YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]

[WraithLord]

Yes Squirrelloid, you could share your build + AAR with us and we could do a theoretic exercise in seeing if it could have been better optimized for this game.
Also, what is "TS" for Bogarus.
Edit, Oh Thunderstrike - it's nice but if that's your one trick pony then a good opponent will make you pay dearly.

I disagree that they have amazing early game. They have good research yes and nice cavalry but an early rush from a bless nation can kill Bogarus. I'm not just being theoretic here, I'm talking from personal experience both as Bogarus player and neighbor to Bogarus. In a RAND type game I wouldn't recommend taking it w/o awake SC pretender - well unless you have a death wish that is.

WingedDog, I feel the same. I'm glad you like the settings. So far we have:
Hard research: 2
Normal research: 1

Another advantage of this settings is that it helps push further in the direction that CBM is leading: i.e. get more mileage out of earlier spells/items/summons.
Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM. The more I think about this the more I like the setting.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by WingedDog

WraithLord
I don't know, my personal choice for Bogarus is a great sage. With early research boost and proper magic schools they can deflect any rush, or even rush someone themselves. Then total arcane domination in the midgame, as noone even close to their research level.

Sounds good in theory. When preparing for first YARG I had tested a similar build but, as you well know , opted for awake Wyrm. I'm really interested in concrete evidence how this great sage build for Bogarus works in MP games. As it stands I'm a bit wary of it.

[Executor]

Mind if I pop in and say aye to hard research? I loved YARG 1, while I was in it, plan to be in YARG 3.
And I'd say Bogarus is an all well rounded up nations that dominates all spheres and game phases.

[WraithLord]

Thanks Executor. Naturally players from previous YARG can vote as well.

And *all* who stumble upon this can opine. I'm really interested in listening to the feedback. Including those who, like Squirrelloid, don't like the setting.

[rdonj]

A 72 hour delay has been added to the timer to accomodate for new years. So I don't want to hear any excuses about your drunkenness detracting from your play this next turn, you hear?

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM.

Just a quickie to say that IIRC, YARG1 was originally going to be CBM, but was then changed to vanilla during sign-ups for Ano, as he wouldn't play if it was CBM. I found this switch a little annoying personally, and this was compounded when Ano left the game just a dozen turns in, while marking his goodbye by inadvertently (due to llamaserver logs) revealing both his nation (unavoidable after he posted to say he was leaving) and also stupidly naming the player who was replacing him at the same time. Which gave everyone else the one thing they should never have in a RAND game, which is a confirmed matching nation+player ID for an active nation.

General FYI - Subs in RAND games on the llamaserver MUST remain anonymous from everyone but the admin, and anyone wishing to leave a llamaserver RAND game must do so only through the admin, and must certainly never post in the thread about leaving the game. (although as long as players don't know who is replacing those subbing-out, they only get one piece of the player+nation ID. But even that is one piece too many IMO)

Maybe this is obvious in hindsight, but Ano is certainly an intelligent enough person (from what I know of him) to not need telling any of this. This was my first ever game with Ano, after hearing many good things, but must say it didn't leave he with a good impression of him at all.


Anyway, enough mini-ranting. Despite my poor showing in this game (poor by my own standards), and my struggle in YARG1, I still think hard research is a good setting for this game. Only thing I might suggest is that for YARG 3 it could be worth using Burns's mod that reduces the research level of some useful early spells, which he made to assist weak nation survive early rushes in games with hard/v.hard research settings.

Not sure this mod has ever been used in a MP game yet (or at least none that I know of), but in theory giving weak nations quicker access to essential survival spells should be a good thing. I know my demise against Hinnom in this game might have gone differently had I been able to research certain spells while I still had a feasible position to back them up with. But as it was the spells only arrived in time to help defend by capital, rather than any realistic chance of turning the war around. (although in my case, other factors played a bigger part than the research level, but the hard research setting was a factor none-the-less)

[TwoBits]

I'm still playing, so I'll keep my comments simple for now. In a game with hard research and/or level-9 indies, I think the roster of available nations should be trimmed (and not just of EA Agartha).

And I'll comment further (AAR and all) when I'm done in this one.

[WraithLord]

Calahan, Thanks for the correction re. YARG & CBM

[Squirrelloid]

So, i've run economic builds with sleeping pretenders as *marveni* and *bandar log* and foiled or deterred rushes. Its all about choosing your early research appropriately and knowing how to counter bless rushes with magic. Earth meld is great for nations with earth magic (so long as their native precision is high enough to hit the broad side of a barn), Fire Prison and its lesser cousin work great for fire nations, etc... Basically, hard research shafts some nations against early bless rushes. (this won't necessarily lead to a bless rusher winning the game, but it can cause a player to lose the game because they can't accomplish sufficient research early enough). Most early rush foiling spells are level 2, and hard research makes it take 60% more RPs to reach level 2 in a school. That's a substantial difference.

So, its been awhile since i was in YARG2, so there are things I don't remember. Lets talk about Agartha first.

(1) their troops are bad. Really bad. Incomprehensively bad. Lets start with size 3, ie, outnumbered in every fight because they can only stick 2 in a square. And unlike most size 3 units (even monkey's bandar), they don't even have any real stat advantages except excess hp. In fact, their stats are pretty awful. So they just die in droves - even the 'elite' cavern guard unit.
(2) Their sacreds are worse. Base encumbrance 4 (before armor!), size 4, lackluster stats at best, and weak armor. The typical giant bless is probably the best thing on them, but its not very good on them. Now, on a unit basis they're better than the average troops, but on a cost basis? Much worse, and they require an investment in a bless which Agartha can't afford. Sure, they're recruit anywhere, it doesn't help. (Seal Guard at least have decent armor, but they're cap only and require like *50* resources, making them impossible to mass since taking production scales and a bless is impossible, because you need other things. Also, they still aren't that good.)
(3) Oracles are inefficient with respect to other nation's mages, make terrible thugs (though you pay for their enhanced stats), and are cap only. They have base 5 encumbrance, and no starting armor, so to thug them you basically need full gear, and even then they can basically only thug PD or indies. And of course thugging them requires a bless. So you have really expensive researchers, battlecasters, and ritual casters, because we aren't going to thug them (not cost effective, would be better off using banelords or something).

Next we consider their magic paths. E3X1 + 110%EX where X is W, F, or D. This is actually kind of crappy.

-no cross-path combinations except with E. This means, among other things, you need a pretender to carry F+D for fiery skulls (despite having F+D nationally!). You also have a hard time getting to F4 for the helm, or D4 for the skullface. You can't tart-farm notably well. (Have to bootstrap like a non-D nation).
-No good way to D4 means no good way to cast Darkness, which might make their troops *almost* useful. (Seriously, Agartha should be able to cast darkness early and often. Instead its a struggle to even get a caster to be able to do so.) Lack of W+D combination means you can't use Streams from Hades to expedite this.
-Precision of ~7, which is terrible. Yet most of the good spells they can cast are combat evocations which require aim. (Bladewind and Magma Eruption are some of your most useful). No native N or A magic for targetting help (and N on indie mages doesn't help...).

Despite all that, Oracles are the only thing arguably good about the nation, but they aren't really that good, especially not comparatively. Also, given they're the only thing agartha has going for it, they're stupidly overpriced. Other nations with better troops have much more affordable cap only mages with equal or better magic paths. Lanka's Raksharaja is stupid efficient, as is TC's cap-only mages. If you kept everything else the same about Agartha, the Oracles should cost ~275g apiece at a maximum, and they still wouldn't be winning the efficiency award (that would be EA TC).

(4) Recruit anywhere mage is mostly useless. E1+100%EFWD. Sure, its sacred, but its average for a sacred 2 path mage, not very useful in combat (E+F randoms can be made combat useful with earth boots, but that's quite a heavy gem investment if you're going to be doing that in numbers that matter. W1s will eventually be useful, but its a long time coming, and frozen heart isn't that useful after midgame.)

So, your magic is pretty bad. Your troops are worse. You can no longer effectively mass Umbrals anymore because they require 3d instead of 1d (a +200% increase in cost, which is huge), which was the only thing the nation had going for it. You don't tart rush better than anyone else, in fact, worse than many because you can't natively forge the chalice or cast GoH. You can't dragonmaster into massed cave drakes or similar. In fact, there are no good E summons for you.

Which brings us to your pretender. Your nation has weak troops and a really weak early game, so you might want an awake SC. But your cap only mages are fricking expensive, so you really need good scales. You also desperately need Mg1 or better yet Mg3 so your research isn't useless, since you have to hang your entire game on the performance of your cap-only mages. To get any use out of 50% of your recruit anywhere mages, you're going to need to mass produce earth boots (among other things), so a Forge Lord is also a good idea. And have i mentioned how bad your magic diversity is? You basically have to treat your nation like you only have E magic natively because you don't get any of the useful crosspath combinations, and your non-E is pretty weak. (And if you wanted a bless, well, good luck with that).

Hmm... this was longer than i intended. AAR in next post.

Edit: oh yeah, for those who don't know, everything but trogs is cold blooded.

[Squirrelloid]

AAR:
I ran a forge lord pretender. I don't remember if he was awake or asleep, but i think he was asleep. Hung my early expansion on troglodytes, because they're the only unit you have which can actually kill indies efficiently.

Discovered my neighbors were Arco (ok), Mictlan (ouch), and Nieflheim (double ouch). Resign myself to an early death.

I'm pushing construction as hard as i can while site searching manually from turn ~4 with a D2E3 oracle. My pretender wakes up and starts spitting out hammers and then skull mentors. I build a second fort.

Turn 20 passes and no one has attacked me. I boggle at Nieflheim and Mictlan and keep researching. I think i'm pushing Evocation now, but it might have been conjuration.

Turn 33: Mictlan finally attacks. My second fort gets overrun and he rampages through my lands despite my research advantage. I huddle in my capital and finish some last minute research before emerging, then tearing my walls down so i can keep researching while defending from his army while it returns. (Need all my mages)

Virtually annihilate Mictlan's army when it tries to retake my capital.

I've got Evo 6 and Ench 6 and Conj 5 at this point for sure, I'm running down Alteration for Darkness, having a D3 Oracle by sheer luck. I'm burning most of my gems on summons.

I annihilate a second Mictlan army. Do some counter pushing to try to get some gem and gold income.

Laugh when Lanka and Niefl die before I do.

On the turn i finish Alt 6 a Mictlan assassin with B2 (the first i've seen it) gets lucky and picks off my D3 Oracle.

At some point here Mictlan gets jumped by Helheim, and deals with them while continuing to send massive armies my way.

I think I repel one more major Mictlan army, and then die to the next one: having literally spent every last gem on summons to keep me alive.

Summons used: statues, claymen, cave drakes, fire drakes, umbrals. Basically anything that might hold the line long enough for me to drop bladewinds and magma eruptions on jag warriors.

Each Mictlan army I remember was like 200 jags + beast bats + etc..., often with Onaqui and Mictlan Priests carting blood slaves. There was an Arch Demon eventually.

If Mictlan had attacked me on turn ~12 (or earlier) like they should have, i wouldn't have had the research or material to do anything.