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[Culise]

So, umm, sorry for accidentally blowing up your army, Bogarus.  Again. 

[lijacote]

The committee has been deployed in full force. The die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed.

[Culise]

Ah, and the perfidy of the Committee is confirmed.  It was little surprise given the forces massing on our southern border, but given that they could not even overcome our regular province defenses, and certain troop redeployments of late, we find it not especially concerning.  The forests shall endure the undead march, and the false life shall give way before true. 

[lijacote]

The Central Committee is mostly destroyed, hehe. I knew I shouldn't have left them on hold and attack, I knew it... aaagh! Well. This even things a little.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I remember reading a few versions ago in the patch notes that AI should be a little bit better at thugging.

So naturally Caelum gave his Air Queen a slave matrix

[lijacote]

Every time, every time! I go to work, and in the first hour at least 402 resolves. Whyyyy! I can't wait. Can not!

[tompliss]

I went to sleep, last night, and 2 games I'm in processed their turn less than 1 hour after (and a third game during the night)....
Yet another 20+ hours long turn ...

[lijacote]

Red October, Culise, your sheer brute strength... you almost had me. I can only pray that you are spent now, because I've only got so many throwaway mages. >_>

[Culise]

...and suddenly, I'm really, really worried about the turn results.  From that "almost," I'll have to bring another army south, I take it?

EDIT:
Yep, I got ripped to pieces, there.  I'll have to take some time to rework the orders again, but it looks like it's time to send in another army into the hungry maw of your offensive force.  ^_^

[lijacote]

So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race.

[Culise]

And so it ends.  The demi-humans no longer roam the wilds of the forests, corrupted and twisted by disease and curses of anger that befall those who march those wilds.  The trees grow gnarled and twisted, untended by the gentle hands of dryads.  The bacchanalian debaucheries of the satyrs fade from the memory of men and women, and the wisdom of the pan descends like fallen leaves, vanishing like grass before an all-consuming flame.  Of the harpies, only those few distant souls yet remain, those who fled their homes and sought refuge in stealth, hiding themselves from the wrath of the vengeful bloody divinity that now holds sway.  The Mother Oak lies withered, its once-beautiful fruit tainted by the foul and unholy magics that have tortured this land, the deep mines from whence sprung the wellsprings of Holy Terra herself now dry of all.  To the north, the Path of Night, once a route from which one could see the beauty of the stars and moon, now mourns under an eternal shroud of darkness.  The Harem of Secrets, the seat of the Throne of Fire, yet burns, though none see it any longer, to revel in its warmths.  The Silent Glen has become its name in truth, the Throne of Air under the bloody yoke of the Revolution unending.  Within the deepest part of the Old Forest, an ancient monument yet stands, the figure of a woman with hands outstretched heavenward, seemingly untouched by the ravages that have rent the woodlands asunder.  It is said that its stone visage once moved and spake, awakened from its imprisonment by the glories of the worship, the homage once paid to it by the demihumans of the world.  Its power over nature unparalleled, bound to the Earthmother herself through roots of stone, an ancient heretical spirit once governed over these untrammeled wilds, her knowledge, glory, and wisdom on the lips of those who sought her council.  It is said that the Kings of the Elemental Earth once obeyed her will, and that the lands themselves burst bountiful with the fruits of the harvest.  It is said that she parted the seas to make way for her followers, that the winds themselves deigned to hear her and the Wind Masters that once called her halls home.  Many things have been said, once upon a time, of the Lady of Growth, the Peacemaker. 

But today, none can say.  For as all know, stone cannot speak, though it may yet weep. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, now, that was a fun game.  I think I made several mistakes, not the least of which include over-fortifying (which crippled my resource base and greatly reduced my army capacity).  I think that I let myself get walled in a bit too much, and that I didn't pursue certain diplomatic options as vigorously as I could have.  Still, I don't think I did poorly while playing what was almost always the smallest country in the game.

[Delta Foxtrot]

GG. thanks for playing everyone, whether still standing or long dead.

I guess I could have gone AI when I lost my capital without much effect, but eh. Maybe next game. It was my first late game so I didn't really have a plan or the pretender built for stuff. Not that I strictly lost because of that.

Some ramblings about the game from Jomon's perspective:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Early game was pretty easy. Jomonese troops are resource intensive even with prod-3 (2 would have sufficed really), but for some reason it felt like I had the monopoly on mercs. They buffed up my expansion very nicely. I do remember Mictlan buying off my wet ones. I did curse that a bit, they were so nice and fleshy meat shields for my archers.

Midgame was as midgame tends to be. Trying fevereshly to butter up both Caelum and Abysia to protect my borders while stamping down probable high risers. Just so happened that first Patala and then Mictlan looked really really scary. I do feel a bit bad about how it ended up going though. It seemed everyone just descended upon Patala, he didn't really have a chance. Maybe if we had lacked the graphs.

I don't know if Mictlan was ever as dangerous as I thought he was, but I was very afraid when he was sieging Pythium's capital which was on my border. By sheer dumb luck Pythium actually beat the large jaguar army stationed there (it really was dumb luck, Pythium's pretender was down to very low HP and very high fatigue by the end of it). But that was certainly a very nice turn of events for me. It was a big blow to Mictlan and it allowed me to blitzkrieg with confidence through Mictlan's lands. Having Bogarus do a follow through to prevent any counter attacks didn't exactly hurt either.

After that there wasn't a really clear threat (apart from me that is). I guess I picked Midgård by the virtue of being the one I had the least contact with. I was still trying to cosy up Caelum and Abysia. As for Bogarus... He had been working with me quite nicely that far. I didn't really want to break it any sooner than I had to.

After Midgård fell I went about trying to kill off my biggest threat, Bogarus. Unfortunately the sly fox struck first. I was one or two turns from alpha striking him when he opened hostilities. With Abysia joining arms against me I felt fairly threatened. Due to my power at that stage it was still fairly undecided, even when it was a 3-2 when only Caelum stood by me. A few unlucky losses, bad plays really, sealed my unending downfall at one point or another. USEC_OFFICER started really showing signs of fatigue as well which meant that Caelum wasn't contributing quite it's weight's worth in the war effort. No hard feelings though. Sometimes life just gets in the way.
At the end of the day I lost due to my failings. My expansion was poorly executed, I had too many close neighbours by my core provinces. I really should have aimed to take out either Caelum or Abysia early. It would have covered my fat centre very well. I was too friendly too early and that cost me dearly by the end. The other was my simple lack of lategame skills. I had too many resources and I was spending them far too gleefully. Throwing "expendable" troops, mages, even a pretender to the meat grinder. It's a bad habit I've learned over the years in SP. When I get all the toys, the fun is in using all those toys up in the process of playing with them. For some reason it didn't translate well to a semi competitive play.

It was interesting to see the pendulum swing from me to Bogarus. We had some nice arm wrestling going on for a while.

I decided to compile a few diplomatic tidbits to a different spoiler. It's all paraphrasing, but I guess some might find this interesting.

Spoiler: Diplomacy for Jomon (click to show/hide)

My early diplomacy was the usual fair. "yo, 'sup. Let's kill indies. Peace out." My misguided goal early on was trying to make lasting peace with most of my neighbours. These ended up being Caelum and Abysia, by the virtue of seeming more friendly than scary jaguar men or enigmatic and imposing wolf men. And I guess there was Pangaea but he was only neighbouring me buy a rarely freezing river. Didn't feel like a threat.

Some noteworthy transactions were trading most of my D gems (Turmoil-2/Luck-3/Magic-3 nets you a TON of gems) to Caelum from quite early on. I got some horror helmets from him. I also just did flat out trading or so I recall. I had a ridiculous amount of D gems. I also did some trading with Abysia. Pretty much anything to keep those two guys happy.

I never really talked with Midgård, sure we agreed to a border early and collaborated a bit against Patala but that's largely it. Same is true for Mictlan, he sent a frankly very brutish "stay off my lawn" type message at me early. Not that I was going to argue, those jaguars scared the crap out of me. Anything to placate the monstrosity. "Peace in our time" was the slogan at the time. Incidentally I worked to make a mutual protection pact with both Abysia and Caelum should Mictlan attack me or the other (I negotiated individually with Abysia and Caelum, they didn't hear from me that I was cavorting them both). I was honestly committed to it, but I don't know how my pact mates would have responded if it ever came to be tested. Not that it mattered, it ended with me attacking Mictlan. I expected no support since it was a defensive pact, and I got none (other than Bogarus but I had specifically negotiated with him for war assistance against Mictlan).

It's worth noting that I also discussed with Pangaea before every war I fought. He never really seemed to budge much. Though I seem to recall that I later learned he was some sort of ally/fair weather friend for Mictlan, which would explain some of his reluctance to gang up.

As for the big war to end all wars with Bogarus. I think I started plotting against him some dozens of turns before hostilities actually started. Caelum, Abysia and Pan may remember me sending inviting messages every now and then about purely hypothetical hostilities against Bogarus. As the eventual 3-2 situation proved, it didn't amount to much.

As for other trading, hmm... I think I was selling slaves and W gems to Abysia (or was he selling me W gems in exchange for slaves?). I also sold a bunch of slaves to Bogarus. I did remark at the time how poetically just it would be for me to die to the demons of Rus and Abysia. Funny how that turned out

Likewise I provided D for Caelum and E for Pangaea at some points (Patala's E9 pretender had found some seriously awesome E sites). There was also some item trading between me and Abysia. Boosters, supply gear and the like. We were good neighbours until the fiery devil stabbed me like Brutus did to his Caesar. I still weep for the injustice.
I also did some extensive trading with Bogarus before our official clash. I believe I provided him some rune smashers among other things.
I bought a bunch of blood items from both Rus and Abysia. I had some hilariously decked out mages before my freefall to oblivion.

I was communicating quite extensively with Bogarus from Mictlan's fall to near end of the game. I'm guessing it's that communication that may have kept me from attacking Bogarus as long as I did. It's really that much easier to strike someone you've barely spoken to in-game.

Spoiler: Some final words (click to show/hide)

I never got to contact with Man. I know there was some fighting between Man and Abysia but that's it. Likewise Pythium ended up being a snack between the bigger fishes I was frying. But the war with Mictlan surely wouldn't have gone as well without the assistance of Boulder The Awesome and his stompy boots. My thanks for that to tompliss.

About Pangaea. I feel you played far too passively. At the same time I'd say I was perhaps a bit too aggressive but in my eyes it really hampered your abilities to influence the game. "Too little too late" so to speak. Even if you did end up mulching some valued resourcesFaithful Followers. But. There's more than one way to play Dominions and I'm sure this was a learning game for all involved.

And a quick jab at the map. I think this is a great map, but our particular start was marred by the fact that there were no set starts. A few players (like myself and Abysia) got really good spots, other s got quite dreadful (Mictlan, Pythium). A few months after we started an updated version was uploaded where there are some set starting points which aim to be more balanced overall. For that reason I would definitely recommend this map again for any game that's within the map's size range.

Here's a little something melancholic for those who wish to mourn the passing of their pretenders.
Remix from Chrono Trigger

I may still remember some things after posting this, but that's my preliminary GG post. Also graphs.

Spoiler: Province Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Fort Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Income Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Gem Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Research Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Dominion Graph (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Army Graph (click to show/hide)

[USEC_OFFICER]

Once again, I'm sorry for bailing out before the end guys. But, you know, can't fix fatigue and lack of enthusiasm. You guys were all cool though and I wish that I could have stuck with the game for longer.

Also, I wish to remind everyone that I had Drain 2 and still managed to have the 3rd highest research in the game for a long time. What the heck guys?

_{Also also, I was LA Caelum and didn't instantly die. Yay me.}

[Bluerobin]

Holy wow big posts. Time to read.

Edit: Thanks for the summary, it was neat to see the charts after it's all said and done. And yeah, I need to be more ruthless and more diplomatic in general, I think. I also need to practice my mid/late game, but there's no good way to do that. Oh well!

[Culise]

I actually agree that I played very passively, but the major problem was that in the end, I had nowhere to expand - the capital map should make this very plain.  Midgard's capital literally stood astride my only exit north, and in the south, Bogarus was not that much better; my continued survival is almost solely owed to the fact that these two valued me more as a buffer zone and convenient forger than they valued the two thrones I was sitting on - Midgard in particular was very forbearing of the fact that I had effectively seized a throne that by right of proximity should belong to them.  That was likely in large part because, as Bogarus demonstrated at the end of the game, they could take those thrones from me at any time if ever they needed one or the other.  The only way to expand was by conquering one of my neighbours, but every time I even hinted at it, it was pretty much quickly and brutally shot down by everyone I approached.  Unlike Boksi in Patala, I had no desire to embark on a one-sided war that would bring the wrath of everyone down on me, so I started building up for maritime adventures, since that was the only avenue left to me.  Unfortunately, Pangaea is not a maritime country at all; by the time I had a small force set up in spite of all the combined resources I could bring to bear on it, both Mictlan and Jomon were busily chomping up the ocean, and Bogarus had already eaten the lake.  And then Mictlan demonstrated the wastefulness of my actions by one-shotting my expansion force with a single backhand, leaving me with a handful of unarmored Triton indies and a single Pan that, by dumb luck, was late to the battle. 

Ultimately, I finally did manage to latch on to a war against one of my neighbours (Midgard, as it turned out), but in the end, that was too little, too late.  I never even got to use my pigeon bombs against Midgard's casters; they ended up going up against a full raiding force, which ended in...ah, flames.  And not the good kind, either. ^_^