Game 5551 - The Riddle of Steel

[Keeope]

Victory By Lion's Share Is The Necromancer Kingdom!
                            Game End Status Points

         Place Kingdom    Player                Results-40  Grand Total
           1     NE     Keeope                         51,630      75,775
           2     SO     The Painted Man            42,972      63,536
           3     UN     Senior Tactician             31,056      56,774
           4     IL      Dakaria                         29,450      56,015
           5     BL     CosmicWizard17            34,045      54,035
           6     RA     DuPont                         29,590      53,673
           7     DU     Rellgar                         20,530      35,568

"If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by."

Like all undead, I began with no ambition.  I wander aimlessly through a boring existence taking minimal joy from the small accomplishments.  What does this spell do?  Priestesses and the undead compliment each other?

After 8 years in pergatory, I returned to the 4th cycle with a large learning curve.  New troops.  New characteristics.  New kingdoms.  My goal was to watch and learn.  In the end, watching paid off.

Watching my neighbors, I see the Amazons begin to mobilize to my west.  With several PCs in my region being water based, I assumed any invasion from the south (Black Dragon) could not be completed after GCs went up.  So I wait.  On the same turn the Amazons take a town, I witnessed the Tyrant attack from the south.

We wait.  We build.

Two turns after the Tyrant takes Darkover, I notice that he still doesn't have tight control.  The Amazon capital remains free.  Luckly, with 4 turns of watching, I knew where it was.  In one turn, the capital was taken, my capital was relocated, and a Tyrant offensive began.  With the Glyph of Concealment still active, my groups remained invisible in a very good location.

As I begin to attack the Tyrant, the Ranger also attacks.  Luck favors the dead...  The Tyrant cannot compete with so many Domes and demonic visions.  So much darkness..

Again.  We wait.  We build.

In early winter of 2024, a sense of urgency finally surfaced.  The Illusionist had gained control over 4 regions, and the end was near.  Putting together a fighting force, we decided to take Stormgate.  With the legendary Stormgate Guards being recruited there, my most visible mistake was made; I recruited so much the city rebelled.

Months were wasted returning to the city to remind them that Winter is Coming.  Leaving a small patrol behind in the nearby village also proved beneficial, as it would defend the city against a Sorceror attack.  During this, my end-game was forming.

With the Illusionist losing ground, this game would go to 40 turns.  For most of the game, I was near the bottom in points.  Time to focus.  Every turn, we raised at least 1 Legendary Castle.  Every turn, we raised at least 1 P7 wizard.  But the end game was ruined by the Sorceror.  Guess he didn't take too kindly to a dome around Stormgate.

The devistation by my Lich wizards and the P8 casting Crack the Sky needed testing.  I wanted to know what they could do.  I had planned on one of two targets for turn 40.

In the mission to bring Triumvia to heel, I found two targets.  The first was the Ranger capital.  I've never seen a PC with a defense over 300k!!!  Could the wizards take it?  The first battle at Stormgate was tough, but the troops got better. The wizards stronger...

While in the desert of Triumvia, we routinely scanned with our totum on locations where we knew PCs were not.  One such scan revealed the Underworld capital.  Oh the glory of all those prisoners and emissaries at Secret Spring.  I was convinced that if I could take that capital the prisoners alone would throw me to the top of the point list.

Damn you, Dusi.  

With a final attack against me being launched so close to home and to the end, I felt I had to return the wizards to a defensive posture the last 2 turns.  The magical battle at CB or PJ would have been glorious...

In the end, the strategy was to wait and watch.  I got lucky, honestly.  The kingdoms that attacked me did so on the same turn they were attacked.  Pure coincidence, but worked out in my favor as I let them weaken each other before I launched a counter.  

I end the game with two P8s, six P7s, and two P6s.  Eight Legendary Castles (damn you, Dusi.  it should have been nine), and five Great Castles.  Only one town did not have a GC or greater!! 

With the castles removing any diplomatic threat, it would come to military.  My wizards were so numerous (10 wizards) and so powerful (70 levels), a single kingdom would be hard pressed to invade against them.



Loved the game.  Thank you all very much.  I had the pleasure of watching some of the best duke it out, and then clean up afterwards

[Senior Tactician]

Very nice writeup, and congratulations.  I had no idea you were about to move on me, I usually see these things coming, you must be extra sneaky.  But looking for my capitol was unnecessary, someone posted the location in the forum.

SO, I picked up the UN on standby.  Mistake number one, last time I will do that.  I found I don't really commit to a position if I haven't played it from the beginning.  The kingdom was in fine shape, its just a bunch of stuff was done that I wouldn't have done.  One was lower the training rate, and two, which I did not notice until it was too late, was the previous player tried to take control of the region without enamoring... so I picked up the game on turn 5 or 6 I think, and did not realize I was only tolerant in the region until I had already tried to be political.  This cost me not getting control of my own region until at least turn 6 or 7 I think... and as a reminder crown islands goes into winter on turn 5.

Strategy-wise, I was all over the place.  Obviously as the UN your agents are a core asset, but I only developed about 6 of them, usually I like to have more than double that.  But I wanted to be more military focused.  Not a mistake in and of itself but how I went about it, was.

The UN has five groups, I envisioned four brigade sized groups each with two Hill Giants teleporting around invisible... but thats 8 wizards, four level 5's and four level 6's...  and for my 5th group I also wanted a legendary buster, thats a level 8 wizard a level 5 wizard and a large army... Now, if you get out both hands and feet and start counting on your fingers and toes all the wizards, the brigades, the feeding, the raising, like I should have done, you'll realize this is LOT of food and a LOT of gold...  Like I actually knew it would be a lot, but I had no idea it would be a LOT.

SO I went to work building a production center that could support all that, and in the end came up way short of it. Like way WAY short.  So short that when it came time to start using some of the assets I created, I starting running out of food.  Then a couple of my small groups ran into Ranger armies, they held up quite well but with regional spells, lack of food and some bad location choices, their moral dipped at an alarming rate.    Eventually I abandoned my small groups... you cant imagine how sad it was to reorganize 8 brigades of Hill Giants.  The only upside to all the power 5 and 6 wizards I raised was that they could create food for my legendary buster, which I began to focus on instead.  Meanwhile I failed 4 consecutive times to make a power 8 wizard, then gave up in frustration so my legendary buster wasn't going to happen either.

The only reason I had enough status to place was all my wizards, elite brigades from training my big army, and two complete basketball teams worth of Prince level prisoners, Druids and Tyrants.

After the Tyrant was picked clean, he dropped the game (but I think Windstar dropped all his games recently without warning, and I have not seen him active in the forums, hope everything is OK.)

So, then the DU found my capitol, luckily it was on the turn right before I put a legendary castle on it.  Well, I can't have people thinking it was OK to look for my capitol, so I found his and picked him clean as well.  He kept coming after me so I wasted three of his wizards and stole all his artifacts.  But he kept harassing me.  Problem was, he had legendary castles, and, as I may have mentioned I already abandoned work on my buster... so, I ignored him.

I figured I would just try and place on elite brigades so for the last few turns of the game I went back to my city, on which I had built a citadel, to train.... alas, the city was far too small to give me any trains, and my last ditch attempt to add some Rangers to my prisoner list was busted by someone destroying the town where all my agents liked to hang out.

I'm really surprised to have placed at all, failing at so many endeavors, but I'll take it.

[Brekk]

Nice writeup, and congratulations on the well played game.

[Wookie Panz]

Two nice write ups.  Well done guys.