archons, day 26

We still do nothing. Lost our hero to the RNG gods. Been that sort of life for me.

TS

Undead Day 26

Wow what a great spot for sacred woods. There is literally no path around it to the halfling lands. Maybe I'll just go visit the elves instead...

TS

Archons, Day 27

Ho hum. Doing nothing. Waiting for the Djinni to start messing with me I guess.

TS

Galadriel, day 27

Finally my infiltrators find an orc town without unbeatable defences, they almost all die but they're left with just about enough forces to raze it. I plant more trees around the war chief, wondering how long these elvish tricks can procrastinate his fury.

Have your dwarves built a digger yet, Cardinal? Or are you assembling a flying force?

Undead Day, Very Bad

Ouch, erm. Uhhhh, well... yeah.

That thing I though was going to happen has happened. You know, (whisper) losing. Please, no more trees, I beg of you. The sheer size of the unnaturally glowing trees is like some sort of seizure inducing 3D wall art. I'm being carved up like a piece of meat, one town after another, and I don't have the resources to defend or respond. I'm having PRETTY SERIOUS financial difficulties, as I was supposed to supplement my income with looted halfling cities, but I can't get to them through the Amazon rainforest of Sacred Woods, and I'm losing towns.

Other than that I'm doing fine! :)

TS

Galadriel, 28

My djinns capture another orc city and go to work on it. Only one is left... Very soon, not a single orc will remain on this island, apart from the warchief Snagga who, unbeatable, will forever hunt on halflings from his spider holes. The last of the orcicans!

Serves them well for cutting my trees. In the meanwhile the southern front starts getting hot, better get back quickly with these troops!

Archons, Day 28

Inching forward. Eliminated some hobbits with pitchforks. Heard they were nasty little buggers best kept away from the horses.

TS

Undead Day, uhh, can't remember,

Well, kind of just waiting for the inevitable now

TS

Lady Galadriel, day 29

Cardinal, you should know - halflings are never merely "some". I sacrifice yet another generation of these fellas - probably related to rodents - throwing them at the dwarves. The berserkers indeed berserk but are eventually overwhelmed by their sheer number.

Up north my spies in the caves tell me that the warlord moves, I still plant some more trees just in case he changes his mind.

Cardinal, Day 29

Why am I alive? Not just an existential question. We add little to the conversations of the world.

TS

Undead

Uhhh, not that I want to deny you a victory romp Arnuz, but it doesn't sound like the Archons are doing any better than me and I'm ready to call it anytime.

TS

No problem either way, Mimo?

This has been one of the most frustrating PBEM games of AoW:SM I've ever played. I felt way behind by Turn 10 and never saw an opportunity to make up any lost ground. Maybe it was poor choices right out of the gate or maybe it was poor dice rolling. Who knows?

I'm happy to roll over and admit I'm not just playing dead. I've got nothing of relevance in reserve and no plans that are the slightest bit viable.

News of the capture of the underground nomad metropolis of Gehenna, and the seduction of yet another pit guard, two cyclops and a chieftain (despite willpower) quickly spread across the lands, sewing doubt in my industrialist neighbours. These additions to my forces should finally provide something that might end the warlord's rampage, but the real reason is...

...Because of course - thanks to its wizard tower - I will be able to plant trees in the underground too from here! Despite the lack of sunshine! Glorious, lush forests all around will hug me like I hug the trees!!!

If this helps, I don't think that it was out of mistakes or luck. Tell me if I'm mistaken but you had that perception reading the reports, right? The nymph I've had since the start is now gold starred, despite my wizard having pacifist. I lost two heroes at the start, one to Southern's self sacrifice and the other killed by my own archer after he rebelled at 10%. (fun tidbit: he had an OP domination item, that's been lying in the NW underground corner close to the seeing pool and under your sight for a good 25 turns)
No problem: the nymphs have carried me, together with 2 satyrs from a lucky camp, recruiting half the map. The effect is so great that just my advantage from having a nymph from the start has countered the orc super hero - IIRC James said that he had only orcs at the start, meaning that the vampires came later on.

Prognosis: seduction, domination, enslavement, resuscitation break the game - their snowballing effect is an avalanche. This map has 4 wizards each with some of these, so the author must have known this and tried to give to all the players these tools. That's a sort of balance I guess, although I don't think that resuscitation is on par with the others. (and I have no idea why the elves would get a nymph at the start)

This is the optimal way to play, but I deeply dislike what this makes of the game, to be honest. It's like railroading. Not to mention the balance with the races without these tools. I see two ways forward if we want to keep playing SM:
1. house rule: disband seduced, dominated, enslaved and units resuscitated from the enemy after any battle. Helping during the battle is already pretty good. Once they have a moment of clarity they GTFO.
2. mod balancing these units, re-removing the gold medal domination from MPE, raising seduction units to tier 3 and domination/resuscitation units to tier 4 and removing most drain wills.

Archons, Day 30

TS