Game 5065 confluence

[JonDoe]

This was a 6 player game each controlling 2 kingdoms in the same region.  With slugfest PC numbers.  Congrats to Warmaster and to the other players that stuck it out until the end.   

Victory By Rex Is The Druid Kingdom!
                           Game End Status Points

        Place Kingdom    Player                Results-29  Grand Total

          1     DU     Warmaster                 18,480      24,345
          2     EL     Warmaster                  7,560      13,740
          3     DE     Jon Doe                    9,285      13,240
          4     SO     Ohman the Heartless        7,300      12,675
          5     NO     DuPont                     6,500      11,875
          6     AM     Ohman the Heartless        6,480      10,455
          7     AT     Jon Doe                    5,905       9,663
          8     AN     DuPont                     6,615       9,293

[JonDoe]

DE/AT
I had a lot of fun playing this fast pace game. I really enjoy the slugfest PC allotment. Having about double the normal number of PCs make for some real battles to take regions and it is hard to do a one turn blitz to take a region. I would recommend Ry Vor considers giving half resources to all PCs and implementing the slug fest PC allocation into the standard game. It will take longer to get the region and also make for some epic battles.

The other kingdoms involved in this game not listed were the RA/IL and WA/DU. WA/DU had dropped still owning his starting region and likely gave the DU/EL the slight extra edge he needed. Though Warmaster fully earned his victory with what looked like a huge clash spreading across 4 regions at the end with the SO/IL. The RA/IL dropped after he was beaten down to only a hand full of PCs on the loosing side of a three way war between AN/NO, DE/AT and himself. I believe the RA/IL biggest mistake was heading into R9 early when that was clearly the most obvious path for DE/AT and AN/NO to expand.
I basically spent the rest of the game fighting a very skilled opponent in DuPont. The AN vs DE is always a classic battle. The DE with instant short term gain of reaction levels vs the AN more strategic warfare. I was beginning to pull away but not soon enough before Warmaster put the finishing touches on his victory. I am not even positive I would have won as my back and forth with DuPont could have easily last 10 more turns.
The staff of distain had a workout in the hands of the DE overlord. On a final note DuPont my DE emmies are immune to sleep

[Ohman the heartless]

Congratz to Warmaster. Well played! Thanks to all who survived. I must have spent 25 SO orders to raise influence for both my Kingdoms. I may have had as many as 30+ emmies captured or assassinated.
I had 4 regions early on, but didn't think I would get Amberland back so failed to declare. On that turn Warmaster did me the solid of Destroying Avalon, which was totally unexpected. first game for me seeeing Power 10 Wizards on the map. At game end had over 1,000,000 gold banked for Amazon that I couldn't use. I also noted that Warmaster used 1 kingdom to take ALL the pc's. This seemed to make it much easier to reacquire control of the regions in the later stages.

Again Congratz

[Ry Vor]

Good write ups.  You guys can start another Confluence if you wish.  Congrats to Warmaster.

JonDoe, Mike is free to do his idea of an Ice Age scenario which may include more but smaller PC's.

Meanwhile as I struggle to finish Maelstrom, I am confronted with the dilemma that in particular our better players don't really want a lot of changes - they like Alamaze as it is.  So, as long as Mike stays willing, I'm looking to finish Maelstrom which I remain excited about, I just need to get my act together free of what has been a dazzling array of distractions.  I think we'll get quite a few of our on hiatus players back when Maelstrom is out.

Then I think I will undertake a new game, with lots of Alamaze principles, but simpler to hopefully attract a broader audience.  Presently it takes being pretty stalwart to digest all the rules, orders, kingdom abilities, spells, artifacts, traits, character types.  Not to mention the learning curve issue for new players.  Again, I am a bit different from the top players in that I don't really look at Alamaze as you win or you die (GoT reference), I view it as a strategic adventure game, where a new story unfolds in each game.   The broader audience requires as well the full GUI based around the map.  Players new to Alamaze are not used to having maybe four applications open to execute a turn.

[DuPont]

AN/NO. I had originally hoped to get the CI/NE but as both region 1 and 3 were taken when I drafted, it seemed like a bad idea. I got my region early and was very surprised to find both the DE and RA contesting for #9. I tried to go after the DE and leave the RA alone, but I kept getting to places right after the RA had taken them and I think I did a fair amount of damage to him. Then the AT came down and took over #8 and that finished him. I had taken 9 by that point and then the back and forth happened. No point giving a blow-by-blow, but I was really hampered by the AN/NO lack of any really good wizards. I had forgotten that the DE was totally immune to sleep - I thought it was just a partial immunity other than the Demon Princes themselves and it was too fast-paced a game for me to look up the DE's startup sheet. All in all a good game and I enjoyed playing against John Doe!
Let's do another one!

[WARMASTER]

DU/EL.

Excellent contest. I was destroying the DW/WA team pretty handily in the Northern Mists when that player finally dropped. I didn't really have an opportunity to further build my kingdom because the AM/SO then controlled four regions. It appeared the other three players were locked into conflict in the deep south/east, which left only me to stop the AM/SO march to victory. The victory condition was Rex only. So once the AM/SO placed all four kingdoms under one kingdom's control the game would end. I intervened. Eventually the AM/SO controlled four regions again -- including Oakendale. The next turn AM/SO only controlled one region and it was my turn to march toward victory. It was a very entertaining and hard-fought contest, but, eventually, I controlled the four regions necessary to win and quickly declared.

I absolutely love the 24 hour turn-around. Much easier to recall what I am doing. Sometimes the only player my misdirection works upon is myself. But with 24 hour turn-around I believe that I can sometimes make my opponent wonder what is going on. I like this!

Looking at Valhalla it appears I killed/captured 35 AM/SO emissaries! At times it felt as though those emissaries were as numerous as rats in a sewer, and almost as friendly.