Game #1162 Tournament game#27 | Round 5 : 2018 PBEM 2vs2 Tournament #27

2v2 Tournament match report#27 Personian & Sleeping Dog vs Thorgal & Fluks

This was our 2^nd match against Personian & SleepignDog after the first match was a lucky win by Thorgal and me through points when Personian and Sleeping Dog where in a strategically better position. So I guess both teams were happy to get another chance to play against each other again.

This time it looked as if Personian and Sleeping dog wanted to make sure not to loose by points again and Sleeping dog went for an Underground start with Goblin Dreadnought and was booming like a madmen (I believe before turn 20 he had already settled 3 new Goblin cities) and the map was heavily in favour of that, there was no way to rush over and take advantage of that greed.

Together with the class choices the map layout had a big factor in the length of this match. Personian was at the very top end of the map with pretty much a no mans swamp between him and the center of the map (kind of fitting given he named his character Shrek , but must have been hard for him to establish good map presence too...) Sleeping dog was huddled away in the Underground and as it turned out also surrounded by wetland, which really doesn’t hurt Goblins so much but considerably slows down any attackers of course. Thorgal had a rather open starting position and I was boxed in behind him, I could either go through his realm (meaning no sites for clearing), slogging for 2 turns to the very southwest of the map to a cave entrance (which would outposition me pretty hard to everything) or ferry my troops for 3 turns over the sea to the shore in the north (which is what I ended up doing, but obviously that wasn’t really fast)

So after Thorgal and me both found our first city and annexed the nearby town our game plan was for me to take the long route ferrying over towards my realms northern shore while Thorgal would push towards the Undead dwelling, I would hopefully be able to evolve a few of my cavalry units into knights, meet up with him at the undead dwelling and together we could start pressuring into their territory. Once I shuffled my troops over the sea I also split my armies into an Underground stack lead by a Goblin Archdruid and my main stack with a Dwarven sorceror and my leader. It went pretty ok, I lost a knight and a silver cavalry clearing sites, but my underground stack found a human settlement I could vassalize and a bit later even a dwarven city. Meanwhile a somewhat fierce scout war had erupted, personian was relentlessly sending cherubs at us. But with Thorgals generous mana support for my drones and his Monster hunters I think we prevailed quite fine, I don’t know how many drones exploded and cherubs went to heaven during that phase, it was a lot. Nonetheless Thorgal managed to secure the Undead dwelling and we spotted Personians main army near it. But when I finally arrived with my main army we had lost track of it again. By this time we knew that Personian had vassalized the central dragon dwelling in the UG which we thought was a pretty pretty strong gatekeeper towards their (suspected) Underground realm. We were also aware of Sleeping Dogs booming and thought that both were bunkering in the Underground trying to snowball away with conversions and a superior economy. If that was their plan it was working wonderfully, we hadn’t really scouted their realm yet because we were too busy deflecting personians cherubs and the only thing we saw was a vassalized dragon dwelling in the central underground that guarded the suspected access to their realm.

So instead of pushing together into unknown choke points underground we decided that Thorgal would go towards his southwest because there was plenty of space for him to clear and expand (which would hopefully prevent us from being completely outclassed economically) while I would team up with my Underground stack see if I could take the dragon dwelling with my knights and generally try sharking around their realm and at the very least clear some sites or find another way into their territory. On their way towards the dragon dwelling my Underground stack also met a fairy dwelling I could vassalize and cleared a wizards tower giving me the greater resurrection secret spell Because we were not expecting a big attack immedia tely I also sent a settler overseas and settled near a forgotten city I had cleared for feathered serpents. When my army finally assembled in front of the Dragon dwelling it actually was not that bad, I had my Dreadnought and sorc both on level 11 and maybe 5 knights, a tigran sphinx, a priest and a draconian elder on gold, 2 fairies, 2 shock snakes (one baby one grown) and a baby-spider and some leftover rubble (human swordsmen and a goblin untouchable for digging), clearly enough to clear a dragon dwelling. Unfortunately though I was spotted by Personians nasty cherubs, the Sign of Arctica stood in the sky (the dragon dwelling had two Frost dragons in it) and of course Personian also made sure I couldn't manual by placing a cherub next to the dragons. At the same time Thorgal got his leader killed clearing some sites in the south too greedily.

We decided against the risky auto-attack on the dragon dwelling which could, in the worst case, end up with my leader also in the void. Instead I split the two toadstool fairies, the two shock serpents and the sorceror from my main army they would form a mobile invisible stack and I planned to level up the snakes and take a few of the towers and fortresses of personian that we knew of to deny them as much of the surface as possible, the rest of the army stayed in the UG and went west to clear some sites at the opponents borders, scout for another access towards their realm and most importantly trying to scare and restrict their expansions a bit to buy time for Thorgal to recover.

But Thorgal didn't have a good time, when his leader had respawned and was on his way to meet up with his main ar my again he was ambushed by indies and sent to the void again -_-.

But for me it went splendid. I was shadowborn master and Entwined by Shadows was up and running, my main army sharking around their realm cleared quite a few sites and got a few more extra units from sites, summons and an Inn which would fill the army up to 3 full stacks again and my leader was turning into a melee monster with regen, 20 defense, 15 res, regen (item), killing spree (item) and tireless. The only thing I didn't get was “Rite of Malediction<9d> in my spellbook, even though I was fishing quite hard for it.

Also my scouts discovered that Personians capital was actually at the surface and instead of clearing and leveling my sorcerors stack was starting to sneak towards it.

Then my main army found a way toward one of SleepingDogs cities and fortunately the choke towards it wasn't blocked so I could take and raze it, I also scouted that I had now a pretty direct way (through swamp) to 2 more of Sleeping dogs cities and then one more choke until his capital, but that could be circumvented over water if necessary. After I razed the first city and took the 2^nd one we had spotted all heroes of our opponents and were delighted! All 4 heroes of our opponents were in the southeast apparently preparing to take the Undead dwelling and push into Thorgals eastern flank, but they were still too far away to be of immediate danger and by this time Thorgal had recovered and chances that we could deflect them together were quite high. Personians leader was on a ship on the central lake apparently heading towards the unexplored northwest and Sleeping Dogs leader was mounting the defense against my invading main stack.

Because we now knew that there was no overwhelming force coming to eradicate my main stack I decided to plunder Sleeping Dogs 2^nd city for the extra gold. I was completely fine trading armies there and quite confident that even if Sleeping Dog would have Rite of Malediction (he was also shadowborn master) an attack would still be quite costly for him against my life stealing knights and my leader.

He attacked, he didn't have (or at least the autocombat did not cast) Rite of Malediction, but my leader cast Gift of Necron and the fight ended up a complete disaster for Sleeping dog

Because we were not expecting a big attack immediately I also sent a settler overseas and settled near a forgotten city I had cleared for feathered serpents. When my army finally assembled in front of the Dragon dwelling it actually was not that bad, I had my Dreadnought and sorc both on level 11 and maybe 5 knights, a tigran sphinx, a priest and a draconian elder on gold, 2 fairies, 2 shock snakes (one baby one grown) and a baby-spider and some leftover rubble (human swordsmen and a goblin untouchable for digging), clearly enough to clear a dragon dwelling. Unfortunately though I was spotted by Personians nasty cherubs, the Sign of Arctica stood in the sky (the dragon dwelling had two Frost dragons in it…) and of course Personian also made sure I couldn’t manual by placing a cherub next to the dragons. At the same time Thorgal got his leader killed clearing some sites in the south too greedily.

We decided against the risky auto-attack on the dragon dwelling which could, in the worst case, end up with my leader also in the void. Instead I split the two toadstool fairies, the two shock serpents and the sorceror from my main army they would form a mobile invisible stack and I planned to level up the snakes and take a few of the towers and fortresses of personian that we knew of to deny them as much of the surface as possible, the rest of the army stayed in the UG and went west to clear some sites at the opponents borders, scout for another access towards their realm and most importantly trying to scare and restrict their expansions a bit to buy time for Thorgal to recover.

But Thorgal didn’t have a good time, when his leader had respawned and was on his way to meet up with his main army again he was ambushed by indies and sent to the void again -_-.

But for me it went splendid. I was shadowborn master and Entwined by Shadows was up and running, my main army sharking around their realm cleared quite a few sites and got a few more extra units from sites, summons and an Inn which would fill the army up to 3 full stacks again and my leader was turning into a melee monster with regen, 20 defense, 15 res, regen (item), killing spree (item) and tireless. The only thing I didn’t get was “Rite of Malediction” in my spellbook, even though I was fishing quite hard for it.

Also my scouts discovered that Personians capital was actually at the surface and instead of clearing and leveling my sorcerors stack was starting to sneak towards it.

Then my main army found a way toward one of SleepingDogs cities and fortunately the choke towards it wasn’t blocked so I could take and raze it, I also scouted that I had now a pretty direct way (through swamp) to 2 more of Sleeping dogs cities and then one more choke until his capital, but that could be circumvented over water if necessary. After I razed the first city and took the 2^nd one we had spotted all heroes of our opponents and were delighted! All 4 heroes of our opponents were in the southeast apparently preparing to take the Undead dwelling and push into Thorgals eastern flank, but they were still too far away to be of immediate danger and by this time Thorgal had recovered and chances that we could deflect them together were quite high. Personians leader was on a ship on the central lake apparently heading towards the unexplored northwest and Sleeping Dogs leader was mounting the defense against my invading main stack.

Because we now knew that there was no overwhelming force coming to eradicate my main stack I decided to plunder Sleeping Dogs 2^nd city for the extra gold. I was completely fine trading armies there and quite confident that even if Sleeping Dog would have Rite of Malediction (he was also shadowborn master) an attack would still be quite costly for him against my life stealing knights and my leader.

He attacked, he didn’t have (or at least the autocombat did not cast) Rite of Malediction, but my leader cast Gift of Necron and the fight ended up a complete disaster for Sleeping dog

The game was practically over then, there was no way he could keep me from taking his capital before his leader was back and this means that their incoming attack on our eastern flank was doomed.

Also my sneaky wizard had finally reached Personians capital and we knew where their armies were and that it was highly unlikely he could save his capital in time from being razed too.

Two turns later Sleeping dog officially lost (though he didn't bother coming in game to check it, so the stupid turn timer kept expiring…), personians armies took the Undead dwelling, but his capital was razed, my sorc is wrecking havoc in his other cities now and thanks to all the plundering we are now a late game Warlord and Dreadnought swimming in resources with pumped up heroes against a lone theocrat with dwindling resources and armies approaching from pretty much everywhere.

It was a good game though quite long. I think Personian and Sleeping dog had a real chance if they had managed to lau nch an attack earlier on our eastern flank when Thorgal was struggeling hard and or being more aggressive in the Underground, my fairy dwelling, my dwarven city and my human vassal all were completely unmolested for the whole 50 turns against a booming goblin dreadnought that was pumping cavalry, there really should have been the speed and manpower to contest and pressure our half of the UG.

Here are the points sent to the judges at the end of Thorgals turn. I'm actually quite surprised we did manage to keep up even in the domain score throughout the game, we were under the impression that we are quite a bit behind in that regard during the early to midgame, but apparently my underground activities and Thorgals undead dwelling made up for it

Thank you for the match and good luck in your qualification game @SleepingDog and @personian!

(and don't hold back if you want to tell how the game went from your perspective, I'd love to hear!)

Shit I messed up big time filling the report. There was a preset number "2" and I left it, now it turns out that means the number of players and I don't know how to edit it @markymark or @Hiliadan can you fix it?

Sorry!

This was a fun game (at least for me :-). Both teams were of approximately equal strength and every player (with the exception of Thorgal) had a starting position that was somewhat hard to reach so the game took a while with intensive scout wars from turn 20 and then somewhat careful circling of the opponents realms to find a reasonable angle of attack. Fortunately Thorgal and me had class/race combinations that scale a bit stronger in the later game and we also were a bit quicker with our attack that went exceptionally well and lead to the demise of Sleeping Dog and razing of personians capital. I'll see if i find the time to write a better report in the coming days.

Thanks for the game Personian and Sleeping Dog

Hi! So it's a clear score victory for Fluksen and Thorgal (and it seems almost a clear victory, period, with a few more turns).

Please report the game and prepare for next round. The losing team goes to the qualification match. I'll host the qualification match and post another message after some final discussion with judges.

Marcus,

It is not our teams fault that Personian didn't give up or write anything here and also not that Sleeping Dog is eliminated but hasn't played his turn since and seems to let his turn timer run out for the last 2 turns now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We had an OK from Hiliadan to continue one more round because of personians possible surrender, he didn't - so it will be decided by points after Thorgals turn.

And that is what we are following through at the moment.

I reckon who ever the opponent we put a strict 24h timer in place.

Both of these teams have a problem to finish matches and in the spirit of the tournament it should not continue.

Let us know the status, last time it was 1 player with 15h left (48h ago) and no update since then.

/Marcus

Hi guys

Do we have any update on the game?

/Marcus

Currently it is sleeping dogs turn, only 1 hour left for him to do his turn, so maybe his turn is going to be skipped.

But it doesn't matter anyway because I took his capital while he was in the void. So he is out. It will be Thorgals turn next(last player), not sure if he reads this in time, but would it be ok for him to just play his turn, because I could imagine Personian will surrender when he sees that he is alone and his capital is razed, then you wouldn't have to check points.

So I'm asking to give Personian the decision (surrender or points) after his turn.

Hi! So you've got about 6 more hours before the end of the round.

Could you please confirm who is the last player and that he understood the process?

I meant holding the game on the current turn without forfeiting to wait what happened in the other game.

It got a time extension of 1 week so let's say you can also play until 2020-02-22 7:29 PM GMT+02:00.

I'm fine with everything since i learned we can finish the game anyway for fun afterwards. Also nice timing @Hiliadan I just checked it currently is personians turn, who is the first player - So everybody gets a last turn before points decide the "official" winner (unless our opponents want to give up of course ).

@SleepingDog and @Personian I just assume you want to play this to the end correct?

edit: @Hiliadan or do you mean we shoudl play until the other game is decided? (i would prefer that obviously)

Hi! So here is the procedure for the score victory (but you probably know it):

1/ AFTER the deadline ( 2020-02-15 7:29 PM GMT+2, in about 4 hours), the strategic turn is played until the last player in the turn order

2/ that player plays his turn, saves & quits, copy the save game to a backup folder

3/ that player re-enters the game and surrenders, then takes screenshots of all the scores (general, domain, research, military, happiness) . He does NOT end the turn. Instead he quits the game without ending the turn.

4/ he sends the screenshots to judges (Marcuspers, Jonny Thunder and me)

5/ judges check the scores and take a decision

I suggest to hold the game a bit after the deadline, without following the procedure, as it's better to wait for the result of the other game (cf. post by marcus).

Hi guys,

While the judges acknowledge that the proposal is good, to have 2 matches simultaneous, to get the "right" result, we must ask that all 4 players agree and if all not agree the proposal is turned down.

As Hiliadan is eliminated in the other match, its very likely that his team lose the match, and therefore he gave his feedback and sadly he is not up for it, hence why the proposal is declined (need all 4 players Yes).

If the result is changed in our match, the verdict can be changed as well, but for now its a No.

/Marcus

Yes, as long as the player surrender dont end the turn, just save and exit, the person havent lost yet in terms of the information displayed in the game so you can revert turn. 

I can understand your frustration but at the same time, the other game is mostly completed (though gladis still hope to win alone, I doubt he will ) and in previous tournaments score victories were very rare so it is possible to finish a game within the time.

I'll ask to other judges but on my team's side (who is very likely to play the losing team from this match), we can't really play 2 games in parallel, not enough time for that.

You can finish the game (for fun) in any case, after checking the score, you just have to revert the turn and replay it.

Hi, I'm back,

played my turn and started the turn timer again

I'm going to be away on a cabin for the weekend,

won't take my computer and don't even know if there is any connection. So I'll stop the turn timer from Friday to Sunday - Sorry for the delay.

Hei I'll turn on the turn timer to 2 days again.

Let me know if you need longer at some point.

Fluks

Hi! About 38 days remaining, and it's likely that there will be a time extension for the winter holidays.

What turn have you reached?