#147 - New Full Steel with new ESO & 565's

[Rogal]

I think the game is over now, for the results are E-Mail challenged, but the results seem to be the same, I got 3 copies but I think some got none. Gratz to:

VICTORY TO RED! CONGRATULATIONS TO VBALL MICHAEL FOR GUIDING THE RED DRAGONS TO A REX VICTORY. 

I really hope we see some game write ups for this one, I really loved VBALL's RA victory write up in an earlier game.  I played the BL and was horrible, but I tried to fight till the end.

ROGAL

[VballMichael]

(RD) Ok, now this game was fun. Somehow, my computer semi-crashed, so I only have like 10 of the 30 turns. Oh well, it will be like a dream sequence.
This was a true anon game, where we did not even know who signed up.
Turn 1 was pretty straightforward. The DW sent 2 counts to Hammerhold and the WI sent nobody to Viperhead. We knew there were 3 missing kingdoms, but not which ones, so I figured this meant the WI was absent. Thus, I decided to abandon Runnimede and Talking, and go take over Northern Mists.
Turn 7 - GN and UN had cleaned out my southern pop centers, but I had two villages in 8 that just kept me alive through bad season. UN has hassling me in Northern Mists and released a skeleton, kind of mean of him, DW took all my stuff in Talking including my capitol (pretty mean also since I had voluntarily given him the region), all regions are controlled except for Runnimede. I was able to get Northern Mists but UN and EL are taking pot shots at villages and towns. I missed all chances at the High Council and lost a few leaders in battles and unusual encounters. Very slow start with lots of challenges, but bad season over, I have a region, and I am building up and heading back for the mean Dwarf and fighting back with the UN and EL on pop centers in NM.
The Dwarf has his capitol at Hammerhold guarded by 9 brigades.
Turn 10 - we have learned that the missing kingdoms are the 3 magic kingdoms. I have started to hit Talking Mountains hard, taking some pop centers and eliminating others. The Dwarf drops, but probably not solely from my attacks since he still owns the region. UN still annoying in NM. UN took Runnimede so all are controlled as expected (but TR has Torvale and I have NM). My armies are about 100,000 total, got my ESO and got 2 RD brigades and an influence. I stumbled across 4 artifacts and a few prisoners.
Turn 13 - AN drops. Oakendell goes neutral. Guessing the Troll is rocking this game. The Gnome drops, UN is doing well. UN still messing with me in NM - go away little peoples. I was able to take Talking Mountains by now and 1st kingdom to get two regions. Southern Sands goes uncontrolled - somebody messing with BL. Armies are about 110,000 with a Warlord, Marshall, General in 1RD.
Turn 17 - I have invaded Amberland. Giant is not going to go down easily. UN releases another skeleton on me and still messing with pop centers - he HATES me. 1GI vs 3RD - he has 17 brigades versus my 7 wyverns. I run like the scared chicken-bird I am, and only lose 2 brigades, while my 3 other groups all take pop centers. I have 150,000 in troops now, but this is bad season again and I have negative food production since I have 4 cities. I did get to kill an UN countess. On turns 6 and 12, I was basically 2nd or 3rd on status points.
Turn 21 - Elf drops, so now I am a little worried about the Troll. I have taken Amberland and the TR is actually sending some folks into this region while the GI is also fighting back. Troll owns 1 and 4 - RD has 2, 3, 5 - DA has 6, 9 - UN has 7 - DE has 8 - BL has 10 again. DE and DA have mostly owned the High Council issues. My troops are down to 77,000 value after some tough fighting, bad food situation, no time for recruiting. But now I have 3 regions, 165,000 food production and 233,000 gold production. I have 3 decent agents, 3 useful emissaries and I did get to assassinate a P4 of the Giant. But somebody is killing my leaders which is really hurting values. I have 6 ho-hum artifacts.
Turn 25 - Giant has dropped for personal reasons. That is unfortunate but helpful . But the Troll is coming into Amberland. I had moved south to try for Arcania, but those Demons are tough. Killed wizards, leaders and denigrated and took stuff back. So I ran away like a giant, red chicken. And back to Amberland just in time to meet the troll's incursion. Influence is down to 13, only 2 useful emissaries, I need to regroup and then figure out a good 4th region to hit. Southern is neutral again. DA has used the High Council multiple times against the Blacks, so I figure he is the one hitting that region and is thus working on his third region. Big fight this turn the 1TR vs the 1RD. He has 19 trolls and 6 orcs, I have 7 RD and 7 wyverns. I attack on a 3, because I have no idea his group is that big. Fortunately, he defends on a 1, and I do win the fight, though neither of us really do much damage. I have about 165,000 in troops and more food and gold than I will ever spend.
Turn 27 - looking at the end game. People getting kicked off High Council with skeletons, so I pick up a seat. Troll still bothering me in Amberland but not with enough force to be a threat right now. I start looking at Torvale and Oakendell. Holy cow, Oakendell has only the City, 2 towns, and 3 villages. I guess the Troll wiped the rest when fighting the Elf. But then I also see the Troll capitol at ND with lots of emissaries and prisoners and I cannot resist so I am going there (when I land he has moved it and I am at a very boring town next turn and wasted two turns on my way to Oakendell). My troops are a little lower in value as I am rushing to take things and get to Oakendell, but still around 130,000 across 4 useful groups. DA now has regions 6, 9, 10 and I am worried about his timing. I figure I am a little ahead since he just got third region and it seems like there is still fighting over there.
Turn 29 - DA has lost Synisvania (not sure to whom). I am poised to land at the crucial pop centers in Oakendell and am hitting two of them this turn. Nobody is at my pop centers (except a couple of Trolls but not enough to endanger Amberland control).
Turn 30 - hit the couple of pop centers and claim the 996 victory. So ended up with regions 1, 2, 3, 5. Armies about 165,000 at finish. Very few leaders though still one Warlord. 19.5 influence and still had 3 decent agents who were pretty effective with killing bad emissaries. 5 artifacts, 11 prisoners. I was certain the DA or DE or BL would be second, but no, JumpingFist with the UN comes in 200 points ahead of third to take the second podium spot. Nice job and thanks for harassing me for so long in Northern Mists.
Congrats to the 6 players who played to the end. By the way, Trolls did a great job early on, but then did not quite hit Amberland hard enough later on in the game.
And Rogal, you did a great job with the Blacks. You were one of 6 players who finished and you held the region quite a while.
As for DuPont, pffft, kicked my butt right out of Arcania. Not nice at all.
As for the Darkelf, good run, thought you had a shot at the win, but that southeast corner seemed pretty busy. Nice job taking the final podium spot.
As for UN, nice job keeping those guys on the podium - very tough kingdom in an anon Rex game.

[Rogal]

Here is how I saw the game, I hope some new players look to what I did and avoid my mistakes.  My mistakes must of telegraphed I was a new player for this was my true first game of alamaze. (BL)

Turns 1-6 pretty basic.  I used my speed to cover as much of the sands as possible as well as move into the city.  I started to build my armies, but this game had the 565 changes coming, so no big army, I built 4 small groups, all had 4 or fewer wyverns in them since the rumor was that four would be the maxed allowed in a unit. This is the time I read an article that talked about playing in Anon games, and some people mentioned not attacking a (owned) pop center was a way to potentially say, hey we do not need to attack one another (this was a mistake by me).  Around turn 6, I was told to read an article about "the mid game" from Jumpingfist, who was my mentor in game 145 (side note, I just read Vball's post above and just found out who was in this game).   I also read VballMichael's Ranger write up on his big Anon win, his 1st target was region 10. I saw this as the Ranger playbook to wipe my empire out.  I began moving my elements into position to hit Synisvania. Just in case, I worked on Synisvania, I also looked into Arcania, I left a RA and a DE town alone, most of the RA assets were north by Jukanta, so my armies could hit down south and be safe in the Sands for a turn or two.  I wonder what the DE is doing at my town, I did offer an olive branch by not hitting him earlier.

Turns 7 -12 DE sacked my town in Arcania, so war it is. All my divines were on the wrong region, so lets find all DE pop centers, more delays for me to attack. Turn 8 I landed on 4 DE population centers, all units had at a minimum 4 wyverns.  I thought I had the momentum on my side.  4 attacking units, my pop centers had elements in them to defend a political opponent. Agents still rezoning and the Ranger was still hanging out at his city, I felt really positive on my attacks.  I would put the DE on the defensive and have to react to me attacking, and then I realized what I did on turn turn 9. What I did before I attacked was to read my intro turn sheet and look to what bonuses the Black Dragons had.  Threaten and Attacking on a 1 will enable you to take light losses.  What this did was signal my opponent that I did not really understand combat for I lost all 4 population fights since I attacked on a 1 and moved on. This report is when I realized my game was going to be an uphill fight for a good opponent will not let this mistake go. Turn 10 I missed my ESO and look what showed up, DE all over the place. I wrote to customer service and got word 565 would not be changed any time soon so I  made one big army group and a smaller one.  The damage was done though, I would be taking fewer population centers then I would loose to the DE units and Princes. Turn 11, I loose the sands.  Evan population swaps with armies, but politicians and sleep ment I was going to loose my region.  Turn 12 was my big battle with the DE 1st army with a warlord.  It was a moral win for me, but really was a battle to waste my time from taking over pop centers.  I would continue to hunt down the 1DE army due to my speed would always catch him, but I was not taking land in other areas fast enough. My agents began to have some minor wins but I did not know how to stop the Demon Princes.  My army was so big, resources were becoming a problem.

turn 13-18  I was hostile in the Sands and the Demons had control and I was not going to get my ESO.  My goal was not to make sure the DE did not win this game.  I will harass him till the end and I will not let up. I think this did slow his advances into other regions, for evan though I was beat down, I was not out. My army group was still 50,000 against PC's and I had a smaller unit to hit villages.  If the DE wanted to move on, I would still keep him from going full tilt against another player.

turns 19-24 the Southern sands are Hostile to me, but I get them to go uncontrolled.  Turn 20 I get my region back, this would be short lived though. I was beating the Demon Princes back, and who shows up, the Dark elves. The dark elves have big wizards to Dome pop centers, so Just like Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid I ride out to make sure the DE gets hurt before 2 empires pick mine apart.  If I am going down, so is someone else, so I fly to attack Cities in Arcania, problem being, as I arrive, so does the Red Dragon. I defend and get away almost unharmed from big Red. problem is, I have to take a pop center with my main group every turn.  My biggest enemy to hit me was soon to come.  My city in the sands wad some nice defenses, enough I hoped to keep others away. what killed more troops then anything in this game was one of the four horsemen, Famine. I lost everything in one turn due to lack of food.  My moral was lowered, and being so low, when I hit a simple town, I lost my army.  40,000 down to 8000 in one turn.

turns 19-finish -  All I did was work on my city to get its resources up so I could feed/pay what few troops with super low moral I had.  I finally got to a point where I could start doing some more actions.  I could attack villages and start using politicians in non hostile regions, and then the game ended. The dark elves put the nail in my coffin, but I do not think he wanted to waste time with my city, so I would still fight on. Overall I was glad the game ended, for the last few turns were painful, but I learned a lot.  I really learned combat, and some might think you just enter an order and go, but there is much more to it then that.  My biggest mistake was loosing focus early on, and loosing the initiative against an opponent. I think if the 565 issues hampered me but my biggest issue was lack of playing against an experienced player.  I never fought a battle till this game, so if you are new, and in a intro mentor game, FIGHT. I really needed this understanding of agents/army/politics/magic/resource management and special rules all together to see the real big picture of the game.

Rogal
 

[Jumpingfist]

(UN) Congratulations to VBall. Now he is tied with me on Rex victories. I better fix that quick before SVC is the only game in town again.

This was a pick who you did not want to play type of game. I had choose some kingdoms I was already playing in multiple other games so likely the only guy that did not put UN, so I got stuck with UN in a REX only game. Great but lets see if I can win this.

Since WI was not in the game I decided i could grab some PCs in R2. so went after a few water places. RD started attacking and taking stuff I already took. I was hoping the RD got the idea i wanted to play nice when I moved my count out of viperhead but nope he wanted to attack PCs I took first and so we battled mostly me taking water PCs and him taking them back. Was partially fighting with RD but GN took priority. GN took the city early I focused on taking all the towns and villages. I blinded the GN by killing all his agents and then started using 310 to capture his emmies. GN dropped after a while and had R7 was doing ok. could not get my ESO on turn 10 due to fighting the GN. Turn 15 rolled around I needed another artifact to get the ESO but I was on an US. ended up the siting was a p2 wizard so no ESO for me. ah well keep marching forward.
started to get some emmies up the levels with spare orders not being used to raise agents. almost hand enough to look to attack when the DE came over and decided R7 would be better off under his control. I quickly early kidnapped a Demon prince and killed him. tried to get another but he escaped before i could kill him. after about 4 or 5 turns the DE seemed to have enough of fighting with me. I was hoping he figured out these other guys were going to win soon. during the short war DE had taken out a good chunk on my political power killing and capturing my emmies. bad to building for me.
I could tell the game would end before I could rebuild and get ready to attack again. So i decided to stop going for the win and begin gathering some artifacts. I currently had none since the RD stole my only artifact a palantir. moved my agents closer to the middle and got some priestess to divine artifacts. I stole my palantir back from RD. first artifact I divine was the palantir just stole back from the red dragons.
it was turn 27 or so at this point and a TR army group shows up in my regions along with sending a couple emmies in. I was thinking oh great TR decided he would win by attacking the UN. trouble was I was actually playing to win and not just collect points. I had my agent way past optimal point levels. When TR showed up Turn 1 sent 6 agents after his army group and scouted most my PCs. after turn 1 TR lost 1 warlord and his next highest leader his only mage a p3. I found he had relocated his capital here. T2 I would send enough agents to early kidnap every emmisary he had in his capital including his king. the only guy I did not get was the King. but I also moved my mighty UN army over to his now capital. I took the TR capital and his King and a ton of prisoners. after that TR left the region with his Tail between his legs. costing himself likely about 3k in status points from his failed attack. The turn after TR bugged out of region RD would win taking TR properties.

Although I was not in a position to win this game i did have a good time playing the UN. it is fun to dominate a kingdom trying to invade you with agents. I would have liked to be able to go on the offensive a little earlier in the game but fighting the GN and RD made it take to long to develop my emmies as needed. Happy I was able to take 2nd place. would have been third likely if the TR did not come along and donate so many emmies to the UN cause.

[Lord Diamond]

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