The Artifacts Game - [ HOLY S**T MICAH WON!! ]

[Baalz]

Yeah, similarly my artifacts helped a bit with my initial expansion, but having to equip them on low hp guys means it doesn't take a terrible amount of bad luck to sink you (my sad story is posted above). The non-artifacts have actually been more useful because of their numbers. Traded some bone armor for black hearts which really got me into the water well ahead of everybody combined with scouts and bottles of living water. Wavebreakers are also nice for early underwater fighting (cast friendly currents, I think that's a CBM change).

Then again, the artifacts I lost (Nethugul and the Orb of Atlantis) wouldn't really have been much help even in an early war against a real opponent. The sunslayer was been nice as an early D booster, but that's easily replaced once cons-4 is hit.

All in all, I haven't seen too much change in how the game plays, though I'm just starting my first real war so that may change.

[Ironhawk]

My artifacts significantly altered the strategy of my nation. Perhaps more than was warranted. However, my hero Granite, whom you have all seen in the HoF, is wielding the Stone Sword to devastating effect. So my artifacts are certainly impacting.

My starting equipment was also exceptionally useful. It boosted me from a lackluster start to a solid one. Even now some of that equipment is still in circulation.

[archaeolept]

all of aby's equipment was junk. completely useless for any expansion. The unquenched sword is ok in mid/late game battles that last a good while, but really that the hvy infantry you are killing has 14 fatigue instead of the 8 they would have had normally, does pretty well sweet f*ck all.

The Ark, on the other hand, especially w/ Gath's high HP sacreds, is basically an "I Win" button.

[WraithLord]

Caelum's artifacts were and are useful. So are most of the items.
The bows are great on Caelumite commanders. The corpse man construction artifact is great for having chaff. The storm sword, in one word, awesome, its my judgment day weapon, hopefully well until nations will start forging SoS.

[Baalz]

Given the fun I had combining some items for interesting early use, and the disparity of how useful different players found their national items I had a thought that might be fun. Perhaps if each nation had a certain number of gems to 'buy' whichever items they wanted before the game started, with some sort of auction/bidding for the unique items. Everybody gets what they want and can design their strats/pretender around it. Take drain scales and skull mentors? Try to get the chalice or a dozen frost brands? Could lead to some interesting play....

[namad]

awesome idea... but heres another one ... auctions might be too time consuming... how about a draft?


let's say... 12players... randomly assign from 1-12 a number for each player.... player 1 picks nation first player 12picks nation last player 12picks artifact first player 1 picks artifact last


either break the artifacts up into artifact packages... or just make like the first round of artifact picking for artifacts and have another 3rd or 4th round for normal items?


not sure... just brainstorming... auctioning sounds fine but i reckon would take a bit longer..

[DonCorazon]

Midgard,s items have proven useful, though not game changing in any sense. The Flying Ship is great for early game expansion as it allows you to shuttle new recruits to the front to replace any casualties from fighting indies. The Spirit Helm turns plain vanilla commanders into long range artillery. But generally speaking these things just provide a modest boost - nothing really spectacular.

[Baalz]

Bidding wouldn't have to take long. Say each player had 150 gems to allocate. Everyone in secret makes a bid on any artifacts they want with a minimum bid as it's forge price. Whoever bids the most for any artifact gets it, ties resolved at random. At that point everybody allocates any gems they've got left.

Obviously this would be less of an "artifacts" game as there would likely be less artifacts in play, but perhaps some more fun synergies and strategies.

Problem with the lottery system is that there is such a huge difference between choosing between the chalice and the ark, or winding up with the functionally useless last couple picks. If the guy who gets the ark had to give up all his other items though, its a bit more balanced.

[Dragar]

Thanks for all the feedback, very useful as I'm in teh second artifacts game.

The alternate is perhaps for the players from this game, and perhaps the second one I'm in, to give suggestions to how they think the items could be changed to suit their nation more? Then have the one person make final decision, but at least it will have received more attention for each nation

I know in my game as Pythium I am getting a bit of use out of the items, but not much - most are thug boosters and pythium is really lacking there until mid to late game summons, by which time the items won't mean that much. A couple of magic boosters are handy, but that's about it

[namad]

the guy with the ark get's 12th pick of nation :-p

i figured that was the balancing factor.... but i guess it isn't quite...



i guess i thought the auction would be sequential not all at once... all at once would be quick... maybe all non-artifacts could have price values for people to purchase after the one round of blind bidding on artifacts occured and people got their gems refunded as they lost the bid?