#133 - Inaugural Primeval

[Ry Vor]

Stone Giants of Jumpingfist Claim the Rex in Inaugural Primeval!

Jumpingfist has led the Stone Giants to the first Rex victory in any format here in the inaugural Primeval contest. Congratulations to him, and another step toward his immortality in Valhalla.

We look forward to the participants comments and whether their strategy and diplomacy will change in their next Primeval contest.

[VballMichael]

(GN) Right arm in full cast - hard to type lefty. Will write more later, but crucial to act fast and keep acting. I was always about 2 turns behind Giant and he earned his win. I did get some artifacts so I squeaked into 2nd but not too helpful in fast, 5-player game. focus on emissaries and reaction levels and taking regions, period.

[Jumpingfist]

(GI) I was the first to sign up and took the Giants. I knew I would have to work some kind of deal with the others or get squashed in the middle of board. My initial deals were T7 NAP between RD GN and myself. GAP with EL and the Game long NAP with DW but only for our home regions, 3/6 for him and 5/9 for me. Also I agreed to assist DW in attacking the EL. This really made for some difficult choices for me as I already had a GAP with the EL and although never violated it I very much skirted the lines and knew more information than I was sharing with him. Not likely to go that route again out of personal preference.
Stage was set ready to start
T1 I was in position to move most all my army onto Evanon and move prince and duke into Avalon. Messed up the orders for my 1GI and moved 2 squares. But as luck would have it I landed on what would be the key to the Ring of Power. I made up for that mistake with the gold I got for the US and moved to Evanon the next turn. Although I did buy a priestess and divined towns I could have taken the region from what I found with troop movement.
My prince and duke failed to take Avalon because I messed that up as well and issued two orders to control. This mistake would not recover so easily, it caused me to miss taking my second region until T7. Because Avalon is about two squares to far from R9. If I were to do this again I would most likely target Torvale and not R9. My thought was a winter summer type combo would be very good, but turns out after about 5 or 6 turns money and food are really not an issue anymore in this game.
For My second region I sent a couple patrols over to cross the water with no ships and then goto the mountain and recruit. Something a GI or BL can do. By this time the BL GN and I had worked out a deal that would last the whole game to take turns on the naming rights to the council issues. We all had yes votes as standing orders. Also I had two priestess now divined what Ring of Power location in R7 and where the key to the staff was in R3. I got the key to staff a turn after getting RoP and now had a P5 wizard to teleport around. As I got the key I divined the location to Ring of Spells. Two squares away from where the key of the staff was. Perfect got the ring of spells. Now around T6 I was attacking the EL in R1 with 2 then 3 of my groups while my Emms were taking the rest of R9 and my other two groups were finding artifacts.
Attacking R1 I went in with a tactic of plundering most everything I could. This was because I already had more gold and food than I could use and did not want the Elf to be able to use his Emms to take anything from me. I made Lorethane my capital. When I finished with R1 there were 4 town 4 villages and a city. Very easy to keep protected.
Also on T6 I extended the NAP with GN to T14 and with BL to T18 so R9 and R5 would be protected.

The final battle t14 the BL had three regions at this point added R6 from DW, the GN just launched a massive assault on the DW r3. I was in position to either attack the GN in R4 or go after contested R2 currently still owned by EL. The GN asked that he could extend his NAP. So now the choice was easy. I was going to wait one round and launch on T15 after recruiting all me ogres but felt it needed to happen now before the BL moved in on his own. I launched 5 groups one teleporting my army directly onto Viperhead where the DW had made his capital. Also launched was 8 Barron level or higher Emms and a pro gov. The pro gov never made it in bouncing off an EL group. I warded the 4 non villages Emms even my P6 cast a ward spell.
The same turn I won the BL moved I force into R9, since we had a nap it must have been just to get good seats for the parade.
I finished the Game with over 500k+ Each Food and Gold in my stores. 23.5 influence 8 Barron + Emms and 5 pro govs. Staff of orator, ring of spells and ring of power. Some pale tiers and rings of protection as well.
Besides how I handled the EL the only stategic thing I would have done differently would be to try and make R4 my second region over R9. Better reaction level and easier to get to from Amberland. I think for the GI creating a path(naps or agreements) to goto war early is key before they Mage types can build up DoMs and get tomany Emms. Creating a council voting block really helped with influence as well.

[Lord Diamond]

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