[Dom3] Oldest Profession Game On

[Username17]

Current turn is submitted,
next turn I need an extension until 25 April 20.00 Llama time.

Thanks!

We are on a 48 hour schedule, so even if the turn ran right now, you'd still have until five O'clock, April 26th to submit your turn. Do you need an extension or not?

-Username17

[Korwin]

In that case, I'll have enough time.

[Username17]

In other news: I want Hinnom to understand that while Sauromatia has been humbled and her people are reduced to wandering nomads, we are not actually defeated, and if you send any more of your giant circumsized penises into our lands we will cut them off. Also, we will find your foreskins and make a cape out of them because that is how the Manflayers roll.

-Sauromatia

[DrPraetor]

This turn is hell, and so is work.

Could I have a 24h extension? I promise not to make it a habit.

Thanks,
DrP

[Username17]

Hosting postponed for OldestProfession by 24 hours. The game will now host at 10:44 GMT on Friday April 27th.
Please note that this information will not be updated on the game status page for a few minutes.

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-Username17

[K]

Having just killed a fully-equipped Golem with a barely-equipped Samanishada assassin, I feel like I've been playing Lanka all wrong for years.

[Zinegata]

Well, it was a mistake on my part as well. We've been expecting Lankan assassination attempts since the start of the war, so we've always dumped tons of chaff commanders with our stacks to minimize the chance of a particularly valuable commander getting killed.

The Golem was one instance where we didn't have that many dummy commanders.

Still, good hit, and a surprising comeback.

[Username17]

Well done Ulm.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Thanks. I honestly wasn't sure if that would work .

[K]

Nicely done, though I am a bit disappointed that you never attacked my capital. I had a grinder prepared that was going to be epic.

This game definitely made me rethink my overuse of demons, my distaste for assassins, and my vulnerability to Mind Hunt.

[Zinegata]

K->

Thanks . I must admit, we were always scared of the power of Lanka even when you were essentially down to your capital.

I had actually originally planned to attack your capital several times (hence the constant stream of suicide scouts) but I kept putting it off after you gradually improved your capabilities.

I knew you had an Air 6 caster who would probably do Fog Warriors or Mists, which I was ready for. But when I spotted the Earth 4 caster who can do Earthquake I decided to put it off, since most of my army was wolves (I got the Soulstone, which was why my army graph was soaring). Halved defense due to darkness + no protection = Lots and lots of dead wolves in that setup. Not to mention it would wreak havoc among my human mages.

So my revised setup was to send in a big troll army, backed up by an Elemental Air Queen and a Water Queen, plus a Golem casting Solar Brillance.

Unfortunately, your assassin then killed my Golem. So rather than risk an attack without this key component I decided to put it off and reassess. And during the reassessment I realized that there were now four non-forted VP provinces in the hands of people who I had no NAP with (1 in Lanka, 3 in Sauro), and I might never get a chance like this again.

So I decided "Meh, let's go for the Big Solution. If it fails we surrender to Abysia soon. The MA draft game is starting anyway". What I sent out was essentially my entire strategic reserve: Three Tartarians, two Elemental Royalty, three Troll Kings, and two armies (one Flying Ship'd, the other Gate Stone'd).

We still had a Water Queen and four Tarts on top of all that, but the four were Monstrums or Spirits with no real gear yet.

====

Re: Lanka's war

We were actually extremely worried about your assassination capabilities, which was why we had something like 10+ chaff commanders (mainly scouts) which escorted the main army. This was why we had a supply of guys to send to your capital for suicide scouting. As you found out, your assassins were very effective, with me losing a fully kitted Golem to a barely kitted assassin.

I think you were just unlucky with the Mind Hunts though. The reason they were so effective was because I got lucky and nabbed the Shadow Seer site (S3 Ethereal & Stealthy). I then equipped these guys with Rune Smashers, Eye of the Void, and (sometimes) spell focus, which brought our MR piercing bonus to as high as +5, or enough to kill a lot of your commanders reliably. I don't think many other nations will be able to do that, as Rune Smashers are expensive without a 50% off forge bonus.

Also, we can now reveal that yes, Ulm was the one who assassinated Frank's Pretender. We didn't admit it at the time because we were about to go to war with Lanka, and we didn't want to reveal that we had that capability.

The only people who knew at the time were the Pangaeans, because they provided us with the targetting information and a bounty of Nature gems for the hit.

Also, because we were kinda complicit in a grand alliance led by TC; with the general terms being TC & Abysia vs Sauro, and Hinnom & Ulm vs Lanka.

(I must note though - given the controversy over the Hinnom-Lanka NAP or lack thereof - that I _asked_ Hinnom well before the start of hostilities if they had a NAP with Lanka, and Hinnom told us that they didn't. We would never ask anyone to break a NAP.)

====

If people are interested, I can also write up the details of what happened on the diplo front. It was a very busy diplo game for me. I was talking to basically everyone.

[Zinegata]

Also, since the Dominion win screen kinda sucks, a victory soundtrack for Ulm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ViR7M_Qa6w

And an epilogue:

The Book of Andraste, Final Page

The "mark" of Andraste refers to the era that followed the bloodshed of the Ascension Wars. Upon taking her place at the Maker's side as his bride and equal, the Goddess showered her blessings upon the world and began a Golden Age of peace and prosperity for all.

It is a mark that still shapes our world to this day.

Secondly, the "mark" refers to the many scars and war wounds suffered by soldiers (principally Ulmish) while under the service of the Goddess during the course of the Ascension Wars.

The last of these veterans to die, many years later, still refuse healing magic and wear the mark proudly.

[Winnah]

Congratulations

[K]

For anyone that was wondering, I had two Blood bonus sites in Mirkwood, but they don't stack. I had to be comforted with my mere 60% off each Blood summons.

I was mass hunting and patrolling my capital for about 70 Blood a turn and turning it straight into troops the whole time I was locked down.

When Hinnom attacked, I'd been doing serious Blood hunting for 2 turns and was getting 150-175 Blood a turn. Given a few more turns, I would have had an epic demon army that would have been more than able to resist, but the oncoming armies basically cut my blood income almost immediately and forced me to summon troops in my capital where I didn't have the Blood bonus site and spend slaves in battles.

[Zinegata]

Yikes. Your two Mandehas were terrifying enough.

[DrPraetor]

Zinegata - well done! Winning with Ulm - well, early era Ulm, but still - is worth twice as much as winning with a good country.

I think I did too much diplomacy.... which is why those two VP in T'ien Ch'i->Sauromatian territory weren't better guarded.

Of course, if I'd held them *myself*, then I assume everyone would have ganged up on me to prevent me from picking up another VP. Sigh.

[Zinegata]

Thanks

Again, I must say that I got a bit lucky - Ulm isn't an Astral power, but thanks to getting the Adept of the Iron Order and the Shadow Seer site we instantly became an Astral power.

Still, it was fun trying to do as much as possible with a rather limited nation; and I'm glad that I was at least competent enough not to screw up battles that we should have won .

Diplo-wise, I think Ulm was able to strike the ideal balance between aggressiveness and cooperation. We fought when we had to, but we stuck to our agreements and maintained honorable relations even with our enemies.

As a result, I think no one was gunning for me at all in the end. TC even gave us parting gifts which sped up the completion of our Tartarian factory by several turns, and I think that was also a key factor that pushed us "over the top". We named one of the Tartarians "Avenge Gong Gong" (in pretentious Latin) for a reason

I do think that Abysia should have gone for the kill by taking the southern VP provinces however. Even if both Ulm and Hinnom DoW'd you, we still had Lanka to deal with, and there weren't a lot of your VP provinces within our reach.

I suspect Abysia would have won a prolonged war - you've been at 90 gems per turn for a while now, plus extensive blood hunting (I'm guessing 100+), whereas Ulm's gem output (including Blood Stones & Slaves) was about 130 but only for the last couple of turns.

Finally, a couple of notes:

1) A big warm thanks to Ikeren and Korwin for being good and dependable allies. Although the Ulmish-Hinnom alliance had a rocky start, and there were a number of other "accidents" afterwards (including Hinnom killing one of my Sea Kings >_>) they proved loyal to the end.

2) Likewise, Winnah / Pangaea was an excellent and reliable neighbor.

3) K / Lanka fought very well under circumstances that gravely disfavored them, and were good sports.

4) Frank / Sauro was impressive. I actually watched the first and second battles of the Nahashin Marshes, and had that been an Ulmish army fighting Sauromatia I knew we would have been decimated.

5) Angel/TC again has our thanks for the gifts. I was honestly surprised we were considered your best ally, but I guess we did provide you with a huge amount of information thanks to our spy network (we could essentially see what was going on in the whole map)

6) We were happy to supply Dr Praetor / Abysia with a huge amount of items that they used for their war, and we were doubly pleased at how we never had to get shot at by weapons of our own making

And I think that's everyone who made it to the end game. Good game folks.

[Username17]

We were actually starting to put together an empire of sorts. We'd gotten some dominion candles going in Tien Chi so we were no longer in constant danger of being snuffed out by Pangaean preaching. We were taking the last Tien Chi fort that turn. But while castles were going up eventually on those victory points, it was a long way off (relatively speaking). Victory could be snatched by almost anyone out of our Southern VPs at almost any time. The place you almost didn't win was the Northern Forstbacks. There was an army moving into the adjacent Frostback Mountains that turn that had a fight with a much larger pile of chaff belonging to Pangaea. It went like this:

There was a battle in Frostback Mountains.

The province previously owned by Pangaea has been conquered by our forces.

Friendly Combatants
commanders 13, killed 0.
regular units 85, killed 17

Enemy Combatants
commanders 24, killed 8
regular units 288, killed 282
undead beings 10, killed 10

Had that army moved into the Northern Frostbacks instead of the Southern end of the mountain range (which was actually a coinflip on my part), then you would not have ended the turn with the victory point and the game would still be on. Also: 50/50 we would have ended up holding the Gatestone, for whatever that's worth.

Not that we could do anything about it, but if that final push had ended up being a bridge too far, I suspect there would have been an instantaneous world anti-Ulm alliance.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Oh, definitely it was a risky move. Like I said, if it didn't work we were already considering unconditional surrender to Abysia since we didn't have any further strategic reserves left to get a 4th VP province, and holding the ones we had was doubtful.

Dunno if we had been guaranteed a loss even if the army was there though, as we had about 80 archers and we were set to do Army of Lead, Wind Guide, Flaming Arrows, Will of Fates, and Fog Warriors with our mages.

So though half the army would be made up of wolves, they'd be Protection 20, Lucky, and Mistformed, and backed up by 80+ of Ulm's best archers firing Wind Guided Flaming arrows (including literally every survivor of our starting army). I was hoping the wolves would take the heat while the archers inflicted enough damage to force a retreat.

None of the above spells triggered in the above fight though because the PD was apparently too weak and the AI decided not to use the gems; which admittedly made us look kinda incompetent as our big Earth 7 Tartarian was off casting Iron Warriors instead of Army of Lead >_>.

[Ikeren]

1) A big warm thanks to Ikeren and Korwin for being good and dependable allies. Although the Ulmish-Hinnom alliance had a rocky start, and there were a number of other "accidents" afterwards (including Hinnom killing one of my Sea Kings >_>) they proved loyal to the end.

Can't promise competence, can promise loyalty. This game taught me to be a lot more careful with orders and communication with my allies. The "not having a NAP" with 1 remaining ally paid off in two of my games, so...yeah.

Did Korwin drop a fort on the VP at secret island? Cause you could have stole a victory using Hinnom.

For anyone that was wondering, I had two Blood bonus sites in Mirkwood, but they don't stack. I had to be comforted with my mere 60% off each Blood summons.

I was mass hunting and patrolling my capital for about 70 Blood a turn and turning it straight into troops the whole time I was locked down.

When Hinnom attacked, I'd been doing serious Blood hunting for 2 turns and was getting 150-175 Blood a turn. Given a few more turns, I would have had an epic demon army that would have been more than able to resist, but the oncoming armies basically cut my blood income almost immediately and forced me to summon troops in my capital where I didn't have the Blood bonus site and spend slaves in battles.

I was trying to figure out what was going on there; I was really hoping that I could steal The Mirks and launch my own huge blood empire; that was what I was setting up as I left. This was my 3rd multiplayer game ever, though, so I'm pretty pleased with my play.

[Zinegata]

Did Korwin drop a fort on the VP at secret island? Cause you could have stole a victory using Hinnom.

Nope, but we didn't take the secret island. Honor demanded we do it the right way.

[Ikeren]

Well then, very well played.