Game 517: 20 Kingdom Slugfest (Confluence)

[Lord Diamond]

I forgot to thank the GN/HA for not getting mad when I took that village in R7. It ended up being the emergency Nomad capital.

[Jumpingfist]

DW WA
I had picked my kingdoms early figuring with so many kingdoms I would need a good defense and a late game offense capable set. The DW with no RD/TY would be next to impossible to fight in the talking mountains.
By the time all the kingdoms were all the kingdoms were taken I was not pleased to see my to book ends were LT and DuPont. Great two players that are the embodiment of iron willed. I knew if I attacked either of them I was in for a game long fight or even if I won a pesky annoying two kingdoms worth of garilla war fare. So I came up with a plan I would try and wait them out. Let someone else fight them first and become a bob the builder player style. I would build up my DW with political power and the WA would be used to destroy what was needed for the DW to take the regions. Making full use of my ToT trait I was able to build up everything. My DW capital would finish with 200k+ defense 100k+ gold production. Even the WA hidden capital had 140kish defense at the end. Most every PC in the mountain was making 6-9k more gold and or food than they started at. Finishing the game with more than 1million gold surplus on the DW
DuPont took both my villages in R2 quickly and LT took my WA town in R6. I figured LT was just trying to get the region and DuPont wanted security. LT leaving my DW town Alone was the message I needed from him and after I found One of Duponts villages in my region I made a point to move on it and sit there so he could see I knew where it was and am not taking it. Also by that time my DW had already been using his industrial trait to the point even in winter I need not ever worry for food.
On the artifact front I was finding them but like all my games at that time I missed two turns I scouted one of my encounters to see the DU and I think NE both sitting on it in my region. Ah well to late now for artifact hunting. I still needed a few to get my ESO so I scouted R6 and found some boarder ones. I would use a patrol to sneak in and grab a couple before LT would know they were missing. I got lucky and did not get spotted.
Continuing to build emmies and wizards. I already had more gold than I would generally use in a turn. The WA was raising influence on the DW while the DW was working on raising 20 or so emmies to prince and Duke ranks. A surprise LT had dropped all his games. I quickly swooped in to take the region hopping no others would contest me for it. Again I got lucky everyone else stayed at home. I had already divined R2 and R6 just in case. After taking R6 I sent my mages invisible into regions 5 8 9 and 10 to divine towns and villages. I had 10 high level WA wizards and finished with 8 p7 liches and two p9s. The DWs had 5 wizards but I was only able to get one past level 2 and boy did I try. Likely 10+ times. The idea was DW wizards could handle basic sleeps and wards. Instead they just kept raising defenses most the game.
So now we had two regions tons of emmies and an impressive 4 armies size groups with WA wizards. Looking over the map team IL was fighting AN and SA was fighting NE. I figured R5 I could move in any time but R9 with the LI having that great political defense I should take my time and plan a massive assault. So I did the WA groups would go in invisible and a couple DW emmies that I could conceal would move on water villages. The WA destroyed Towns and moved to others while the DW launched the full now visible assult. The next turn I owned or destroyed I believe all but 3 or 4 PCs. The LI and DA would then drop.
At this point Having three regions I knew I would soon become a target. I had to move quickly. The SA BL both denigrated me the turn after I took R9. I was launching a blind attack on R10. The bad part of the attack was no scouting made it so my 3 WA groups that landed on The city were like doh where did the city go it had already been destroyed. Between the GN and the IL/RA I was not able to take enough on the first try and failed a victory check. The GN and even HA would move on some villages each turn and I would play a game of swap for PCs. I sent a distraction set of emmies and a couple DW groups to R8 then quickly back to 10 to try and split the RA/IL forces between the regions. It seemed to work enough to let me finally sure victory on the third try.

Sorry I had to destroy you group LD. I had not reconned when /I moved so could not risk you attacking my group

[Ry Vor]

A master clinic.  Well done, JF.   In the games where he opposes The Gray Mouser, he doesn't know how JF can have all the "stuff" he has so early in the game.

[VballMichael]

EL/DU
I loved and hated this game. I loved the concept and the early game, but fighting 4 kingdoms with 2 kingdoms in a tight area is tough.
I got lucky early, got my region quickly, saw region 4 was partly abandoned and swooped in quickly to take a second region. Then that damned DuPont swooped into my first region and took it quickly while I was still engaged with the AM/SO. But I was ready for his second assault when he came into Torvale and I did some sweet destruction to his groups, wizards, emmies and agents. I had to have killed 50 brigades over time, but he just seemed to keep having armies and army groups no matter how many times I took out brigades.
And earlier, yes Tomag, I did have amazing luck taking out your SO wizards. But we call that Mike luck in my world. And I did have a level 21 agent for that work (max level plus invis ring plus dagger plus weapon artifact).
I was able to basically hold Torvale from DuPont, but it was likely going to be a losing battle over time since DuPont had 2 regions and we were fighting in my region (so he had 2+ regions of gold and food while I was struggling to get production for 2 kingdoms out of one region). He would probably overwhelm me with resources over time, so I just kept trying to kill his emmies and wizards and troops to make his attack costly.
But fortunately, as the game had worked so far with vacated regions, now his first region was open and he got attacked. That relieved some pressure and then DuPont was on the defensive for the rest of the game.
To get some payback, I took invisible patrols on Elite ships to both of his water-based capitals, and then kept summoning troops and doing meteor strikes. I was finally able to take out the NE cap, and was close to taking out the well-developed CI cap, but alas the game was clearly ending soon with 2 failed DW victory checks. I was never in a position to slow JF down and near the end I had no interest in prolonging the game.
It was a lot of work and painful damage each time I got my results. I was doing damage also, but that was just hurting both of us so that we were both too injured to win .
It was sad that JF, already a great player, got the advantage of a player drop, This sort of thing really does destroy the game balance. No fault to JF, he should have and did jump on the drop, but I really thought we were adding some sort of standby thing to help keep that from happening.
Anyway, not sure if I would do that format again, but maybe. As I said, I really enjoyed the contest with Tomag and then DuPont, but also hated seeing that much damage and confusion every turn.

[Lord Diamond]

Dropping a viable kingdom, or two, mid-game really does throw that image of Iron-Willed out the window.

Taking advantage of such a drop is just common sense.