The Middle Way - Faerun EA [Need Replacement]

[Hellboy]

Foodstamp said:
My position is pretty hopeless. Once the game hosts again, I am going to set myself to AI rather than give someone a position that is on it's deathbed.

Thanks for the game, was a lot of fun. I made several mistakes including making too many friends too early and having no end game strategy. In retrospect, I don't really like Kailasa at all and I probably won't be playing them again for a while.

More than reasonable, Foodstamp.

You certainly dished out a lot of damage on the way down and gave me more than one surprise in circumstances where you were clearly outgunned. FWIW, although I am certainly no Dom3 expert, I agree that you had too many friends in the early game. In any game like Dom3 I like to look for one good friend, and one good enemy (in the early game, especially). It looked to me like you lacked good enemies.

Obvious candidates for your enemy would've been T'ien Ch'i, or Marverni, I guess. Had you attacked me while Mictlan was attacking you certainly would've destroyed me, even had you abided by the 3 turn NAP. But you probably knew that already, so as I said take it FWIW.

Thanks for the game!

[Sandman]

This game's been dead for over a week... declare a draw?

[Meglobob]

Sandman said:
This game's been dead for over a week... declare a draw?

Well, to be fair, I would say a Helheim win...unless you have a plan so cunning, you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

[Jazzepi]

Again, I need to withdraw from this game. I've lost all interest in it because of the complete lack of hosting, and the fact that Abysia just hosed my main army.

Jazzepi

[Sandman]

It was a good war though. I thought I was finished when I lost all my ground troops just after taking the fort in Riftwood. And when all those fireproof Jarls showed up. And when you were bearing down on my secondary fortress with Rain of Toads and Wolven Winter.

[Jazzepi]

I had no idea you could cast a battlefield wide AoE spell. I definitely would have rolled you if you hadn't upgraded to that. I didn't see it last time we fought! I had skeleton spamming + about 20 bottled water elementals.

I think I could have done much better if I had realized what was going on with my capital. I didn't understand that 100+ unrest meant I couldn't produce at all. I spent maybe 10 turns with my capital's income and production at nearly zero. After some trading, I was able to empower + equip one of the crone looking guys to cast astral dome.

I also had a really hard time dealing with the raiding until I started to equip my jarls. Those guys are really nasty. I probably should have given them the stealth hearts, and sent them into your back lines to raid.

And I didn't think about the rain of toads until it was a little too late.

Also, after the first major fight, all my huge sacred giants disappeared. I have *zero* idea what happened to them. I was just checking through my troops, and couldn't find any.

How bad was the rain of toads for you? I was checking your commanders for disease every time I got a chance.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Meglobob said:

Well, to be fair, I would say a Helheim win...unless you have a plan so cunning, you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Indeed, I second declaring Hellheim - Amhazair the winner. He's in control of about 1/3rd of the map, has an absurd amount of heavy hitters and I've got a pretty darn good gage of every other power (with the possible exception of Abyssia), and I'm pretty sure everybody else working together in complete harmony at this point could not stop Helheim with the support of Atlantis.

GG guys!

[Baalz]

Jazzepi said:

How bad was the rain of toads for you? I was checking your commanders for disease every time I got a chance.

Jazzepi

Rain of Toads is not terribly effective at spreading disease (I think it's like 2% chance per casting per commander), but that's just a bonus feature, it's *real* effective at increasing unrest - which it seems you have noted the effectiveness of. It's really, really good if you get it early - before your opponent has domes and has just a few castles you can pretty much shut down their entire ability to recruit troops. It increases unrest by 40, so if you cast it three times at once - no more recruiting from that castle! Cast it once more per turn and that castle is completely shut down for good unless your opponent patrols (which is going to be difficult and will rapidly kill their population).

[Jazzepi]

Baalz said:

Rain of Toads is not terribly effective at spreading disease (I think it's like 2% chance per casting per commander), but that's just a bonus feature, it's *real* effective at increasing unrest - which it seems you have noted the effectiveness of. It's really, really good if you get it early - before your opponent has domes and has just a few castles you can pretty much shut down their entire ability to recruit troops. It increases unrest by 40, so if you cast it three times at once - no more recruiting from that castle! Cast it once more per turn and that castle is completely shut down for good unless your opponent patrols (which is going to be difficult and will rapidly kill their population).

Actually my understanding was that it's 2% of each and every solider in the entire army, not just commanders. I figured if I cast it 2x every turn on his army, and I kept a fighting retreat while pushing what jarls I had left into his undefended territory, I could wear it down to the point where I could counter attack once most of his commanders and soldiers were limping along.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing the entire game. And I was *hugely* disappointed by the ice demons that everyone was telling me to summon. They... felt really ineffective.

Jazzepi

[Sandman]

Re: Rain of Toads

T'was annoying, but my troops had a lot of hitpoints and short life expectancies, so it wasn't that bad. The manual says a 5% chance of disease, but it seemed like a *lot* more than that. I wonder if it skips over diseased troops...

Re: Frost Fiends

Yep, as a mass summon, they're not at all efficient. I'd have gone for the Ice Devils and tried to get more blood bling as well.