#129 - Master & Apprentice

[Helix]

Hi Everyone! The GI and WA are also kicking ourselves for not bidding on HC...ran out of orders. Also got an HP that kicked the bucket after 1 divination. This turn we mostly followed the typical strategy of building our gold supply, making some important allies, getting things organized in our own regions, and getting in position for future expansions - you will see where soon!

[Jumpingfist]

Had some quick changes to my TR turn this time. 12 Hours prior to the turn deadline the GN officially informed me he was rejecting my counter offer and we would have no NAP. I think the breakdown in communication was set to fail when the GN countered my NAP offer with how he was being generous and I could have more than I would normally get due to the AN being out of the game and control R4 and the RD would get Substantial control (35%) of R4 that must include Meridon in exchange for a 10 turn NAP. Of course I felt this was laughable but offered a counter offer to accept those terms as long as he was willing to let me have aprox 23% of his region. I figured he was looking to have his master close by and I liked the idea of having some income/food during the first winter. I still am willing to work a deal with the GN but the window is closing once really the RD and TR clash.
I changed and sent and emm to Meridon to meet what I was expecting to be a military group and RD count. Seems only the count came. The rest of my turn was some fund raising, selling ships and food on the market. I got to see where the towns are and sent my groups looking for towns with a patrol split off to stay in forest (to recruit orcs) incase the RD came in hard.
My master had recommended using a 725 for a couple of my smaller groups. Incase the found a village. But actually I learned a secondary benefit if you stop on the town you will know who owns it. This helps when sending out Emms to take the towns or moving you regroups vs other towns not yet scouted. Also this would block other Emms from entering next turn.

Looking forward I hope the GN is willing to still cut a deal as I do not want to have a war so early on. Not that I am not ready just prefer to get things a little more settled. Other than that lots of group moving and combining.

[Ry Vor]

Players, please post which kingdom you are and who your partner is with each post, and if you mention another persona, also let us know which kingdom he/she is playing - readers won't remember who everyone is in this game and it makes it easier when reading your post to know who you are. Meanwhile, here is the lineup again:

-------------- Master ------------------- Apprentice
The Red Warlock (Wynand) And The Stone Giants (Helix)
The High Elves (DuPont) and The Troll Uprising (Jumpingfist)
The Black Dragons (Brogan) and The Dark Elven Dominion (Wynterbreeze)
The Dwarven Lords (Hawk_) and The Witchlord (Veltran)
The Red Dragons (Lord Thanatos) and The Gnomes (Jhereg)
The Sorcerer (The Deliverer) and The Ranger (Cloud)

I am hoping for a few posts from both Masters and Apprentices that reveal:
1. To what extent are you marking up your map?
2. Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?
3. Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?
4. How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?
5. To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?
6. How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?
7. Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?

[Hawk_]

Players, please post which kingdom you are and who your partner is with each post, and if you mention another persona, also let us know which kingdom he/she is playing - readers won't remember who everyone is in this game and it makes it easier when reading your post to know who you are. Meanwhile, here is the lineup again:

-------------- Master ------------------- Apprentice
The Red Warlock (Wynand) And The Stone Giants (Helix)
The High Elves (DuPont) and The Troll Uprising (Jumpingfist)
The Black Dragons (Brogan) and The Dark Elven Dominion (Wynterbreeze)
The Dwarven Lords (Hawk_) and The Witchlord (Veltran)
The Red Dragons (Lord Thanatos) and The Gnomes (Jhereg)
The Sorcerer (The Deliverer) and The Ranger (Cloud)

I am hoping for a few posts from both Masters and Apprentices that reveal:
1. To what extent are you marking up your map?
2. Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?
3. Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?
4. How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?
5. To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?
6. How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?
7. Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?

Hawk(DW) and Veltran (WI)

So far we just attempted to avoid an early conflict so that the WI can develop his wizards some and the DW can not get eaten by fire breathing dinosaurs. We have been able to reach friendly terms with most of our neighbors so I believe things are proceeding fairly well. We were able to reach what we felt were fair terms with Thanatos(RD) and Jhereg (GN).

RE: the question list-

To what extent are you marking up your map?

1. I use excel with my map and track PC's, groups, emmies, and squares cleared of artifacts.

Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?

2. As the game progreses I use excel to make artifact lists with the turns they were observed. I often plan out 2-3 turns ahead to budget for important needs.

Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?

3. I don't think I have ever sent in an order list with below the maximum amount of orders used.

How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?

4. I believe Veltan contacted every team.

To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?

5. I provided Veltran some completed games to read as well a number of files with spell lists, emmy info, artifact lists and 171 success data. I made sure he had a copy of Rick's artifact retrieval article. We shared turns and I tried to make sure there were no errors.

How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?

6. The ESO was taken into consideration with regard to negotiations with the RD/GN as well as some long term esoteric goals.

Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?
7. We missed an agent range issue for a 970. Miscounted 11 as 10.

[Jhereg]

Having only heard about the awesome power of the Gnomes I was anxious to get my set up.

I am amazed that the GN have not achieved greater success, the GN mastery of the yellow metal is a great boon. While it does not in itself provide the needed skills to be the benevolent master Alamaze needs it does provide a great degree of flexibility. So while trying to secure peace with the other kingdoms of the realm, time was spent looking internally and discussing with our Master, Lord Thanatos (RD), what should the Gnomes focus on:

A Well rounded kingdom developing all skills (Espionage, Magic, and Emissary) equally, Or spending all our kingdoms efforts to develop one attribute more than the others.We tossed out the idea of trying to develop the Gnome armies, it just isn't in the Gnome DNA to engage in hand to hand combat, plus who needs an army when you have the RD as a master.

So the first turn was spent getting started on developing our assets, diplomacy, and moving to gain dominance over our starting region. Oh and trying to find a home for the very miss understood and peaceful Red Dragons, who just so happen to burn towns to the ground with fiery breath and flies through the air devouring entire brigades.

The questions you asked:
To what extent are you marking up your map?
I use the PPT file that I found on the message boards. I use it to track PC's locations, PC ownership, Group Locations, and as well as if a tile is clear of PC's and/or Unusual sightings.
Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?
Not really, I have all the previous turn results in a folder and use that as my main source of reference.
Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?
Yes, and I set up the two standing orders on turn 1 and hopefully if I am successful in gaining control of a region I will use the additional 2 standing orders as well.
How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?
We contacted every team prior to turn 1
To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?
Lord Thanatos has provided advice after I have come up with a suggested course of action, or identifying when I have missed something which I expect to be considerable the further along in the contest we progress.
How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?
I don't think our ESO affected my first turn in any way other than in the one negotiation with the DA/BL as previous mentioned.
Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?
Yes, I didn't realise that when moving off a sea tile that I needed to use order 715 instead of order 725 as all my moves were on land, so unfortunately my group didn't move this turn and remains at sea, fishing perhaps.

[Jumpingfist]

I replied prior to any specific format so thought I would answer the questions as well.
I play the TR and my Master is DuPont playing the EL
the question list-

Q1 To what extent are you marking up your map?

A I wanted to try the ppt map so volunteered to upkeep a team map for both of to use. I use open office and keep track of Pop centers(PC), non PC area, unusual sitings, areas cleared, group locations and other kingdoms Emissaries we know about.

Q2 Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?

A I keep turns in a folder and tend to remember most things so do not keep specific notes

Q3 Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?

A. As the TR I get +5 turns over influence and do not need to use much on mages but still have no problems using using up all my orders and having to prioritize what I really need to do this turn.

Q4 How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?

A I looked to speak to those on my boarders. I have 5 boarder regions so needed to contact GN/RD, GI/WA and WI/DW. I did not contact or receive any thing from SO/RA or BL/DA we are two regions away from these teams so was not expecting to hear from them either.

Q5 To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?

A. I generally say what I am planning or thinking about my orders or diplomacy and then get feedback from DuPont. I have made some changes to my T1 orders. Like not trying to take Meridon by force and using 725s vs 720 for some of my groups. Most the talks on T1 have been about our diplomacy where I tend to take the same approach coming up with something and running it by him.

Q6 How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?

A my ESO fell into what I was already planning to do so really did not effect anything other than to help point me in the direction I already wanted to go.

Q7 Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?
A. I had my turn set but received notice one of my NAPs would not happen. I should have also changed my order to raise regional reaction for R4 to raising influence since I was no longer going to take Meridon militarily. May turn out better though because now I am not forced to issue an enamor region order. I have freedom to denigrate a would be attack if needed.

[Ry Vor]

Good stuff! Keep it comin'!

[Cloud]

I was not looking forward to getting assigned the RA/SO team. I am on turn 7 in my other game (my first game back in 20+ years) and in that game I am playing the SO. In discussing the game before the teams were assigned, the RA/SO team was the only one I really DIDN'T want because I've been staring at that part of the map enough. But that's the team we got, so I went for RA so that I'd have more chance of a different game.

This format includes three teams that 'have' two regions, three that 'have' one region, and one empty region. That leaves three kingdoms without a region of their own. Of them, I feel like the RA (or the SO) was in the worst position because we are in a small region compared to 5 and don't have the mobility and early might of the RD. This was the real disadvantage that I felt needed to be addressed.

My early diplomacy, then, focused on this problem. I started with DA/BL. Being flanked by those kingdoms, I knew that my team (both, really) would be in bad shape if it came to blows between us so I settled a peace agreement with the DA first. The remainder of my turn 0 diplomacy was focused on region 8. In discussing possibilities with other players, I made sure to make it clear that I was headed for Arcania and just treated it as a matter of course, as if I were talking about taking Synisvania.

The questions:
1. To what extent are you marking up your map?

I use a copy of the map that I mark up in Paint. (I know) I have two versions, one that just shows PC's and another that shows all notations (confirmed no PC, confirmed no US, borders of regions, etc)

2. Do you organize notes for future reference, if so, how and what?

No, not really. I have a number of excel based tools I use to analyze region statistics, manage expenses, and other stuff. My partner also gave me some of the tools he uses - they were very impressive.

3. Did you issue all available orders (influence +2)? If not, why not?

Yes, of course. I've never had a problem with finding things to do.

4. How many positions outside of your team did you communicate with prior to Turn 1?

I communicated with the junior member of every team but 1. Only the TR/EL were not contacted. I probably would not have contacted WI/DW but they reached out to me, just to say hi basically. Like jumpingfist said, proximity determined who needed to be contacted and who didn't.

5. To what extent did the Master provide advice to the Apprentice? In any case did the Apprentice provide advice? How closely coordinated are your moves?

For the turn 0 diplomacy, my partner left that all to me. I kept him up to date with everything that happened but he only offered his thoughts from time to time. We shared turn 1 orders with each other in case we had notes but nothing much changed from the first drafts.

6. How important was your ESO to your first turn moves?

Zero. It came up in turn 0 diplomacy but it's kinda far off right now.

7. Did you make any mistakes on Turn 1?

Oh yes. I played 7 turns in my other game and my biggest mistakes were not having enough gold to complete an #800 order and selling too much food, leaving 4SO sad. Nothing compared to the doozy I pulled on turn 1 in this game. Fortunately, this format is by design forgiving of mistakes, even big ones so I think it'll be OK. If I had done the same thing in a normal game, I'd have been set back in a huge way.

[Veltran]

Veltran here (WI), understudy of Hawk (DW)...good to be receiving and planning turns of Alamaze. Always try to plan moves/goals several turns in advance as it makes deciding which bubble orders to perform each turn easier. When turn comes in adjust as needed and replan. Hawk has provided me a lot of tools and I have absorbed all I can form the forums. I remember collecting data and trading it back in the old days to come up with similar charts. Lots of work. Thanks again Hawk.

As many have mentioned tracking on powerpoint map, squares with or without Pop centers and unusual sightings. Where groups were seen and on what turn.

Opened communications with all teams to insure we had correct addresses.

I bounce my ideas off Hawk during the week and ask lots of questions about orders...its all coming back to me slowly Polish orders and exchange them so we can try to prevent mistakes. I miscalculated a move distance, double checking those from now on. Requesting force marching for emmissaries?

The one thing I remembered from the old days very quickly preparing for turn one...so many things you want to do...so little influence to perform them

I really appreciate this format of game. There were several things on turn 1 that I wouldn't have known to do without Hawks assistance. There are so many orders, spells, and rules I have to refamiliarize myself with. This format definitely will help straighten out the learning curve for new players.

[kevindusi]

Mistake #2 by Team Foxtrot: Not bidding 1 gold to get another cheap HC seat!