MP: high five - no diplo - ended, Earcaraxe - Abysia wins!

[Valerius]

Well, that's it. I'll write up a little AAR later but suffice it to say that I think this game made up for Bandar's early attack in Celebrities since this time you got to sit on the sidelines as two failed early attacks basically took four nations out of the running. You must have been laughing seeing how the game was developing.

I don't want to derail Numahr's AAR, but I agree completely with the comments you made there about early, stalemated, wars doing nothing but draining the strength from both nations and eliminating them from contention.

Of course both Mictlan and Machaka poured a lot of design points into a heavy bless so I guess they figured they'd better capitalize on that early (you also had a strong bless but with Heat 3 giving free points you also had good scales). Though I'm not even sure that Machaka was playing to win but just to attack someone. I don't know that he even captured the indies around his cap before attacking.

[earcaraxe]

Just as I was giving up hope

Your raiders totally washed the floor up with my army. Since at the beginning of the game i didnt have a developed scouting network i would be grateful for ur AAR or some sketch of the events. Here is mine:

One reason I like playing with abysia, is the numerous, very different and still viable pretender builds i have found to be made up. this time i wanted to try a bless strategy (which i never did before). Since the new CBM buffed production (its neccessary for the lava warriors), and it was a very small map, with lots of anticipated early conflicts, I thought it was the perfect time to do that. A nature bless would have helped a lot, but there is no pretender that can give N and high E bless and still have points for scales, so I thought an E8S9 Sphynx with superhigh dominion will give me just enough options: good bless for the lava warriors, high S for the Strands of Arcane Power (i wanted to try this too finally), the E bless would help my demonbreds a lot. I took death scales, so heavy bloodhunting was out if the question, i planned sacrificing that few virgins i collected (synergying with the high dom of the sphynx). My plan was to sit a little, castle up, then be opportunistic and attack someone asap. So:

Right after the indies got conquered, i saw mictlan attack Ermor. After some early success for the triple great blessed jaguars, Ermor (ghoul) played excellently, using apostacy casting archtheurgs, he beat the aztec army back! I ordered all my infantry in the meantime to the border already, and after some great losses for Mictlan I launched the offensive. The mictlan capitol got under siege in mere 4 months, with the remaining forces trapped inside the fort. After about two more months of siege, a desperate and quite dangerous breakout was attempted, and failed: i was recruiting only demonbreds in my capitol, and they easily flyed there, preaching mictlan out, then calling incinerating fire on the defenders. At this point, i was surprised u didnt put ur hand on the most northern mictlan provinces. it took me about half a year to conquer all of them, i was very cautious and slow. After the conquest i planned to rest a bit, but Ermor invaded some of my border provinces, so i have found myself in war again. Ermor summoned up about 50 behemoths by the end of the war, and was able to cast Rain, exploiting my one-dimensionality: my amry consisted only heavy infantry, lava warriors and firecasting demonbreds. His offensive cought me with my pants down. i had to rush to research fire shackles (of whats its name) against the behemots, and some blood spells to circumvent the Rain, but in the meantime i tried to domkill him. When Ermor attacked, I thought up the main storyline for the game: i saw u battling, and beating machaka. I knew, that As soon as u defeat the africans, u will attack me. i thought i had not much chance versus the combined might of u two, so i thought i had to finish off my second opponent while u finish ur first. Barely, but managed.

Then those tuathas came. I had absolutely no experince in fighting them, and in retrospect i had no weapons versus them at all. I began to recruit warlocks since u had rain too. I researched mindhunt, and forged all the penetration items, it took me about a year... then I managed to got Strands up. I wonder, what do u think about it? Did it hinder u? to what extent? what mages did it kill or feeblemind? Then I researched Looming Hell, which seemed very weak, but on the other hand it killed one tuatha, and a dozen cu shidhe and made u assign bodyguards, for a mere 60 slaves. Still not impressive, but i wonder what ur opinion is! I have made A LOT of testing, trying to figure out a way to deal with those stealthy raiders, and i have fiund an answer: frozen heart. but i had zero research in alteration at that time. Now i know: in similar situations, it worth hiding away the armies in forts, until i can counter the raiders. two more working counters: stellar cascades (and some chaff) kills a lonely tuatha, just as the rod that spits acid.

At one point, i thought about giving up, but the last 5-6 turns i was playing only for the domkill, seeing it as my only chance. i didnt even patrol for the disease spreading scout(?) (who was he?), knewing the game wouldnt last long enough for the disease to kill anyone.
I was sacrificing like mad for the last 30 turns, and had about 12 idol-carrying assassins and scouts hinding everywhere they were needed.


Did the Melancholy spell in the last turn get thru ur air dome?

Thanks for the game, and showing me the true might of Eriu, i was very impressed, u played great!

[Valerius]

I took an E9N6W4 Dom 6 Arch Druid. I really like this pretender: a stealthy, map move 3 rainbow with recuperation. Especially with the recent changes to Eriu I don't think a full E9 bless is an optimal build but it is a fun way to play and, if nothing else, gave me a good comparison point since I have played that build so much prior to the changes. There's no good reason I can give for the W4 bless other than I like using my national troops/summons and felt the extra 2 points of defense would help them (not sure if it was worth it for the Cu Sidhe but I've tested expansion quite a bit with Daoine Sidhe and the extra 2 points of defense definitely helps their success rate). Given the way things turned out it obviously would have been smarter to get a stronger dominion instead of a W4 bless.

I was annoyed with some mistakes I made early on: I chose a poor expansion path and ended up wasting turns backtracking, instead of taking one indie province after another. Even worse, I was using mages to shuttle troops around. Then I sent out several mages for early site searching. I was hoping for a big find, something like adepts, to give me a research boost and instant magic diversity. Normally these wasted mage turns wouldn't have been a big deal but when Machaka attacked on turn 10 it meant I initially had to fall back in order to get in one more turn of preparation time. This meant that Machaka had control of 52 when a random event caused a fort to be built there. So what would have been a nice boost (a free fort) ended up slowing me down in counterattacking after I defeated Machaka's initial force since I couldn't just leave it under his control. This gave him a chance to regroup. Then, when I was finally going to make a move on his cap I got the movement bug, which resulted in me losing 30 sacred troops that had served quite well (they were arriving from a different province and weren't blocked by the bug) and delayed me going after his cap by several more turns. On top of that, his pretender had now arrived and since I couldn't afford to lose a major battle if I was to have any chance at all to win the game I withdrew so I could see what I was going to be facing. So it all added up, one thing after another. If I had been ready to fight on turn 10 when Machaka first attacked the whole war might have finished 10 turns earlier, which could have made all the difference later.

When Machaka was finally dead I of course immediately attacked you. Ermor had been putting up quite a fight and I started to think we might just have a chance but then I saw his dominion dropping. I kept hoping he'd notice as I figured if he set his H3s to preaching he might be able to avoid a dom kill but it caught him by surprise. At that point I threw everything I had into an all out attack (my research dropped to about 50 points/turn). I figured the longer the game went on, the slimmer my chances became (and they were already pretty bad). Though it didn't work out, I still think the all-out attack was the best option I had available.

Obviously your strategy was focused on pushing your dominion but I think you could have used any approach and it likely would have worked given how badly the war with Machaka had set me back. As an example, when I finally killed Machaka I was still at Constr. 4. I never reached Conj. 6 to summon spectres and try to get some mind hunt protection and never got above level 6 in any school of magic. I never finished searching my starting provinces for S sites and never searched any of them for D sites. It was really a mess. So the dom kill strategy was successful but if you gone with a different plan and been summoning demons, sending horrors, etc. I think you would have just rolled over me and won even quicker.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

Then those tuathas came. I had absolutely no experince in fighting them, and in retrospect i had no weapons versus them at all.

For a long time Abysia's warlocks were my favorite mage but I think the new CBM 1.92 version of Eriu's Tuatha have replaced them. They can perform strongly in the roles of thug, troop buffer and evocation caster. The interesting thing is that with the changes to Eriu I planned on using thugs less this game than I have in the past and in fact for most of the fight with Machaka I only had a couple of them and really what was carrying me was thunderstrike spam (I got a lot of A4 Tuatha early on). But the one piece of good luck I had this game is I've never gotten so many Hall of Famers with Toughness, Unequaled Obesity and other great combat bonuses. When an A4 I've been using for thunderstriking gets Unequaled Obesity and now has 30+ HP it's really hard not to use them as a thug since that covers up their main weakness - low HP (by thug standards).

Generally speaking, three weaknesses of glamoured thugs are: low HP, not very hard hitting, need time to buff. Abysia is actually in a good position to take advantage of these weaknesses. Later in the game of course you have spells like life for a life that will instakill the thug but early on you have flying, magic attack blood summons that can hit the thug while he's still buffing (and can knock off mistform even if he gets it cast - without mistform they are a lot more vulnerable). This of course is completely aside from the mind hunts that became deadly effective once you got penetration gear on your hunters.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

I researched mindhunt, and forged all the penetration items, it took me about a year... then I managed to got Strands up. I wonder, what do u think about it? Did it hinder u? to what extent? what mages did it kill or feeblemind? Then I researched Looming Hell, which seemed very weak, but on the other hand it killed one tuatha, and a dozen cu shidhe and made u assign bodyguards, for a mere 60 slaves. Still not impressive, but i wonder what ur opinion is!

Strands was effective. It would vary: some turns nobody got hit, other turns up to 3 commanders were hit. Between afflictions reducing/eliminating magic ability and outright kills I think this spell was definitely worth it. And that's aside from its other aspect of finding magic sites. Interesting thing about this spell: I don't recall seeing it that much in the past but in all three of my current games that have globals (the Nations game has globals modded out) someone has cast this spell.

Looming Hell was less effective, but as you mention it did force me to assign bodyguards, which reduced the units I had available to attack. It also occupied a global slot and kept it out of my hands (not that I had the research to cast anything other than Mother Oak and GoH at the end). And it costs blood slaves, not gems, so it's cheap.

The mind hunts were the worst. Before you had the mind hunters geared up it wasn't that bad. Between good MR on my commanders, rainbow armor on the thugs and scout decoys it was bearable. But as you geared up the mind hunters it became painful. And the most depressing thing is I had no astral mages to provide any protection the entire game. I had lizard shaman but they would need two boosters to teleport and, as mentioned, I didn't even have Constr. 6 for skullcaps. S random spectres would have been ideal of course but I never reached Conj. 6. At one point I spent a lot to get an S2A3 merc but, consistent with my luck this game, he promptly got an affliction and became useless when late winter hit a bit later (I even put a shroud on him hoping to protect him - couldn't forge any anti-aging gear yet).

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

i didnt even patrol for the disease spreading scout(?) (who was he?), knewing the game wouldnt last long enough for the disease to kill anyone.

I flew in a Sidhe Champion with rainbow armor and an AoMR (I was expecting mind hunts and hoped he'd survive a few turns) and then had a scout fly the boots out so they weren't lost when the Sidhe Champion died.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

At one point, i thought about giving up, but the last 5-6 turns i was playing only for the domkill, seeing it as my only chance.

I'm curious for more info on this. I completely forgot about stone idols otherwise I would have patrolled far more aggressively than I did - very nicely done with that! I assumed you were blood saccing from every fort with your H3s. Were you also preaching heavily? I'm trying to get a sense of just what you were putting into it vs. what I was doing defensively (which was not much until the last three turns). This is actually the first time I've been dom killed.

In addition to not patrolling it was probably also a mistake not to build more forts/temples in my core territories. But I couldn't do that, hire 280 gold mages to preach and still sustain a war effort. And it may not have mattered anyway the way your dom push was going. I was hoping that as I took your forts and destroyed your temples it would weaken your dominion but it didn't seem to have any impact at all. At the end I saw your dominion surging and instead of immediately building temples and setting my mages to preaching I decided to try to take one more fort. That was also probably a mistake but again it may not have mattered anyway.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

Did the Melancholy spell in the last turn get thru ur air dome?

It did and this is actually very interesting because I didn't get a message that the dome had shattered. I just ran a test and this spell bypasses domes. I didn't know that.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

Thanks for the game, and showing me the true might of Eriu, i was very impressed, u played great!

Thanks. I guess I can take some satisfaction in having fought hard and not just submitted half-assed turns but I still kind of feel like I wasted a lot of time in a hopeless battle.

Thanks for the game and congrats on the win!

[earcaraxe]

thanks for the feedback!

maybe some devil summons would have been effective too, nice idea!

on domkilling: i didnt use dragons in all my forts (and im not referring here to Baal Chozron ), in half of them only salamanders and demonbreds. I decided i cant afford that much of them. in retrospect it would have been a good idea. So i was blodsaccing from the second half of the mictlan war (because i thought it was much easier to domkill him out of his fort, than kill all those defending sacreds), and the bloodsaccing got to full speed when i saw ermor's 50 behemoths, which handily flattened my sacreds. I like to make an anathemant dragon my prophet, but my first one died the first winter So i didnt stealth-preach, because i didnt have any. Just bloodsaccing and the 8-10 idols (12 at the end).

Maybe u are right about the possible success of that alternate, not-domkilling strategy, perhaps i will try that next time in a similar situation. I chose domkilling, partly because I felt totally helpless versus ur thugs.

So u say melancholy gets past the air dome? Does it also shatter it?

I was surprised u didnt finsh machaka off earlier, some turns i thought your war would be over in a couple turns, then nothing happened, now i see why.

I think u r more likely to bid high on mercenary's than other players. i tried a couple times to lure away the astral mercs, because i wanted them out of the way (mind hunt protection, Antimagic and luck amulets for thugs), but they were quite loyal.

how did that firbolg champion be so quick to catch my scout at ur capitol?

regarding the disease at my capitol: r u saying, that if u have two scouts and one of them gets mindhunted the other can pick up some of his items?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

on domkilling: i didnt use dragons in all my forts (and im not referring here to Baal Chozron ), in half of them only salamanders and demonbreds. I decided i cant afford that much of them. in retrospect it would have been a good idea. So i was blodsaccing from the second half of the mictlan war (because i thought it was much easier to domkill him out of his fort, than kill all those defending sacreds), and the bloodsaccing got to full speed when i saw ermor's 50 behemoths, which handily flattened my sacreds. I like to make an anathemant dragon my prophet, but my first one died the first winter So i didnt stealth-preach, because i didnt have any. Just bloodsaccing and the 8-10 idols (12 at the end).

That's very interesting. So at the end of the game you only had six blood sacrificers, half of them H2, half H3, and nobody preaching and were able to pull off a dom kill. Btw, I didn't mean that you were stealth preaching - I was just wondering if you had mages preaching from your forts in addition to the blood sacrificer at each one. My dominion defenses weren't great but in my cap and one other province I had 6+ H2s preaching. Maybe the stone idols were the key - clearing my dominion out of provinces and then your stronger dominion took over?

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

Maybe u are right about the possible success of that alternate, not-domkilling strategy, perhaps i will try that next time in a similar situation. I chose domkilling, partly because I felt totally helpless versus ur thugs.

Don't get me wrong - the dom kill strategy worked just fine. I was just saying that I was in bad shape and other strategies could have also worked quite well - but you didn't necessarily know that I was in bad shape so sticking with your plan (which had been quite successful so far) made complete sense.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

So u say melancholy gets past the air dome? Does it also shatter it?

No, it doesn't shatter it - it just ignores it. The dome is still there afterwards.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

I think u r more likely to bid high on mercenary's than other players. i tried a couple times to lure away the astral mercs, because i wanted them out of the way (mind hunt protection, Antimagic and luck amulets for thugs), but they were quite loyal.

Hmm, that may be the case. I don't use them all that much so if I want them (usually for magic diversity) I'm willing to spend for them. This game was kind of different in that I used mercs a lot. I really liked those shamblers with their high strength. I never got outbid for them but eventually they just left despite me putting in a bid.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

how did that firbolg champion be so quick to catch my scout at ur capitol?

I think that was just lucky. I had 40 militia patrolling there and I guess they uncovered the scout and then the firbolg champion killed him. I should have summoned some black hawks and added them to the patrolling forces.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

regarding the disease at my capitol: r u saying, that if u have two scouts and one of them gets mindhunted the other can pick up some of his items?

No, nothing like that. It's just that I figured eventually the bane venom carrying sidhe champion would be killed and I figured I'd try to get the flying boots out of there before that happened so I had a scout waiting there to pick them up.

[earcaraxe]

on endgame scarificing: 3 H2, 2 H3 and one H4. preaching would have helped, because it only raises dominion until holy level*2+1.