160 Ends on Turn 22 with Dwarf SVC

[VballMichael]

Congratulations to Cloud on leading the Dwarf to a well-earned secret victory on Turn 22 in this fully anonymous game. Cloud is on a roll.

I will write more later, but wanted to get this thread started because it was a fun game and I would love to hear from some folks on how and why some things happened.

[VballMichael]

(EL) Ok, I will do the first write-up in the hopes others will follow.

With some of the recent changes to the Elf, I was eager to play this position and see how it would now fare against the Troll. So I planned from the beginning to secure my region, recruit a bunch, hire some emissaries, and go visit Torvale. This game had no AN, UN or DE, so I planned to visit the Troll as quickly as possible. To that end, I actually sent an emissary to Meridon on turn 1 to slow down the troll's development in Torvale. The Troll also sent a Duke there, so I figured that would just cause them to sit idly. I also enamored Torvale on Turn 1 just in case nobody had moved to Meridon (and Elf already friendly in Oakendell).
Took Lorethane and found some pop centers on turn 2, raised wizards, found the TR pop center in Oakendell. Strange, the TR duke turned Meridon neutral. He either did not look at the city and just figured he was safe or he was bold. Either way, I planned to maintain status quo next turn and just see if he continued his boldness.
On Turn 3, he did just that and was captured, so I took the city on turn 4 and captured/killed his duke. I also scored Oakendell on turn 4, killed the TR agent at his village, and hired a priestess to scout Torvale.
On turn 5 the TR and GN declared each other enemies, and I started to land on towns in Torvale and divined villages. Also looked at many of the towns and found no TR capitol or troll groups. Very odd.
Took a few of the pop centers, found very little TR resistance in the region, found my first unusual by chance, and was 3rd in status points on turn 6. I had achieved my ESO by this time but had to wait to turn 10 to claim.
On 7, I captured and killed a TR baron, took over Torvale, denigrated the TR in Torvale, and was ready to start rolling with the end of the bad season.
I spent the next several turns consolidating my hold on Torvale, denigrating the TR, failing at the single unusual encounter, maxing my agents, hiring emissaries, raising wizards, recruiting, and just building up to take a third region.
As of turn 12, nobody had bothered me in 1 or 4 which had produced for me for several turns, I was first in status points, and I was ready to make my move for my ESO. I needed 3 regions, lots of fleets in 2 seas, and more regions than my natural enemy and we could not declare that SVC before turn 16.
So I spent turns 13-15 preparing an onslaught of Northern Mists. I took the region on turn 15 and prepared to declare on turn 16. Unfortunately, I got caught by a rule change and SVC got bumped back to turn 20. Ouch, but okay, move on. The problem was I already had taken 3 regions, which I still held on turn 16, but I saw serious invasions from then on .
At one point I had 4 troll armies, and 3 other kingdoms in Torvale and Oakendell. I had to abandon Northern Mists to take back/defend my two core regions and regroup. At that point, there was no chance I could hold the 3 regions to turn 20, so I completely abandoned Northern Mists, hoping the DW could win before I was completely decimated by lots of bad guys.
On turn 20 I still had my two regions, the DW had taken his third region (Northern Mists), but he didn't declare, so I figure oops he has another condition he cannot meet. I figured I would give it another turn or so and then move in to disrupt that if it did not happen.
Cloud, I was not trying to help you win, but I was trying to preserve at least 2nd for myself if the game could end before my various invaders reduced me to scraps and folks passed on by my status point lead .
Just as I had given up on that strategy and moved to re-invade Northern Mists, and the SO showed up and started taking stuff, the DW declared. The only reason I had held my 2 regions was that I was fortunate with magic research beyond the normal limit with 4 level 7's who had domes and I had lots of emissaries to hold or take back as needed in my regions. Thus, I was able to hold onto second place and was quite pleased at that result.
Very happy for Cloud who took first, and congratulations to Damelon on his first podium finish, taking 3rd as the Ranger, just edging out the Black Dragon.
Would love to hear from JF playing the Troll, who apparently abandoned Torvale (I guess to attack the Gnomes based on declarations and a complete lack of Troll groups in Torvale until Turn 17 or so), but he was maybe hoping this strategy would net him two quick regions?
And what about the SO who showed up Oakendell right near the end and wreaked some havoc right after I cleaned up from fights with TR, WI, DW, GI, and also saw GN and RA groups in region but not sure what they were doing?
And who killed my king on turn 22, just as the game ended? That was not nice.

[gkmetty]

GN

Congratulations to our three podium winners.  Cloud, Vball and Damelon, well done.

I had never played the Gnome before so I was looking forward to learning the capabilities of this unexplored kingdom.  I don’t think the Gnomes get enough respect as they are a very capable kingdom from the very beginning of the game. as you will see.

 I was encouraged when the UN, AN, and DE were absent from this game.  I thought that I would have the south western corner to myself but I was prepared to give a little to the RD if he was reasonable.  On turn one the RD sent his count to Cradia and while I was willing to give up some of the region I was not willing to give up the city.  On turn 2 I was able to sleep the count and take the city.

  I thought I would have a few turns to gather pop centers and secure the region when on turn 3 the TR arrived at my Capital with what I assume was every brigade he had.  This surprise would disrupt my plans for most of the game.  The TR hit my capital on turn 4 and moved his own capital in so that his reinforcements on turn 5 were close at hand.  With the fall of my capital my king moved to Cradia.  The TR followed my capital and hit the City a few turns later.
 
Despite the TRs best efforts I was able to control Runnimede on turn 5.  This was important as I was able to declare the TR an enemy and ensure he stayed hostile in the region.   When the Elf took Torvale on turn 7  it raised many questions in my mind.  The TR and GN  exchanged pop centers for a few turns and on turn 8 I lost control of the region but I was able to regain control on turn 9.  After  turn 9 the TR was never really a threat but he was a huge annoyance.  I think Jumping fist understood he had lost in the region and started destroying pop centers, including Cradia, just for spite.
 
On turn 11 with the south in a bad season I thought the TR might be in trouble.  The EL had taken Torvale so I believed the TR had very few resources coming from that region.  He had very few pop centers in Runnimede and we were in a bad season.  He would have difficulty supporting his massive army in a hostile region and to make matters even worse I had advanced a wizard high enough to cast cold darkness.  I believe the next few turns saw the morale of the TR army's dwindle so he moved back to Torvale.

Just when I thought I had survived the worst the BL decided to start an invasion.  Luckily for him the game ended.

So here are my questions….
Fist, how did you know where my Capital was so you could arrive there on turn 3?  Why did you abandon Torvale for a region in which you were hostile, with your influence of 9 your emmies were of no use?

Thanks to everyone who participated.  It was a very interesting game.

[Jumpingfist]

(TR)
Congrats to Cloud on his well deserved Win. First Gold by the DW believe.

My game plan going in would be to explore and move south with all my military units and pick up R4 using my politicle corps. I wanted to blindside the GN before he could get the region and start getting his wizards up. If possible I would leave the OP EL alone and hopefully he would be someone else's problem. TR had been recently knocked down an influence point to 9 and given a negative bonus vs the EL troops and the EL was raised up 2 influence to 13 and made to start friendly in his home region with better than average reaction levels in other regions. Also the only friendly kingdom that does not share the region with someone. The EL also now got a combat bonus vs the TR and 50% bonus in the forest. Nothing new when tweeking always over tweek.

Since this started in the clipper platform I knew the GN capital would start in the mountain and likely one of a few spot. I scouted those spots and found it at the expense of scouting Meridon. Which would bite me later. From turn 1 luck was not on my side this game. I covered 20+ squares in R4 and only found a town and village. I left a patrol in R4 to continue scouting. Continued marching into R7 and to the GN capital. I knew I could take the capital and move my capital there the GN would likely not be strong enough to retake his own capital back and it would allow me to get my 4 kingdom brigades of reinforcements in the region and ready to continue the march.
While I was taking the GN capital. The EL started invading my region. I did not realize he was the one that took Meridon I actually figured when I had a division in R7 T1 or T2 the GN moved into Meridon to block me. I figured guess I will just take it when I get the region and again did not check.

I saw no signs of GN and EL working together but really they would have been hard pressed to do a better job if planned. Just bad luck for me. I never abandoned R4 it was taken from me and by the time I caught on my groups were at a few turns away and the region was likely lost already. The EL due to his high effluence was able to get a denigrate off even when I had more PCs. From there the fight was basically over until I could get a big enough army to out due his starting abilities.

Around turn 9 I could see I was not going to be able to take R7 as it was so I decided I needed to make the region smaller in order to be able to manage it with my military. I destroyed the city first because I could not afford to keep exchanging it me taking it militarily and the GN politically. I was also having bad luck capturing GN emmies they just seemed to always slip away.

I had heard rumors the EL was not able to get his victory because it was not turn 20 yet. I knew I had around 4 turns still to stop him. As I was heading back to R4 Vball decided to out himself on the forum that he was playing the EL. Was not happy about that it is an anon game after all. Anyway I moved to R4 and did not destroy the last couple places I was on. I was hoping the GN would figure out the EL was going to win unless he was stopped but nope the GN made no move vs the EL he spend the next 4 turns slowing taking PCs back in R7. So I began to fight a loosing battle vs a now strong magic kingdom but I did enough damage and took enough PCs to keep him busy up until the last turn we I bugged out of the region with only two PCs to my name I had to grab some quick PCs to make sure I would stay alive.

Was an interesting game and would have likely turned out better for me if I was only fighting one opponent but that is what happens sometimes when you play agressive. No hard feeling, GKMetty did a great job sticking it out and not giving up when I was putting on the hard press. I suspect many players would have dropped after loosing there capital T4 and staring at a large troll army in region not knowing the EL was there chewing at my backside.

Iron willed goes to Canticar(GN) for above reasons. Nicely played. Still not sure how we always end up on oppose sides

[mafmiller]

(RA) Congrats to Cloud and Vball! I was getting frustrated that I had never been on the podium, so my strategy in this game was to shoot for 2nd or 3rd with status points and not even try for 1st. My goal was to take my region and then just not antagonize anyone and hunt for artifacts. This would only work only if I had nice neighbors, so I was thrilled when the SO declared me an ally early on. The BL and I ignored each other's PCs and he eventually declared me an ally as well (as we were close in status points at that point, his reason may have been to cut my lead, but maybe he just wanted to be sure of being free to focus on RD). As the RA, I did very well finding and acquiring artifacts. Toward the end, I was getting a little bored, so I decided to try for Substantial in Arcania and pick up some of the RD PCs (sorry, RD, but BL had declared me an ally ). This turned out to be very fortuitous. If I hadn't taken a RD PC on turn 20 or 21 that had an artifact worth 300 points, I wouldn't have come in third! I very much enjoyed playing the RA. This was an excellent game!

[Lord Alz]

SO - I was late signing up for this game and wanted a stable position to build. I had just come back to the game after 20 years. I would declare RA ally and get a piece of the region and make my capital huge. Rushing 3 power 3's and start raising gold and defense. the RA was a step ahead of me on the pop centers and I ended up with only 2 extra villages plus a town in 6. I slowly built up and scouted around me looking for opportunities. Collected artifacts including the ring of spells. With the EL tipping his hand I decided to flood 1, my initial plan had been to take 10 but I wanted DW and BL to be able to stop EL and his obvious victory. By the time I move to one the game was over but not before getting an emissary in almost every pop center in 1. Killing the EL king and lvl 15 agent while denigrating 3 times in two turns. Not sure how it would have turned out as he had unexpected lvl7 mages allowing his big group to get back to my new capital 1 turn earlier than expected. Congrats to the winners looking forward to more opportunities to improve on what was a average showing from the SO.

[Rogal]

WA - This was a tough game for me for it was the first game with an empire that had to share a region with others  as well as survive the early game. I figured Torvel would be my main base but would also consider Arcania.  I moved into 3 cities and hoped that one would remain uncontested, Avalon was the winner.  It just made sense that the Red Dragon would move into Arcania since the DE was not in play but it seems both Dragons wanted that region.  Lost 2 population centers, I focused on my  main city and Capital.  Defense mode commenced waiting for the Giants to take me on for  control of the region.  I took Avalon and a few other water towns just as the Giant took Torvel, seems he might just leave me alone (which he did).  Now what, little gold income, need  to work on the ESO which meant raising my casters.  This would lead me to really not being a factor in this game.  Basicly, all that  the Warlock kingdom did was build casters and the city of Avalon. I understand now why the WI is the first main caster kingdom taken first, even with a higher level cost, getting a region vs cheaper wizards  and a hole in the wall just makes the WI an easier kingdom for newer players to work with.   I had the Wights being summoned but the game ended too soon so with that note, any advice on how to run the Warlock would be most welcome.

-Rogal

[Cloud]

As DW, I started this game in pretty decent position.  I rushed into the city and the RD declared me ally and left me to it.  I was happy to leave those PCs alone for the remainder of the game in exchange for this.  My starting town in the Eastern Steppes was way down at QR so I had a long walk home right off the bat.  I stumbled across a SO village on my first turn and took it – SO placed an emmy back in it right away and took it back.  This told me SO was ballsy and competent so I left him be as well, including leaving him his R3 starting town for the rest of the game.  This meant I really had to find the other PCs in R3 in order to gain control and I didn’t have good luck with this and ended up needing a divination of my home region on turn 4.  Even with that, I picked the wrong town to go into and landed on the RD cap so my taking the region was delayed to turn 7, making me one of the last kingdoms to gain their region.

I took a few other PCs in R6 in those first few turns but RD had gotten to one of them first so I left him that one.  I snagged a neutral town in central R6 as well as DA’s two villages in my home region.  DA countered by putting an Ambassador into the town and I was able to 310 and capture him.  On the next turn I got lucky and scored a skeleton.  I focused on building to my ESO and scouting the Steppes.  On turn 10, I gained my ESO and my political corps got a big boost.  I had 3 Dukes, 2 Counts and 4 Barons with an Influence of 19.19.  I was ready to strike.  On turn 11, I moved in hard against the DA just as BL took my starting R6 town.  I released the skeleton and got lucky because R6 reacted to it.  I was able to knock DA out of control but he had a massive group sitting at the city and his capitol was on the southeastern border.  I had a pretty big military, but I didn’t want to move and attack so far away because I thought he might move into R3 at any time.  I moved into that now BL town but he had made it his capitol.

I kept at it against the DA when EL moved into R2 and claimed his 3rd region.  I did not realize the change in the rules that tripped him up and thought he was on the verge of winning.  Still, I wasn’t able to move in right away.  DA had a high level agent and I had to chase him around a little to keep him asleep.  I released another skeleton and kept hold of most of his former PCs.  As we moved into winter again, DA got real quiet.  I guess he was having trouble paying and feeding his still massive army.  He still had his capitol and the city.  Finally, on turn 17, I could move into R2 en masse and landed in many Elven PCs.  This is also when I finally moved a group down to QR to retake it from the BL.  Taking that town back made the difference and brought me into control of R6 with the slimmest of margins.  On turn 18, I took control of the Eastern Steppes and knocked The Elf out of control in the Mists.  The WI was mounting a defense of R2, including against me, with his armies.  On turn 19, I made Viperhead neutral and  could’ve taken it but I wanted to avoid taking control of the region because I didn’t want to draw fire and I hadn’t achieved one of my other conditions.  WI also had armies outside two of my PCs in R2.

Also on turn 19, I successfully put an issue before the High Council to kick GN out.  My Secret Victory Condition required that I be on the HC and GN not be, but I had no faith in the HC issue to do the trick.  My real plan for accomplishing this was to divine GN holdings in R7, send a patrol through the portal with wizards to Raven, and reposition all my agents to PCs where I could reach R7 with a 900 order once I found some GN emissaries.  Turned out all of this was unneeded – the motion passed!  I still don’t know how that happened since I made the voting secret, but I’m thankful to whoever helped.  Also on turn 20, I took control of The Northern Mists.  I had not meant to – I took Viperhead but I thought the WI taking the other PCs would keep me out of control.  Finally, in taking one of those R2 PCs, WI captured one of my Counts but I had issued a same-turn 385 order and got him back.  Good news, because I needed him to declare victory.  This means that I got three lucky breaks on the same turn that satisfied all 3 of my SVC conditions on turn 20.  I didn’t declare because I had no idea that it would happen that way.

Also on turn 20, DA reappeared with emissaries in my R3 PCs and an army group at one of my towns in R6.  I felt sure that he wasn’t gonna be able to knock me out of control in R3, but I knew my margin was thin and that losing one town in R6 would’ve knocked me out of control and surely that group could do it.  So I kept up the pressure in R2, issued some 310 orders in R3, moved emmies into the R3 PCs DA had moved into, moved into that RD town in R6, and combined my groups at Gundibar.  I didn’t declare because I just knew I would lose control in R6.  On turn 21, I was surprised to learn that DA had not taken that town and had instead moved to Gundibar and his efforts had not knocked me out of control in R3.  Of course, EL had moved emissaries back into R2.  WI had moved his groups against other PCs in R2 as well.  I also had emmies in a few PCs WI had previously taken, so that was some cushion but still . . . I studied the numbers and decided it would be a very close thing to maintain control in R2 and EL could easily have been in more PCs than I knew about.  The good news was that I had declared EL enemy on turn 21, so his reactions would have taken a hit.  I crossed my fingers and issued the victory check order.  In the end, EL did not issue any diplomatic orders against me in R2 on turn 22.  My control of the three regions was intact.  I had won.  It was a fun game.  Thanks to all who played.  And a special thanks to whoever helped me vote the GN out of the High Council!

[Lord Diamond]

Game details attached!