HappyKatanakka - MA Game COMPLETE

[Gurthang]

Help! Everytime I try to access the game page to download the mod I get a blank screen and the sentence "This doesn't seem to be a real game!".

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Gurthang

Help! Everytime I try to access the game page to download the mod I get a blank screen and the sentence "This doesn't seem to be a real game!".

Hmm, I'm not sure what's up with that. Try downloading the mod directly with this link.
http://www.mediafire.com/?84fk039hpyzc38u

If you have any further problems or need to delay the hosting of this game, try PMing me since I don't seem to be getting an email notification when this thread is updated, and I understand this stuff can be time-sensitive.

[Gurthang]

Thanks Shatner, I downloaded the mod and forwarded my turn. However, something should be done about the game page.

[shatner]

Unfortunately, the game page links are set when you upload the map or mod into llamaserver. Specifically it asks for the shrapnel forum post# of the map or mod to create those links. I screwed up during the upload and posted the thread number, which is the more obviously visible number (you have to kind of dig to get the post#), which means those links are flat out wrong. However, you can't edit uploaded data in llamaserver; I could upload another copy of the mod with a different name, as well as another copy of the map with a different name and set the post#s correctly this time... but that would further complicate matters by having two MA Jomonv1.2 and two Realm of Many Tomatoes-Fixed files floating around.

Also, now that the game has started, I couldn't change the game to use the new links to the newly uploaded, duplicate files even if I wanted to. Sorry, it was ultimately my screw up and we're pretty much stuck with it now. However, the invision thread (which is linked to in the game's description) as well as the various development threads for MA Jomon (also linked to in the game's description) contain all the information I passed on to you. Really, you should ignore the game page's links entirely and look to the game description for your info instead... as well as posting in this thread and PMing the admin.

[shatner]

Jomon will trade a number of water or nature gems for an equal number of astral pearls. If we receive word from a trading partner in time, we will send the gems out this very turn.

[shatner]

MA Jomon: Year 1 retrospective

Looking at the start of turn 13, after a full 12 turns of gameplay have come and gone, let's see how ol' MA Jomon is measuring up to the rest of the world according to the charts:
Provinces: Tied for 2nd place with Shinuyama, close on the heels of front-runner, Ulm
Forts: 1st place! Let it be known that Jomon takes real estate investment seriously
Income: 2nd place, but only beating Ulm by about 30gp/turn
Gem Income: 1st place! Diverse casters help, but we've been lucky as well
Research: 4th place. Middle of the pack, but that comes from prioritizing site searching
Dominion: 6th place. While not surprising, this is worrying
Army Size: 4th place. A comfortable middle position. Jomon is "quality" troop nation anyway

Average Score: 2.9. Not bad; this is a game with a lot of stiff competition so I'm content with the score tables so far.


MA Jomon is not a straightforward nation. It has a lot of different troops, a lot of diverse magic, and a lot of strategic options but most of that's expensive and none of that carries a shield. Playing this nation well requires a lot of forethought and one of the reasons I'm happy with the scores so far is because I'm relieved I haven't made some massive blunder yet. I feel far from established, and I don't feel particularly ready or eager to engage in battle against someone who isn't an AI controlled indie force. However, if someone does come knocking, I'm confident I'll at least make it a bitter war, if not actually come out on top.

MA Jomon can really work with a lot of different builds. You have sacred recruitables and lots of sacred summonables so taking a couple of 4s or a 9 in one path or another on your pretender is mighty tempting. Of course, you really want order and production and magic and, well, everything, because MA Jomon can recruit some really nice stuff if you just have the money and resources for it. And while you have excellent, diverse mages at your disposal, none of them can leverage you particularly well into any of the three big late-game paths: death, blood or astral. So you might want to take some of that on your pretender. It's so much it'll make your head hurt contemplating it, but the point is that MA Jomon has a lot of different routes to victory so you need to plan on which one you want and design your pretender and scales appropriately. I went with modest scales (net of 4 positive) and a sleeping Son of the Dragon King pretender (makes a good rainbow, a good bless chassis and/or a decent combatant, depending on how you build and equip him).

MA Jomon has many priests but none of them are particularly holy. All save for the Saigu are H1s and even the Saigu is only an H2. I'm going to have to work especially hard to keep my provinces from becoming infested with black candles, and judging from the charts, I'm not doing a particularly good job. My prophet has been preaching his heart out for months, but I'll have to build more temples and more priests to keep the faith strong at home.

In anticipation of this game I played a couple of trial games against the AI, typically just playing for the first 12 turns before starting over. I did this to give me a feel for how this nation plays in the early game and how in the heck you can expand against indies without having too many dudes end up as arrow-filled fertilizer. One answer, though I'm not convinced it's the best answer, is samurai cavalry. At 35gp these guys are not cheap, but at 20 resources they offer the best butt-kicking-per-resource ratio of all your non-sacred troops. In my trial games, I'd just throw 5 or 10 samurai cavalry at various indies, just to see how they'd fare: militia, knights backed by longbows, bear warriors, skeletons, even the dreaded bloodhenge druids with their blood vines. And astonishingly, those 5 to 10 samurai would charge into battle and hack their way through darn near anything more often then not. It was... startling. And while an expansion party for 350gp and 200 resources isn't exactly cheap, it seems to be working out so far. I have since learned a few scripting tricks to get a lot more mileage out of my cheaper, non-mounted troops so I'm convinced that someone cleverer than I could have expanded just as well for far less gold than what I've done. Oh well.

Since it became clear that this was going to be a crowded, crazy, land-grab of an early game, I prioritized expanding across the land over expanding into the water. My neighbors have proven very successful at spreading out so I feel like I made the right decision there. Fortunately, I was able to dedicate one capital-turn to recruiting Shark Warriors and a Crab General to get me into the ocean before it was too late; shark warriors can soak a lot of abuse and coral-spear poisoning so they've served me well so far (but at 45gp and 21 resources each, they are expensive bastards). I immediately sent a Saigu and a couple of Onmyo-ji out site searching. This has left me behind on research but ahead on gem income.

At 350gp a piece, it's hard to afford Saigu in the first year. However, I prioritized getting a couple within the first six turns precisely to make me money. Saigu reduce unrest by 4/turn, which makes having one or two sitting around a castle researching a perfect invitation to overtax your population. My position in the income scale is somewhat inflated; my provinces aren't as rich as they look, I'm just taking more from my peasantry than most other nations. I took some growth to help mitigate the population lost from overtaxation. I've come to question this decision. MA Jomon has no old commanders. It also has numerous nature mages (including a conjuration-0 N2 kami who generates 45 supplies each) to help feed troops. As such, I'm thinking MA Jomon may get more mileage, point-wise, out of growth-0 or even death.

Given the blend of water and land on this map, and given how difficult it has become to expand, I have been making good use of a Wokou Captain or two to take troops sailing out to distant provinces to show distant indies the benevolent rule of the Jomon. While each Wokou Captain is a mage you didn't recruit, having someone who can go sailing offers some nifty flexibility to Jomon. For the sake of my neighbors, a warning: if you end up at war with MA Jomon, watch your coastline.

For now, Jomon is planning to grab what few remaining indies it can and then settle in. We will be ready for war if it comes to us, but we don't plan to seek it out. We have lots more to do, lots more to build, and lots more gold to squeeze out of our peasants to finance our expensive mages. We'll see how year two treats us.

[legowarrior]

Yeah, I imagine your Wokou are going to piss a lot of people off this game.

[Rejakor]

It's the same as fighting a sea nation. You have to put some PD on your shoes and have counter-raiding forces. Not really any different than fighting any cloud trapeze nation or stealth nation, so it's tactics you should have and know anyway.

[legowarrior]

This is almost like a secret thread, since few people in our game post here.

[shatner]

It's like a Tragedy of the Commons in reverse; no one is here to discuss game matters (they mainly post over in Invision) so no one bothers trying to post here to discuss game matters.