Game 161 - Won by Lord Thanatos (DE)

[HeadHoncho]

Just want to kick off the Valhalla thread for Game 161 with a hearty shout-out to my pal Lord Thanatos, who took Gold as the Demon Princes!  Here are the final standings.

 Place Kingdom    Player                Results-22  Grand Total


           1     DE     Lord Thanatos              9,400      12,225
           2     BL     HeadHoncho                 8,365      11,365
           3     DW     Vball Michael              6,700      10,025
           4     GI     Cloud                      5,000       8,769
           5     WA     Canticar                   5,700       8,300
           6     RD     Jhereg                     5,920       8,100
           7     SO     Jumpingfist                4,100       6,001
           8     DA     DuPont                     3,445       5,956
           9     UN     Lord Alz                   3,285       4,938
          10     TR     Thudargh                   1,590       3,323
          11     WI     Bohrs                      1,800       3,000
          12     AN     Arch Mage of Entropy         800       2,180

I will provide my commentary in a bit, but I wanted to get this posted.

Congratulations to all, and thanks to everyone for making this a fun game.  It's great to see 12 players sticking with it all the way to T22!

[Jumpingfist]

Great Job LT pulling it back together after a failed victory check and reclaiming the region and Victory.

[HeadHoncho]

So here are my thoughts on the game itself. I inherited this game from Will as of T11, and in spirit I'm sharing this Silver with him, because he set me up with a great position: BL controlling nearly every pop center in R10, lots of wizards, a powerful group full of BL and WY, and a fleet of solid emissaries.

Will had asked me to honor his agreements, which I was happy to do. These included a full alliance with Lord Thanatos (DE) and a few NAPs (GN, GI, WA, RA, SO).

As I entered the game, DE was in the process of invading GN, which Will had initially moved to support, but then he realized his NAP with GN extended an extra two turns than he had initially thought. So I backed off to honor Will's NAP, and DE instead beat on the poor GN all by himself. Two turns later, I joined the fray, but mostly ended up killing some GN wizards and taking some RD pop centers in R7.

I didn't do a ton of diplomacy this game, although I'd heard some rumblings about GI-WA possibly coming after me, so I sealed an extended NAP with them until T20. A turn or two later, DE approached me about taking out GI-WA, and I reluctantly had to inform him I was unable to do so until T21.

Showing real guts, Lord Thanatos (DE) prepped a couple of turns and went into R5 against GI-WA all by himself! He caught them while they were in the midst of invading another region, so it worked like a charm. Having held R8, taken R7, and now in the process of taking R5, he was in great shape to declare SVC.

Meanwhile, I continued to build, took a few more random pop centers held by people I had no agreements with, and was rooting DE on from the sidelines.

That's when things got a bit crazy, DE wanted to declare on T19, but the "no SVC before T20" rule ended up sticking a shiv in him, as it wasn't crystal clear that that rule had been applied to this particular game. So he tried hanging on, but on T20 when he declared, the timely destruction of a town in R5 (which also killed a DE Prince or two) by WA knocked him out of control.

DE was understandably bummed about that, but with the passing of T20, my NAP with GI-WA was now expired, and so JumpingFist and I urged him to stick it out and try one more time. DE wasn't well positioned for another SVC check on T21, so we instead setup on that turn, and I landed my 30-brigade army group chock-full of P5 wizards on Avalon. It was another gut check, because GI-WA had invaded R8 and had flipped a number of pop centers in that region on T21, and our various denigrates against WA in R8 all failed.

A recon of mine (I had three palantirs and a crystal of seeing by the end of the game, so I had lots and lots of intel) revealed that WA had scouted DE's capital in the water at QI, which had a defense under 14,000. So I surmised that WA was probably going to try the destroy town trick again, this time in Arcania, to knock DE out of control.

Happily, DE had a P5 wizard in R8, and so we warded QI on T22, while two armies of DE took a town (the GI capital) and a village in R5, even as my 30-brigade army group unleashed its full fury on the city of Avalon, killing everyone and razing it to the ground. I was a bit surprised how few casualties I took, but the elimination of that census coupled with the pop centers DE took in R5 pushed DE back into control, and he also managed to hang onto control of R8. (I'd be very interested to find out if WA did indeed attempt to destroy town on QI.)

Anyway, I was glad to see Lord Thanatos win this one, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out I had taken the Silver, since I was 4th or 5th as of T18 status points. I had a blast and my hat is off to all of my opponents, as I believe everyone was honorable in this game, with no broken agreements or anything like that.

Here are my recommendations for awards.

CHANCELLOR: Bananas as AN, who was incredibly active on the diplomacy front, which is fantastic for his first game!
IRON-WILLED: JumpingFist as SO, who along with RA stuck with it even after being attacked numerous times by multiple Kingdoms.
INFAMOUS: Not sure if it was always this way, but my impression is that Infamous has a negative connotation now, so I don't have anyone for this.

"Lord Thanatos... he doesn't do 3-on-1's, but he does 1-on-2's, and wins!"

[Jumpingfist]

For infamous it should not be viewed as negative. Same with all these citizenship awards they are intended to be special rewards for those that showed something special. Infamous could be that blind sided attack that really caught you off guard or a maneuver that was so effective you will be using it yourself in future games or even maybe that UN or Mage that just killed everything in site

At times people do seem to nominate someone as infamous when they drop and it effected the game. But I do not count these when I record them. Players that drop are not allowed to received these awards the exception being iron-willed if they stuck it out longer than reasonably expected.

[HeadHoncho]

OK, then I'll nominate LT for Infamous, for going in 1-on-2 for the win.

[VballMichael]

(DW) Was never really sure what to do in this game and never really formed a strategy.
Started out with a quick agreement with RD to split the region painlessly. He would take 3-4 pop centers and then take off. No real agreement on what would happen later.
Made a NAP with DA for 6 turns (maybe 10 I can't remember). Since I wasn't sure, I just never invaded DA (DuPont). I was invited to participate in the attack on him, but bowed out.
Built up, had no plans, then the GN kind of irritated me. No big deal, but I had previously let his High Council issues pass without a No vote, but then he voted No on my issue. We had no agreement, so he did not violate any agreement or understanding, just kind of irritated me . So I packed up my bags and I sent a very large army through the portal to Runnimede. What a mess down there. DE had already taken most of the region and the gnome dropped shortly after I released two skeletons and gathered another skeleton. Just to be clear, he probably dropped due the DE crushing rather than because of my little skeletons. So, now where to go?
I went to Esteria Vale, and the DE contacted me and offered me tons of food to go away. That works.
So I wandered east into Southern Sands. The BL contacted me and also bought me off. Ok, that works.
So I wandered north into Synisvania. Nobody contacted me, so cool, let's hit. I moved tons of emissaries there plus my large army, took pop centers owned by the RA, the SO and the TR. Also, I saw the AN wandering around. I knocked the RA out of control on maybe turn 20, and took it over on turn 22, the same turn the DE claimed his 3rd region (again) and declared SVC (again).
Congrats to LT on the Gold and HH on the Silver. Am big fans of both, so I was glad to see that happen. I ended up 3rd, based on 2 regions, 6 artifacts, and some nice armies and leaders and agents, etc....
For Chancellor, Cloud. He did a nice job of talking to lots of folks and always seemed to know what was going on around the board (except I don't think he saw the DE invasion coming).
For Iron Willed, I have to go with LT. He did seek help in invading Amberland and at least two of us had to say no (though neither of us spilled the beans.) So he went alone and did great, even though he had the same SVC timing surprise that happened in a couple of games.
For Infamous, HH. I think he convinced LT to stay in the game when LT was leaning toward dropping based on the SVC issue. Then the two of them take the top spots. Well done.

[Lord Alz]

Underworld.

This was a very disappointing game. I started out wanting to make local friends and grab as many pop centers as possible while waiting for my agents to grow. I made a agreements with GN while grabbing a town in 10 and a couple in 2 before control was established. Basically everyone around 7 was at least friendly, so I found the portal and moved the massive 1UN towards 2. I would lurk in the shadows and see what transpired. The RA decided that he needed my village in 8 so lets see how my agents work. I took a ring of protection and then disaster my lvl19 agent dies without success on a lvl 6 unprotected agent. Sigh but I still have 2 more. I decide to back off and support the RD taking more pop centers in 2 vs the WI. I end up with 9 fleets on what is now the WI capital village in the water and kill numerous groups and take the village while basically killing anything low level I could find. My agents have recovered and so I decide to see if I can make the RA/SO sorry for taking my village. I know its petty but hey small thrills for a fringe position by now in this game. I have a lvl19 agent with ruler eliminator so I try and sleep the RA king and kill him but he has a ward and poof even with all the bonus's I think I have my agent is dead and does not kill the king. I take the Armor of Anon that turn also from him really just in an effort to boost my status points. I take a few more artifacts and harass the SO/RA a bit but it is obvious I am not effective and the DE ends the game. Thank god!

Turn 7 I have a agent 15/12/8 and start killing ambassadors and low agents
Turn 11 I have 17/15/12 but my agent 17 chokes on a lvl6 agent. I learn from my lesson and raise wizards so I can sleep my targets.
Turn 18 I have a 19/17/10 positioned in the middle of the board and Ruler Eliminator
Turn 22 at the end I have a 19 and a 12 with a number of artifacts including Ruler Eliminator and Demon Bane but lose another lvl19 agent stealing a artifact from the WI.

I lost a lot of agents at what I thought were low risk including 3 straight lvl4 agents bribing RA emmis who never told me anything including princes and died every time without any other agent protection. UN is a hard position in Rex but I think others have had less bad luck with killing agents. I am not sure raising to 10k was the best bet and would consider lowering to 2k if I played again and being more aggressive early to get more holdings.

Congrats to the winner LT honored our NAP for the whole game and even though I could have kill multiple DE Princes I did not. Cheers.

[Lord Diamond]

Game details attached!

Lord Thanatos usurped two of my Demon Prince titles, Knight and Councilor. I am not pleased!

[Lord Thanatos]

DE

Interesting game. . .

I almost didn't sign-up because I do not like how the presence of SVC alters the game from Rex.  JumpingFist convinced me to join up.  I had allied with JF in a previous full diplomacy SVC game and we did well.  He finished first and I finished fourth.

The most important decision?  What will the SVC be?  Holding more regions than one's natural enemy seems like a no-brainer in conjunction with control three regions.  If I am the first player to control three regions, by definition all the other players can control at most two.  The final condition I selected was to have 7 fleets of strength 12+ in a single sea.  This condition requires gold and nothing more.  Also, it is very difficult for other players to impact this victory condition if the fleets just sit in their harbor.  So as this game began I (and other players, presumably) needed to control only three regions.

Three regions versus four regions is a huge strategic (and tactical) change in the game.  It is the difference between a marathon and a sprint. But that is a discussion for a different thread.

My quest for three regions:

BL and AN were my two full allies, although the three of us were not collectively allied.  By the time each of them responded to me they each had made agreements with other kingdoms which prevented the two of them from actively working together (I never divulged to the other the agreements each of them had made.)  Both BL and AN were great allies and I was able to trade starting pcs with both of them.  I also contacted the WA; he never responded.  So on turn two I sent demonprinces to both cities in Amberland and declared both GI and WA my enemies.  If I was going to fight the WA, the earlier the better I thought.  No need to allow those wizards to get to high levels.  I then heard from the GI and he negotiated a 15 turn NAP for both him and the WA (I trust Cloud and so accepted that he was speaking on behalf of the WA.)

The BL said he wanted to attack the GN on turn 11 and so I planned accordingly.  The invasion on turn 11 went without a hitch until I learned that the BL actually had a 12 turn NAP.  Oh well.... I was thoroughly committed. Everything went exactly as planned except for the GN having moved his capitol to a water town on the same turn I invaded.  Now I had to wait three or four turns to build ships to take that final pc (but since I needed ships for my SVC anyway it was no big deal.)  Everything went as planned and the GN was eliminated.

When the BL learned of his mistake in timing our attack he withdrew from the game and HeadHoncho replaced him.  HeadHoncho is a great player with whom I had successfully allied in the past. So I welcomed him to the game and made certain we were staunch allies.

I could not invade either regions 9 or 4 because of the agreements the BL and AN had entered into.  I guess I technically could have, but there are always plenty of opponents in Alamaze.  That left region 5 as the most convenient...

I was going to invade Amberland on turn 16 (after taking the GN capitol on the sea and controlling Runnimede) with the goal of declaring victory on turn 17.  I sought assistance from both the BL and DW, but neither could assist on turn 16.  So I waited a few turns (to build my influence and add a few more emissaries to my court) and went into Amberland on turn 18.  I controlled the region [MY THIRD] on turn 19, but could not declare SVC.  Turn 19 I lost two demonprinces at the Amberland cities.  Turn 20 I lost a third demonprince when the WA destroyed an Amberland town and prevented my victory.

Turn 21 saw the BL able to assist and willing to destroy Avalon.  I teleported two groups to Amberland.  Turn 22 the BL destroyed Avalon while I captured the GI capitol town.  I was able to dispel domes of protection due to having 4 of my 5 wizards in Amberland.  Victory!!!

The main reason I wrote this analysis was to give the following peer nominations:
Chancellor: Head Honcho - always a wonderful diplomat and a top-notch player.
Iron-willed: Bananas (High Mage of Entropy) -  had some very skilled players attacking him and managed to not only hold on but also to fight back effectively.
Infamous: Canticar - never did deign to communicate with me, but did manage to prevent my first victory declaration.

An additional very special commentary on the great joy it was to be an ally with Bananas.  Although the AN and DE are Natural Enemies and he was curious/skeptical about how well the two kingdoms could work together, he was willing to give it a shot.  After he agreed to trade his region 8 starting pc to me I felt confident I could duplicate JumpingFists' turn two control of Arcania once the WA responded to my messages.  Of course, the WA never did respond to my messages and so I did not control Arcania on turn two.  Nevertheless, Bananas and I were able to work well together for the entire contest.  His questions and thoughts on the contest kept the game extremely interesting to me.  I wish he could have finished higher in the final standings.  I attribute his low finish to two facts: 1) he was steadfast in providing help to his allies, and 2) JumpingFist attacked him, which is always a harrowing experience.  Great first game Bananas!!!

Also, a heartfelt "thank you" to Head Honcho.  He was eager to assist me on turn 21 and there is zero chance I would have achieved this, my first, Alamaze victory without his assistance.  Thank you, my friend!!!

[Kronin]

Unless I'm reading it wrong, something is jacked up on the results .pdf I had no where near that number of brigades, emissaries, and PCs at game end.