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Please do not take any of my comments as a personal insult or as a criticism of the game 'Alamaze', which I very much enjoy. Rather, I hope that my personal insight and unique perspective may, in some way, help make 'Alamaze' more fun, a more successful financial venture, or simply more sustainable as a long-term project. Anyone who reads this post should feel completely free to ignore, disregard, scorn, implement, improve, dispute, or otherwise comment upon its content.
10-06-2015, 11:23 PM (This post was last modified: 10-06-2015, 11:45 PM by VballMichael.)
So this was the 2015 Podium Player Primeval Championship. This was Silent, Rex by T24 or win by Lion's Share, Fast.
DuPont chose the Ranger, I chose the Elf, JF chose the Giant, Cloud took the RD, and then LT took the DE.
I was pretty excited about the Elf in this format as I think it is a pretty fast kingdom due to the political specialty.
I got the first HC seat for 3,000 and put forth an issue. Moved to my city and to the city in Torvale, accidentally enamored Amberland instead of Torvale, and looked at 3 cities. I was alone at my city, nobody was at Viperhead, and the Giant had joined me at Meridon. Ok, so maybe Torvale would not be my second region. Did not find very many pop centers in Oakendell.
Moved to the town and 2 villages I found (including my 1EL to the Dragon village), did find a lot of new pop centers this turn, found 2 unusual sightings. The DE got on the Council for 3000 and promptly vetoed my issue. Ok, not going to be a cooperative HC.
Ranger joined the High Council for 1001 and my second issue got rejected. The Giant took Amberland and the Ranger took Southern Sands (a little surprising). I took my City, a couple of pop centers, and moved to a few more. Took the RD village with 171. One of my Unusual Sightings is a Quest level.
Turn 4, the Giant joined the HC for 321 gold. DE and RA declare each other enemies, so hopefully they are already fighting. The DE takes Arcania and I take my region of Oakendell. High Council issues continue to fail. Turns out my unusual is the Flaming Sword and I need a key. Yikes. Hired my priestess, and had to decide Torvale (contesting Giant there) or Northern Mists (and maybe contest RD there). With better reaction in Torvale and my groups already near my southern border, I decided on Torvale. I figured I had a half-step lead on the Giant there. And we have 3 bad months of production coming up. The Giant emissary at Meridon is now maintaining status quo.
RD gets on the Council for 2 gold (seems like he overbid by 1). RD also takes Talking Mountains. So now we each own 1 region and are setting out for our second. I am sitting at 7 towns and a village in Torvale and I feel like I am a little ahead of the GI here, but he does have a good-sized army in the area. I start training agents, enamor Torvale, took the GI town in Oakendell to own 100%, found another unusual, located the key and then my priestess died. No time for 888 or 970 so I am feeling blind as I go for Torvale.
Only turn 6 and the RA (Dupont) takes Synisvania for his second region. I did take a lot of towns in Torvale, but also lost a couple to the Giant, and I think maybe he took the city. High Council issues are still failing, so I have not bid for one since turn 2. The RA is in first, with more than double my status points. I am in last.
RD takes Eastern and Demons take Runnimede. I feel like I am running too slowly. Found out the other unusual sighting was a portal (and I have no interest in visiting the Ranger in Southern). Finally heading for a good month of production, so I start my agent training and wizard research, while moving more emissaries to Torvale pop centers. I am at Meridon alone though it is owned by the Giant.
Turn 8, I lost a baron to the Giant army, but I denigrated him there and will take the region on Turn 9. I have 3 agents at 6 and my wizards are pathetic. My third unusual was a ring of protection (so, a Quest needing a key, a Ring, and a Portal - not much to show for all that). There are 3 Giant groups in Torvale but they are all at one town, so it will not stop me from taking the region next turn. HC issues still failing.
Yay, my baron escaped on turn 9. He was so happy to come home. I took Torvale and denigrated the Giant again, so he should be Hostile. Finally, a HC issues passes (maybe nobody wanted to vote against the RD?). It seems like JF has dropped this turn as his armies did not do anything and the forum chatter says so. Ok, so that will eventually open up Amberland, making a free-for-all in the middle. So, I figure to head up to Northern, then see what's what in Amberland.
I enamor Northern, hire a replacement clergy to find me some towns up there, move 2 emissaries to Viperhead and some to the remaining pop centers in Torvale (not sure why I am still taking things in Torvale as it just slows me down from other things). I have 3 level 8 agents and my wizards are starting to move up (4,3,2,1,1). I see that the GI cap is at Avalon.
On turn 11, the Giant drops after 3 turns of no orders. My HC issue passed - yay. Influence is now 18 and I can do some emissary promotions to get my ESO. I found villages in Northern and have started a slow invasion. I have seen no enemies up there.
Turn 12 hits and I am still in last place. But Northern is friendly, I took the City and am at the RD village there. Southern goes uncontrolled so hopefully the RA and DE are fighting. I am invading Northern slowly so I can scout Amberland and be ready to go as soon as I take Northern. I find towns in Amberland and scout the cities. The RD has emissaries at both Human cities. I got my ESO and took 2 brigades, 2 barons and a General (to help with 171). I ported a group to IW to get the key (again, not sure why I am doing this - having a sword at this point is not going to matter much). I have a couple of power 5's and my agents are 10.
Ok, time to plan out the end game. The Red does have some emissaries in Amberland, but not many. Still doing some 140s and 171s, so level 5 is as high as I think I need to go. Found villages in Amberland and ready to take Northern and invade Amberland.
Turn 14, I take Northern Mists and head into Amberland. The Ranger gets Southern Sands back. So, my enemies each have 2 regions and I have 3, so I am now expecting to be a target (I am thinking I was somewhat unpestered because I was in last place?). Amberland is unowned, but the DE capitol is a town in the Amberland sea and the RD has emissaries at both cities - still, it looks otherwise pretty open. I failed to get the Sword, but I did pick up a Shield (woo hoo). I own 2 towns in Amberland. With 3 level 12 agents and 3 power 5 wizards, I am done training (gold and food have been abundant since turn 8). I assassinated the RD Duke at Evanon.
Skipped reinforcements as I have no orders to spare. I take several towns in Amberland, but the RD is fighting back. Also, I see DE emissaries have moved into Torvale. I guess that these are Demon Princes sent to take villages, so he can invade on turn 16 and then do that nasty special enamoring he has. If that is what is happening, it will be too late as I think I can take Amberland on turn 16. I continue to denigrate the RD in Amberland and I am sitting at 2 cities, 6 towns and a 4 villages. Finally got the Flaming Sword (oh yay). I assassinated the RD Baron at Avalon so both cities are open to my emissaries who are sitting there. I will ward them just in case.
Turn 16, all goes as planned, took both cities, 3 towns and 4 villages with emissaries and took a RD town with my 1EL. Also assassinated another RD Baron. And it was all just in time. The DE took 3 villages with his Demon Princes and moved numerous emissaries into Torvale this turn. I declared the Rex to finish it.
I enjoyed the game quite a bit. I think JF's drop opened up the middle of the board evenly, but it did not seem like anyone rushed there.
In looking at the stats, I trailed pretty much everyone in brigades, wizards, number of emissaries, etc. But I think I stopped developing around turn 12 to focus on taking 2 regions as quickly as I could. Thanks to my worthy opponents Dupont, JF, Cloud and Lord Thanatos for this contest.
I enjoyed this game up until the premature ending. I looked at my opening position (RA) and realized that I was likely going to be contested by the DE if I went right for Synisvania. My capital was in the southern part of the region, so I decided that I'd do something different and aim for the Sands instead. It worked - the DE blocked me in Jukunta but left Vanasheen unguarded. I put some effort into blocking him in Arciania as well, but it really wasn't my main focus. To me, gaining a southern region early gives you a real advantage in production that can pay great dividends. Because I had focused all my efforts in #10, I was able to take it on turn 3 as was my goal. I was already moving into Synisvania and I was able to take it on turn 6, though without the city as the DE was still blocking me there. I knew I'd have to siege him out of there, but that was okay as I needed some time to build up my troops.
I considered pressing on into the Eastern Steppes, but the RD took it the next turn and I didn't think it would be wise to get into a fight with him, knowing that the DE would be coming after me. One early bit of luck was finding the Staff of Disdain, but I lost a couple of turns by forgetting that my king had to hold it for it to work. But I started preemptively denigrating the DE in #9 - but not soon enough as he started moving people into #10 on turn 8 and flipping pop centers.
What I didn't want was to be fighting on my territory while he would continue to enjoy the full production of his regions, so I send my emissaries into #10 to deal with that threat and I sent three groups into #8 - two to take towns and one to take villages. In short order, I had enough pop centers to where control of the region would be teetering and the DE had to pull his men back out of #10 to defend his home region. That enabled me to gain back what I had lost in #10 and look to pressing the fight forward.
Unfortunately, during this time, the GI player decided to take his marbles and go home. There was nothing I could do about that - locked into a fight with the DE, I had no spare forces that could try to take any of the pop centers he'd left behind. The best I could hope for was a stalemate between the RD and the EL with each holding at three regions. It seemed unlikely and of course it was and the EL was able to overcome the RD on turn 16. I think the DE was perhaps trying to slow him down. Had I known that, I might have held off attacking him after securing 10 and perhaps made a move towards Amberland, though none of my forces were within easy reach at that time. I don't want to take anything away from the EL, who certainly deserved his win and crown, but the GI dropping seriously buggered up the game. I think dropping from a championship game like this one should disqualify the player from playing in next years championship game.
From my perspective, the game was just really getting good - I felt evenly matched with the DE and was looking forward to the last 8 turns of combat. The game ending prematurely really sucked.
10-13-2015, 08:06 PM (This post was last modified: 10-13-2015, 08:08 PM by VballMichael.)
Sorry DuPont. I took the Elf to play fast and knew that long-term I would suffer against army-building goliaths like RD and RA and GI if I did not take things quickly. This is one of the reasons I contested the GI in Torvale to slow down his development and I thought I could take the region ahead of him.
It was definitely unfortunate that we had a drop. I almost did not do a write-up because I felt pretty badly about that drop perhaps accelerating the game adversely to some people's strategies. I had already scouted Amberland and Northern Mists and was thus able to move there a little more quickly than others once the drop was announced, even though ending the game too quickly was not in my plans originally and I still did not move there for a few turns.
But not going for the win and allowing the dragons to reproduce also seemed like a bad idea.
On the plus side, the Troll drop in another game is not going to help me one tiny bit.
Oh, you don't need to say sorry! I would have done the same thing you did if I were in your shoes. And good for you for being in a position to take advantage of the circumstances when they came up. I don't mean to at all suggest that your title is unearned. My compliant it with the drop, not your reaction to it.
And like you, that TR drop isn't going to do me much good, either!
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