Game #113 - Steel Game

[Ry Vor]

Did anyone get their turns back today?

There was a delay in processing #113. Will be out tomorrow if not tonight.

[Cipher]

They will be out shortly

[Mauler]

Thanks for a fun first game back everyone!

[Brogan]

Games 112 and 113 both won by the Red Dragon, and these games were setup BEFORE the position was beefed up. Wow.

[Titus]

wanted to say thanks to all for the game! Mauler, thanks for saving the BL bacon and to Lord Moontree thanks for frying the bacon in the beginning.

[Brogan]

It was a lot of fun! I had the odd luck to find a bunch of Unusual sightings from the get go. I ended up with 6 artys and was a turn away from pulling Élan out of the wilds, would have loved to own that even for 1 turn. The DW declaring ESO on turn 16 (and failing) was a real eye opener too.

[DuPont]

A good game! Congrats to the RD. I'll start working on a report for Valhalla.

[Cipher]

Games 112 and 113 both won by the Red Dragon, and these games were setup BEFORE the position was beefed up. Wow.

113 was the first game with the RD changes.

[Thalion]

113 Red Reflections

This game started with some difficulty for me. As the Red Dragon I was inclined to stomp, stomp, stomp, but given that a couple of newer players were located so close to me, I instead decided to try to ally with the Dwarf and the Witchlord early.
I made up my mind that I’d reach an agreement with the Dwarf as long as the terms were near reasonable. I offered either the city + 45% of the region – ceding control to the Dwarf, or the other side – claiming the region while giving the DW the city and the rest. The Dwarf decided on the Region (what I actually wanted), and we agreed to a split. After the original split was proposed the Dwarf was worried that his cut wouldn’t be enough to get control, so I ceded another PC in return for first choice on the PCs that the Red would claim. He came back again with another request to shore up his share, at which I balked and got pretty close to scrapping the deal altogether. I would say that the Dwarf being granted control of the Talking Mountains uncontested by the Red is a pretty good deal and to stop while you are ahead, but I understand wanting to continue pushing for the a better deal.
Things got a little hotter when a Dwarven group landed on and took a PC that I would claim under first choice. I could tell that he wasn’t happy about my enforcing the terms of the deal, but we never touched each other’s PCs and the deal lasted the entire game.

I had also been speaking with the Witchlord and was ready to help him beat off the kingdoms attacking him, but he dropped early, so I continued with the unprovoked assault into Amberland (against the GI/WA) as the deal I had made with the Darkelf didn’t really leave me any other options. I got very lucky early on by finding the original WA capital quickly and moving pretty much my entire military there on the same turn that the Giant had 2 groups at the town. The fact that I had a power 3 in the Red group and the Giant’s forces were split between two groups made the battle outcome very favorable to the Red.

I continued to move big into region 5, and it appeared that the Giant and Warlock continued to make their gains in the Northern Mists and to counter punch in the Talking Mountains. Good idea to stay away from the Red Dragon groups, but it led to quick control of region 5 for me.

I had worked out a deal with the Gnome in much easier fashion than the Dwarf, and although we had minimal communication throughout the game, I found Yorlik to be great to work with. I made an agreement with the Underworld, which I feel was violated through persistent actions against my pop centers, but caught the damn agents only once, near the end of the agreement. Without any way to prove that the earlier actions were done by the Underworld, and being at the end of the agreement anyway, I didn’t pursue anything. But it will color my interactions with the player going forward.

I was feeling pretty comfortable in 5, trading PCs in regions 3 and 7 with the GI/WA when the Gnome complained about the TR/AN which he was facing in Torvale. I agreed to lend a hand, but after initially moving was told by Yorlik that he had reached an agreement with the rest of the Western powers and a truce was in effect. I wasn’t part of that deal, and had already committed, so I continued into Torvale. Beyond the original lay of the land provided by the Gnome, nothing further was said by him about my foray and the early bounties offered weren’t followed up on after the truce.

With a couple of early victories, and the Dwarf taking his second region (!) I checked my SVC and realized that there might be a win for the Red here. The biggest needs were 2 regions, 4 cities and some prisoners. Of course, I had just executed all my prisoners the turn before, so that was going to slow me down. I was able to take the Troll capital (and get his prisoners) but HQ was destroyed by the Troll, and DU was taken by the Warlock, so I moved back to DU as my fourth city (OB, PI, MN the others) and rolled the dice on the victory check. It worked out, just as the Black arrived at my capital and the Elf diplomatic corp started to appear throughout my pop centers.

The Red is a lot of fun, especially with some production under your belt and a chance to get influence up and a couple wizards raised. I ended up with a power 5 which with maxed out morale (160) and nice leaders meant that a division could move anywhere and take pretty much anything.

[DuPont]

I started a Valhalla thread for this game here:
http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...p?tid=8767
I would invite the RD to re-post his write up there, too and I hope to see some other perspectives as well. I'm particularly interested in my late game nemesis, the DW.