been truly done. Atleast by keeping that other force alive I still had something to harass/threaten Exec with.

[Executor]

There were 5 mod nation and they all seemed to have died early on without much success with the exception of Svarogia. But in all honesty Svarogia did have one huge advantage, the 25 range enslave mind weapon on a cheap mage. That's being fixed however.
Though I think apart from that my nation is more or less balanced. However I guess I can't really be objective with being the creator.

First YARG was you against Dimaz if I remember correctly? C'tis vs Bogarus?