1861

I think Rollory had the same thing happen to him. You definitely can’t count on 48 hours from when your email arrives.

1862

QT3-NoobAran (Atlantis)

Got the sea of ice going to seal access to my underwater realm. Hopefully will be able to reconquer some lost oceans from vanheim since he can only reinforce with tritons now.

I really think this one will be an interesting cataclysmic lategame because so many nations have built up so far magically without getting dominant in turf. It’s still anyone’s game but a lot of people are swinging serious magic and all the global slots are full.

QT3-LavaLamp (Caelum)

I picked a fight with Marinon prematurely but I really had no choice since I’m bottled up in a corner for starting locations. If anyone wants to snip some free provinces off of Marignon, they are keeping pretty busy defending from me.

QT3-Hammer (Acro)

Knights can kill elephants fairly easy. Oops. So much for good initial expansion. I really really need to focus on the early expansion of my game because I haven’t done it well in the last few games I was in and it’s cost me.

QT3-Backov Cradle (AE Ermor)

All the enemies that I thought Pangaea had subdued are suddenly resurgent. Marignon is kicking me around and Ulm is counter invading me. Couple with my constant fighting with AI Pythium, I’m suddenly in a 3 front war. Oops.

1863

Qt3 FeedingFrenzy (Abysia)- All’s quiet on the eastern front, despite the quite macho posturing with C’tis as we take turns putting huge armies on our borders. Tien Chi isn’t doing a whole lot out in the desert- are they tangled up with C’tis?

1864

QT3FeedingFrenzy (Mictlan) - Hmm. Expansion is a bit slow, and the neighbours aren’t talking. And what’s this purple flag I see? Pythium isn’t playing, yet I’m sure it’s their flag on my western border.

1865

Qt3 FeedingFrenzy (Jotunheim) - I’m not sure who’s playing Man, but it feels like playing against an AI. Our expansion pushes up against each other, I try to make some diplomatic overtures, but instead of responding Man builds up troop presence on my border. I send another diplomatic missive while readying troops, and 2 turns later, still having heard no response from Man, Man invades one of my territories but takes much higher losses in conquering it than I do in losing it. I immediately retake it the following turn, and Man is quietly moving armies around again. I still haven’t heard a single message from Man. I keep expecting the game to give me the “Man has declared war upon your unholy nation” message that the AI gives when it declares war.

Qt3 Hammer (Ulm) - Wow, horrible starting position. Not as bad as some I’ve had (Abysia in Qt3 Journal), but unless I play this one perfectly I don’t expect to last till the end.

1866

Qt3 Tyrande (Pangaea) - Crazy game. I’m still trying to put the finishing touches against Pythium, who prompted my invasion by casting that stupid Holy Wrath or what-have-you global that causes lightning strikes in his dominion against enemies. I have the momentum, but I’m sure the Pythium Arch Theurgs have some tricks left up their sleeves. On the other end of the map, AI Ermor is doing it’s weird spazzy AI invasion tactics, and I accidentally obliterated a C’tis army while invading an Ermorian province at the same time as C’tis. I think AI Ermor is simultaneously attacking C’tis, Pangaea, Vanheim, and Man. Crazy.

Qt3 JM Hardcore (Abysia) - This is some serious shit that’s going down. I can feel it. Vanheim is doing the guerilla war in my backyard still, and I’ve been doing guerilla warfare to retake my lands. Man is quiet. Too quiet. Caelum is still suffering from Post-Red Sox-Championship-Syndrome, and Atlantis seems to be awaiting its inevitable end. Something big is going to happen, I think.

1867

Qt3 Tyrande (C’tis) - Crazy is an accurate term. I don’t think we have hit the turn 30 mark and already my capital’s lab has burned down twice. Also bounced with Pangaea twice unintentionally, once going after AI Ermor and once early on going after an indpendant…during which my pretender got killed.

With free reign against a computer run Ermor I am dedicating the rest of this game to the practical management of dwindling resources.

1868

My armies are just passing through, although yours seem to be putting down roots. Why do we not try to feed on the numerious indies on our borders, instead of each other? C’tis is at war with no one.

1869

Qt3-JM-Hardcore (Vanheim) - I am stressing out way too much over this game, to the point where I delayed doing a turn until a few hours before it was due because I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid - except it turned out I was wrong about when it was due, and was about five minutes late in finally submitting the turn. That really sucks. Nothing disastrous happened, but I definitely missed a bunch of opportunities.

Caelum’s attack on the Achaku fortress has been beaten back, and it looks like my diversionary attack in his rear has been blunted. Abysia is marching on its capital once more, and I still have just a dozen soulless and a few Van for a garrison - particularly since my pretender gatewayed to Achaku to help with the defense there. I’ll have to come up with something.

The Earth Attacks and Ashen Angels seem to be tapering off now they aren’t killing anyone anymore; now it’s Seeking Arrows. I haven’t lost anybody to them yet, but I am collecting chest wounds.

Qt3-FeedingFrenzy (Vanheim) - haven’t looked at the latest turn yet, but last turn my bold sea-reavers finally found an island that isn’t a godforsaken storm-tossed useless chip of rock, namely the gnome land of Lantan. As it happens Dom2 has given it a population of hoburgs. That rocks. The island produces 7 resources per turn though. So much for the prospect of gnomish legions.

Qt3-Backov-Cradle (Pangaea) - Yeah, things definitely turned around fast all of a sudden. I think I can rebound though. I also think Marignon’s choice of themes (the description for it talks about despair about facing undead and turning to devil worship as the only force stronger) is proving eerily prophetic. I’m also realizing all sorts of things I did completely wrong as Carrion Woods. Getting two of my national heroes (Ambicephalos the ettin mandragora, and the panic assassin) killed before they had much of an effect on anything ranks pretty high up there.

1870

Qt3FeedingFrenzy (Arco): A slow game for me so far… I’ve made contact with Brandon (Ctis) to my east and very rudely (sorry mark) ignored my neighbor to the south (Mictlan)'s missive. I’ve encountered the first “special” province, but luckily Arcos special ability allowed me to NOT invade it… Ack! Something like 100 nasty troops led by a dragon.

Qt3Lavalamp (Marignon): Nick did indeed pick a fight with me for no good reason, but seems to have overestimated the quality of his troops. Quite annoying since I didn’t press in to his indies when I had the chance and instead let him expand into the buffer zone. Last time I am a nice guy to Nick. ;>

Qt3WorldWar (Marignon): Still an interesting game, since about 5 people stale every turn. Ctis is rampaging across Africa, eating up Abysia, while I siege Abysia’s former capital which houses some nasties as well as his VQ, which doesn’t dare fight since their capital is now in my dominion. Hopefully I’ll get a dominion snuff soon, since I can’t seem to breach their walls so far.

Mictlan has also seemed to have other things on his mind, as my sieging of one of his forts in South America is going relatively undisturbed.

1871

balut- Yeah, that’s me, I’m sorry about it. Bogus and his crew took my capital 4 or so turns ago and I don’t have the firepower to kill him. Even if I did somehow kill them, I’d be weak right by a race who has a very strong early game presence.

1872

Oh man, you lost your capitol to Bogus? That would prompt me to go A/I. That’s the game just telling you that it doesn’t want you to play.

1873

I’ll probably go AI when balut crushes what army I have left.

1874

Yeah, if you lose your capital to Bogus early on, there’s practically no way short of divine providence that non-fortress troops you muster up from early expansion will be able to uproot him. That’s about one of the worst things that can happen in the early game of Dom2, and just sheer bad luck.

1875

Bruce has agreed to host my Pampelmousse AAR. I started a separate thread for comments about the AAR if anyone cares to make them, to avoid polluting this thread.

1876

My armies are just passing through, although yours seem to be putting down roots. Why do we not try to feed on the numerious indies on our borders, instead of each other? C’tis is at war with no one.[/quote]

My army’s not putting down roots- I’m farming the province. I won’t launch a first strike from there.

1877

Good eye! That is a great story.

1878

JM Hardcore (Caelem) - Hark! The All Father is dead! Three cheers for the Sylphan mercenaries! Sometimes you just never know who will help you the most. My wraith lords (2) and the wind lord (with 20 sylphs) and the local militia (caelem style) were attacked by the All Father and 7 of his Vanadrott Lords. The All Father got pinned between the Sylphs and the Caelem soldiers and was shredded. I think only 3 of the 'Drotts got away. I don’t know how much this hurts Rollory, but it can’t help.

Worldwar (Mictlan) - Ok you Conquistidorian invaders, get out Paraguay or we’re going to do something dreadful to you.

1879

Yeah, what the heck is going on over there in the Americas anyhow? I have no intel whatsoever. I’ll trade one gem of any type for a detailed report!

1880

I was planning on being able to survive the storm guard assault long enough for the wrathful skies and the Ark to do their thing. I was not expecting the sylphs to also be a factor. Sigh.