Violetta day 1

Soon we will start a war against Amelia Jane. But first of all we need to work on our income and at the same time take care of the coming croc invasion...

I'm sure we can deal with it all, and be ready when the war begins.

Captured a mine and got a quest from the spirit of nature.
Can't complain about the quest. Or can I?

ts

~ Amelia Jane, day 1

Her long nails fervently engraved the bones with intricate symbols. Sweat poured off her forehead as she put down the last and tenth bone. Almost instantly her expression turned from one of utter concentration to one of mystical emptiness.

Outside the hut shouting could be heard. "It is time!", "Mother will reveal!", "Gather now, gather all!".

Several Shaman had seen strong omens the past few days. Omens indicating big change. It was unclear as to what the nature of this change was and it was for that question alone that, Amelia Jane, or "The Mother", had been sitting in her hut performing a ritual of foresight. And it was for an answer that the entire village had come out.

Amelia flung her head backwards and spread her arms whilst muttering ancient incantations. Meanwhile, the bones started to move and form patterns. It lasted a few minutes before it stopped. Everything stopped...

"WAR...", Mother spoke.

====

Good game, Costa!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 01-30-2010 @ 02:15 PM).]

Violetta day 2

Captain Richard and his crew captured a most needed windmill today

We can see the first crocs closing in, and also some ticks.
Have to remember that those small basterds can be a real pain...

ts

~ Amelia

The Drums of Death resounded loudly in the caverns as structures were taken to fuel the efforts of war. No mercy was shown to any who opposed Mother!

Violetta day 3

Took care of some crocs and aome ticks.

I can see more coming in...

ts

~ Amelia

War, war, war... there was talk of war! A lot of speak and speculation. "Against what enemy?", was asked by many, since any enemy was yet to be identified

Mother spoke to calm them down: "It will only take a while before they shall dawn!"

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 01-30-2010 @ 08:16 PM).]

Violetta day 4

The Queen: Forward Richard! Forward!!!
Capt. Richard: The crew needs to rest.

ts

~ Amelia" day 4

The caves are soaring with activity! Weapons and gear are being forged, and the enemy is welcome!

Violetta day 5

After some real nice fighting, Richard is riding hard towards the next target.

Elsewhere we are getting closer to finish the quest...

ts

~ Amelia: day 5

Things are going well. This war, whenever it may start, is going to be won!

Violetta day 6

Some heavily wounded troops are delaying me.
We'll see tomorrow...

ts

~ Amelia: day 6

YUCK!! Sunlight!

Otherwise, a good day. We are so happy! In fact, we almost forget about this war altogether!

---

Nice pace!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 01-31-2010 @ 06:17 PM).]

Violetta day 7

A lonesome veteran darter above ground?

The orders for my scouting unicorn was simple enough. Attack. Phase in and finish off that nosy goblin...

But...suddenly all goes black.

My scout will send no more reports.

ts

~ Amelia

First blood! Our scout did a marvelous job, way above expectation!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 02-01-2010 @ 08:41 PM).]

Violetta day 8

Today I wanted to have a look in the underground.
I sent my best unit, a knight, down the entrance near the
dwarf town, and I went right into a trap!!! A full stack of Amelias troops, including Amelia herself, were standing in the underground entrance. My knight was webbed and instantly killed.

I never expected my enemy to be that agressive.
At least now i know. That gives me some time to prepare a warm welcome. I'm sure it will be a blast...

ts

~ Amelia

Violetta's movements, or domain, have been tracked for 2 days now. Yesterday, she was seen with a lone knight right outside the cave entrance where Amelia had been hiding. They could have attacked an easily killed both the Knight and Wizard.

But, upon deep deliberation, it was decided that Violetta was to be trapped instead. After all, it was obvious to Amelia that she was going to enter the cave in order to capture the 'Dwarven' village.

And so, when darkness fell, they waited in silence... and waited, until they heard the sound of hooves. The Goblins could hardly hold their excitement as they butchered the Knight! However, when the blood dried, there was one single big disappointment... where was Violetta!?

Why would she sent the knight first? A knight is hardly a scout...

The Goblins sprung from their caves and dashed for the human capitol. And there was the answer... NO TOWER!! She had sold it! With some psychologizing, it was probably the case that she was extra cautious because of the lack of tower.

We curse ourselves at the likely fact that this war could have been over yesterday, and eagerly await the next day...

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 02-02-2010 @ 11:07 PM).]

Violetta day 9

I'm fleeing with my wizard. I cannot risk to be sent to the void, because it would be a one way ticket. My tower is sold long ago, and my heart is still pounding because of the near death experience yesterday.

It seems like Amelia and her troops are headed directly for my capitol. But I will have have time to build up some defense.

Elsewhere I bought a human town. The red knight that came with it was sent to kill the still wounded and still scouting darter.

ts

~ Amelia

As Violetta escaped through the eye of a needle, it is now us who are in a challenging position. Or at least, confronted with a challenging choice...

As feared, our opponent wisely made use of their ability to 'control animal' as we found a grand total of 5 crocs and a crossbowman guarding the capitol.

Things now look very different than yesterday and we need to come up with a solution. It is unlikely we can win the battle for the capitol, or win without suffering heavy losses. The necessary support is too far away, so we need to rely on the available resources for solutions.

The first objective was met: the druids circle was conquered without loss and any spell casting required. Dangerous animals are now released under our command which will surely come in handy.

This may become a longer war than we planned...

======
Yikes, I thought those red knights were set to 'guard'!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 02-03-2010 @ 07:22 PM).]

Violetta day 10

Hey! Those animals were meant for me!

Have sent most of my army back to the capitol.
Lets see if its enough.

In the meantime Violetta is keeping a solid distance to all of this...

ts

Holy macaroni! A grand total of 10 crocs, a giant tic, and druid and Herbalist...

Well, I hope that that is about it, cause... we are leaving that party. That's just not fun anymore.

Lets see how Violetta is doing.

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 02-05-2010 @ 09:43 AM).]

Violetta day 11

With a sudden feeling of beeing followed, I continue to flee with Violetta.

Took i mine from Amelia in the underground with a hellhound.

ts

Amelia

A good day. We killed some indie intruders with ease around the home front. Now, we have to find a way to end this zoo soon...

Violetta day 12

Couldn't do much.

ts

Amelia

We got really, really close today...

Violetta day 13

Fortifying the human town with Violetta and her bodyguards.

Found a scouting Kobold next to my capitol and took him out.

In the underground I killed one grunt with my hellhound and took the mine next to Amelias capitol with a unicorn...

ts

Amelia

The hunt continues vigorously!

Violetta day 14

Amelia has been hunting me for a while now. Meanwhile I have been building up a small balloon troop with a knight, a unicorn and the machines I could buy at the marketplace.
I send this troop down the nearest cave entrance, and after killing some area guards, I send them towards Amelias tower. But..., the tower is gone!!!

I suddenly realize that Amelia too has sold her tower, and are just as vulnerable as myself.

I take a fast look at the situation. Amelia herself is also a part of the hunt, but she is forming a reartroop with some slower units. This reartroop is reachable with 9 of my units. Quite strong ones too. Some already in the human town and some others on their way.

The order is given, and the battle is won. Amelia is defeated!!

Congrats Costa! Well played, and very solid. I was hoping you wouldn't think of attacking yourself!

I have some qualms about the map, but overall, you made good use of your Wizard's strengths. I never got the Wizard tower, unfortunately! So I couldn't sell one too.

I have been keeping a log of my strategy and stuff, so I will post it here.

My game analysis
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to really look at the map, but my feeling was that there weren't huge balance issues. My biggest concern were the enormous amount of patrolling animals getting 'controlled' by the human side. I knew that with players of Costa's caliber, abilities like control-animal form dangerous exploits.

When I got assigned the Goblins, I took another closer look at the map and discovered the city limits (Humans can easily get knights whereas Goblins are basically constrained to lvl2 units as counters (read: slow butchers)). It was clear that it was going to be an enormous amount of hardhitters I would have to be dealing with, and especially after a day or 10 (knights, and early animals/summons). So, I didn't feel like allowing the game to go much past day 10, because it would only allow Costa to build up Knights, and once he would get those cranking out and combine with his leadership-II hero, it would be a difficult game.
In other words, I liked his position somewhat better (he also started, and had good units in recruitment sites and gained better units from events, better magic vault nearby, better hero, a wizard tower, and he was neutral in alignment!).

So, I felt that building up my empire was just going to get me into trouble. I mean, I could go straight for the DE village, start building butchers/balloons, etc... but I was not going to be able to withstand a focused attack!
If I were him, I would take the trees down (who needs a crappy outpost and a 30% druid every 5 days - when most games are decided before day 15!?), and start harvesting the patrols and the other recruit sites. By day 6, one could probably direct the attention to the caverns with an unstoppable (but slightly slow) army.

My plan-A was simple, to switch positions! I was going to sneak past him very quickly, and take his capitol and make the knights myself before he could. He could have those two heaps of dirt I started off with! It was a very risky rush strategy I had to perform. I planned to go north first (most resources and out of sight), cross diagonally, and surprise him from the northwest cavern (near the Dwarves). If I was lucky, I may even buy some of the units from his recruit site! It would all depend on stealth and speed, and some luck that he would not conquer the Dwarven realm too soon. Was I discovered, plan B would destroy his dwarven realm and see how long I can hold out, but I would most likely lose because of the sacrifices made.

Day 1. Bad start. My spells were disappointing (two summons, no stone skin, etc...), as was the War Quest spawn (who spawned three priests on the most east side). The latter fact actually forced me to go immediately west, and play an even riskier game. I did not like this at all, and reconsidered my whole plan (hence the delay in turns). In the end, I decided to just go ahead: what the heck!! Because of the speed that was required for the mission to succeed, I could not afford to conquer the nearby diamond mine and factories, as well as take the recruitment site.

Day 2-3. All (few) battles went well. Thanks to the use of taunt it was easy to level up the hero and not lose many units. The War Quest reward ended up being a waste of time, unfortunately. This was frustrating, as I gambled my whole plan on obtaining this reward! At this point in the game, I am not feeling too comfortable... I decide to summon boars to aid in the rush. A discovery would be highly undesirable and he could have scouts right above me!

Day 4-5. Only movement. This was basically the price I had to pay for taking this route (thanks to the spawns). I did take a mine, and was very unlucky in the battle. It was my hero, a boar, and a spider against a minotaur and a boar. The spider failed twice at webbing the minotaur, and my heroes' grasp didn't do damage twice in a row. My boar could get no support and lost his life to the other boar (on 1 hp, argh) and my spider was badly wounded. Well, my hero did kill both and got a 'block' as a reward the next day.
I also got a first indication of what Costa was doing. My hero peeked on the surface and saw domain. I now knew that the Wizard was out of her tower and probably assisted into taking the ruins. I left my butcher on the opening to prevents scouts from discovering my plan.

Day 6. Interesting day! A boar was ready to be summoned and found the Dwarven village untaken. This was very good news and it pleased us all. This meant that he was either fiddling with patrols, or (better): had a strategy focused on the south! Plan A was still on!
The boar also scouted on the surface and found enemy domain not too far. The Wizard was moving around at about the same place as before: strange. Perhaps they were having problems? Whatever the army was, I was hoping they wouldn't turn more north or west...

The butcher, who defeated the wyvern, was standing right on top of two crocs and instead of figuring as a distractor (as planned, darn!) had to move north as well. Well, butchers are slow, perhaps he will come in handy...

Day 7. Now it gets really interesting! We noticed the enemy Wizard is nearby... in fact, she is almost directly above the cave we intended to jump her from. Now, shall we kill her and her Knight, today, or hope that she will fall into our trap tomorrow!? Obviously, we will have much fewer losses if she falls into the trap instead of us assaulting her. Also, she may move capt Richard further from the capital at the start of her turn, and then get herself voided... A big dilemma, but after weighing all the pro's and con's, we have decided to wait. One more day.

===== From this moment on I got busy, I so I didn't do the daily logs anymore ====

So, in retrospect, I probably should have killed you! I couldn't belief that you sent your knight first, as if it was a scout (but well done, very good and careful move!). I also found it extra frustrating that those red knights were for sale. Argh!

So yes, then I obviously pushed for your capitol. I thought you were bluffing about having a lot of defenses. When I noticed the really insane amount of crocs, I just bought the fastest troops from that druids circle and tried to hunt your wizard down. In the meantime, I just kept summoning boars to aid the hunt. This was the only option basically, as I had not planned for a long term strategy.

Unfortunately, I could not afford your wizard combining with much more. Especially escaping through to the west, and linking up with all those crocs you have. So, I had to keep the pressure up and have my wizard separate from my fast group (hero+ boars+ troll+stuff). When I noticed another croc (is that #11!?) in the water and your unicorn seeing my capitol, I knew most of my cards were on the table.

I did run some testgames where I could kill your Wizard the next day even if you had added another crossbowmen and Hellhound. I wouldn't have won the battle, probably, but FC would have had my troops target your wizard sooner so the battle would be aborted in my favour. I would have had to engage with my Wizard as well, though. This was my hope, as per strategy, I had given up on building up the homefront.

I realized you could attack me but I was hoping you would think of yourself as the hunted and I as the hunter. But no, you kept your psychological cool as well, and did the right thing!

So, in retrospect, a very high level game! I do feel the map favoured your side, but in the end, I can see you made all the right decisions, and are a worthy champion! So, my sincere congratulations and I hope we can meet again next year!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 02-07-2010 @ 04:55 PM).]

WOW! Folks, you see it here, Costa has beaten Swolte in this most exciting finale. Congratulations to Costa, what a great game.

*mumbles to self as he just finished the TNS for today... and starts thinking about interviews, award ceremonies, videos, YIKES*

Well, er, um.... WOW, What a great analysis by Swolte on his game, Costa, we would love to hear your thoughts on the game. What was it like, did you think you stood a chance, how does it feel to win? WOW, what a finish to a great tourney.

Congrats Costa ! I could really feel that the patience and cool head were well paid off. I saw Swolte as favorite (based on your encounter in the last Tourney) but it came as a nice surprise to see Costa crowned Champion 'cause I love the upset like this

Thank you guys!

It feels great to win. I was expecting a real hard game in this final. My goal was to do better than last final, where I felt I didn't give Swolte much of a fight. It would have been a major disappointment for me if Swolte had killed me at day 7.

Thoughts on the balance:
I have played this map quite alot. I feel it is quite balanced, but I must admit that I was hoping for the Humans. In my opinion they have more options in this game.
Control animal and to be able to buy both those human towns are some of the advantages. On the other side, if goblins get stone skin, they are very hard to beat. I feel the marketplace is an advantage for the goblins also. If you are lucky you can get a steam tank there. In this game, where Swolte left this alone, I was able to buy a balloon, a repeater ballista and a frost cannon there.

My strategy for this final:
I experienced in playtesting that rushing in this map is quite hard to succeed with. It is easy to build up quite good defenses in the capitols. My strategy was therefore first of all to play for a long game. I focused on myself, to take structures, resources etc.

I decided to kill the ents and to buy the druid and elven ranger. I sold the wizard tower to be able to buy them and the spy by day 3. I was able to buy both human towns at day 9 with gold from quest reward and from exploring shipwreck, rainbow end and haunted crypt.

On day day 6 I was planning to send my wizard to be safe in the capitol. For some reason he stayed one more day, and that nearly got me killed. I got real scared when I sent my knight down there and met all those troops. I was just able to send my wizard out of reach for an attack. I was hoping that Swolte sent his troops for my capitol, and he did.

Around this time I had 5 crocs near my capitol. I also discovered 8 crocs guarding a shipwreck. I attacked them with my druid and silver medalled herbalist (with control animal), and ended up with 5 more crocs. These were able to reach home before Amelias troops. I sent all others I could spare to help out also.

After some scouting I found that Swolte had left both the dwarf town and the dark elf town alone. He obviously did not plan for a long game. I knew that I had the income advantage, and that I would have the advantage if the game would be a long one. I therefore did not stress anything, but focused on my wizard to stay alive.

In the end it turned out that I was able to attack Swoltes wizard, and not the other way around, and without a tower it was all over...

This tourney has been alot of fun, and I have really started to enjoy this game again (after some years rest). I will definetely continue to be active in this forum, and are looking forward to next years tournament.

Thanks alot Swolte for a good game!

Congrats Costa!

I must admit - I was rooting for Swolte and was 100% sure that he was going to win. Well played!

...and to think people were saying the Goblin side was very strong!!

Congratulations to both of you, in particular to the new PBEM Champion, Costa!
This was my first tournament and it was great to watch it to the end. I'm looking forward to participate in upcoming events like this one! The organization excelled!

I have no idea about the changes that were subsequently made to this map, but I keep my opinion, from the earlier playtesting, that Goblins have it easier. Well, gotta tell you, that just goes to show that I still have a lot to learn!

Only changes to the map were to make the events work the way TL originally intended. They were a bit buggy. It was all around how the events worked if you killed the ents (or left them alone). Everything else about the map stayed the same.

*makes mental note that he never got the updated map uploaded to the map pack , must fix that*

Mappack is updated!

Congrats, Costa!

I had the honors of being Costas sparringpartner on this map, and we played it about five times from each side.
The funny thing is that I have never played the map as bad as I play it in my consolation match against Naeco....I got some wins against the Champ though

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 02-08-2010 @ 06:58 AM).]

Congratulations costa!

I must say, I never tought I would follow a tournament for a computer game so closely But TNS was a great read, and some of the logs were an absolutely great read!

Congrats Costa!

And thank you both for displaying your strategies. I liked reading them a lot.

Congrats Costa!

I havenīt checked the map in detail but were those 8 crocs in a shipwreck random or fixed in the map?
If the latter was the case, I would call it a severe balance-issue for I understood that one party had 1-2 control animal units and I think Costa made good use of it...

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