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

[WraithLord]

Congrats for the victory Executor!

Yes. I was Van. I wonder what were the telltale signs that gave me up?

I knew you (Ulm) would win from very early on. I wanted to enter an early war against you but Eriu jumped me and no way I'd let someone attack me and get away w/ it. So I say screw the game I'm going to make Eriu pay for his stupid move and if Ulm wins (more easily than otherwise) then so be it.

You are absolutely right about Ulm and I think llama is also in agreement so we will see a fix in next CBM.

I've seen most nations fight very well and to the end. It was a high end game in terms of players skills and really enjoyed it (though I knew the end result from early on).

Van is a solid nation now which is a good thing.

Now I'm looking fwd to YARG4.
Hope to see as many of you there. You too Executor - I just pray to fate that you don't get an OP nation

[WraithLord]

BTW, I had a strong suspicion you were Ulm b/c of the murderous effectiveness Ulm's armies exhibited. I'd have been surprised had another name came as Ulm leader

[Valerius]

Congrats, Executor! I've been keeping an eye on this game ever since I noticed mid-game that three nations that got boosts in the latest CBM were among the game leaders.

WL, I haven't played MA Van but based on my experiences with EA Van (not as good as MA IMO) I agree completely that they are a strong nation. What build did you go with? Light bless with good scales and some magic diversity?

Exec, do you think the only problem with Ulm is their Forge? I wonder how many of the games they won since the release of 1.92 they ended up casting their Forge before the game was already decided.

[mockingbird]

Congratulations on the win!

I ended up with what is probably my least favorite nation in the game, got attacked and stuck in an early war that crippled me, accidentally started another war with a larger power through a movement mistake, and spent the rest of the game trying to figure out a way to be relevant.

All in all, a good game.

[Calahan]

Congrats on the win Ex. When I subbed in (see next) I did think you were Van for a turn or two (mainly because I thought WL looked like Ulm given the battles I saw), but then a few signs pointed to you being Ulm. Can't remember what they were exactly, most likely is I'm fairly sure I've played more games with you than any other player, so if I can't spot you quickly by now then there's something wrong with me! (or you've managed to change styles!). After that I instantly nailed WL as Van, as I could see no way he was C'tis (graphs indicated C'tis was way too turtley and passive for WL). And there was no way I had taken over for WL as my nation was a joke which WL would never has signed his name to...


I subbed in as Svarogia for half a dozen turns or so, entirely to repay a favour or two to rdonj from previous YARG games. The sudden upward turn-around in the graphs, followed by an equally sudden and rapid decline, will likely give away the turns I played The nation was a complete mess though, and no idea how it had gained as much land as it had. The original player, whoever it was, also completely failed to notice in pre-game testing that Svagoria's freespawn chaff has .66gp upkeep. Which on top of the hundreds of Cav units, and (to me) a useless "feck diversity just take scales" build meant the nation was swimming in horrendous upkeep and sucking hard from the well of stink when I took over. Not my worst ever sub experience, but certainly my worst "important nation" sub ever.

I won't go into ranty detail on the nation or the turns I played, but in brief I turned the Eriu war around to the point of booting them off land and into the sea (also had my highest ever single turn fort gain at one point ). And was all ready to turn on Ulm when I had to sub-out and leave that for my successor(s). And apols for the clashes Van, and the things I killed (thanks for the Arch Devil though). Although I really have to ask why you moved your death stack towards the Eriu cap after taking that Eriu fort on our border? As that sent me such a negative signal that it meant instead of moving all my stacks towards Ulm as I had planned, I had to re-route them to the Eriu cap as I thought you'd had a brain freeze and was trying to challenge me for it. This resulted in a 2-turn delay of a strike on Ulm. Doubt it would have made much difference, but it certainly made some. (partly because I would have still been playing to do the first strike, and first two turns of war)

No idea how the Svagoria VPs fell at the end. I left whoever with 2 Master Enslavers that I was hoping would have been able to deal with an army of Ulm national troops, and enough Astral mages to deal with solo SC storm attempts. But then not too surprised Svarogia were the ones coughing up the VP's, since as far as I could tell the nation was just an illusion of strength built on wet tissue paper. And I'm very certain Ulm or Van could have walked through Svarogia with ease at the point I joined the frey. (and even when I left they were no match for the top two)

[rdonj]

Good game everyone, and congrats to executor for the win. With turns like that, you really do need those week long hosting timers :P

Here's the list of nations:

1. WraithLord Vanheim, Arrival of Man
2. Stagger Lee Arcoscephale, The Old Kingdom
3. TwoBits Svarogia, Dark Forests by Executor
4. Executor Ulm, Forges of Ulm
5. wonderloss Bandar Log, Land of the Apes
6. ghoul31 Abysia, Blood and Fire
7. Slobby Shinuyama, Land of the Bakemono
8. don_Pablo C'tis, Miasma
9. danbo Ashdod, Reign of the Anakim
10. tratorix T'ien Ch'i, Imperial Bureaucracy
11. sansanjuan Arga Dis, Blood of Warriors by Sombre
12. GFSnl Marignon, Fiery Justice
13. mockingbird Pangaea, Age of Bronze
14. Deadnature Pythium, The Second Empire by Burnsaber
15. Curious Yellow Eriu, Last of the Tuatha
16. Aethyr Man, Tower of Avalon
17. yandav Shangri-La, Hidden City of the Secret Masters originally by Nounours,
extended and maintained by Globu
18. Bullock Al-Nadim, The Thousand and One Nights by elmokki

I don't have all of the subs written down in an easily accessible location, but the last three subs for svarogia were, in order, Calahan, BlanketThief, and Korwin. 3V4JKZ2 also subbed for svarogia at one point, and StaggerLee took over control of vanheim for WL for a few turns a while back. And Tratorix subbed for eriu after it had taken a good beating. Any other subs, I'm sorry if I've missed you, but you are all appreciated and commended for your work in keeping this mammoth game running!

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Congrats, Executor! I've been keeping an eye on this game ever since I noticed mid-game that three nations that got boosts in the latest CBM were among the game leaders.

WL, I haven't played MA Van but based on my experiences with EA Van (not as good as MA IMO) I agree completely that they are a strong nation. What build did you go with? Light bless with good scales and some magic diversity?

Exec, do you think the only problem with Ulm is their Forge? I wonder how many of the games they won since the release of 1.92 they ended up casting their Forge before the game was already decided.

Oh, I tried many different builds but ended up w/:
van, King of Primordial Waters, King of Many Names, Councilor of Gods, Ruler of
the Ocean's Surface
Vanheim, Middle Era
Father of Winters (Body 1561, 88 hits)
Magic: Air 2 Water 9
Dominion 8
Scales: Order 3 Productivity 3 Cold 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 1 Magic 1
Imprisoned


It worked excellently and Van was on the top for a good part of the early+mid game and probably caused the most PITA to Ulm (AC).

I made the mistake of summoning the blood royalty. In hindsight I should have taken more cost efficient summons and earlier AC. But certainly MA Van is a strong nation as should be (nation of fierce vikings should be nothing else).

[Curious Yellow]

Wow, we can finally talk about this game now?

First off, congrats Executor on your win.

I played Eriu from the start until turn 53. One of the main lessons for me from this game was that I don't really have the stomach for lategame micro with large empires, so I burned out and subbed out. No more games with more than 6-8 players for me.

In my mind the turning point in the game was about turn 40? or so, when the Ulm-Ashdod war was winding down with Ulm on top and with an active Forge. At that point, Vanheim and Svarogia both attacked me and I felt at the time this ensured that Ulm would win. Ulm was left to turtle with the Forge and secure their holdings.

It's weird that Wraithlord rememembers it like I attacked him. I had just absorbed Man and the furthest thing from my mind at the time was war with Vanheim. The nation I wanted to go after was C'tis actually, but being attacked by Vanheim and Svarogia (which were both about my size) sealed my fate. The war started out okay, winning a few big battles but started losing a lot of small ones. Micro weariness really set in for me at that point and I didn't play as well as I could/should have.

My "war" with Pangea was the funniest part of the game for me. He couldn't find a way to kill my thugs in the field, and I had little hope of storming his maenad-filled forts with my commanders-only strategy. I took one fort by building like 5 siege golems, but didn't have a chance of putting a dent in his capital. Funny that he managed to hang on until the end of the game.

Made some mistakes with globals during the game as well. I tried overwriting Pangea's Mother Oak with like 60 extra gems, but didn't work - after that I really struggled with nature income. When war with Svarogia/Vanheim set in I tried casting Mechanical Militia, thinking it would slow down raiding - but it never came online, someone else cast a global and mine just fizzled.

By the way the 11th hour switch to CBM 1.92 kind of screwed my plans, removing awe from the Tuatha commanders. My testing showed that in order for the tuatha to be effective as expanding thugs against indies 9 with CBM 1.92, they needed to be able to self-buff barkskin. Therefore I went with an awake master druid with E9N4 + some astral/fire and terrible scales, so that I could research alteration 1 early enough to have a decent expansion. The forge bonus on the female commanders was a decent compensation though, which I made good use of later on.

[WraithLord]

Curious Yellow, I'm curious (but not yellow ) why did you attack me?- You and Ulm were both in great position and the "right" move for you was to duke it out w/ him.
It was obvious to the players that Ulm was OP so you would have gotten help for sure. I was just waiting for you to make that move and join w/ you.
But instead you attacked Van - a strong nation w/ excellent income, strong armies and gr8 blood income. What was your rational anyway?- Nullify us both so Ulm would have a red carpet to victory?

Calahan, I moved that stack b/c Ctis was massing armies on my borders in that area. I wanted a military presence in the area so that my lands wouldn't seem like easy picking.
I had more "death" stacks as Ulm has found out when he invaded me. In-fact IIRC we only had one real army vs. army battle and the Vans won the day. Taking into acct significant research + equipment advantage to Ulm I'd say yes, the buggers made me proud and earned their place at Valhalla

[WraithLord]

Curious Yellow, you attacked me first. I remember thinking WTF, now why did he do that?- He just signed off Ulm's victory

Savorgia joined after I reacted to your attack.