Player 2. Albaron - Dwarves - Mim the Master, day 26

TS

Undead Day 26

Wow, Naeco called it exactly. I lined up four armies from all four sides and attacked. The odds were terrible for the darkelves, like almost four to one, even if I didn't have some very powerful units in my stacks. I killed off his lower level troops while he killed off only 4 of mine. Then when all that was left was a Treehulk, a Rift Lord and a strong hero, all my troops started attacking the Count himself. After he went to the void my troops withdrew and I had the three best units from the entire army to hire!

Good game Naeco. I thought it would be just you and I in the end, but when you took out the Goblins I knew I had to act sooner rather than later. If you had been able to summon enough Rift Lords I don't think anyone could have stood in your way.

I haven't had a crash in three turns now, and I've actually only had one turn that crashed since Hellbrick sent it back, so I think whatever he did definitely has it working better. It might be that there are two things causing crashes, one that is very infrequent, like I had one crash early in the game but then not for awhile, and perhaps one with an event tied to an item, as i believe I picked up a seahorse artifact right before I started crashing every turn.

I didn't expect your ground units could have enough MP to pass around the webs..

It was fun though.. The Chaos lord summon spell for the Dark elves was really over-rated. I only managed to cast once thanks for a catalyst found nearby. Otherwise with the low spell casting skills, and very limited mana resources, it's only possible to call upon this spell until very late of the game where you're almost certain to win already.

Hello naecO

Do you send the map to me net please?
I have not received as far as I know.

I am very sorry naecO. I got you email on 4.9 but have not seen it. It is my fault so please excuse my email bump.

Player 1. The Groll - Draconians - Gorg the Wizard, day 27

So our bad enemy the Count is dead and the undead are ruling the biggest part of this mad arena. So be it.
I offer their queen now an alliance to show us her power. If she is strong she will show us what she got and then I will surrender. Messengers to the dwarf was send to offer the same.
If she accepts we will be the loosers and the new world will be ruled for thousand years by the undead pestilence. What a look for our peoples future back home.
I think I have failed totally.

TS

Player 2. Albaron - Dwarves - Mim the Master, day 27

Look like the game is at an end. Count Echtelion has been defeated.

Offered alliance to the Draconians.

TS

Been swamped with work lately and have fallen behind in my turns. Will try to play tonight or tomorrow. Apologies.

Queen Shira of the Undead, dressed in her formal colours for a change, day 27

If you guys wanna call it I don't mind. I don't wanna reveal my power in game through an alliance, as if we keep playing I'll enjoy it more playing it out to the glorious final triumph. I meant to declare war last turn but forgot to, so I had to forego attacks today. I'm pretty sure the rules are you have to wait one day to break an alliance and another to declare war so I'd be like three days behind on my plans already. Trust me, the vast hordes of darkness you face are worthy of being seen from your battlements, or whatever field you choose to face me in. But if I were you, I would huddle behind my walls and pray my archers were divinely chosen to prevail. I've got it in quantity and definitely in quality, trust me, and if you'll indulge me a few more turns, I'll reveal my full strength to you both, with enough time to savour the sight before I unleash hell and claim my prize, 1000 years of darkness, and 1000s more after that! Muhwahahahaha!

(switch from epicly sinister voice to totally friendly normal voice)

But I'm also totally cool with just stopping here, because I know my armies and I've got a pretty good idea what you both have and trust me, it ain't enough, unless you've got like a full stack of dragons or an uber hero or two hidden away deep in your lands.

Oh and I meant to offer my apologies for being SO LONG with this turn. I've been swamped with work lately I didn't think it had been 9 days since I got this. Sorry about the wait.

Hey James,

Itīs OK to play this out but what I meant and what you understand well is that we both believe you can easily crush us.
What I meant and what I just want to see IS your power and game development.
From the point of a voyeur AND mapmaker AND player.

when I was you as a player, and I was in this situation some times, I offered my enemies an alliance to show them my power and land and development to let them see it to have some more fun and let them make decisions.
the decision to offer the end of the game with their surrender BUT given them a look to the map in the end.

None of us two remaining players have doubt you will crush us.
I donīt need the look to set up my defense no matter if you need two or ten days. I have played and won this map more than one time to know your power.

Giving us the look you will not show your hidden power or giving us big advantages to sneak into your realm to capture it.
We have lost already. Offering us the alliance makes you victory brighter not smaller.
Ending up an already lost game now without seeing your victory realm is a tasteless victory for you - if you ask me.
I like to show the game development from the winners side when I play the game.
I donīt fear their last decision - even if they are mad enough to waste our time fighting a lost game for them in the end.

I even dare to say I will surrender now if you show it to us now even when I think it could be some funny last days.

Itīs your decision. But you really donīt have to fear to open water.
Show us your kingdom of darkness.
Iīm sorry when I speak harsh words maybe. I am not that good in English and when it comes to describe I have used the wrong, offending words in the past sometimes.

Hello James

If I open )or try to open) the turn you are still the one to play. Still the black player is on and of course I canīt open it then.
Can you please check?
Itīs turn 27 btw.

Uhhh, so I tried reopening the turn again and it just keeps crashing, so how about we call it? It was fun to be so powerful and dominant, but I just can't take the crashes anymore. I'll try again if the two of you want to, but if you're ready to end it so am I. I can give a detailed breakdown of how the game went down for me in another post.

I would like to say and I indeed do it.
Congratulation James!
You really rule the game and you would easy crash me and I think Albaron too.
So the undead rule the earth for the next thousand years.

How terrible

But what is even more terrible...
This forums are so dead.
I would like to play a new game but it looks all are dead here?

Don't forget me. I'm always open for new games.

I'm still here too. I can't handle more than one game at a time these days, but as soon as me and Naeco get done killing each other I'll be up for a new one.

I tried yet again to open the last turn and accept the alliance so you could see the map Groll but it still just crashes on me, everytime. So here's a physical description based on my vague memory.

After killing Naeco's wizard, some of his strongest units (a treehulk, hero and chaos lord) were available for hire. So in the southwest underground I had a couple stacks of weak units, mostly zombies, and two stacks of strong units, including one of 2 black dragons and 6 bone dragons, three heroes, the chaos lord, treehulk and some other level 3/4s. When I last played they were going to split up, with the fliers heading to the northeast to rendez vous with my other army up there, while the slow moving infantry went on to attack Albaron's dwarves. In the northeast I had my wizard with a stack and a half of level 3/4s, plus 3 stacks worth of zombies and weaker units coming from both the west and the south. Both you and Albaron had pretty good armies, so its not like I could just rush at you and win, but with a few turns of movement, I am confident I would have armies big enough to wipe you out.

In terms of a recap of the game, in case you're interested, three things worked in my favour. Getting two baby dragons really early on from the War spirit. With all the weak targets lying around, plus spiders and other units capable of immobilizing units, I had those dragons mature in like 1-2 turns, and by incredible luck they both went black. Then I cleared a magic vault and got bone dragon. I cast that spell continuously throughout the game, always making sure I had sufficient mana. I even traded gold, which I had a ton of, for mana with the dwarves when I was running short. I think I summoned at least a full stack of bone dragons, and on a limited resource map like this, these, together with my two black dragons, were devastating. The final factor was the inexperience or lack of strategy on my opponents part. The Archons and Tigrans in particular did not anticipate a rush. I generated a restart on turn 5, otherwise I actually would have killed a wizard that day, a record for me. This is a SMALL map, and it was easy to bump into each other early in the game. I caught the Archon wizard weakly defended, treasure hunting no doubt, and took him out. When I did some raiding into the Tigran lands, the Tigrans declared war and I again sent my fast fliers in and wiped them out within one turn of their declaring war. After that I consolidated my triple sized kingdom, took advantage of the darkelves leaving their homelands and the chaos of the Goblin/halfling war to add another three kingdoms. Not much left after that.

Good map, I love how tight it is, and limited in its resources. I love a map where every unit is valued. I also hate walking across a huge map just to get to your enemy. Too much gold sources compared to mana in my opinion, but that might have just been my experience. I feel like the middle isn't likely to get used much in multiplayer, as any good wizards are going to wipe out the others before the seahorse items can really be used. BUt the crashes just killed this map for me. I bet its the events, so if I were to make a suggestion I would say strip the map down, make the center a dungeon crawl with strong wiz tower cities in the center, and eliminate all scripts. Then it would be a great 8 player tournament map. I love the idea of having 7 opponents, but most maps with this number are HUGE and a turnoff for PBEM as it would take years to play. I want more small 8 player maps!

Thank you James for you nice game report and explanation of how you get so fast so powerful.

Good map, I love how tight it is, and limited in its resources. I love a map where every unit is valued.

Thank you.
This was my intention when I made this map for MP tournaments.

I was shocked when I hear you had this two black dragons so early in this game and have grabbed then map out to search for my vault and where I put them in and let one player catch them.
I am happy now to hear they where from missions so it was not my vault...
Hmmm maybe I must drag out this missions in the undead start area but as you said it was massive luck you got them so early.

I would try to find out what this crash made every day.
When I played undead there was no problem during the game.
Maybe it is an event, maybe it was a crash that was never dragged out of the savegame again.

The inner dungeons on the surface and in the dungeons are very special and this belongs to the map and story of the map so I must try to find the event script problem if it is such a problem.

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Would be great to play a new game after AoWSM is so dead theses days.
I really take a break from the game and played many other smaller games during this time.
But nothing contains the depth of AoWSM.

I will happily join a new game with you and naecO.

If you ever need a player for AoWSM games, please let me know.

Only if you want a weak player in the game of course.