Dominions 3, Codex of the Gods III
With my trip to the past just over a week away, I've opted to reduce the number of Dominions 3 games I'm playing in and declined a few opportunities to replace them. I did add two more games, but I could have been in more. That puts me down to only five active games, so here's how many of the games I was in last time ended for me and what the ones I'm still in are like right now:
Nimbys, Out with Turn 88
"It won't be much longer before the end."
It wasn't long indeed. I managed to beat an Abyss Lord (Balrog, basically) with four of my flying three headed dragons, but I only had two provinces left and no realistic hope of survival. This one was an easy one to surrender.
Kdom, Out with Turn 60
"With luck, that won't leave me too overexposed when Pangaea attacks next turn."
It did.
My excursion against Caaelum was a bad idea, and when Caelum went AI because of it, the super aggressive AI counter-attacked my poorly defended eastern flank. That hurt my economy just as the war against Pangaea got restarted. Which might have been survivable except that I'd invested a huge amount of magical gems in summoning two Kings of Elemental Earth, giant Earth Elementals, and further equipped them (at an even greater expense in gems) in the best magical weapons and gear that I could afford. And for a little while it worked. They smashed much larger Pangaean armies.
But he countered with heavy combat magic use, and even the Amulets of Antimagic I'd put on the guys wasn't protection enough. One of them died, and worse, the second was Charmed onto Pangaea's side. Without my summoned heavy hitters, I'd have to rely on normal troops, but with my economy hurt by AI Caelum, I couldn't buy enough of them....and normal troops can't beat the juiced up King of Elemental Earth that Pangae stole from me in the first place.
I could see the writing on the wall, and went AI to help reduce my game count.
Faraday, Turn 39
This one isn't going great. I'm still in a brutal war with Marverni, and I may be losing. My biggest army just lost a battle to his biggest army, and I'm not sure I can recover from that. Its not hopeless, not yet anyway, but I may dump this game in a week or so before I leave town.
Michrisandintermediate, Victorious with Turn 80
Endings in Dominions 3 aren't always clean. And they aren't clean in this one. What happened is that three of us, myself as Oceania, as well as Pangaea and Agartha had teamed up to take out the largest single empire out there, Vanheim. And we'd been successful enough that Van went AI. That left four of us with a chance at victory, the three of us in our alliance, and Ermor. There was a fifth remaining player, Marignon, but Ermor had been destroying them while we took out Van, so they had no practical chance at victory, much as I hadn't had one in Nimbys.
The thing was, the only reason that Marignon still existed was because Ermor hadn't been playing his turns, having never come back after that long week long break when the game was down. Around turn 80, the three remaining big players got together and decided to call it a team victory and end the game. As the Pangaea player put it:
"But yeah, we would have stalemated. I control about half the world and have unending armies backed by army of gold/weapons of sharpness/all of the demon lords etc. Agartha is smaller but is made of bloody granite thanks to the statues and mechanical men. And Oceania would have trouble harming any land power that is played by a non-ai player at this point (and can't be attacked itself)."
And he's right. My underwater defenses were pretty awesome at that point, but my land armies were at best average and wouldn't have done much to my competitors. So we called the game a three way win, and moved on to greener pastures. I do like the idea of our three gods forming a Zeus (Pangaea), Hades (Agartha), and Poseidon (me) ruling elite of a new pantheon though.
Shara2, Turn 10
Because a player was out of town for most of a week, this game is going agonizingly slowly. And the situation won't improve when I leave town next week, either.
From a strategic standpoint, I like to play the cordon game. That is, I expand in such a way to try and cut off other players from neutral territories behind my lines, cordoning them off as best I can. Doing so can be risky...I've lost games by expanding too quickly and getting double teamed by neighbors, and trying to set up a cordon is what started my war with Marverni in Faraday that I might just lose.
But if you can make it work...ahh, then you can grow yourself a powerful empire with limited opposition. That's what I'm trying to do in Shara 2, and it seems to be working. But its early days yet, so a lot can still go wrong.
1813Prime, Out with Turn 20
Disappointingly, I could never quite beat Shinuyama's manticore. And when Pythium invaded from the north while I tried to fight Shinuyama in west, I was done for.
At least I was out quickly.
Myimmersion, Turn 14
With Shara2 going so slowly, I opted to join another MA game to try out Ermor again. In that time we've played 14 turns in Myimmersion for 2 turns in Shara2, so this game is going much quicker.
In this one, I'm at the base of a peninsula. I assumed there was no one on it, so I expanded in every direction except up it....and then discovered there was someone on it after all. What's more, that person was Tien'chi who'd even tried to incite unrest in my capital with a spy! That's an act of war in D3, and after I caught and executed the spy, I recalled my armies and headed up the peninsula to take care of the problem.
I've now conquered everything of his except his capital and one other fort, and the latter is under siege. Once it falls, I'll take his capital and then have a reasonably secure backfield to go after any of the four neighbors I have elsewhere. This game is going swimmingly so far, I must say.
Bovine, Turn 21
This one, however, isn't.
I had him, I really did. I had LA Ermor under siege in his capital. It was the only territory he had left, and I was a few short turns away from taking him out entirely.
And then Marignon backstabbed me and sieged my capital.
The fucker.
So I recalled the fast moving parts of my army to try and save my capital. The slow moving stuff then lost to Ermor when they broke out, and in the meantime my fast moving stuff proved insufficient to save my capital on their own. So now I'm pretty much fucked. Ermor's loose in the north, Marignon has a huge army in the south, and I've no capital to raise troops in. Frankly, I'm not even sure why I haven't gone AI yet.
BrokenBlade, Turn 8
I don't do well with the giant races. For whatever reason, I just can't make it work. In a fit of misplaced enthusiasm, I took Utgard...a giant race. Even with a dracolich pretender flying around providing support, I'm not expanding quickly enough, and I don't have a good feeling about the game's long term.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but somehow I doubt it.
I have successfully cordoned off some five territories behind my lines so I may have a chance yet, but we'll have to see.
Nimbys, Out with Turn 88
"It won't be much longer before the end."
It wasn't long indeed. I managed to beat an Abyss Lord (Balrog, basically) with four of my flying three headed dragons, but I only had two provinces left and no realistic hope of survival. This one was an easy one to surrender.
Kdom, Out with Turn 60
"With luck, that won't leave me too overexposed when Pangaea attacks next turn."
It did.
My excursion against Caaelum was a bad idea, and when Caelum went AI because of it, the super aggressive AI counter-attacked my poorly defended eastern flank. That hurt my economy just as the war against Pangaea got restarted. Which might have been survivable except that I'd invested a huge amount of magical gems in summoning two Kings of Elemental Earth, giant Earth Elementals, and further equipped them (at an even greater expense in gems) in the best magical weapons and gear that I could afford. And for a little while it worked. They smashed much larger Pangaean armies.
But he countered with heavy combat magic use, and even the Amulets of Antimagic I'd put on the guys wasn't protection enough. One of them died, and worse, the second was Charmed onto Pangaea's side. Without my summoned heavy hitters, I'd have to rely on normal troops, but with my economy hurt by AI Caelum, I couldn't buy enough of them....and normal troops can't beat the juiced up King of Elemental Earth that Pangae stole from me in the first place.
I could see the writing on the wall, and went AI to help reduce my game count.
Faraday, Turn 39
This one isn't going great. I'm still in a brutal war with Marverni, and I may be losing. My biggest army just lost a battle to his biggest army, and I'm not sure I can recover from that. Its not hopeless, not yet anyway, but I may dump this game in a week or so before I leave town.
Michrisandintermediate, Victorious with Turn 80
Endings in Dominions 3 aren't always clean. And they aren't clean in this one. What happened is that three of us, myself as Oceania, as well as Pangaea and Agartha had teamed up to take out the largest single empire out there, Vanheim. And we'd been successful enough that Van went AI. That left four of us with a chance at victory, the three of us in our alliance, and Ermor. There was a fifth remaining player, Marignon, but Ermor had been destroying them while we took out Van, so they had no practical chance at victory, much as I hadn't had one in Nimbys.
The thing was, the only reason that Marignon still existed was because Ermor hadn't been playing his turns, having never come back after that long week long break when the game was down. Around turn 80, the three remaining big players got together and decided to call it a team victory and end the game. As the Pangaea player put it:
"But yeah, we would have stalemated. I control about half the world and have unending armies backed by army of gold/weapons of sharpness/all of the demon lords etc. Agartha is smaller but is made of bloody granite thanks to the statues and mechanical men. And Oceania would have trouble harming any land power that is played by a non-ai player at this point (and can't be attacked itself)."
And he's right. My underwater defenses were pretty awesome at that point, but my land armies were at best average and wouldn't have done much to my competitors. So we called the game a three way win, and moved on to greener pastures. I do like the idea of our three gods forming a Zeus (Pangaea), Hades (Agartha), and Poseidon (me) ruling elite of a new pantheon though.
Shara2, Turn 10
Because a player was out of town for most of a week, this game is going agonizingly slowly. And the situation won't improve when I leave town next week, either.
From a strategic standpoint, I like to play the cordon game. That is, I expand in such a way to try and cut off other players from neutral territories behind my lines, cordoning them off as best I can. Doing so can be risky...I've lost games by expanding too quickly and getting double teamed by neighbors, and trying to set up a cordon is what started my war with Marverni in Faraday that I might just lose.
But if you can make it work...ahh, then you can grow yourself a powerful empire with limited opposition. That's what I'm trying to do in Shara 2, and it seems to be working. But its early days yet, so a lot can still go wrong.
1813Prime, Out with Turn 20
Disappointingly, I could never quite beat Shinuyama's manticore. And when Pythium invaded from the north while I tried to fight Shinuyama in west, I was done for.
At least I was out quickly.
Myimmersion, Turn 14
With Shara2 going so slowly, I opted to join another MA game to try out Ermor again. In that time we've played 14 turns in Myimmersion for 2 turns in Shara2, so this game is going much quicker.
In this one, I'm at the base of a peninsula. I assumed there was no one on it, so I expanded in every direction except up it....and then discovered there was someone on it after all. What's more, that person was Tien'chi who'd even tried to incite unrest in my capital with a spy! That's an act of war in D3, and after I caught and executed the spy, I recalled my armies and headed up the peninsula to take care of the problem.
I've now conquered everything of his except his capital and one other fort, and the latter is under siege. Once it falls, I'll take his capital and then have a reasonably secure backfield to go after any of the four neighbors I have elsewhere. This game is going swimmingly so far, I must say.
Bovine, Turn 21
This one, however, isn't.
I had him, I really did. I had LA Ermor under siege in his capital. It was the only territory he had left, and I was a few short turns away from taking him out entirely.
And then Marignon backstabbed me and sieged my capital.
The fucker.
So I recalled the fast moving parts of my army to try and save my capital. The slow moving stuff then lost to Ermor when they broke out, and in the meantime my fast moving stuff proved insufficient to save my capital on their own. So now I'm pretty much fucked. Ermor's loose in the north, Marignon has a huge army in the south, and I've no capital to raise troops in. Frankly, I'm not even sure why I haven't gone AI yet.
BrokenBlade, Turn 8
I don't do well with the giant races. For whatever reason, I just can't make it work. In a fit of misplaced enthusiasm, I took Utgard...a giant race. Even with a dracolich pretender flying around providing support, I'm not expanding quickly enough, and I don't have a good feeling about the game's long term.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but somehow I doubt it.
I have successfully cordoned off some five territories behind my lines so I may have a chance yet, but we'll have to see.