Armageddon (Vit,Sou,Wen,Boo,Cat,Mim,Jur) Turn Log:

Shadow Magic patch 1.4.
Peace allowed, Alliance is not allowed.
No spell trading.
No Mastery spells by Human players!
No Call Hero spell.
Outpost building and Surrender are deactivated.
All etiquette rules, including optional ones, are in effect. See: Link.
*** AI is playing Archons, the most likely abuser of Resurrect. They can do whatever they want, as long as it's against Vitek. ;-)

Players:
Nekron at broz-7[at]hotmail[dot]cz
Julia at andries[dot]wantenaar[at]gmail[dot]com
Merlin at wennejoekel[at]gmail[dot]com
Fangir at BookwyrmAoW [at] gmail [dot] com
Karissa at catermune[at]yahoo[dot]com
Artica at demarcomimo[at]gmail[dot]com
Mab at juri[dot]aow[at]gmail[dot]com

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing, Day 1

Bleh, in underworld once again so I see shit.
Gambled on resources right away and got one of teh better things I could get but not the best one of all.

Turn sent.

Julia, Day 1

We were pleased with the Library, scared of the Goblin flyers, and disappointed that we can't make new cities.

Hopefully that doesn't screw up the game. Since it's an XL map, I didn't want anyone just spamming outposts in some forgotten nook if the game goes long or comes down to two players...

I really don't know what to think of Outposts. Not sure it even makes much sense to have them in the game at all, they weren't in AoW1 but AoW2 was more similar to MoM and added them. But while I don't know what to make of them strategically I do have a fondness for them.

If you are the one who forbade them and there will be nothing to rebuild then I am going to take my pioneer and conquer your capitol with it. :-p

Have any of you ever built a watch tower? Ever?

The only time I ever saw anyone build Outposts was Southern in one of our early games. For a long game, it seems like a good way to turn a single City into a much more productive workforce. Tough to do in medium or short game though.

Re: Vitek - Build some roads so it'll be easier for my invasion force to attack you. ;-)

Count me out, please. Best to step out before this really gets going.

Merlin, Day 1

We move a little and ponder what to do.

TS

OOC: Bookwyrm, you are next. Why not play along?

I like playing strategy games, and if I could find a good guide with detailed mechanical workings about this game, I'd probably stick with it while reading the guide when I could.

The problem is that I feel like I'm playing Calvinball. I despise Mao. A strategy game is, to me, about developing a strategy within the rules to meet your objectives (typically winning, whatever that means within the framework of the game). I can live with getting out played; it is a fact of life. I can even live with getting hosed by the RNG; I hate it, but again, fact of life.

Hypothetical situation: Imagine you've got several water walking units, and you stack them with a boat for extra protection. The boat gets sunk, and all of your units in the stack drown. Including the water walkers, for some inexplicable reason. If this is documented (maybe they get trapped in the bottom of the boat?), then its a nasty "feature" but can be dealt with. When it happens out of the blue? That isn't strategy.

I find I'm too competitive to enjoy getting hosed by things I have no way of knowing about while trying to play against other people.

Ask me again in a few months when I've had time to cool off, and I might be up for another player conflict game. Ask me if you want to fight AI cooperatively. I'm just finding it too frustrating atm, so I'll step out before it becomes a bigger problem.

Ask for permission for a redo if something really bad happens unexpectedly. No big deal to do so and no one will think less of you for learning on the fly.

None of us want to win due to sneaky rules, we'd rather win due to sneaky playing.

If you're willing to wait, then give me a few days. My desire for strategy games may quickly overcome my irritation at mechanical ignorance.

I just wish there were a good way to test run scenarios before actually trying them out when it matters.

Did that really happen to you? That has to be a bug, I didn't think it would work like that. I just tested it in single player with a galley and swashbucklers, the swashbucklers survived when the galley died. I did both autocombat and manual, and moved them in the galley a tile beforehand.

Bolded the relevant part (Hypothetical). I just used this as an illustration of a type of situation that would frustrate the crap out of me, to illustrate the sort of unexpected surprises I've run into. Like a completely empty player-owned watch tower being defended by adjacent neutrals. I'm pretty certain that the AOW coders took care of boats sinking while stacked with water walkers.

Take your time! If Wenne complains we'll remind him (yet again) of his numerous disappearances. :)


Do like Southern does and edit a map to have the situation you want and then play test it. I've never done that because I KNOW EVERYTHING, but it's a pretty good idea for you mere mortals.