3541

Well. If you check the army graph you’ll see it won’t be me defending Machaka. I really screwed up the last two turns. I tried a breakout. If no one minds, I’ll go AI. I only have a handful of scouts left. Nothing more.

3542

Oh, damn. That is bad.

3543

That was my big mistake early in the game. If I had just sat tight inside my walls, I would have been…well, I’m not going to lie and say I would have been OK, but I would have been a TON better off than I ended up being.

I hate going AI and just don’t do it, but I’ll trust your judgment about what power you have left and how much fun you are having.

BTW…Since this was your first QT3 game, I hope you had a good time. I know there was some thought that you were ganged up on because you were new, but I think it’s more that you were ganged up on because you started to win an early war. Hope to cross paths (or hooves) with you in the future.

3544

I echo what dfs says!

3545

I had a lot of fun. It was a great game. Especially some heckling. I always enjoy that. I have a pretty firm policy about going AI as well but I really can’t do a thing. 5 scouts just can’t do anything. Although I could hang out and see what the fight for my cap is like :) Should be exciting. Caelum is going to have to take the beating I imagine.

Thinking about it, I’ll stick around and see what happens. I should have died to dom kill quite a while ago but I’ve been hanging on by the skin of my teeth with a couple candles here or there. The loss of my pretender was crippling though.

3546

now…don’t be listening to Perkins Maerlande, he was the ringleader of the group that wanted to gank the newbie. He’s taken my capitol that was rightfully yours and his artful ways have him a couple turns from taking out Caelum, Vanheim AND Pythia. Don’t trust him folks even when he agrees with me. As a matter of fact…you should ALWAYS kill Perkins first.

Hey, Dave…how about giving me my capitol back again just so we can all focus on the Van?

3547

In fact, I do plan to win by putting every other capital under siege at the same time. I will be remembered forever!

Maerlande, the only reason I ring-led the war against you was because you were reciting Scribble-like arcana like “In CMB 9.1 the Pog of Warding has been boosted so it makes more sense for Fluoridian Rat Kings to forge it,” and I got scared.

3548

Maerlande, is that your actual casting order for the Slaves? (Comm Slave 1st round, then Cast Spells from round 2 onwards). If so then it’s far from optimal, as reverse communion Slaves don’t need to be Slaves until the 2nd round, and you don’t get the benefit of the S-boosting until the 3rd round, which means you are limited to S1-spells for rounds 1+2. (Edit 2 - apart from that one Slave positioned after LotNS goes off)

Edit - And if you are giving the Slaves a free spell pick in round 2, then chances are they will go for PLuck before they get it from the Master. Of course I’m not sure if your “Cast Spells” means you script “Cast Spells”, or you are just denating the point at which you start scripting non-communion related spells. I’m guessing the former as otherwise you would have mentioned what spell you cast on round 2, since the Slaves are unboosted at that point.

So IMO you are far better off doing what I often do and script BodyE or Luck on 1st round, then Comm Slave 2nd round, then Cast Spells from round 3 onwards. This way you are afforded better protection on your mages in the 1st round (Comm Slave isn’t going to do much against counters). And you have the option of saving a Master slot on PLuck by getting the slaves to group buff Luck instead (although this is not a no-brainer, as mages grouped in the same sqaure have downsides. And don’t forget Magic Duel is AoE1)

Oh and you can also think about making that first Master a Slave as well, that way he gets the buffs from the second master (but be aware he still gets the fatigue from the second master like a regular Slave does. So he has all the positives and negatives associated with being both Master and Slave)

Edit 2 - Actually, since you’ve got LotNS in there (didn’t notice him at first, hence the 2nd Edits), you’d be better off again my making the LotNS guy your first slave, scripting him for LotNS (R1), then Comm Slave (R2), then all your Slaves and Masters will be +1S from round 1. Seriously Maer, your mage and casting order is so sub-optimal, that it makes a MM+Efficiency junkie like me feel nauseous!

Disclaimer - If anyone doesn’t understand the above then you might want to check out the free Dominions classes that Maerlande runs at his local education centre, Monday-Friday, 7pm-9pm. (although please remember to do what the teacher says, and not what he does :))

3549

Hmm, I have been using a lot of reverse communions lately and should look into this a lot more closely. There seems to be a lot of room for optimization with them.

One thing I have been trying to do is use the Crystal/Slave Matrix with the Masters wielding a Crystal Shield to auto-cast Power of the Spheres, but that costs quite a bit of gems and just having a S1 master cast it on turn one would probably be better so it boosts all slaves and not just the ones with a Slave Matrix on them.

I must admit that I kept trying to script higher end spells with my slaves per that older write-up by Baalz, but confirmation that the paths are only boosted for fatigue will help me now :). I will quit trying to make it happen!

Now if I could just get a +B random in my current game to cast re-invig I will be happy. I wonder how else I can get a Blood Mage.

3550

Blood hunt to 50 slaves and empower.

3551

Hmm, good point.

Next dumb question… I guess I always assumed that you needed to at least be a blood mage to blood hunt, but I do notice the command is available for all commanders. So, can you really actually build up 50 blood slaves by blood hunting with non-blood magic mages? I guess I didn’t really consider that :).

EDIT: Hmm, I guess so, although it sounds like it will take many commander turns to get enough. Thanks for the tip!

3552

I usually try to take a couple points of B on my pretender nowadays… when I don’t try trading for 80 slaves, hunting some up yourself or spamming Lamia queens…

Also… I sort of hate that Calahan has 12 posts… I really much prefer the idea that he would have made an account just to get up Maer’s ass for his scripting… when I make the Dom 3 movie, that’s prob how it’s going to go…

3553

Caelum is radio-silent, making these next couple of moves even more exciting. I’m afraid that Vanheim will be able to waltz into Machaka without a fight, and I imagine it will be simple for him to hold his three capitals for just two turns.

Which comes first, attacks onto armies that are laying siege, or the storming of the castle? I don’t have my manual, and am too excited to wait…

3554

I may not hold classes on weeknights, but I’m pretty sure that storming of the castle is last in the turn sequence.

3555

Then this shall be our lone hope.

3556

Some say the world will end in giants,
some say monkeys.
From what I’ve seen of the tyrants
I favor those that side with giants
But if I had to perish twice
I think i’ve seen enough of feces
to say that for destruction, monkeys
are also great
and would suffice.

3557

Ha! Excellent!

Keep flingin’ that feces
for the good of the species
the world’s covered in poo –
more power to you!

3558

I also hope that you’re all kicking yourselves for not going for the bounty I posted on turn 30.

3559

What a game! Vanheim (Austen) just moved armies into my lands from directions I can’t conceive of. He did the same to Caelum. He’s using units whose nature I know not (Dust Walkers! Dust Warriors!). He now owns more provinces than the rest of us combined.

THE WORLD WILL END IN GIANTS

Or will it…

Pyrhic, your poem was excellent, and I read it aloud to those I love. I am inspired to share my own poem – one might call it a poo-em, like yours might be labeled as well.

Whose poop is this?

Whose poop this is I do not know
Its mystery intrigues me so
I hope that no one sees me stoop
To peer intently at it, though

My neighbors on this quiet loop
Would think it queer to hear me whoop
When I discover to my glee
That I’m the author of this poop

And then it all comes back to me
The scenes from short term memory
The miles I walked from home to here
To burn unwanted calories

The extra helping, second beer
The pressure mounting close to fear
And miles to go before I poo
And miles to go before I poo

I have several more, and hope to publish a book of poo-ems if I and my family are not slain by Vanheim thugs first.

3560

…Admittedly my scouting is not what it could be, but although I have Machaka eliminated, I do not have Caelum in possession of the castle yet. Is that right? I assume the spiders went down to dom kill and pyrhic did not assault the keep. He should be able to walk in this turn.

That leaves Bandor and the Van as the only nations holding two capitols.

Props to my sparkle pony brothers. Raids from where?