ts

Goodfella - Day 1

Battles went as planned. Tomorrow, we have a big battle in store and hopefully, one not as big.
We did kill a bunch of humans today and if that pirate Blackheart is commanding these rabble, he better find some other options soon.

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Goodfella - Day 2

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Options abound.

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Goodfella - Day 3

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Goodfella - Day 4

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Goodfella - Day 5

The past few days have not been as fruitful as I expected and I am coming to the conclusion that my initial guess on Blackheart's strategy was way off the mark.

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Goodfella - Day 6

A couple of battles were too close for comfort. We secured enough money to hire another hero today. There is a serious lack of swimming units on my side and the efreet spell has not yet appeared in my research book.
Looks like this is going to be a long battle, mostly on the defensive.

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Goodfella - Day 7

The (bad) luck in battles is continuing. A single spear throw killed my pixie and a couple of orc archers proved eerily accurate in taking down 2 of my wounded veterans while my hero failed to seduce their accompanying cavalry. All in all, a bad day....the only redeeming feature being that we took a village from Blackheart.

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We lost a farm, a village and the two guards in it. Soon, a node will follow. Our scouting Swashie decide to walk past the conquered, but now unoccupied village - instead of retaking it - to go for a swim in the ocean. I think I'll keelhaul him a couple times, very slowly, to see if he still likes the water that much.

Alas, at least we sank the Elven ship and the enemy troops on it.

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Goodfella - Day 8

We knew the Elven ranger's days were numbered but to die so quickly when I had such grand plans for him, that is a terrible blow indeed. It would appear that the Elvenship's famed speed is negated by the dark magic of Explorer skill that Blackheart commands.
To be on an even keel, a term I am sure he will understand, we are Explorers too.

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I'm sure there's much 'sploring to be done in the Void...

Goodfella - Day 9

I'll devise a way using my magic expertise to communicate from the Void; that way Blackheart can let me know all he finds out exploring there. I just hope I don't have to visit the Void to test the new 'way'

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I feel much safer now...

Goodfella - Day 11

With the loss of Dahl's March and the income structures on that island, money is becoming very tight. We need to find a way to find Blackheart's plans as he seems to be everywhere at once.

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Cruisin'...

Goodfella - Day 12

We decided to fight back.
Dahl's March, Gypsy Point and three watermills in the north were taken from Blackheart. His domain is quite near Gypsy Point though, so it might prove to be an eventful night.

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I guess I should have checked if this was a map by GM. I missed a cave entrance on his "River" map, too...

Goodfella - Day 13

Cementing our position on the surface.

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The fact that you didn't know about the cave explains a lot of things in that area. I'm sorry you didn't know abt that
Still, the northern invasion must have been unexpected too, I think.
Edit: This map was by KD but he did say he was inspired by GM, so I guess GM is still to blame

[This message has been edited by Timelord (edited 10-15-2009 @ 11:26 PM).]

Lol! No respect I say, no respect!

LOL! Died attacking some DEs...

That was anti-climactic

GG, ZE!

Wow, ladies and gentlemen, TNS live from the scene where ZombieEater lost his match to Timelord. This could be the most anticlimactic ending to one of the most eagerly awaited games!

ZombieEater, how could this have happened, exactly?

And Timelord, it seemed you were just emerging from a tricky position. Are you relieved? What did you have in store for our opponent?

I agree this was not what I wanted - 2 forfeits in round 1 and an indie killing in round 2 doesn't give me the practice I thought I would have.

Anyway, most of the turn logs in this game were meant to mislead - at least, that was the intention. I don't know whether ZE paid any attention to them though

As for this game, I had all the cities in the underground except for the halfling village by day 8. Below is a screenshot at the end of day 8


The boat with 6 occupants on the western water cave had a vision 3 thunderbird which helped my units stay out of Blackheart's vision range.
In 2 turns, I conquered the dragons' nest, dominating the 2 flyers there and recruiting a green wyvern which went up to the surface to start capturing structures.

The last turn...
I had about 2 stacks on the Gypsy Point with 2 very strong heroes. My galley was heading south with 2 crocs and a thunderbird to meet up with my concealed centaur, prowler and panther to move to the Tigran island.
I also saw a trail of darkness moving to the eastern water cave so I moved all my units there to the Draco village - 2 stegadon riders, veteran chieftain, fire elemental, veteran scout, 2 shamans, 1 veteran sharpshooter.
I also had a water concealed slither in position to take South Cove the next turn.
The best part though (IMO) was I had a stack of 2 doombats, 4 gargoyles and a dragon turtle ready to remove the remaining wyrm in the central water cave and head to the surface with some surface units.
The next best part was I had just got a black dragon and would have got another dragon in 2 turns. The conqering army in that area (spiders, satyrs, healer, veterans) were heading to the surface to recruit/dominate the pitguard and what else they could lay their hands on

As I told Enginerd over email, the draco slither appeared better than the goblin balloon so I decided very early on to migrate the goblins to dracos and with the 2 other draco towns, I was able to negate the event-driven hatred for Dracos and get myself to a neutral status - which helped a lot with the dragon and the dominated/recruited flyers.

Still, I was playing cautious because I knew ZE was a pro too and a single big battle loss could tilt the game towards the winner
I still don't understand why all the prod resources were left unconquered on the surface. Dahl's team conquered about 4 prod resources which gave me a couple of lvl3 buildings I could sell for some much-needed cash.

Err sorry to post here and sorry for the lack of knowledge, but what are DEs?...

Congratulations to Timelord. Better luck next tournament ZombieEater, hope to see you more frequently in the Forum now!

Dark Elves

Great image & strategy, congrats! And sorry to see you go this way, ZombieEater. I was really looking forward to this one.

I had the surface cleaned up, though I didn't have a lot of lvl3's. I could have Seduced a Giant and 2 Pit Guards. Dominate would have allowed me to grab a few more, but access to flying units was limited.

I didn't test play the map, so I probably missed a few opportunities (and that cave entrance in the east...).

I was trying to grab a ProdRes from some DE (Dark Elves) and drew some very bad luck.

Not sure if I could have matched the forces that TL is describing in any case. Maybe BH has to grab all his initial troops and rush the underground before round 10.

Great game, TL. Congrats on the deserved win!