[Dominions 5] Grogspocalypse Now! (FINISHED)

[TheMeInTeam]

I appreciate the congrats, but I want to advance the turn and see victory before I count on victory!

It was fun, though there were some rough moments.  Tough choice on early target, and then having multiple players turn against me mid-war, all the while getting almost the entirety of Mictlan's attention!  Even now there are giant Agartha armies mulching a fort deep in Mictlan territory that I was effectively forced to abandon lol.  Winning decisively against rainbow resistances and heavy prot doesn't come cheaply.

[al_infierno]

Dang man, congrats!

I guess it's time to start talking about era choice for the next game?  O0

[Ajidica]

Congratulations to TMIT for a well-won victory!

With regards to next game, I would like to place the following nation picks:

EA: Rus (Fun with were-bears!)
MA: Abysia (Not as bad as EA Abysia.)
LA: Man (Our arrows shall blot out the sun!)

[W8taminute]

Very good win there Sons of Eriu!  That had to be tough though as you say with all those enemies to deal with.  I think we all realized the Eriu was the power to be stopped too late.  We got distracted by Mictlan. 

Very good game though.  I'm still thinking of EA Vanheim but not sure what I'd go with if we play any other era.

[TheMeInTeam]

GG all!

Some interesting tidbits from the score graphs:

- Initial expansion saw top 3 nations pretty close, but after that Mictlan was in the lead until the final war
- Despite that, Agartha and I were actually ahead in gold income during the peace time. 
- Gem income was close between Mictlan and me leading up to the war
- C'tis briefly had the research lead, but didn't have the expansion/army to back it.  After that I took a commanding with it, which is somewhat surprising because not only did I take drain, but I was relying on expensive sidhe lords for most of the research (their real purpose was killing power, but when not doing that having tech helps).
- Mictlan's dominion was pretty obnoxious.  I had a lot of temples but I think Mictlan took more candles initially
- Even on the last turn of the game, Agartha's army was barely smaller than mine, and mine was inflated with lots of trash to help siege (militia, slingers, etc).  Those rainbow resist deathballs are a pain and this would have been a difficult war for me if it were extended, possibly carried only by income differential and research lead (I wasn't too far from being able to cast army of gold).

In other words, I wasn't exactly a "power to be stopped", and this game could have gone very differently with a few different battle choices/timings.

~~~

After extensive testing with EA Tien Chi, I have concluded that it is significantly worse than the nations I've played so far, and probably worse than Mekone in practice even.  So I won't play them next game, maybe in the future if I learn more.

Tentative picks:

EA: Ulm
MA: Uruk
LA: Really unsure on LA but would be fine playing it

[Myrmidon]

GG Indeed!

Some notes and thoughts from myself, albeit my first full MP game...

-My expansion and fort building went as planned, and as well as could be expected.  However, the investment in the infrastructure, at the cost of a larger army, left me vulnerable to the combined attacks of Eriu and Mictlan.  I would have squared off well I believe in a 1v1 war vs Mictlan at that point, but I never had an answer to the Eriu Sidhe thunder spam.  Aidijica pointed out that I needed to transition more quickly from the cultist to the Thaumaturg mages.  While I was heading in that direction, I believe he was correct.  A more effective defense from me, backed by a greater number and more capable mages,even in a 2 front war, may have allowed me to retain more holdings for when the inevitable break between Mictlan and Eriu had to occur. Speaking of....

- The Molotov-Ribbentrop accord between Eriu and Mictlan was fascinating, and understandable, even if I was salty about it at first.    It would have been interesting to see what would have taken place if the other powers jumped in to launch a war on the vulnerable flanks of the belligerents. The deal seemed to leave Eriu with the advantage overall, although Mictlan ended up with the larger empire per se, Eriu walked away with the 2 point throne, a one point throne, and my cap.  More important though, Mictlan still came across as the big threat, given the size of his empire, which allowed the formation of the Eriu/Agartha alliance, a key moment in the game.  I'd love to hear Aidijica's thoughts on things given the benefit of hindsight now.

-Agartha had some tremendous potential, and some killer doom armies.  I'd love to have seen what would have occurred without the quick throne victory.

A great game.  Would love to play another, and am open to any age.  Also, will throw in another plug for the Dominions Enhanced mod, but again, am good either way.

[al_infierno]

Should we increase the required Ascension Points to win for the next game?  Or do you guys feel like that was a good balance?

My tentative picks:

EA: Tir Na Nog C'tis
MA: Vanheim C'tis
LA: Marignon

[TheMeInTeam]

8/11 is a pretty good throne percentage IMO.  I'm not sure if we can do anything about their positioning - Mictlan, C'tis, Sceleria and I had significantly easier throne positions than Agartha or especially Uruk, but you need extensive map coverage to have a shot at 8 points and with a more balanced expansion phase nobody will be close to it early like what happened in this game.  Maybe reduce the number of 2 points thrones and add two more 1 pointers.

Per earlier discussion it looks like EA is most likely for next game, and man that's going to be painful with multiple elf nations and Rus flinging lightning everywhere.  I expect a ton of shock resist in blesses :p.

[Ajidica]

@TMIT: Could you post score graphs please?

Should we increase the required Ascension Points to win for the next game?  Or do you guys feel like that was a good balance?

My tentative picks:

EA: Tir Na Nog
MA: Vanheim
LA: Marignon

Oh god more Elf nations. I've seen enough Sidhe Lords (and by extension, Vanjarls) to last me a lifetime!

- The Molotov-Ribbentrop accord between Eriu and Mictlan was fascinating, and understandable, even if I was salty about it at first.    It would have been interesting to see what would have taken place if the other powers jumped in to launch a war on the vulnerable flanks of the belligerents. The deal seemed to leave Eriu with the advantage overall, although Mictlan ended up with the larger empire per se, Eriu walked away with the 2 point throne, a one point throne, and my cap.  More important though, Mictlan still came across as the big threat, given the size of his empire, which allowed the formation of the Eriu/Agartha alliance, a key moment in the game.  I'd love to hear Aidijica's thoughts on things given the benefit of hindsight now.

So, almost all of the diplomatic maneuvering came from 2 of the six players having poor expansion, and a third having (apparently) late expansion. Sceleria was the biggest late game threat, but I knew we had some decent midgame matchups against Sceleria (ie: Mictlan with its cheap priests and fire arrow spam, Agartha's statues and fire aura summons) so I wasn't sold on a quick war with Sceleria until Eriu and I mutually agreed on a war, which my notes indicate was around turn 16 or so. Before that, I would have been open to a potential alliance with Sceleria, perhaps not in carving up Eriu, but at least getting him off my back so I could eat Uruk or Ctis.
I know for a fact I misplayed the late game. I do not want to take anything away from TMIT's win, but I have little late game experience and it showed in my use of (or lack thereof!) buffing spells and anti-SC spells/gear.
The poor expansion by Uruk and Ctis ensured that after Sceleria was knocked out, the next war would be between me and Eriu with Agartha as kingmaker; with Agartha deciding I was the greater threat which, although probably true in an objective sense, my misplays worked against that.
With hindsight, I would probably have played the same diplo game as I did. Sceleria demonstrated himself to be a competent player which would be a major threat mid and late game, confirming my decision to 2v1 him with Eriu. After that, I'm not sure how else I could have worked the diplo game. I tried noting with Agartha and Uruk how Eriu was in a good spot, but they continued to view me (not unreasonably) as the greatest threat.

I am curious as to what Agartha's long-term plan was. By attacking me you weakened my ability to fight Eriu while also opening yourself up to a three front war. I was already falling apart, and by waiting to attack Eriu, Eriu had enough momentum to force through my last defenses and grab the thrones from me and you needed to win.

[TheMeInTeam]

You can see scoregraphs if you load current turn I think?

Definitely want to think about ways to kill SCs, I thought of 3 that would probably have worked for each of earth/fire kings.  Especially after earth king got so afflicted it had gutted attack rating, even a couple indy cav commanders or something could roll up with copper plate + moon blades or greatswords of sharpness and chop it up.  Axes of hate would take the RNG almost completely out.  Stellar cascades does 25 fatigue damage a cast...and still does half that even when resisted.  Blood has both leech and life for a life, depending how far you tech it, and these are F U spells to thugs/SC.

I think the biggest turning point of the game for Agartha was Uruk attacking me and losing badly.  I got a lot of land and income there, at the price of tying up an earth/fire king, a sea king, and recruiting some chaff.  This also left land for me that Uruk could have taken from Mictlan.  If Uruk and Agartha had capitalized on the fact that most of the Mictlan troops and gem resources were (reasonably) on me they could have taken more land in the war than I did with more aggression, and made the war after that very difficult for me.  Similarly, if Agartha + Mictlan attacked me together rather than the team on Mictlan, I'd have likely lost (with likely winner being Mictlan, given throne situation before the war).

[al_infierno]

Actually, if we do EA or MA I think I'll grab C'tis again.  At this point I've probably practiced with them more than any other nation, and I've played them in 1 other EA game.

[W8taminute]

All good points on this game guys.  This was probably the most confusing game I've played against other humans.  Part of my indecision was due to my poor expansion.  The other part was my reluctance to attack nations who never did me wrong this game.  By the time I realized I needed to do something to at least slow down the top two it was too late.  I chose to attack Eriu based on the number of thrones held and the picture of their territory that my spies had gathered. 

From my point of view and based on the info I gathered it was apparent the Mictlan had run out of steam and Agartha was not willing or not able to fight much either.  I knew I would lose regardless of who I choose to declare war on but I didn't realize how fast I would crumble.  I had nothing to stop an SC from any nation.  That is my Achilles heal. 

I'll have to look this up but I remember that from Dom4 a turn played out with assassinations occurring first followed by movement, followed by battle.  I'm assuming that is how it works in Dom5.

[TheMeInTeam]

All good points on this game guys.  This was probably the most confusing game I've played against other humans.  Part of my indecision was due to my poor expansion.  The other part was my reluctance to attack nations who never did me wrong this game.  By the time I realized I needed to do something to at least slow down the top two it was too late.  I chose to attack Eriu based on the number of thrones held and the picture of their territory that my spies had gathered. 

From my point of view and based on the info I gathered it was apparent the Mictlan had run out of steam and Agartha was not willing or not able to fight much either.  I knew I would lose regardless of who I choose to declare war on but I didn't realize how fast I would crumble.  I had nothing to stop an SC from any nation.  That is my Achilles heal. 

I'll have to look this up but I remember that from Dom4 a turn played out with assassinations occurring first followed by movement, followed by battle.  I'm assuming that is how it works in Dom5.

https://illwiki.com/dom5/turn-order-sequence

Assassinations happen after magic phase attacks, but before regular movement.  We experienced that quite a bit in the previous game where you were Tien Chi :p.

This means an assassin could get mind hunted/killed by seeking arrow/earth attack/etc before attempting the assassination.

[W8taminute]

^Thanks for the link.  That's exactly what I was looking for. 

[Myrmidon]

OK, if we go EA, I'm going Arcoscephale.  If we decide to do LA, I need to do some more research.