Game 5684

[Maximus Dominus]

Well, this one is almost over.

I may just sleep through the last few turns.

Or maybe not.

   

[Maximus Dominus]

I can't help but to laugh. These meteor strikes are so much fun, even though they are overpowered. They're just like having tactical nuclear weapons.

BOOM!

[Maximus Dominus]

Game #5684 has officially ended!

   

   

[Maximus Dominus]

   

[Maximus Dominus]

I decided to cast a Revelation spell on the Lizard kingdom on the last turn of the game, Turn #40.

   

[Maximus Dominus]

Congratulations to Zarashand and the Lizard kingdom on their victory!

This particular game of Alamaze was the first designated of the Designated Learning games of Alamaze that I played. It wasn't the first of those Learning games to end, but it was the first that I started.

Basically, I started off playing this game knowing next to nothing of substance about Alamaze, and as it finally came to an end, my knowledge and understanding of Alamaze, while not complete, has actually grown considerably.

For the most part, this particular game of Alamaze was fairly boring, overall. It didn't start out that way, though. DuPont the Silent One was a good first enemy, even if his silence diminished his "presence." I kept on waiting for him to march West, and annihilate my kingdom with his vast Elementalist powers, but that never transpired. Instead, Brek took pity upon me, and he pretty much dismantled DuPont's Elementalist kingdom, though it took a while to accomplish. Mostly, I was just along for the visual ride. One thing that Brek taught me early on in my exploration of Alamaze was that you can use you capital as an offensive weapon. It's as easy to change/move your capital as it is to teleport entire army groups, in Alamaze.

When I moved my capital in Game 5703 as the Demon Princes fairly early on deep into the Giants' territory, that was made possible by what Brek taught me in this game. In fact, that one thing that I learned is what laid the foundation for my ongoing campaign against the Giants in that other game of Alamaze. You don't have to move your characters individually, when they're at your capital and you move your capital. They're like luggage, and just automatically go along for the ride. It's one of many overpowered features of the game. Overpowered, but with a fun element to it. It's not like your capital has to be in any actual danger, just to order it to be moved.

I didn't place a lot of effort in building up military forces in this game. Not all of that was deliberate on my part, but a good bit of it was. This particular game of Alamaze, as much as any other that I have played in since I began this one, instilled within me a strong distaste for Alamaze's built-in gold dependency.

Nuking a couple of Strylian's villages in the mid-game phase via the casting of Meteor Strike spells (I forget what turn that it was on that I did that) was really fun. Strylian used to create videos about Alamaze, and the fact that he had stopped doing that at some point in the past was the primary reason why I decided to volunteer his kingdom as the initial target for my ongoing sleigh ride of nuking various population centers. It's a fun spell to cast. More than anything else in Alamaze, calling down meteors from outer space brought me the most laughter. To me, it's stupid, it's vastly overpowered, but it is hilarious.

Styrlian, to his good credit, decided that he would pursue revenge, in the aftermath of those "surprise attacks" upon his kingdom's homeland. He dispatched his forces without delay, taught me that armies are more powerful than population centers as a design element in Alamaze, and he swiftly conquered my kingdom's capital (but not my original capital) that was established to aid me in waging war against the Elementalist kingdom earlier in the game. I don't recall ever even seeing his military group, and I had that capital one turn, but not the next. I didn't care about losing the population center, but from a player perspective, it just left me shaking my head, and strongly impressed upon me that invisibility is overpowered and more common than opiods. And why Strylian eased off of his military campaign against my kingdom is anybody's guess. His lack of dogged pursuit of vengeance was disappointing. Just the whole combination of how players utilize vastly overpowered wizards and ready access to overpowered and overused spells is something that I have watched with interest over the course of several games now.

At some point, I began taking actions against the Free Traders. This was primarily due to what I perceived (correctly or incorrectly) as hostilities breaking out, or about to break out, between the Free Traders and my Lycan allies. It was sad, when uncledarkseid departed the game while it was still fairly young, and this vacuum that was created never really left my mind. Much later in the game, when I started calling down meteors on the Free Traders, I decided to depart and head elsewhere, primarily because I still owned the Dark Elven for their meddling in my conflict with Styrlian.

And then when I finally had hired and trained some new wizards, I eventually screwed it up, by sending a P3 wizard for teleporting patrol. I knew, but had forgotten, that you need a brigade-sized group, in order to cast the Meteor Strike spell. And that particular requirement exists, why? Because calling down meteors is group-sized dependent? Literally, it makes no sense to me, whatsoever. Just one more thing about Alamaze's design that leaves me shaking my head.

My whole gambit with the Sorcerer played off. he and I didn't start communicating with one another to very late in the game. I kept on wondering/worrying whether he was going to ride to the Elementalist's resuce. And then, after I decided to nuke Strylian's Halfling termites, I had no idea how the Sorcerer would react. All I knew was that it seemed like all game long, I kept on reading these messages on my turn reports about the Sorcerer's Power 7 wizards. Damn! How many did he have? They seemed endless to me. So, in the course of Strylian's and my very limited banter, I tried to inject a little word magic into the equation. At some point, thereafter I believe that it was (if memory serves me correctly, which it may or may not), I declared the Sorcerer an ally, and I also began sending some occasional gifts his way. yeah, sure, they were bribes, of a sort, but also, they were tokens resorted to in a bid to try and nudge his "feelings" in the right direction - with the "right" direction being hostile to the Halflings.

After the Ancient Ones' player early on in my war against the Elementalist willingly provided me one of his population center locations (which, thinking back on it, I don't think that I ever actually ended up using it as a base of operations for my agents to engage in activities against the Elementalist kingdom), I never really ever planned to take any actions against the Ancient Ones. But late in the game, and after I had declared the Sorcerer kingdom to be an ally, the Ancient Ones joined with the Halflings and their mangy Dark Elven allies, in a bid to try and take down the Sorcerer. That was the red line that the Ancient Ones crossed for me, and I undertook some covert actions, but the motivation was to try and come to the aid of an ally, and not by animosity against the Ancient Ones or their player.

Because Alamaze players, by and large, are not a very communicative bunch, nuking the Dark Elven player late in the game with a meteor strike proved to be a dull experience, compared to the Halflings. Thus far, across all of my Learning Games of Alamaze, the kingdom of the Dark Elven really haven't added one single bit of interest or enjoyment to my own experiences of playing Alamaze. That's as much a player issue as it is a kingdom issue, though.

Nothing against Zarashand, but the Lizard kingdom claiming victory in this particular game of Alamaze proved to be anti-climactic for me. I've wonder all game long, just about, what the Lizards were up to. I don't reckon that they ever took any hostile actions against my kingdom, and I don't recall ever taking any hostile actions against their kingdom - though I did consider it, and on several different occasions, at that. Certainly, Zarashand did a really good job of staying focused on the scoring mechanisms of Alamaze's scoring system, but the whole ball of scoring wax is something that is like a bunch of fruit mixed into the same bowl. Why is this item worth this many points, compared to that item being worth that many points? Who knows?! Sure, somebody (Rick McDowell) assigned a bunch of numbers to a bunch of different things, but the WHY that underlies it all is what I would really like to know. The scoring system, itself, I give failing grades to, but you can't blame players for trying to gain a high score in the game, when they're just going by the criteria laid out by somebody else. The scoring system just leaves me shaking my head. It also promotes turtling by players, in its current form.

All things considered, I am very glad that this game of Alamaze has finally ended. This now brings the number of active games of Alamaze that I'm currently playing in down to four. It won't be too much longer and two more of those games will end. Over the last few months, I have spent a LOT of time playing Alamaze, learning Alamaze, thinking about Alamaze, analyzing Alamaze, and writing about Alamaze. A sense of relief is finally beginning to wash over me, as this particular game grinds to a halt. I can't really say that I'm a fan of games of Alamaze just magically ended on Turn #40, even if I am glad that this particular one comes to an end for me.

The sheer amount of silence on the part of players in this game of Alamaze provided plenty of incentive to drop the game, but I resisted that temptation and stuck this one out for the duration. So, congratulations to me for making it from beginning to end in Game #5684!

[RELLGAR]

FT-No one can stop our Trading!

Free trading for all!.

[Zar@shand]

Congratulations to Zarashand and the Lizard kingdom on their victory!


Nothing against Zarashand, but the Lizard kingdom claiming victory in this particular game of Alamaze proved to be anti-climactic for me. I've wonder all game long, just about, what the Lizards were up to. I don't reckon that they ever took any hostile actions against my kingdom, and I don't recall ever taking any hostile actions against their kingdom - though I did consider it, and on several different occasions, at that. Certainly, Zarashand did a really good job of staying focused on the scoring mechanisms of Alamaze's scoring system, but the whole ball of scoring wax is something that is like a bunch of fruit mixed into the same bowl. Why is this item worth this many points, compared to that item being worth that many points? Who knows?! Sure, somebody (Rick McDowell) assigned a bunch of numbers to a bunch of different things, but the WHY that underlies it all is what I would really like to know. The scoring system, itself, I give failing grades to, but you can't blame players for trying to gain a high score in the game, when they're just going by the criteria laid out by somebody else. The scoring system just leaves me shaking my head. It also promotes turtling by players, in its current form.

All things considered, I am very glad that this game of Alamaze has finally ended. This now brings the number of active games of Alamaze that I'm currently playing in down to four. It won't be too much longer and two more of those games will end. Over the last few months, I have spent a LOT of time playing Alamaze, learning Alamaze, thinking about Alamaze, analyzing Alamaze, and writing about Alamaze. A sense of relief is finally beginning to wash over me, as this particular game grinds to a halt. I can't really say that I'm a fan of games of Alamaze just magically ended on Turn #40, even if I am glad that this particular one comes to an end for me.

The sheer amount of silence on the part of players in this game of Alamaze provided plenty of incentive to drop the game, but I resisted that temptation and stuck this one out for the duration. So, congratulations to me for making it from beginning to end in Game #5684!

Thanks Maximus,

you are right in many ways that I am not the most deserving player to win this game. There will be many who have played better and not achieved the points, and each of those will have there own victories which they are proud of. In the first game I played I won succeeded by surviving until the end when attacked by 2 players before turn 20, and in my second surviving until the end and retaking my region on the last turn to prevent the player that took it from winning, that is a victory for me.

As it happened in game I didn't have a lot of time to play so I just built, my pc's, my wizards and my armies. I got lucky and nobody attacked me, so in the last few turns I decided to attack the current leader and win the game.
So I would treat this as more of an example of how a nation left to build for the whole game can in many cases easily win in the end.

As far as I am concerned a simple change to the scoring system that weighed more points on another factor other than having a strong economy and being able to build legendary castles and great temples would have lead to a different winner.

[Strongwill]

Nice win Zar@shand. We could change of the scoring system, or players can see the status point updates too, and make a conscious effort to intercede too. I too think the points for construction should be reduced some, and actual military boosted, for the veteran/elite troops from fighting, and another category for wizards past P8 could be added too. Lots of things can be done.