MP: Kings of Drama - Keeping up the proud tradition

[Quitti]

Only now, disease demon discount! Get yours today! From practically free to free!

[NooBliss]

Why, I absolutely agree that I should've reported the bug immediately. But, see, I did not. )) Because it was too much fun and I expected that somebody will raise this topic within 2 turns. Seriously, why did nobody?

Oh, and I think that using hundreds of free gems is immoral, too.


Now seriously. I'd have used the disease demons in the same quantities, free or not. Even at 7 slaves each, with blood income at 100+ per turn its very spammable (practically free), so the impact is minimal. I wouldnt have summoned that useless Geliophagus who died shortly afterwards, and maybe I'd have one less vampire lord who sits in my lab doing nothing.

I can submit one or two more turns to suicide enough slaves before handing my nation to the next player if you wish.

[Corinthian]

First thing first, I dont fault Pjoo and Lama for helping Ermor and sending him gems. After all, the enemy of my enemy is a temporary ally. And as long as its temporary and you do it to improve your personal chances to win/survive further down the line, there is nothing wrong with it.

There is of course an exception to this. A player should always put his own winning first. Helping another to hurt a third is one thing. Playing just to hand the victory to another, (maybe a friend) would completely distort the game and remove any prospect of fairness and sportsmanship. I dont think thats what happened in this case though.

As for poor little T'ien Ch'i; our star has long reached its zenith. I doubt that I have a real chance of winning any more. Not that I did not have one. My main mistake was to not finish of ermor in a timely fashion. TC's strength lie in the mid game. Were i could have leveraged my research and resource advantage to overwhelm my enemies. Instead of the quick and decisive lightning war that i had hope for, (like against Pangaea), my expansion was bogged down and reduced to raids and counter raids. I did never have enough troops to hold the vast expanses that I captured and the only thing i could do was bottle ermor up in his cities while fending of Oceania and Caelum.

Attacking oceania under water would be hellish and Caelum was a highly mobile enemy located on the other side of the map. Neither were an enemy I could finish quickly. And while I could have beaten both in time, much of my strength was being sapped by having to dispel ermors Arcane nexus. The nexus is a spell that gets stronger the larger the map you are playing on is. I suspect that this is as large as a map gets before it is unconquerable. Still I suspect he made a profit on every casting and that only the fact that he could not cast less that the highest overcast among the other globals, and that his wish caster died, prevented him from running away with it.

That Aby and bandar would also come for me eventually meant that I had a tight deadline. And when they came I was far from ready. I had not yet time to transfer in to the late game magic. TC is good at the elements but lack D/B/S, witch they have to complement through other means. All my astral and more was eaten up by dispels and my blood access was good enough for some forging only. I did have good death access, but with the decreasing usefulness of tarts and my lack of undead healing ability meant that it was not enough.

That said I am definitely burning out on this game. The scripting dozens of communion to fight against five different enemies is mentally exhausting and i cant find it in me to care much for this game any more. I can tell that at this pace its going to drag on for a loong time.

In the end I can only see two possible victors though. Either ermor or who ever takes over Abyssia. I cant dispel the Nexus any longer, even if I had the gems i could not afford to waste them on such a long term concern as an enemies future income stream. And if i cant afford to dispel it then that means than no one else are likely to be able to do it either. in combination with the alt site and you have a power-snowball waiting to happen.

The only one able to counter that would be Aby with their massive blood income. Abyssia has a whole host of immortals and could really just dom-kill the world with some preparation. Its not really a counter as much as it is sidestepping gem income and land holding completely.



That said I want out. I am completely toast on this game and have not really submitted well thought out turns in a long while. Most of my movements the last five-ten turns or have either been routine or things that seemed interesting at the time. I cant seem to concentrate on all my fronts as that would take forever. And from what I have seen i am not alone in in this. As I am typing this the deadline is 10 hours away. Only one nation has submitted a turn yet. And this is the rule rather than the exception. The timer gets prolonged more often than not in this game and almost everyone send in their turn as late as possible.

I cant imagine anyone wanting to sub my position. Thats why I propose an end to this game.

I vote Executor as the winner. He does logically have the biggest chance of winning Unless everyone unites to share the burden of taking down the nexus of course. But I dont see that happening. Also, I nominate him because he caused the most damage to me by far of all my enemies.

[PriestyMan]

I wouldnt declare Executor the winner by any means, but i agree with your assesment about the likely winners.

In all honesty, the chances of an aby sub are pretty low, and it is for sure going to be a looong game. i'm fine with quitting, but i will certainly play on too.

[NooBliss]

Aby cannot domkill anyone on such a big map. Its a myth. I am sacrificing slaves in three castles that belonged to Mictlan for like 10 turns now, and I didnt even spread my dominion to the neighbouring provinces.
Put some temples up, set some priests on preaching - and dominion push will fail.

[Debaser8]

Considering that the players of 3 of the top 5 nations are seeking subs or have left and Executors Alt site is a ticking time bomb (Why the game breaking sites mod that was added to CBM didn't take this out I don't know.),I'm ready to call it a game.

Fighting a disinterested TC doesn't seem all that appealing. Abysia with his dominion and globals and remotes is a defensive monster, and I don't have any border with Ermor and his infinite fort repairing animals.

I think we should have gone with 4 capitals inclusive of your own to win the game that would have forced the action and maybe prevented the game from getting bogged down (even if the winner was slightly arbitrary and it forced people to take more upfront power builds). In the games I have played recently scales builds with heavy growth scales seem to be the trend. I think this might contribute to longer games as the global income slowly goes up over time.

[NooBliss]

Well, Squirreloid is gone from this thread it seems, so if we keep Teh Drama to acceptable level, I can keep sending turns.

But does anyone want to play on? If TC and Bandar Log have despaired, I can agree with the Ermor-pooling coalition and vote for Executor. Democracy ftw.

[Executor]

This is rather sudden, I agree I maybe do have a good chance of winning now that TC is crumbling but in all likelihood this game is far from over and it can go in several directions.

[NooBliss]

In case anyone tries to dispel this AN in the future: a +30 dispel has failed.
Pooling somebody to cast, of all things, an Arcane Nexus!.. Ha ha.

[Corinthian]

Maybe i should have told you that my previous attempt to dispel it at +60, the turn before also failed. I suspect that you need somewhere around +250 to get this ****er down. Witch requires alchemy, witch is expensive. You remember how I said that i could not afford to dispel it? Well yea.