Day 1:

We captured some rich farm land.

TS

Arrived to Panama today because of a late-hour work assignment.
I will try to play my turns asap but please excuse me for any delays if I can't do it very soon.

Goldstein
Not a good start, my units failed hit after hit and one of them died in a battle against weak guardians.
TS

Day 2:

Took a town, but failed to notice the patrol near my main town while my troops had move. Hopefully they do not cause to much trouble.

TS

Goldstein
Bad luck is not gone: more casualties today during an easy battle.
TS

Day 3:

Patrol dealt with, moving on now.

TS

Goldstein
Completed a quest, now it is time to return.
TS

Day 4:

Lost too many units getting a production resource.

TS

Goldstein
Discovered an scout of my enemy.
One important unit crashed on the mountains.
TS

Day 5:

Moving to next phase: invading the mainland. The question remains: which scout has been spotted?

TS

[This message has been edited by Gwenio (edited 09-11-2010 @ 03:21 PM).]

Goldstein
That one!
TS

Day 6:

Predicatibly, our question is answered when the scout is silenced.

TS

Goldstein
Amazing. My hero, with his first hit, killed a warlord.
TS

Day 7:

Invading the mainland.

TS

Goldstein
Invading, already?
My spies have not reported anything.
TS

Day 8:

Beach head established.

PS: Frogs are not bright enough to make good spies.

TS

Goldstein
Two enemy heroes appeared right in the heart of mainland.
I disbanded all my frogs for such a terrible job they did spying.
TS

Day 9:

We see enemies have taken a draconian town across the channel. We need to build up our forces quickly.

TS

Goldstein
Put garrison on the draconians village and sent the calvary to another position.
TS

Day 10:

The enemy is trying to be stealthy. They had sent halfing slingers through the woods, possibly for a sneak attack. Two were found and killed. And we found there is at least one frog left, hiding in the water.

The enemy's calvary likely went north.

TS

Goldstein
There were three lurkers around since two days ago, watching every move made by O'Brien at his capitol.
Today, he was alone, the unit we saw yesterday with him, a slither, was moved to the mainland.
I sent my lurkers to an even battle and they did good, sending O'Brien to the void.
TS

Thank you for the game, Gwenio.
It was an equal match until the end.

Day 11:

There were more frogs than the one I saw as my slither was moving to the mainland to begin operations, and they defeated me during the night.

Game over.

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Good game, Unnapu.

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The things I should have done diffrently were:
- Ignore everything on the island except maybe the farm, as you can take it while a transport is being build.
- Sell stuff/make more effort to recruit independants.
- Not leave my wizard alone (this was particularly bad because I had no attack spells, just panic and rot (or was it weakness? it was a debuff spell in any case)).

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Summary of events:
- Conquered the farm, fishing village, unguarded tower, and Production resources on the island.
- Sent a slither ahead to the mainland to scout and check the price of the units in the Draconian town Berlin.
- When the scout died, I figured correctly that Goldstein was operating mostly in the north.
- I had built a transport built by the time I had taken the stuff on the island, and sent all of my army over the nearest frostling town Brussels in the south.
- Took the frostling town Brussels and on my last turn I took a human town Genova. With these two towns I had cut off Goldstein's access to one of the two towns to make a shipyard along the channel.
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Future strategy:

I was going to build up for one or two turns and attack, possibly proceeded with an assasination attempt (if possible).

How well this would work depends on how many units Goldstein had with him.

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To win, O'Brien needs to get to the mainland quickly and make good use of Draconian's stealth (Slithers) and mobility (swimmers and Flyers). He needs to focus on getting to Goldstein quickly, taking only things that can be obtained with few losses that will be helpful.

Information and/or great guess work is essencial on this map. O'Brien needs to determine the best route to take to Goldstein and correctly pick out what to conquor. Goldstein needs to balance expasion with defending against an early rush by O'Brien.

[This message has been edited by Gwenio (edited 09-15-2010 @ 08:10 PM).]

Ladies and gents, live at the scene where Gwenio just lost to Unnapu!
Unnapu, congratulations! You were expected to win, but it turned out to be quite the fight. What, in your view, made the difference?

Gwenio, um... - Oh darn, he has already answered any possible question I ask -

@Swolte: You have asked some people how they feel about their loss and their remaining games. Since I have nothing else to do at the moment, I will go ahead and answer them.

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This was the only game I did not predict myself to win in the survey; which I filled out around the time I sailed my troops to the main land. I left it with a question mark, and it seems we both felt it was fairly even till the end. Atleast I was beat by someone who has one all three of their first round matches.

In Hope's End against Zeldafreak there are a lot of unknowns, but we have each seen at least one significant force from the opposing side. I think the real fighting should start in the next turn or two. If he does not start it, then I will once things are ready for my plan.

With UpNUnder, Thorgal could gain a big advantage in the next turn or two, depending on his choices and how autocombat works out. The moves needed to do this would risk what I assume is the bulk of his good troops for he would need to split them between two targets. If he is not daring, then the game will drag on which the type of game I prefer.

(I like analyzing what I think will happen in games)

[This message has been edited by Gwenio (edited 09-15-2010 @ 11:13 PM).]

Quoted from TNS:

What, in your view, made the difference?

It was the decission made by O'Brien to stand alone and to send the slither to the main continent.
Taking O'Brien Caiptol as reference, I had three lurkers around: at eleven, six and four O'Clock. Their main objective was to take the watch tower once the advance of an invasion force was ready to take the island, which never happened.

Thank you for the game Gwenio. I guess for what you said that your slither discovered one of my lurkers (the one at six O'clock I guess). Some veterans here like to move their units hex by hex, so, if they discover any concealed unit they still have movement points to attack, return or block its path.

As for future strategy in our game, in case you are interested, here it is mine:

- To protect the Arena road to my palace (right on the spot below Munich) with all my calvary (heroe, knight, horse archers, etc)
- To reunit five or six Djynns loaded with enchantments and the swashbucklers at some spot a few steps northeast of Berlin (to prevent the enemy to discover them).
- To scout the area around Berlin to discover and kill spies.
- One or two days before the attack, send my lurkers to take the watchtower near Airstrip One, to reduce O.Brien's scope.
- To attack the island with my djynns, swashbuckler, lurkers and a few more support units enchanted with Water Walking.