Game 134

[Destitute Noble]

This anon game was completed on turn 22 with victory being claimed by Hawk commanding the Red Dragons, second going to Stillgard running the Sorcerers, and third to The Dark One running the Demon Princes. Congrats to the victors!!

Now my view from the bottom - I ran the Gnomes:

Ah the Gnomes. I chose second and had decided to go with a more “balanced” kingdom, versus taking one of the two Dragons, or the trolls/giants. Since I had already played the RA (miserably) in a previous game, and I liked the idea of being a bit isolated, the Gnomes seemed an obvious choice. My initial goals were pretty simple – secure Runnimede as quickly as possible, try and secure an alliance with one of my neighbors to lessen the amount of potential invaders, achieve my ESO by turn 10, work a wizard up to P7 (beyond the maximum assured P6 level – goal was to get a dome to use against invaders), and get a good agent corps up and running to be able to thwart enemy activities.

The ESO was the easiest part (substantial or better in 1 region, own a PC making 23K gold+, and a level 7+ agent). Since Cradia produced 23.6K gold to start, and fell in line with my need to pick up a region I captured that, then on turn 5 took the region, and the same turn I got a message from the Demon Princes proposing alliance. Attaining my ESO requirements so early was nice (I had trained up two agents to 7+) and allowed me to start to focus on expansion. At that point the only PCs I held were in Runnimede, and one in r8 but since I was allied with the DE I did not want to break that by going there. As such I decided to press North and Northeast into r4 and r5, starting with Torvale first.

On turn 10 I achieved my ESO, had a foothold in r4, and had a P6 wizard so things were going well. Evanon was undefended except for a GI governor so I moved emmys there to take that and start my expansion into r5. The same turn (11) I happened to recon the UN capital, which held a level 14 and a level 9 agent. Next turn, I slept and tried to assassinate both in hopes of crippling the UN who had already started popping up in r7 taking PCs there. Though I did get the job done against the 14, the 9 somehow eluded me (hate those missed die rolls). I happened to recon the AN capital on turn 12 and got my targets for next turn. On turn 13, I sent my 11 after GI emmy at Evanon, and a 9 and a 5 after Ancient Ones emmys trying to kidnap all 3 since I needed four prisoners for my victory condition. Sadly, the 11 and the 9 never got the chance as they were assassinated (by the Underworld it turns out), and the 5 failed and was captured/killed when my sleep spell on the giant emmy was resisted. In one turn I had gone from an agent corps of 11-9-5-4-3 to 4-3…a crushing blow as now I was more vulnerable to emmy movements without retaliation.

I turned to my military to take the fight to the Ancient Ones and try to secure a larger holding in Torvale, and was using emmys to try and expand in both Torvale and Amberland also. By turn 17 my entire military had been destroyed by the Ancient Ones and a little bit of RD help, and I was down to a P7 and P4 wizard, and a level 5 and 1 agent. I still had a good emmy corps, and I was able to utilize them to actually take back Runnimede on turn 21 depsite the AN having two army groups running around taking PCs every turn, on top of their emmys and the UN emmys. I would likely have been able to take Runnimede back again next turn, but the game ended thanks to Hawk saving me from fighting what was undoubtedly a losing battle of attrition.

In the end, my efforts got me a last place finish and a feeling of what might have been had turns 13-17 gone a bit more in my favor…

[kik1661]

I played the Giants in this one. I was worried about the WA early and didn't want to get bogged down fighting him. Turn one I moved on Avalon and Evanon. I found the UN in Avalon and the WA in Evanon. Ugh this wasn't going to be easy.

I noticed the WA had moved 2 high ranking em's to Evanon and assumed he was going to try and sleep my guy and try and flip the city in a single turn. So I warded my guy and maintained status quo. Worked like a charm as he tried to 330 his guy was captured by the humans. I then combined all my armies and landed a 30k army on Evanon turn 2. Which I was able to 171 the next turn. The remaining WA em moved elsewhere.

The UN on the other hand I didn't want to mess with early. I sent an emissary and offered Avalon for 40k food. The UN accepted and I just moved out of Avalon and tried to concentrate on getting Amberland. It worked as I got it on like turn 4 or 5.

I then spent the next couple turns scouting , building up my forces , and training wizards. I also sent an emissary to the DE offering peace and another to him saying we should invade region 9. I had enamored it to friendly and was all set when the SO gained control. The more I looked at how I was going to approach 9 the more I talked myself out of it. I had no navy and no way to build one and the sea there made moving my armies to his PC's a 2 turn ordeal. I figured this was bad as it would give him time to counter me and I would just get bogged down.

Since no one had invaded 5 I decided to pivot to region 1. I had enamored it to friendly and all EL PC locations. Another thing that made it appealing was 2 of my towns in 5 were a mere 2 hexes away from EL PC's in 1. I could mass all my armies there in those 2 towns an not give the EL any advance warning I was coming. So on around turn 11 or so I moved 2 big GI armies and a flood of em's into 1. I knew the EL had moved his capitol to Lorethane so I headed there with my 1GI.

I was worried I couldnt take Lorethane in one turn without crippling my army as the defense was higher than I expected , roughly 25k against my 40k GI army. My army was also mostly GI brigades as I was loathe to lose them attacking the city. So I just sieged it , seeing no EL groups. The 1EL showed up next turn and proceeding to spank me though not enough to break the siege. It was at this time the EL started to use his superior agents on me. Whacking em's and my wizards. I decided to start 920ing with my agents on my main group. This paid off as over the next 2 or so turns I killed a couple of his agents that way. Finally the siege ended and I had his capitol. I caught a bunch of his court but his king fled and established a new capitol at sea. I had no navy and controlled no PC's in 1 that gave me access to build navies. Bummer !!

The EL and I swapped PC's and squared off a few other times. I was able to spank his army good at last and he avoided direct conflict after that. It was a couple turns later that I finally realized I had a village way down in 7 that was right next to a sea hex. WTF !!! I could have built navies all this time?!?!!? So thats what I started to do ... a couple turns later I moved my 1gi to his sea capitol and took it .. this would start the capitol bouncing game and I was confident I would catch it almost every turn afterwards.

I never got the chance to completely finish off the EL as Hawk and the RD declared victory. I was unable to go back to Amberland to retake or defend my holdings there for fear I would get squashed between the EL and RD. Glad to hear Hawk missed a turn and let my GI army off the hook. I also want to note that the GN was also poking around in 5 and took a few things from me. In fact the GN took Evanon from me on turn 15 making me miss my ESO , which included controlling 2 cities. So kudos to him there.

All in all it was a fun game. I enjoyed the emissaries having to do diplomacy. Even though we could communicate via those orders it was tricky to really coordinate anything and I liked having to be creative with the text to relay a message.

-Nikodemus
GI 134

As for awards:

Hawk for Infamous

Tripwire for Iron willed.

[Stillgard]

I was the Sorcerer in this game. My goals in this game was to lay low, get my wizards up, search for artifacts, and hopefully get some PC to get significant in a few regions. I moved to Jukanta on turn one just in case the Ranger was not in the game. By turn 3 I had scouted all the towns in 9 and found the neutral Ranger capital with his king in it (that's weird!) so I knew they were inactive for this game. That changed things so I went for control of Synisviania. I also found the ring of spells on turn 3 which really helped me out early.

The Red Dragon attacked me on Turn 4 and took my town in region 3, but at least my wizards survived! I ran away to the south with my group to live to fight another day. By turn 5 I had taken Synisvania and started to build up my wizards. I had 2 level 4 agents at this time and they were scouting for unusual sightings every turn. I also had a level 6 agent who was going to train up to level 12. By turn 6 I had 7 P2 wizards and 1 P3.

I completed my ESO on turn 10 and gained another P2 wizard. I had 1 P5, 3P4, and 5P2 at this time. I also had 3 level 4 agents looking for US. I was waiting for the Red Dragon attack.

Turn 12 was when I was attacked, but surprise, it was the Black Dragon! I thought he was off in Runnimede. Major find for me this turn was the Stone Of all Minds, which lowered training by 2000 gold per level! Wow! I quickly needed to get my 2 P5 up to P6 for dome PC. At this time I had 2 P5, 2 P4, 2 P3, and 3 P2 wizards. The Black Dragon prince was at Jukanta and I was going to try to assassinate him with my now level 12 agent. I lost the City on turn 13, but did succeed in killing the prince. I also lost a town to a Black Dragon Army Group and a village to one of his Barons. Things were not looking good! Turn 13 also saw a second BL army move in. At this time I had one P6 so I was able to save one of my towns. The BL took another Village from me with his other group. On turn 14 I went offensive. I moved 4 emissaries into 10 and one into Jukanta, which was neutral. Turn 15 I was able to regain 9 and put a hurt on BL with a curse to remove him from the HC. On turn 16 I had taken a few towns in 10, but the big blow was I was able to kill the BL King with my level 14 agent. I had found the Ruler Eliminator by this time so that helped out. I also had cursed the BL so his influence was dropping fast. His groups in 9 were getting hammered with demonic visions the last few turns as well. By turn 18 I was starting to wonder if the black was still in the game. They had done nothing the past few turns. I wanted to push hard into 10 and gain the region fast.

At the end I had two P7, three P6, two P4, a P3, and a P2 wizard. I had 8 artifacts and knew the locations of 4 more (one of those was probably the portal in R3). I had found the other two portals in the west as well. It was a lot of fun playing the Sorcerer and I will definitely play them again!


Congrats to Hawk on the amazing victory!


Rick/Stillgard

[Lord Diamond]

Game Details

[Hawk_]

This write up is long delayed due to my current busy work schedule. I mainly wanted to get it posted to get Nitnux voted as Iron Willed and Stillgard for Infamous for his impressive showing as the Sorcerer.

Thanks to all for a very fun game!

I think the RD may be an unfairly strong position if nobody plays the DW. I was around 7th in the draft and nobody had taken the Dwarf or Red Dragon so I rolled the dice and it paid off for me. I missed taking the Talking Mountains by one village on turn 3. By turn 4 I had captured the region and was wiping out the Sorcerer brigade and his starting R3 town.

The current Red Dragon position can build up for combat faster than most kingdoms the way recruiting Wyverns currently works and that gave me a strong advantage over the Darkelven. This was the main reason I moved south even though the Darkeleven player messaged me requesting an alliance.

By turn 6 I had attacked two Darkelven villages and had a 5/4 group worth 56,000 and 2/4 group worth 28,000.

Nitnux endured my attacks the whole game and never gave up. I drove the Eastern Steppes neutral on turn 11 and captured the region on turn 13. Even when my 10 brigade army caught up with his division and attacked him on a 3 Nitnux smartly withdrew and lost only 1900 troops. I could have pursued him but feared he would move onto the water so I let him go.

He moved his capitol to the water the same turn I arrived to attack it so I was never able to get a shot at his king. Later his nasty agents were a thorn in my side killing my High Priestess, Baron and stealing my Palantir.

On turn 14, I bought my first HP and started to recon the rest of the map to see where to expand into. I saw that the Gnome had somehow taken Evanon from the Giant. I also was concerned that the Sorcerer had lost control of Synivania and Junata had been taken by the Black Dragon.

I decided to try to support the Sorcerer versus the Black Dragon and also to send troops into Amberland to try and become substantial there. At this point I had 5 Warlords and groups worth 116,000, 60,000, and 38,000.

I moved the big group to Evanon on turn 15 and met up with a Gnome division and a Giant division. I was ready for shock and awe on turn 16.

I completely missed turn 16 allowing the GI army to withdraw from Evanon while the GN army stayed there. So no shock and awe against the GI and a little more breathing room for the Darkelven.

Also during this time the Sorcerer regained Synisvania and formally declared me an ally so my Southern border was secured for now.

I went on to capture Amberland while avoiding Underworld controlled Avalon and then turned north into the Mists to attack the Witchlord.


The Witchlord was invading my holdings in the Talking Mountains while I was attacking his in the Mists. I captured Viperhead quickly and once I was substantial I had achieved my SVC so I declared victory.

The same turn I declared SVC the Underworld moved his emmies into my holdings in Amberland so I am glad I did not wait try and capture more of the Mists.

Thanks again to everyone for a fun game!


Iron Willed- Nitnux
Infamous- Stillgard




Hawk