#300 Experimental Game

[Ry Vor]

This was a unique contest in several ways, with more than 15 players, hidden cities, non-2nd Cycle kingdoms and more.

Let's hear how that played out in your experience along with the strategic decisions you made throughout.  This game will count toward Valhalla as it did proceed close enough to Alamaze as we know it. 

Congratulations to Hawk who won on Turn #29 via Secret Victory as the High Elves by controlling 3 regions, fielding 3 Warlords, and having an Influence of 22+.

[Hawk_]

This was a unique contest in several ways, with more than 15 players, hidden cities, non-2nd Cycle kingdoms and more.

Let's hear how that played out in your experience along with the strategic decisions you made throughout.  This game will count toward Valhalla as it did proceed close enough to Alamaze as we know it. 

Congratulations to Hawk who won on Turn #29 via Secret Victory as the High Elves by controlling 3 regions, fielding 3 Warlords, and having an Influence of 22+.

Thanks to everybody who took time to play in the game 300 playtest!   It appears 8 of us made it to the end.  I thought it was fun and I think we accomplished the main goal which was to help test out the game platform that Uncle Mike has been working so hard on.

I have to say the platform evolved a log way during the game and I really like the way the turns currently look and the new kingdom graphics.
At various points through the game the combat system changed and we had to keep changing how we played to adapt to it.  I think UM deserves a lot of credit for quickly answering a lot of questions in great detail throughout the game.  It looks like this playtest was a major time commitment to for UM.

Thanks to the Gray Mouser for splitting Oakendell peacefully and working together throughout the game.

Thanks to the Witchlord for providing a secure eastern border to allow the Druid and I to expand south. 

On the topic of the classic kingdoms (BA,WE,PA,SW,HA,NO,UR) I think the players who ran them were all at a great starting disadvantage and deserve credit for trying something different like running these older kingdom designs against the modern opponents.

I did really like the hidden starting city feature but I also think the random starting city number feature needed more constraints so that it did not benefit certain players more than others.

I think it is worth noting that UM's Demon Princes actually passed up declaring SVC in order to prolong the game.    I thought it was time to end things so I ordered the SVC.


My votes-

Ironwill- Dupont  (would still be playing Westmen if we had not knocked him out)

Infamous-  Stillgard & Acererak get my votes for finishing as Swampmen and Nomad against modern opponents

Chancellor-Uncle Mike  he answered questions for every turn in great detail

[unclemike]

For me as the Demon Princes, my game plan was to remain isolated from the others as I tested and fine-tuned certain aspects of the game. I was able to gain control Arcania fairly quickly which had 3 cities and generated a lot of gold early on.

Which makes me agree with Hawk on this matter: Having cities unmarked on the map was great fun in exploring the area and the concept seemed to be a natural fit for exploratory mode but having 0-3 cities per region was unfair for many players. When I initially created this game, I should have set the parameter to just one city per region so it would be uniform for everyone but I didn't know about it at the time.

Anyway, region 8 was a healthy region in production which helped me develop my wizards early on. As the DE, I didn't need to recruit troops since I had 3 demon princes that summoned skeletons each turn which ended up building quite an army at the end without spending any food/gold.

That allowed me to develop all of my wizards to 5th level in a short time and have the extra gold to push beyond the max assured wizard limit. At game's end, I had two pwr-7's which should be pretty rare for the DE to have.

Around turn 10, the HA and UN grabbed some of my pc's so I started to plan against them. I couldn't act right away since I needed more skeletons so I just sat patiently taking shots from others while I created skeletons with my demon princes and wizards. That part of the game was really boring since I was just sitting around looking timid to act against others.

Anyway, once I got my military built up strong enough though, I started my conquest of Runnimede and then Amberland after the PA-WA acted up in Arcania. I have to say that the funniest part of the game for me was when the PA impaled himself on my capital's defenses. I had an invisible patrol there that took out his highest leaders (a warlord and marshal I think) and that was enough of a penalty for my city's battlements to shred his cavalry to pieces.

Then Amberland was pretty much wide open for the taking until the Elf (Hawk) decided to move there and grab control of his 3rd region for the win.

Overall, I would say game 300 was a success and ended up being a lot of fun. Thanks again to all who participated.