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

[WraithLord]

WingedDog, see: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=408

Edit: yes, good memory was C'tis vs Bogarus. Ctis had the undying blue dragon of thousand afflictions.

[WraithLord]

I plan for YARG IV to be in LA. No mod nations. Latest CBM.

Whoever wants in can say so now. I'll put up a new thread in a day or two.

Given the blood soaked tradition of YARG games I think we have every reason to believe YARG IV would be action packed and fun.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

I plan for YARG IV to be in LA. No mod nations. Latest CBM.

Whoever wants in can say so now. I'll put up a new thread in a day or two.

Given the blood soaked tradition of YARG games I think we have every reason to believe YARG IV would be action packed and fun.

I'm in for YARG4

[Calahan]

I've already posted some Svar bugs for Ex to fix (no prizes now Ex for guessing how I noticed them ). Guess I could give some feedback on them as well when I get chance. They didn't seem too out of whack to me though, but hard to judge from what I saw, although perhaps a freespawn strat for them will be good once they don't have crippling upkeep

Mages felt a little on the cheap side perhaps. Sacred S2 with FTelling for 130gp. I know I would have been spamming the crap out of them if I played them from the get go. And D1 with decent chances to get D2S1B1 for just 80gp, again that feels a bit cheap to me.

Checked out the various summons when I subbed in, but they all had upkeep so were instantly off-putting to a nation dying from upkeep. Objectively though...(this is going by mix of the game and the newest version I downloaded today)

Todoroc - A sacred unit with fear and costing 7D for 5. Not the best stats, but not bad either, and at that price they are cheap and fear stacking can be huge. Conj 4 feels too early for fear stackers, and even sooner for an Astral nation that is likely going for PoTS/LoNS early on anyway.

Drekavac - Seem like a more mage turn effective Shade. Not sure how good their weapons are though as didn't test them. If they are good they could be too cheap and too mage turn effective.

Ala - A4 flying stack of HP for 32A. What's not to like. Probably too cheap for an A4, but then it is an Airy nation, so it might be ok to have it cheap as a national special (and having a summon like this cheap is not the same as having a troop/Sc cheap as not much point spamming A4 buffers.)

Moria - I saw no use for these at all unless I'm missing something about them. As 16N for what is basically a Bane Venom Charm is very pricey (and it triggers upon summing rather than giving you a turn to move them out as you can with the item).

Talason - The spell version is pointless as they come as freespawn on a unit you are very very likely to summon. Unit itself seems fine as it's just a buffed Ghoul with CR.

Babica - Cause unrest (text, not tested) so will have niche uses.

Karakon - Same as above but with assasian.

Navi + Vampir - Both will likely see a lot of usage. Both are probably way too cheap, but then everything in Blood is way too cheap, so it's currently like pricing Ming cases in a $1 shop. Vampirs will see more use than Navi's though as hunters and spawners, so they are more in need of increase (maybe 66, the old Vamp price). A flying B2 thug with fear 5 and a load of HP for 45BS. Must be too cheap, but then more expensive and they start competing with other dirt cheap Blood stuff. Honestly not sure.

[Curious Yellow]

Re: Wraithlord.

I had to really go back and look at the turns, because it happened half a year ago and I couldn't remember exactly how our war started except being sure that you started it.

At turn 43, I was fighting C'tis and we were both finishing off Marignon. Turn 44 you suddenly teleported in and took provinces 142 and 155. Granted none of them belonged to me at the time (they were Marignon's), but suddenly you took two provinces that pretty clearly were going to fall to me as spoils of war, and the two provinces didn't even connect to the rest of your empire! I felt I couldn't really let that stand, but didn't want to go to proper war with you. So on turn 45 I attacked just those two provinces to take them back and hoped it sent a message that you couldn't just snipe provinces from my back yard like that. Apparently you took it as a declaration of war, but in my mind it was just a natural response to your actions.

As for why I failed to attack Ulm - I wasn't really positioned to do so. Thing is that Pangea wasn't dead and my grasp of the Eastern part of my lands was really tenuous. I had no forts there and didn't think I could hold Ulm/Ashdod back if they attacked me. On the other hand I was bordering C'tis who had three capitals and I thought I had a decent chance of taking him down. So to me he was a natural target - and I was really hoping you and Svarogia would team up and go against Ulm.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Curious Yellow

Re: Wraithlord.

I had to really go back and look at the turns, because it happened half a year ago and I couldn't remember exactly how our war started except being sure that you started it.

At turn 43, I was fighting C'tis and we were both finishing off Marignon. Turn 44 you suddenly teleported in and took provinces 142 and 155. Granted none of them belonged to me at the time (they were Marignon's), but suddenly you took two provinces that pretty clearly were going to fall to me as spoils of war, and the two provinces didn't even connect to the rest of your empire! I felt I couldn't really let that stand, but didn't want to go to proper war with you. So on turn 45 I attacked just those two provinces to take them back and hoped it sent a message that you couldn't just snipe provinces from my back yard like that. Apparently you took it as a declaration of war, but in my mind it was just a natural response to your actions.

As for why I failed to attack Ulm - I wasn't really positioned to do so. Thing is that Pangea wasn't dead and my grasp of the Eastern part of my lands was really tenuous. I had no forts there and didn't think I could hold Ulm/Ashdod back if they attacked me. On the other hand I was bordering C'tis who had three capitals and I thought I had a decent chance of taking him down. So to me he was a natural target - and I was really hoping you and Svarogia would team up and go against Ulm.

ok. now I understand. yes I took two provinces that would have likely fallen to you. I remember at the time being uncertain of your plans re. me. Specifically I was afraid that if I'll attack Ulm you'd join up against me. So this raid was also sort of a test - if he lets it pass then he wants peace (more accurately knows that a war between us would be a disaster).
Regardless of this, in non diplo games if I get attacked then it's war. Plain and simple. Did it not occur to you that this will be the end result?

[WraithLord]

rdonj, many thanks for your superb administration of the game and thank you all for the game!

[Executor]

Tourmaline, fun game. Battle of the OP. Who was the dude that took over for me and managed to lose a dozen immortal crazy powerful SCs?

Calahan, so I guess in short everything is too cheap? I tend to agree with this statement upping the price won't solve the problem. I priced most stuff compared to CBM and other popular active mods. If I increase the cost on some stuff they are just going to fade away I think. So it's hard to find balance.

Todoroc should get a slight cost increase and be moved up a notch in conjuration though. Though they are a bit hard to use since they increase unrest and can be used periodically since they have spring power. Also, any arrow fire is just murderous for them since they have no armor and low protection.

Sudjajas were specifically priced upon MA TC mages. That I remember, comparing them to Geomancer which I still find better overall. Svarogia has another big flaw with all the mages being demons.

Ala got improved now when there are no hammers. A mobile staff of storms for 32 gems. A hammered staff of storms was 17 gems before. The A4 I've added just. So like I said it's all quite relative.

Vampir was based on LA Ulm vampires. Though in truth mine are better. And this was when regular vampire were 70ish slaves. I doubt they would have been a good option had they been more expensive.

As for Drekavac, I think they are excellent but people think they are bad on the other hand. I consider them a much better version of shades since that one shot fear attack can insta rout an army.

Mora mage, you're the first one to say they are any good. Most people complained how they are useless without blood rodes for blood hunting. Perhaps they are on the cheap side at 75 gold for the magic they can get randomly.

Good point on the Moria.

Navi should have some nice options with communions. As they are now I think they're good. They were probably overpriced before the blood summon price increase. It's hard to compare one of them to a 66 blood slave Ice Devil. At least I think so.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the feedback as always but there are a lot of things to take into consideration when balancing prices. In any case I'll take these suggestion into consideration before for the new game.

[Executor]

I found it curious those Harvester emerged where they did. Figured you moved them trough C'tis land but didn't understand to what purpose? Good to know.

Yes, Ashdod made some very funky moves. Already fully engaged in war with me he moved onto Arga Dis as well. Maybe he was just overconfident he could kill us both.

The volcanic eruptions killed quite a lot actually! Ashdod, TC and my cap were bellow 10000 pop. And at least a dozen other high pop lands were hit multiple times as well. I think you killed close to 100000.
But I tried to tax out any gold site I found and taxing out your provinces helped keep the illusion there was little damage.
But even after most of your lands were captured my income was barely bigger than when I attacked you.

I got the feeling you were just waiting to get killed or hoping help would come once those 5 armies rolled into your territory.

[rdonj]

That was Septimius Severus. My favorite moment was when he jumped one onto an unscripted and ungeared wraithlord I had in my territory (I couldn't care less if it died as I was moving it to my cap) and it killed the immortal SC with skelly spam.