Game 5872 Ends

[Zolzar]

Congrats to the Warlock played by Rargrim on victory by Rex in turn 32

        Place Kingdom    Player                Results-32  Grand Total

          1    WA    Rargrim                  57,079      76,463
          2    LI    Zolzar                    29,125      48,252
          3    DA    Ozymandius                26,274      42,682
          4    FT    Milo007                  20,636      40,804
          5    DW    Frostking                14,300      26,125
          6    PI    Juten                    12,241      23,280

Only half of us made it to the end; if the FT and I hadn't spent half the game slap fighting each other we might have been able to put a stop to you!  We just fought each other to a standstill while kingdoms rose and fell around us.

[davekuyk]

Congrats to the WA! The dominos fell quickly to him once he began moving.

As the DA, my game was a lesson in both moving too quickly and then too slow.

Early on I decided the PI in the Crown Islands would be my first target, as my capital was in the north-west region of Triumvia and my second town was in the Crown Islands. I began moving on PI pop centers, and the LY also appeared on the scene. I had a string of rough turns where PI and LY kidnapped multiple dukes and princes and a LY group wiped out most of my kingdom troops. I am unsure if I made the right call or not in the LY battle. We were in the plains and he could have issued a flanking attack. Due to that, I decided to defend on a 3 to possibly make him retreat first, thus avoiding the extra retreat losses from the flank. Instead, he attacked on a 3 and we fought to the end. I don't recall who "won" the battle, but my losses were severe enough that I needed to pull back and rebuild my military. Over three turns I lost two princes, two dukes, and most of my military. No wizards were lost, however.

In hindsight, I should have spent a turn gathering intel in the Crown Islands and had more wards in place for my emissaries. I would have seen the LY group and been able to react better, coming in behind the LY and letting the PI fight him. But I moved quickly and things didn't work out.

Those early setbacks led to me being likely too slow and cautious later in the game. I rebuilt the emissaries and the military and had good wizards ranging from a p-9 and p-8 to several p-6s. This allowed me to methodically take out the LY and pick up that region. Along the way, I kidnapped a few LI and FT guys I spotted; sorry about those! I made some forays vs the DW in Zanthia, however, with so much census in his two legendary castles I found that even if I took every other in the region (and I took most of them) he would retain control. As the game was nearing turn 30 I decided I didn't have time to whittle down the DW and moved back into the Crown Islands. A revelation spell showed the details of the PI kingdom, leading to the PI king being kidnapped, but also showed me I could and should have moved on him immediately after taking out the LY.

So several could haves and should haves while the WA picked up region after region. Good job on him coming away with the victory.

[Strongwill]

Great win…

[Rargrim]

It was more luck then skill.  As we all know you move one turn late or early and the game has a very different outcome.

I was a bit slow out of the gate as my capitol was near the middle of my province and wanted to build up and collect a few artifacts.  I think I caught the illusionist in the early game gathering artifacts which came into my possession and really bolstered my early army.  Seeing the Sacred Order was at 3 provinces I figured they were the one to beat and cast a revelation spell which showed 1 huge army group and 1 big army group, but they had done little to build up their cities/capitol.  It was going into winter and I guessed they would settle their armies, but I was doing well enough on food (the fact my 2 provinces were in different seasons), that I could jump them.  I was lucky to catch the 2nd army a few squares away from their capitol, and they moved that army onto the capitol which lead to me capturing an usually high number of diplomates, plus finishing off that army.  I am assuming they didn't have secret passages.  I was scrying 3 locations and found where his capitol had moved to and was able to teleport my main army group onto it, and I believe that was their final turn.  I am pretty sure my main army could have beaten his, but I still wasn't going to fight it on the plains!

After that, it was just popping the main population centers, but I almost blew it at the end as I am sure the Free Trader knows!

I didn't see that we both had army groups on a population center 2nd last turn, and I never placed an attack/defend order for that army.  I can only assume they cast death and firewall because I lost the 4-5 groups of troops but that was it.  It wasn't a fatal mistake, but it would have been a much longer game.

Thank you for my first win!