Reconstructing Game #101

[Ry Vor]

Game #101 started at the same time as Game #100 and has now completed, the second 15 player game to have resolved.

Below are the personas of those who achieved at least 500 status points and survived beyond Turn 12. That's our criteria for Valhalla as of now.

Now is the time to reconstruct the game and all its machinations for those other, less privileged that did not get to participate. How'd it go for you? What did you learn? What surprised you? Who was good to work with? Who's a fearsome enemy?

And who is this guy, Wynand? Didn't he win Game #102? Can he ever be defeated??? Congrats also to DuPont who I believe also achieved Secret Victory on the same turn (Turn 20). And to all who survived the contest.
Well done, now let's hear the stories!

WI Wynand 7017
SO DuPont 6124
DE The Deliverer 5968
BL Bluefile2 5093
DW Hawk 3069
GN Agent Orange 2279
RD Lord Ravi 2240
RA Helix 1190
EL Pedinski 1063

[kevindusi]

Great game overall!

I started out in a struggle for Arcania against Helix, who was playing the Ranger. She sent a large group to Triesa and laid siege, meaning I had a lot more work to get control of the region. Finally turn 5 or so I had the region locked down, and through a combination of good luck, wards, and use of demon princes had the Ranger nullified politically, but still couldn't do much against the 1RA, which had been bulked up even further. The Black, played by bluefile2, was about to hit the Ranger capital when he got invaded by the Giant and all plans went to the wayside. BL managed to stir up half of the board to go invade 5 through clever use of whinery in the forums.

By now the Ranger was willing to make peace and even go so far as to work together and, as luck would have it, the Ancient Ones and Trolls (natural enemies of the Ranger and I) had been beating each other up something fierce in Torvale and made a very tempting target. So, Helix and I jumped into 4 and I managed to steal both Avalon and Meridon out from under the AN's nose with some help from the Underworld's early kidnap ability. Between the Ranger and me we quickly put AN and TR on the defensive and had control of the bulk of the pop centers in 4. We did some shifting around so that RA could meet ESO requirements and then she moved on to take the fight to EL up in region 1.

In the meantime, some shady things had been happening in region 7 and the Black had invaded his former... associate... the Underworld and taken his capital and several other PCs, eventually ending up with control of 7. So we had DE with 8 and 4 and BL with 10 and 7, a mess in 5 with no clear person looking to gain the region, RD back in the game in 6 and 9, and SO ended up in 1 competing with RA for some elven love. On turn 18, Wynand's failed SVC check put everyone on notice and it simply became a mad scramble for pop centers and status points. I jumped up to Oakendale with the bulk of my political corps on turn 19 but, with no chance at winning and not willing to hose someone I had worked with early in the game (looking at you, bluefile), I did not act on the SO pop centers I landed on in exchange for a couple of prisoners to help secure a third place finish.

Overall, the game had a lot of promise at the beginning, but I feel it got mucked up by too large of an anti-GI group and by some very interesting decisions by players. It ended up for me by turn 10 looking to help a new player learn the ropes and secure my two regions. We successfully chased out a weakened AN and TR position such that they dropped, and got the measure of several of the players in the meantime.

Congratulations to Wynand and DuPont for managing to maneuver through the game and accomplish your SVCs. Wynand's back-to-back wins shows that I obviously need to work on my planning so that one of these times I finish ahead of him.

Great job to all, and I look forward to playing with and against you in future games!

[Ry Vor]

Great job to all, and I look forward to playing with and against you in future games!
[/quote]

Great report, as well, Deliverer.

[Wynand]

Folks,

A nice game by all....I really enjoyed this one!

Similar to 102, I had secured peace with my neighbors, including the GI...which made the assault on region 5 awkward for me. I kept my word, though, and focused on the WA PCs, while the SO and DW wreaked havoc on the GI.

With the GI occupied in the south, a larger group began to form: DE, BL, SO, DW, RD and UN...by turn 7 (as Kevin notes) the RA was added to the mix...which meant that opportunities for expansion (particularly since 4 was hotly contested) were slim.

On turn 7, I was lucky enough to pick up the Stone of All Minds, which led me to decide on an incubation approach while the other kingdoms wrangled with their neighbours. Aside from taking two WA PCs in region 5 (including HQ), I waited as my wizards continued to progress... in the meantime, the DA became a target for the RD and SO, who were able to dispatch him very quickly...

By turn 15, I knew the RD and SO had moved on...I knew that the SO, as my ally, was planning our invasion into region 1. With the ranger in the mix, I knew my prospects in Oakendell were less than stellar. I had to develop other interests as my SVC required me to gain control of another region.

As I had never communicated with the RD, and since he had control of the Steppes and was seemingly moving against one of my allies (DE in region 4), I decided to divine locations of his PCs in 6. I reconned every single one of them and the moved my politicals in the following turn. I also moved two invisible groups in...including my 2WI, which had a value of 65K, along with a P-9 and two P-7s....my failed SVC on turn 18 was due to the fact that I forgot to enamor to Friendly on the turn that I initiated the assault...and as a result, several of my emissaries failed their usurps...

I repositioned with the help of the DW and SO, who had by this point, had become my two closest allies after our larger alliance had begun to disintegrate. Like the DE, I initiated some trades with the SO to secure our mutual victory.

I would attribute the win to having very reliable and trustworthy allies...every single one of them kept to their word (EL, DW, SO, BL, DE, RA and even the GI!) which I think it a tremendous thing in its own right. A special shout out has to go to Hawk, the DW...although he didn't get a spot on the podium, he was critical to the SO and WI victory and orchestrated a near perfect invasion of region 5.

Thanks for the great game all!

[Hawk_]

Game 101 was very fun as my first game back to Alamaze in around 15 years.

As the DW my original plan was to ally with the RD, divide the Talking Mountains and invade R6. However, the RD player moved his Duke to Zabzanka to 310 and did not respond to my attempts at contact because he was not using the Alamaze forum.

Because of this situation I was forced to attack the RD. I allied with the UN, WI, SO and formed a non-agression pact with the DA. I showed up at the RD capitol with my army on turn 3.

At this point I got an email from the RD player Ravi explaining he didn’t use the forum and wanted to make peace. We negotiated a peace agreement that allowed me to capture R3. I had about 60% of the region.

This left me completely surrounded by allies except for Amberland. As the GI was the first kingdom to gain a region he was in a very strong position on turn 4. I coordinated an invasion of Amberland on turn 5 by the DW, SO, WI, and UN. I had expected the BL to also participate in the attack but he never really expanded into 5.

The GI was caught invading the BL in the Sands so we were able to do a lot of damage quickly. The WA soon dropped although he was replaced by Loric for a few turns as a standby.

UncleMike was a determined opponent however and soon was back in R5 with a 25 brigade GI army group. He made capturing the region nearly impossible by splitting up his troops and taking 4 towns per turn.

On turn 11 I got caught by all 25 GI brigades in the mountains with my 16 brigade DW army. I thought my army was screwed but I was able to execute the Dwarven organized withdrawal maneuver and loose only 600 troops to his 5000 troop loss. That was only time I fought a GI army in the entire game.

On turn 12 I sacked the WA capitol. I think Loric dropped after that.

On 14 I captured the GI king but that did not even persuade UncleMike to drop.

On turn 18 I finally gained control of Amberland. This put me close to my SVC but I still needed 3 more artifacts and 2 PC’s in R7 to win. I made an attempt complete my SVC but was only able to secure 1 more artifact before the game was over.

Thanks to Wyand and DuPont for all the support in 101. They are great allies if you can get them on your side.

Thanks to all the players in 101 for a fun game. I look forward to playing in future games with all of you.

[DuPont]

This was my first game in a very long time - probably since the mid 90's if I remember right. I wanted to open peacefully, taking Almaren (as my SVC called for three cities) and enough pop centers in Synisvania to give me substantial control. And I didn't want to fight the RA, so I approached her with a split that would give her control. She agreed, but then things went wrong. In part, because I've been playing a lot of online Diplomacy lately, and that is a game that causes immense paranoia and anticipation of backstabbing. I agreed to diving the towns but the RA was saying she wouldn't divine the villages until turn 2. This made me think she was hoping to gain control and the neutral villages would all fall into her lap before I could get my portion. I didn't know that she was going to invade Arcania ahead of trying to get her share of Synisvania. With all this, I was convinced that she was setting me up and I needed to protect myself. I secured the city without opposition, but knowing I needed allies, I started talking to the Black Dragon and made a deal for him to share Synisvania with me and take out the Ranger. Meanwhile, the Ranger had attacked in Demon Prince and I realized I had to chose between him and the Ranger – an easy choice given my misunderstandings at the time.
So between me and the BL, we went after the RA. She emailed me, very politely I might add, and asked what was going on. That was when I realized that she had not planned to attack me and that it was all a misunderstanding. I have to say she was very gracious about it and given the GI attacking the BL, we were all able to make peace with her and turn our attention elsewhere.
I took part in the attack on the GI because I didn't want him setting up shop in the Southern Sands. Given how hard he was getting hit in Amberland, I felt his smartest move would have been to actually abandon the region and move south, but he broke it off against the BL and went to defend his homeland, but not before allowing me to get enough of the Southern Sands to get significant.
I had started talking to the RD because I was worried that the DA had no opposition and once he secured his region, he would move against me as he had a peace treaty with the DW. The RD and I were able to move on him and take him down very quickly. For whatever reason, shortly after that, the RD went dark – he was still playing the game, but not communicating. I expect he was busy in real life, but it did get me wondering. I never knew for sure if he was in the game or not.
So I had good chunks of four regions, but I needed a fifth and I had now made friends with most of the people near me. I chose Oakendell for my fifth and final region – I hadn't spoken to the elf and the WI was happy to join in. I didn't realize the RA was coming in at the same time, but we were able to work it out and I got what I needed from a fifth region and my second city. I only needed one more city and since the RD had gone dark, I teleported to Gurisek, only to find the WI had snagged it.
I thought about simply taking it from him, as he had no one there to protect it, but we'd been allies and I really didn't want to do that. I talked to the DW and he volunteered to give me Evenon as my third city and so I agreed to delay going for victory for two turns. This also gave the WI enough time to get what he needed so we could both declare victory at the same time. I nearly got tripped up by the DE gating a prince into Lorethane – I had a group outside of it, so figured it was safe (forgot about the damn gating creeps!). I had to bribe him with some high level prisoners to talk him out of taking it. Also, the RD showed up at the last moment and took one of my villages in Synisvania, taking one of my low level artifacts and costing me control of the region. Those couple of things were the difference between first and second place for me, but I really didn't mind. I very much enjoyed my first game in ages and would have even if I hadn't tied for the victory. Tip of the hat to the Dwarf for agreeing to let me have his city to make it happen.

[bluefile2]

Let's see if every recap can include at least 1-3 negative things about the BL kingdom, cause that would be awesome. Here's the BLACK DRAGON recap:

I was able to take my region somewhat quickly and felt that I had a good start on the game. After an email exchange with GI regarding pop centers in 5, I told him that I had the fabled village at OO and he said he would avoid it. He then changed his mind and emailed me to tell me that he would be taking OO and moved his military there the following turn. OO was raped, then re-raped, raped some more, and then raped a few last times throughout the game. OO probably set a record stat about how many times one village would get slapped around.
Shortly after OO was first raped by GI, GI showed up in force in 10. GI took down my cap and was moving from PC to PC for a few turns, but I never lost control. I simply followed his groups with my BL troops and take all the PC's back the following turn. Probably really pissed off UncleMike.
While this PC flipping was going on, region 5 was being invaded which caused GI to leave the region and do damage control in 5. This gave me some time to rebuild my kingdom. I spent a few turns buying govs and recruiting a ton of Wyverns.

Sidenote: BL troops are shockingly weak. My 1bl ended the game with 19-20 brigs, Warlords, low attr high morale and still didn't even see 100k values. To put things in perspective, on the last turn, a RD army (not army group) attacked my Cap at XV and took ZERO losses. My 1BL monster army group attacked XF with 3 power 3's and still lost 2 brigades....

I never entered Amberland as I was Hostile/susp the entire game and it was a hot mess of DW GI maybe SO and other kingdoms moving around in there. Also, the one battle I had with GI troops ended poorly for me, even though BL is supposed to be the best at probing attack... I tried to support the cause multiple times through the high council, bidding between 15,000 - 25,000 gold each time (and wasting orders voting) to DEnigrate GI. When issues were raised, I couldn't get "allies" to vote them through.

Mid game I only had NAPs with DE (who owned 8/4) and SO in 9. I had and figured my best area to expand was into 7. There was a town in 10 all the way over at XI and I made that my staging ground to flood into 10. **Hawk can verify this or not.** I knew UN was sharing 7 with GN and I did not want to hit his PCs. I knew that I couldn't flat out ask UN where his pc's were and then ask him to not tell GN, I asked Hawk if he could inquire about this as GN is his natural enemy and this would make more sense. UN stonewalled him and didn't give him any pc info. I decided I was going to go in blind and flood the region. I moved my two groups to the furthest eastern towns in 7. One of them was the UN cap.

My intention was not to attack the UN at all. I had moved a 15 brig group there with p3's. Instead of communicating with me, I received a FU email which culminated in him calling me a "backstabbing shitheel". Points for creativity. This failed to create good will with me and I decided that I would be the new owner of 7. Through Ems and military, I was able to take 7. I don't understand why, but GN parked a ton of nobles and govs in his Cap at SA and never moved them to retake pc's? I ended up wiping out the dreaded 1GN army on aprox turn 15 and things were on the up & up. To make my SVC I had to have 3 regions, be on the HC, ect. I didn't see anyway to get a 3rd region without screwing over SO or DE, so I went back to mopping up GN positions. The next turn, GI showed up again to take down my cap.... just when I thought DW had battered GI into submission. I'd love to hear how the GI hung on with such a large group for so long, while having no PC's. My guess is the RD funded him. I ended the game with my 1BL parked at the GI cap and sadly did not get to repay the favor Fun game!!

[Hawk_]

Let's see if every recap can include at least 1-3 negative things about the BL kingdom, cause that would be awesome. Here's the BLACK DRAGON recap:

I was able to take my region somewhat quickly and felt that I had a good start on the game. After an email exchange with GI regarding pop centers in 5, I told him that I had the fabled village at OO and he said he would avoid it. He then changed his mind and emailed me to tell me that he would be taking OO and moved his military there the following turn. OO was raped, then re-raped, raped some more, and then raped a few last times throughout the game. OO probably set a record stat about how many times one village would get slapped around.
Shortly after OO was first raped by GI, GI showed up in force in 10. GI took down my cap and was moving from PC to PC for a few turns, but I never lost control. I simply followed his groups with my BL troops and take all the PC's back the following turn. Probably really pissed off UncleMike.
While this PC flipping was going on, region 5 was being invaded which caused GI to leave the region and do damage control in 5. This gave me some time to rebuild my kingdom. I spent a few turns buying govs and recruiting a ton of Wyverns.

Sidenote: BL troops are shockingly weak. My 1bl ended the game with 19-20 brigs, Warlords, low attr high morale and still didn't even see 100k values. To put things in perspective, on the last turn, a RD army (not army group) attacked my Cap at XV and took ZERO losses. My 1BL monster army group attacked XF with 3 power 3's and still lost 2 brigades....

I never entered Amberland as I was Hostile/susp the entire game and it was a hot mess of DW GI maybe SO and other kingdoms moving around in there. Also, the one battle I had with GI troops ended poorly for me, even though BL is supposed to be the best at probing attack... I tried to support the cause multiple times through the high council, bidding between 15,000 - 25,000 gold each time (and wasting orders voting) to DEnigrate GI. When issues were raised, I couldn't get "allies" to vote them through.

Mid game I only had NAPs with DE (who owned 8/4) and SO in 9. I had and figured my best area to expand was into 7. There was a town in 10 all the way over at XI and I made that my staging ground to flood into 10. **Hawk can verify this or not.** I knew UN was sharing 7 with GN and I did not want to hit his PCs. I knew that I couldn't flat out ask UN where his pc's were and then ask him to not tell GN, I asked Hawk if he could inquire about this as GN is his natural enemy and this would make more sense. UN stonewalled him and didn't give him any pc info. I decided I was going to go in blind and flood the region. I moved my two groups to the furthest eastern towns in 7. One of them was the UN cap.

My intention was not to attack the UN at all. I had moved a 15 brig group there with p3's. Instead of communicating with me, I received a FU email which culminated in him calling me a "backstabbing shitheel". Points for creativity. This failed to create good will with me and I decided that I would be the new owner of 7. Through Ems and military, I was able to take 7. I don't understand why, but GN parked a ton of nobles and govs in his Cap at SA and never moved them to retake pc's? I ended up wiping out the dreaded 1GN army on aprox turn 15 and things were on the up & up. To make my SVC I had to have 3 regions, be on the HC, ect. I didn't see anyway to get a 3rd region without screwing over SO or DE, so I went back to mopping up GN positions. The next turn, GI showed up again to take down my cap.... just when I thought DW had battered GI into submission. I'd love to hear how the GI hung on with such a large group for so long, while having no PC's. My guess is the RD funded him. I ended the game with my 1BL parked at the GI cap and sadly did not get to repay the favor Fun game!!

I will corroborate what Bluefile stated re: the GN and UN. Although the GN was allied with the UN he was still my natural enemy and I was not aware of any agreements involving the SO or WI. I tried to get the UN locations so the BL could avoid the UN PC's . Based on the UN player's response he would have attacked the BL regardless if he had avoided the UN PC's anyway. Ultimately the UN dropped however and I am sorry he felt betrayed by the situation.

IMO, these are the situations you are placed in when alliances become very large and players expect you to behave in a certain way towards their allies even if that might fill the game map with occupied nations. There really would not have been another region for Bluefile to move into that would not have meant attacking a kingdom that was in some way allied with another kingdom he was working with.

[bluefile2]

Hawk, I appreciate your last post.

[Lord Diamond]

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