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

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Oh. I do know who the sub for Ulm was actually, but after a scathing post like that I am not so sure I should reveal who the player was unless they want themself to be known. But the sub did tell me they didn't really have time for this game, and wanted to pass it on to someone with more time on their hands. My sub search didn't get any bites though, so they decided to play on despite not being able to devote a proper amount of time to the turns.

Haha was it scathing? I suppose so, but that's honestly how I felt at the time.

No worries on the reveal. It doesn't matter to me, all I know is that the player wasn't putting in what WingedDog put in, and that's all that's important.

Also I know you did try to find a sub and there were no takers. It is what it is.

Oh and also gratz to Psycho/Dimaz they played a good game.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Slobby

As both WL and Cal pointed out already the player behind TNN didn't do jack, and I found it funny that the turn after I attacked TNN the player went AI.

Didn't know about this extra "someone attacked him" part of why he bailed, but it does make TNN's existence even funnier.

As TNN in this game was like a mirage. As I'm sure some players looked at TNN throughout the game and thought "Hhhhmmm, they could be a slightly tricky foe due to their mass raiding, and they could certainly have a say in who wins this game". But then when Slobby decided to be the first to actually touch the mirage, POOF!!! they immediately went up in smoke, as TNN didn't actually exist Superb stuff

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Nice write-up Psycho

Originally Posted by Psycho

On my south border Hinnom was growing insanely, gobbling up Ctis who overexpanded. At first, I though that Ctis would make a comeback or at least slow Hinnom down, because I profiled him as a better player than Hinnom, but this didn't happen.

Yeah, on reflection I certainly over-expanded. Although oddly I still think that it was more that my expansion rate was normal, and everyone else's was just slowed due to the Indy 9, so this just made mine look over-ambitious One thing I do need to change with my play in Indy 9 games is to realise just how much they slow others down (as tbh they rarely have much effect my expansion rate). Lessons learnt for next time though

And I had intended a comeback against Hinnom, but 3 crucial factors prevented me.

1 - Couldn't find an answer to those Hinnom Chariots, as tangle vine casters would always target the Hinnom infantry (mainly as they can pack 2 in a square. They have to be made at least size 4 IMO, but that's another story)
2 - Some snipers (TNN, Pangaea, nation North of TNN) took away my income base by grabbing half a dozen provinces off me the turn after Hinnom attacked.
3 - Most crucially of all, the retarded Pangaea player who not only decided he wasn't ever going to attack Hinnom, but also made sure I wasn't able to counter-attack either by sitting on my second fort with his main (only) army for 10-15 turns. As Hinnom could only pin one of my forts down with what he had in the area, and so what he desperately needed more than anything else for a comfortable victory over me was someone else to pin my other fort down. And lo and behold, fortune favoured him by having a lifetime member of the "I love Hinnom" fan club right next to him in the forest sitting in the Sacred Grove.

Originally Posted by Psycho

Thankfully, Ctis was doing some uber defence of his capital, crushing Hinnom's storming force three of four times, which really helped my cause.

I was more than happy to help your cause against Hinnom (and help myself of course by surviving), since you were the only player who showed any brains in attacking them. As by that stage "Complete destruction of Hinnom" was my only aim in the game. And then again "likewise all the above" with Pangaea when they came back for their second helping of Lizard. (why they attacked me again after I beat them off the first time I have no idea. As it was blindingly obvious what would happen if they did. ie. TC would kill us both easily. Oh yeah that's right I do know why, it's because the Pangaea player(s) were useless retards, that's why)

Originally Posted by Psycho

I felt bad about having to attack Calahan after all the help I got from him and the great game he played even though he knew he couldn't win since like turn 15.

And you certainly shouldn't feel bad in any way about attacking me after the Hinnom/Pangaea dust had settled. As there's no place in this game for "lets all join hands and live in peace". Attacking me got you another cap for very little pain, and it would have been a bad mistake IMO for you to have done anything else, especially considering you had decent forces in the area anyway. (and I wouldn't have expected anything else either)

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Originally Posted by WingedDog

Today I'm on a construction site...

...constructing evil plans

[WraithLord]

"Would you share how you did your early expansion with aboleths. When I saw the HoF early on, I tried some tests with them, but they seemed to lack the killing power."

Sure, though in retrospect I'm not sure I'm all that happy with my build or strat.
I took a rbw research pretender with aim of getting some crucial alt. spells ASAP.
Once I had those the mind lords became semi SCs, they could quite dependably clear indie provinces of any given size.
They started failing against Atlantis fully equipped Basalt Kings. This was where I started a desperate search for the right counter, after many failure I found one. Water Elementals.

This game convinced me that R'lyeh needs an awake SC. No getting cute about it.

Guys, any interest in a YARG3?

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Didn't know about this extra "someone attacked him" part of why he bailed, but it does make TNN's existence even funnier.

As TNN in this game was like a mirage. As I'm sure some players looked at TNN throughout the game and thought "Hhhhmmm, they could be a slightly tricky foe due to their mass raiding, and they could certainly have a say in who wins this game". But then when Slobby decided to be the first to actually touch the mirage, POOF!!! they immediately went up in smoke, as TNN didn't actually exist Superb stuff

Lol especially when I think of TNN as a smoke in mirrors/mirage/ghost nation, here one moment and gone the next!

Truly the player thematically played the nation in the end!!! lol!

[WingedDog]

The game has ended already? A bit unexpected.
My congratulations to Psycho and Dimaz, hope you did like our battles and mindgames as I did (but I think you did enjoy them even more since you actually won ).
It was certanelly the most interesting game I ever participated thanks to the players, the ballance Cal brought to the game and to rdonj, who is a perfect adminisrator.

Today I'm on a construction site, so I will have time to write an AAR only tomorrow or on Saturday.

[Valerius]

Congratulations to Dimaz and Psycho on the win. Also, thanks to rdonj for admining.

When I subbed in Ermor was one of the smaller nations but with game leading research (pretender was an F2E3S3 forge lord with Order 3, Productivity 1, Growth 3, Misfortune 1, Magic 1). Two of my land neighbors were Fomoria and Ulm and attacking them didn't seem like a good idea. I was planning on attacking Pan but TC beat me to it before I felt I was ready (in retrospect I think I was being overly cautious). I could perhaps still have jumped in, though I'm guessing TC would have perceived this as poaching and proceeded to attack me. Unfortunately, this meant I now had three much larger neighbors and I wasn't sure where to go from there (I never seriously considered going into the water where Atlantis and R'lyeh were busy fighting it out).

This was my first time participating in a RAND game and my thoughts at that point were to not suicide myself against a far stronger nation, try to weaken the strong nations, and try to increase my nation's power (though my chances of winning were of course virtually non-existent). The best I could come up with was to help Arco/TNN if/when they were attacked (I was assuming it would be Fomoria since TC and Ulm were occupied). But then the same turn Fomoria made his move R'lyeh attacked me. In any case, once the TC/Ulm war was no longer a stalemate I should have scrapped the original plan and attacked TC.

I've really gotten used to the EDM summons and missed having them (iirc the mod hadn't yet been released when this game started). When a global spot opened up and I was able to grab earth blood deep well I really wished I had some EDM summons to spend it on. As it was I did my best to get some tarts with my weak D and N income.

Btw, at one point I wished for the Chalice and had it for about a dozen turns before it was wished away. I immediately wished it back but lost it again the next turn. At that point I would have had to alchemize my remaining gems in order to try again and I probably still would have lost it so that marked the end of my healing tart afflictions. I'm curious who I wished it from originally and if that was the same person I went back and forth with a bit later.

[Dimaz]

Well, first of all, thanks to our admin rdonj and game organizer WraithLord for very interesting game. Also I want to say in the beginning that it’s clearly Psycho and not me who deserves main part of the victory. In fact, I lost in this game almost a year ago
Some words about that first part. I got Yomi (another thug nation after Gath in YARG1) and my planned strategy combined Baalz’s size-1 goblies and Dai Oni thugs. Expansion went pretty good (those goblins are great at it) but the start position was in the middle of mountains and caves so even with one of the top province count I was in the middle by the gold income. It hit me immediately as there was not enough gold to hire both Dai Onis and goblies. And their strength is in numbers, as you know.
My neighbors were Lanka, Ulm, Sau and Vans and the Van was in the map “corner” so it was pretty obvious that we started to fight (I don’t remember who attacked but it doesn’t matter). Soon I discovered that in tests my goblins fail to kill his infantry in reasonable numbers so I started sneaking all around and taking the undefended provs while researching const and buffs for Dai Onis. One turn IIRC I had all the Van lands except the castles. But I had no means to kill his army yet. After some time when research was finished I started adding Dai Onis to goblin groups and had pretty good chances to finally deal with Van but at this time Sau attacked with lots of archers and Witch Kings. I wasn’t prepared for it and after some battles lost pretty quickly.
Then, after long time, I was contacted by Psycho who asked if I can sub his TC who had a leading position. I looked at the turn and decided to help. TC position was really strong; he had some unfinished business in the west (monkeys and Ctis) and a war with second big power in the east (Ulm). The only thing that surprised me was that he didn’t have lanterns with fire global up and has been researching with his cap mages and fighting with ordinary ones.
First of all I started forging lanterns with everyone who had F so there was some drop in research graph after switching the players, but after that I moved lots of the (now free) mages to the Ulm cap that was sieged before I joined. On the west front, after some unsuccessful attempt to storm Ctis, I was able to finally do it. Also, monkeys were able to break my sieging forces and moved to my neighboring castle and tried to storm, but I ported some EA guys there so he received 3 or 4 RoS on the first turn and the storm failed, after that it wasn’t that hard to take them too.
So the west front was secured, I hit my target of 1000 RP/turn and had the strangest situation never encountered before in Dom: I had too much money. All the research was done with cheap sacred mages with lanterns, but it was hard for me to find those mages any other task – 2W and WS can do some tasks in battle, but D, WN, WA – well, I think it’s possible to use them with success, but I don’t know how – in late game. So I completely stopped buying anything except Celestial masters, W5Es and some indy mages (iron adepts mainly). So I had several thousands free each turn. I started castling like crazy and in the end I think all the lands I had originally were castled almost completely.
OK, so the west front was secured, but what about Ulm? I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug. I lost ton of cap-only mages, fortunately the pretender survived. Another Ulm castle, Fever Fens, was also sieged and it was in the middle before my cap and Ulm’s; I concentrated all the remains there.
Ulm decided to counterstrike and used flying banes to capture lots of (not castled yet) lands, I started to use golems to hunt them, but it was a trap – one turn he killed 3 or 4 golems with duelers there. After that I started to act more cautiously so part of TC lands were under Ulm rule for some time. Also I started hiring Ds to put with PD everywhere to spam DtD on banes but it wasn’t that effective.
However, at that time we had AC in play which I think also influenced our war. I had S mages with all the important combinations so I was forging gear for bane thugs/golems without fear of losing the hammers and the forger; also as I had Iron adepts I started MHing those banes so he had to retreat eventually. Somewhere at that time I tried to storm Fever Fens but he had very strong force there so I lost again.
Now we are approaching the final part. I had the chalice from the beginning so the obvious route was to go for tarts; VH research made it not that easy, but still after some time I got the con9. Also I had the ench site near cap where I summoned several Liches; it was during AC period so some of them entered the neverending death cycle (I saw it first time, when horrors attacked them several times – one during forge/cast phase and another one during horror attack phase) and several permadied in Fever Fens storm (I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s). Anyway 2 Liches started to summon Tarts each turn; while Ulm prepared another raiding party, now with Harvesters of Sorrow. Somehow I managed to deal with them and it was the time when the Ulm ownership switched. New player made several mistakes and lost many valuable items and commanders on me, after which I stormed the Fever Fens again. I have to say that I wasn’t prepared for 6 RoS during turn 1 so my battle plan failed almost completely; however I had 6 or so fully geared tarts and several banes there and 2 Liches somehow survived so one of the main part – 4*Undwad mastery with all pen boosters – still worked so in the end Fevers Fens became mine. After that I ignored the Ulm army in the next castle and move to the cap, taking it without much effort. Now I had all the roads to Ulm lands open, I moved there and the turns became like 1) equip 2 new tarts 2) send teleporting ones 3) send moving ones 4) forge equip for 2 tarts and Gate cleavers 5) repeat. That’s how it ended.
Also someone tried to wish away the chalice from me (2 times) but I got it back pretty soon both times. And in the end I was wishing for gems every turn and captured Conj site from Ulm so even more tarts.
In fact I was somewhat afraid of Rlyeh because he had easy access to some of my caps and of Fomoria for the same reason. But they played as they played and TC won. I’m not sure they had the chances anyway; I had pretty strong Tart force, many Iron and silver adepts and other stuff. I’ll attach the trn file to this post.

[WingedDog]

2 Psycho/Dimaz

Originally Posted by Psycho

That battle on Ulm's capital was the weirdest thing I ever saw - another case of bad replay. In the replay, iron adepts aren't very successful, the buffs go off and the whole Ulm's army is slaughtered with maybe 2-3 W5Es dying on TC side. In the battle report, however, Ulm loses 3 units and the whole TC army is dead, except the pretender. Crazy.

Originally Posted by Dimaz

I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug.

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!

Originally Posted by Dimaz

(I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s

The secret of this trick I reveal with pleasure: dominion from preaching spreads before the battle, while dominion from temples/prophets/pretenders - after the battle. And I was preaching with about 12 priests of different level out there.

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by WingedDog

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!

Hehe, I loled at this. But seriously, I don't know about your tests, but like you said ankh was in play, phoenix pyre as well, and also there were redundant casters for all crucial buffs. I would love to see what actually happened there. In retrospect, we should have tested, then we'd know that magic duel targeting is random and probably just send pretender to try and take out a few iron adepts. But that was the time when the transfer of command occurred - bad timing for TC.

Edit: Oh and also, you shouldn't have known what army was there, but unfortunately the golem that was supposed to clear pd got a crippled affliction while doing it as well as one of your pd guys. So he was chasing this last pd member for about 20 turns and eventually died due to time limit. Now that battle was retarded.

[Slobby]

Wrap up time

To say that I was non plussed about getting Fomoria is an understatement. After getting Jot in the last YARG and going E9N6 for the first time I didn't care to be at the helm of another giant race where E9N6 is supposedly a no brainer. And so with trepidation I went with an imprisioned Divine Serpent E9N6 T1L3M1. In hind sight a minor bless from a rainbow would have been better.

My opening was non stellar, I actually failed to attach turn 5 I think and staled. That said I then had Marv's PoD on my cap, but took it out with ease with N. Champs. I then decided to counter with everything I had and eventually ground out Marv with the use of sailing/call of the winds. So all of a sudden my opening situation actually looked pretty good I had a good chunk of territory, a second cap, and some astral.

I then looked around at my neighbors. TC was in the south east and seemed to be as strong as me. TNN to the north - definately not someone I wanted to fight due to glamour raids, and our affinity to Air magic (a feeling which stuck with me most of the game). Ermor to the East - many a times I thought of going after them, but all plans that I came up with posed the possibility of costing too much for little gain. That left Helheim to the west, again a glamour air nation, and ideally not something I wanted to deal with.

In time Helheim went after Mictlan and so I decided on a multi approach attack, using my sailing kings, and the few W kings that I had who I kitted out to be SCs. The attack went great. Some raids but all in all Hel decided on trying to cripple Mictlan.

So with Hel out and my TNN/Ermor/TC neighbors being the same I then went after Mictlan, which went great until I started sieging his cap. Mictlan had over a hundred vamps and strong dominion and so I couldn't dent his walls and was getting attacked by vamps every turn. To minimize the losses I had to cast gem rec battlefield spells, and so as the useless siege went on I was spending gems for no gains. For awhile I actually thought of withdrawing to think of something else, but then buckled down and analyzed what I had to work with that could possibly end in my victory. I tried fighting dominion for awhile but that didn't work. Mictlan also had the habit of sending the vamps out to raid and then sneak them back into the cap, which allowed me to start penetrating his walls, so I tried timing a crumble, but that didn't work. My last resort was...siege monkeys <3! At least that's what I decided to call the pale ones that I recruited en mass. And as soon as the monkeys started showing up leprosy spam began. The monkeys did the trick and I was able to breach the walls and take the cap, but the cost to the Fomorian war effort was pretty heavy. Gem stocks were low and my large stack in the west was riddled with diseases and dying.

For a time I was elated! I was tied in terms of caps with TC and Ulm and the TC/Ulm war was stalemated! If that stalemate continued I could pick away at my neighbors and secure the win. I had eyes on everyone, thinking of my next step, but then Ulm was subbed and the flood waters broke.

An aside on my views of TC. I watched many a battle from when they fought Hinnom, Kailasa, and Ulm. It became more and more apparent as I viewed them that I was behind in terms of power. I had some unmarked champ thugs, and just a smattering of SC W-Kings most of the game. My luck on the kings generally resulted in getting the A4D2 variety or the A3D3 variety and so my attack forces pretty much relied on moving large stacks around backed up with Air buffs. I felt that tactic against TC would fail as they had Air as well and a whole lot of other paths which I pretty much lacked, so win on the battle spell front. Then when TC started sporting his djinn and bane lords and tarts I was out classed on the thug/SC approach as well. Finally TC had a huge income and just put forts up everywhere...not great for a quick attack approach, especially since TC had astral as well and so could gate troops to wherever I attacked. Credit to Psycho/Dimaz as they set my tempo! I would watch what TC had and thought holy **** I'm behind! I need to catch up! I set up two tart factories, multiple morrigan factories, a gargoyle factory, played around with hidden in snow, demi liches, fairy queens, troll kings, etc...spend spend spend!

All of this was going on after Mictlan and before Ulm was subbed out. I started planning on an invasion of Arco. Many an hour I sat there planning. Taking stock all the troops, mages, spells, I had access to, planning attack vectors, etc. Truly that was the most fun I had in this game.

But then the Ulm defense broke and all of a sudden I had to think of something...quick. I contemplated taking Lanka or Van from Ulm, but 1. My western forces were still plague ridden, and 2. I had that Rlyeh beach head to worry about...worst case scenario I go after either and Rlyeh goes in and takes Mictlan, cutting supply and wiping out my west. I then thought, well I know I'm not the only one scouting out TC/Ulm. Probably Rlyeh is too and that beach head is going to go and grab Lanka!

So I turned back to my original plan to take Arco and then included a staggered attack on TNN, of course modifying my forces to account for the 4 way attack on 2 medium sized powers. Finally it was time I had sights on being on Caelum and Arco in two turns. Niefelheim in 3 turns and TNN in 4 turns, with the plan to then blitz Abysia or Van for the fifth and the win.

Seeing how both TNN and Arco lacked domes on their caps and had the majority of their forces parked there my idea was murdering winters/leprosy on TNN caps and flames from the skies/leprosy on Arco's cap. So essentially nuke what they had and go in. TNN no problem as they went AI after that. Arco thought the same thing as me and nuked my Arco force with FftS's. The Caelum force broke through but with the Arco division wiped out there was no more point...TC had won.