Newbie Game EA (Running)

[FAJ]

Haha, the magic of TienChi is pretty ridiculous. A remote spell that kills over 50% of my troops gave me a good grin. I didn't even realize that magic got that powerful. What the point of making an army? or even playing the game?

Luckily, I survived long enough into this game to at least learn something. It was a good first try at Dom3.

I'll set myself to computer after I finish transactions and promises to other players.

[Sheap]

Magical dominance can be difficult to overcome. But, it looks like you have an unexpected ally in Ulm. You should not quit here. You have one of the strongest nations, even after this attack.

[FrankTrollman]

By which you mean that your forces treacherously broke the alliance and invaded an undefended border. Do you honestly think this is a good idea considering the losses you took against province defense?

Attached are some pictures from our battles against Yomi this turn. By the way, here's the web of destruction that Yomi was in for:

First, we sent a magically early winter to the lands Yomi was invading so that snow was cold and deep upon the ground. Then we froze the heart of their camp devastating their worthless goblin lives while our forces were invading.

As the only remaining neighbors of Tien Chi who have yet to betray the trust of Catsby, I offer the scaled hand of friendship to Rlyeh and Abysia. We can help you in many ways and you can jolly well just not stab your tiny daggers into the thunderous ankles of our empire! That would be great.

Sheesh. We realize that we are the Middle Kingdom, that our lands stand not just metaphorically but actually at the center of the world and that all nice lands are but a subset of the glorious lands of Tien Chi. We can only imagine the jealousy that must run cold in the blood of those who do not live in the lands of Tien Chi, but for all that we also must stress that we are perfectly willing to allow foreigners to visit our glorious lands and feel the inadequacy that must naturally overtake anyone who must content themselves with living in a land that is not Tien Chi.

But please, stop invading Tien Chi. This is the fifth empire that has volunteered itself for destruction by throwing the flower of their youth into the spears of Tien Chi. It's getting to the point where we can't even spare the troops to actually finish off some of these false gods. They are like lice in an inconvenient place. We aren't even losing territory or troops particularly, only patience.

The Great Catsby has Spoken

[Ironhawk]

FAJ said:
Haha, the magic of TienChi is pretty ridiculous. A remote spell that kills over 50% of my troops gave me a good grin. I didn't even realize that magic got that powerful. What the point of making an army? or even playing the game?

Luckily, I survived long enough into this game to at least learn something. It was a good first try at Dom3.

I'll set myself to computer after I finish transactions and promises to other players.

It sounds like you are up against Murdering Winter, from TC's post below. Honestly thats not even the most powerful spell, imo, as it has good counters. The best and easiest counter is just to not put huge numbers of men in any given province. Murdering Winters/Fires from the Sky/Beckoning are great army-killer spells, but they have a heavy cost in gems. If you do not muster enough men in a single place they are not effecient.

So, break your armies up into smaller units and fight on a wider front. Deploy your SCs, who will basically be uneffected by this kind of spell. I know its really demoralizing when you take a major loss like this, but if you walk away now you walk away from an opportunity to gain end game experience. Not to mention that it is bad form to set your empire to AI unless you are down to just a couple of provinces. If you are really intent on leaving and your empire is still relatively whole you should find a replacement.

[AdrianP]

As far as pd is concerned, there was more there than just pd. I havent even scripted my mages yet, or organised my troops into proper formations, the time deadline forced me to rush things with just minutes to spare.

Truth be told, I don't even want to attack you, I just want the game to be over and go out with a bang. And I rather do it this way then going AI or turning the reins over to someone else.

[FrankTrollman]

We don't believe your lies.

The Great Catsby has Spoken

Anyway, a good example of how to get around the Murdering Winter problem is Ulm's army - it is composed of Cold Resistant Barbarians (their cold resistance is pretty dissappointing compared to Murdering Winter, but still), and Constructs. Clockwork Horrors don't get affected by cold at all, so they give a lot of resistance to the army against that attack. (a number of constructs get hit instead of regular troops and those hits are negated in full). For 50 gems, it just isn't worth hitting an army of Ulm with that.

-Frank

[FAJ]

Eh, it was my first game. I would rather die and learn something than waste my time playing in a game where I didn't have a chance of being the winner.

To be honest, I think you, Frank, are too experianced to be playing in a newbie game. As if to make matters worse, you boast everytime you beat a nation who not only is smaller than you, but also less experianced.

I don't know if your attempting to act in character or anything, but acting like a jerk, even in character, doesn't enrich the game for anyone, so I don't know why you do it.

I will thank you again, though, for the lesson in the game. It taught me more about the game than the manual ever could.
But I still don't understand why you think I broke an alliance or anything. I was under the impression that alliances had to be agreed on and in dominions people are considered enemies untill proven friends? You sure didn't charge me for the artifacts at your posted ally prices.

As for turning myself over to AI, I didn't realize it was bad form to do that. Tien Chi will have 90% of my lands within 5 turns anyways, so the situation isn't one that a replacment player would have fun with. Ill stick around and see if I can manage to win a single battle.

[AdrianP]

FrankTrollman said:
We don't believe your lies.

The Great Catsby has Spoken



-Frank

Ha Ha, Her Most Magnificent knows the truth is wasted on such a decadent people.

----

I am really surprised that everybody has such low research. I know this a newbie game, but I thought everyone would be higher.

[FrankTrollman]

To be honest, I think you, Frank, are too experianced to be playing in a newbie game.

I'm not sure how that could be possible. This is my first multiplayer game of Dominions 3. In fact, I've never completed a game of Dominions 3, I've never seen the message that says that you have won or lost. And it's my first game as Tien Chi: Spring and Autumn. Actually, it's my first game as any era of Tien Chi, but I gather that the others aren't that similar anyways.

I don't know if your attempting to act in character or anything, but acting like a jerk, even in character, doesn't enrich the game for anyone, so I don't know why you do it.

There's a couple reasons. The most important is that Tien Chi is based on early China. Pre-Chin China even. So I've decided to put into practice the diplomatic decisions of Emperor Wu:

"Never let a barbarian know he has something you want. Value nothing that comes from far away."

That became Imperial Doctrine under the first Emperor of Zhou, and since we're during the Spring and Autumn time period, that seems immensely appropriate. It's a studiedly political stance. By refusing to acknowledge that other empires have anything you fear or value, the Empire of China was able to inflate the appeal of their own goods in distant lands.

But there are also occassional deliberate choices made about what boasts and threats we send out. For example, the infamous "Witch Kings are not Gods!" speech was made to hide the fact that at that moment my third army was out of position - there was literally nothing standing between his raiding force and the deeper bowels of my empire. He could have marched virtually unopposed all the way to Abysia, burning as he went. So we made a speech about how there was no avenue of escape in order to bluff Sauromatia into sending his troops to attempt to force a path back to his home supply lines - a path which was thouroughly closed.

Similarly, when we announced that we were going to invade Arcocephale in a few turns if they didn't negotiate we were pretty sure that they were just going to attack instead - and we timed the release of that demand with the movement of a group of troops into the border province knowing that we could move more troops into that area than Arcocephale already had in the adjacent province. The result was a stomping.

So yeah, there are some calculated bluffs thrown in there to attempt to draw opponents into "proving us wrong" in ways that aren't actually to their advantage. But mostly it's a pastiche of historical Chinese diplomatic posturing. Even the trade in items for gems mimics the Chinese demand for payment only in gold. (But in Dominions the most valuable currency is gems, not gold, so we use that instead).

But I still don't understand why you think I broke an alliance or anything.

You didn't. Ulm did, and they'll pay! Grrr.

Helheim honestly did announce their invasion of my lands. Arcocephale, Sauromatia, Yomi, Abysia, and Ulm did not. Abysia and I eventually made a peace settlement of sorts and that particular war ended with no hard feelings and relatively few casualties.

Tien Chi would be completely happy with accepting an alliance with a "barbarian" nation and attempting to declare a co-victory. Honestly, I can't imagine wanting to play this game to the bitter bitter end. I think I prefer the Victory Point model being used in the other games I'm playing. At least that has a fixed ending in sight. Unfortunately, Ulm decided to "go out with a bang" and attempt to burn my capitol to the ground.

-Frank

And here's the in-character bit to Ulm:

You will find now that you have passed our wall that it will be difficult for you to make progress, harder still to take your spoils back with you. As you approach the heart of our nation, know also that you approach our labs and and our forges. Even now our armies reposition to hold you fast.

These are the lands where our magics rule, and you will tire quickly. Every turn we can distract you, delay you, misdirect you is another turn that we move closer to defeating you. Do you think that you can stand against the armies that destroyed Yomi's forces? If you turn back now, I will spare you their wrath.

The Great Catsby has Spoken

[Foodstamp]

I think what happened in this game is we had alot of people new to multiplayer dominions put against veterans of dominions 1 and 2 multiplayer that used the excuse "This is my first game of dominions 3" to beat up on some people totally new to the series.

I don't think this particular game was meant for veterans of other dominions games that were new to dominions 3, or the game would have been open to anyone seeing how it just came out a few weeks before the nooby game started.