Game #1185 Tournament game#28 | Round 6 : 2018 PBEM 2vs2 Tournament #28

Nice report!

Impressive game and nice to see some concealment/invisibility strategy!

Aww maybe it's too long, but it always kills the last picture (domain score) so here it is in a seperate post (the wild swings towards the end in my score are me taking and razing Dreads cities and handing over two cities to Thorgal, the steep rise is because Thorgal gave me his cities before his capital was taken)

Was a really fun game! Thanks everyone and Good luck in the tournament @Dread and Marcus

Ok so a lot of things went wrong for Thorgal and me in this match and a few (but very important things) went absolutely brilliant for us. But to get this clear, even if everything had gone well for us Marcus and Dread would still be the deserved victors they played stunningly good.

Match plan: Thorgal and me knew that we were pretty much the underdogs here and that slow step by step growth to gain an economic advantage wasn't going to work because our opponents are among the best in this empire build up aspect of the game. So our battle plan was for the Dwarven Rogue to hide Underground and try to go for Stalkers asap while I was at the surface and would try to run an invis sorc stack across the map trying to kill their economy and buy time for Thorgals stalker army. Hopefully with the Goblin choice they would also expect me to be in the UG and be a bit confused when not finding me there. In a perfect world we would meet them when I was already as close as possible to their empires with an invis sorc stack so that the possibility of facing stalkers and the invis sorc stack would not be revealed too soon.

Marcus scout found my capital on turn 8 or something so much about that… Also the goldmines around my starting location were pestered with spiders and I didn't dare attacking into them so my go lvl 11 rush was delayed quite a bit by me running around trying to find sites that looked easy enough for me to clear without loosing too much (later I lost 3 units on a flowrock quarry anyway) and not levelling quickly. Thorgal had it even worse - he sank his starting stack against some orcs on a watchtower iirc.

So our start was a mess but there is one good thing, especially thanks to Thorgals crows we had the surface of the map uncovered pretty much completely by midgame which meant my sorc stack knew where to go. In the UG things didn't go quite as well my Goblin raiders with invis were all eaten by indies or stumbled into marcus in the tight tunnels. So for a long time we didn’t see a single town of marcus in the UG.

Around turn 20 or so, when my sorc stack was already on it's way (not quite lvl 11 yet, though) I had to make a detour because I got a Quest from the merfolk dwelling promising me a Lord of the Deep (and a baby kraken ) as reward. I actually wasn't sure to take it because it would need at least 4 extra turns and invis stacks don’t necessarily have to be super strong, they just have to catch the opponent quickly enough and by surprise. But (fortunately) I made a detour a Lord of the Deep is just too tantalizing for a sorc (thunderstorm oh yeah!)

Shortly afterwards a crow spotted Dreads hero with a few Gryphons near the middle of the map (he had not yet skilled invis, but was already lvl 11 I think) but we knew he was coming. And could roughly follow it's tracks by checking which sites had been cleared. But we blatantly underestimated just how strong and how fast he would be though (this is going to be a recurring theme in this game unfortunately).
I had spotted a heart of the blight in the very southwest corner of the map and had a settler, hoping to get there, settle and be back in time to mount a defense against Dread. But this didn't work out at all!

Luckily my Sorc stack was just a few turns behind Dreads as far as distance to the opponents capital goes and instead of taking Dreads cities on the way I decided to stay hidden, even putting a sacrificial wisp at the edge of his vision when I took a hasteberry bush to offer a (false) explanation on what had eaten the hasteberries

Unfortunately I wasn't quite as cunning at home and only a turn before he took my first city I noticed I was too late and somehow scrambled to the defense, but my two stacks were slow and split apart and one of them had an awkward settler tagging along

When Dread took my city I did a stupid mistake that fortunately wasn’t punished. I took it back carefully enough with just two units (I think he had just left a phantom warrior as guard) but I saw the hasteberrry bush was gone and assumed he had eaten it and quickly gotten out of reach lurking for another chance to strike. I thought this would be the time to move my two stacks together and moved the complete northern stack lead by a Theocrat hero into the city, but when I started moving my southern stack my apprentice spotted Dreads army and it was not just a few gryphons it was a complete stack! My stacks were still too far apart to stand next to each other so I moved back next to the cave entrance where Thorgal could reinforce. But I really thought my Theocrat stack I moved into the reconquered city of Zwog would be lost for sure and that was the stronger one. I just had a vague hope that maybe just maybe the autocombat would focus on his leader and if he would die I would be within striking distance of his capital and he hopefully wasn't aware of the impending danger but chances were slim.

Things went even better. Apparently Dread really didn't expect my invisible stack to be already that close to his cap and instead of taking the easy win against my lone stack in Zwog he saw his chance to eliminate all opposition by attacking into Thorgals and my combined forces and not only did he bring 6 gryphons, he could also summon T3 frostelementals apparently. But it wasn’t enough especially the gryphons suffered hard from fighting on blight and Thorgals Druid hero casting revive instinct “ all their fumbling turned a hard fight into a victory for mostly Thorgals troops (unfortunately Thorgals leader was sent to the void yet again in the process).

But the most important part was that Dread was in the void and I had an invisible stack just 2 turns from his capital.

Which I took with two phantom warriors and at the same turn I took another (now independent) city with a wisp in a “poor mans attemptâ€<9d> to cloud the whereabouts of my leaderstack (it was of course in Dreads former capital) but at least marcus would see 2 burning cities.

Unfortunately in the meantime marcus was booming away like a madmen, he had gotten mastersmith earlier but now monoculture and prime evil (and a bit later also paragon) were taken in quick succession. At this point he had more cities than Thorgal and me combined, the only vassal we had was my Merfolk dwelling and we didn’t even know where his cities were. But we still thought we might have a chance if marcus, hopefully alarmed by Dreads demise and sure of his economic lead, would focus on defense and give Thorgal finally the time to get to stalkers, because they hard counter literally everything a goblin warlord can field.We knew marcus leader stack was not too far away, but hoped he wouldn't beeline directly to us.

Thorgal got the tech for stalkers and Zwog had become a fine production city that I handed over to him. Finally i also managed to settle at the Heart of the Blight, but then unfortunately Marcus was there. My remaining defenders were on their way back from the heart to meet up with Thorgal UG when Marcus popped up, we had seen him before with his two stacks and the leader+lvl 12 (or even 13 at then end?) Necro, but yet again we were just one turn late and now Marcus had an army stronger than our current defenders combined in between us, to make matters even worse Thorgal had just moved a bit too close and could be caught by Marcus - he had to split off a stalker hiding in the trees and sacrifice his sorc hero who didn’t have enough movement left to reach the hasteberries necesssary for the escape . But the escape was also into a dead end and the only way out was to abort production in his capital for one turn to build a miner who could tunnel through the walls if necessary.

Meanwhile I was in a pickle with my Invisible main army, there were two cave entrances somewhat close, one in the very east at the border of the map and one close to one of dreads burned cities, unfortunately the entrance to the east was leading directly into marcus territory so he immediately noticed when a wisp came looking and killed it, so he was aware that I knew of this entrance and because it was closer to Dreads cap I reckoned this is where he would expect me so I went for the other, cave entrance slightly further away but that was the slower option. But when marcus showed up earlier than expected I turned around just hoping that the cave entrance in the far east would be close to his capital and that I could break through nonetheless (another wisp had scouted that he was watching over it with 6 monster hunters, so maybe he was afraid of me coming through there, at least I hoped).

Where to enter?

In another attempt to lure him away from the eastern entrance I summoned another wisp and attempted to take his underground city near the cave entrance I had originally planned to use. But this failed spectacularly as the two wisps were greeted by greater hail and then mopped up by the untouchable without any problems

The rest went rather quick, marcus killed Thorgals sorc that hadn’t been able to make it to the hasteberries and was still standing between Thorgals and my army so we both waited hoping for Marcus to move north to take one of Thorgals cities so that we could combine the leftovers of our armies, then all we`d have to do would be run around and wait for a few more stalkers. But Marcus somehow spotted Thorgals little army and to our horror even reached it. Thorgal was lost.

His capital easily within reach of Marcus, my defending army (a 6er stack with one Theo, 2 magic snakes, 1 draconian flyer, an apprentice and a warg rider) much too weak to take on Marcus alone and stalkers wouldn’t be a factor anymore. My Invis stack blindly rushed into the UG, saw that it wasn’t even marcus capital and next turn marcus found and attacked them, and even though he lost he killed my leader leaving a Lord of the Deep and a barely clinging to live phantom warrior without their invisibility stranded deep within enemy territory

  Meanwhile Marcus, after taking out Thorgal, was marching towards my capital that had nothing that could be there in time to save it. My defender stack went for a last hooray killing a few of Marcus units before I surrendered.

Nice, but not enough to face marcus alone (and not quick enough at my capital to face him in time either)

The points (impressivly showing how marcus boom kicked in around turn 30), but also Dread played an impressive game standing on the other side of the map on turn 30 with 6 gryphons, a T3 Frost elemental and 2(?) phantom warriors lead by a lvl 13 sorc hero is quite something. I think our defense would have held, but he could have hit and run forever there, he was much quicker and invisible, we had no realistic chance of catching him or protecting even 2 cities simultaneously, we only had a chance because he was a bit too greedy and attacked.

I look forward to your report, especially the turns when Dread take your first cities and you mobile a defense, and Dread attack (and lost).

I think if he played that better we finish the game at turn 30 or so.

Then of course when I start to attack, to first take out Thorgals sorc with a few units, then he left his leaser stack (just) in reach of my leader in front of his throne, was it a planned for a trap or what happened?

Looking at the score, I thought both me and Dread had an excellent game, but especially Fluks matched us toe to toe in scores (mainly military). 

I did record every single turn to avoid crashes with no evidence but only started to upload once I was left alone in the game.

Will make those videos public.

Awesome game, and it really shows the importance of good strategic awareness as well as production awareness.

Dreadreapr once again had one of those games that leaves your jaw dropped, and had stacks of gryphon riders but made one (small is debatable) mistake, and Fluks immidieatly took advantage of that and I was left alone.

After I lost my leader on turn 3 (i think) I produced a (sh*t) ton of t2 cavalry and was able to recover to the point where i gained paragon, pure evil, monoculture in 1 turn (2 to be exact). Too late I realized MHs was actually my best bet to phase an opponent wth swimming and floating units, but luckily i had so many cities i could produce 3 per turn.

Took out Thorgals stack and Fluksens leader in 1 turn, 2 separate battles, and if i didnt stumble on Fluksens leader (lvl 13 sorc with invinsible army) I wouldnt have been able to get the upper hand and initiate the battle with ALL unit able to reach (12vs 7 i think), I lost the battle but took out most of his army, including leader, and was 2 turns away from his throne. We never reached the turn where I would be able to see the defenders, but I had quite a good army with at least 2 dragons and champion 4-5 flier so would have needed to be one hell of a defense.

Nevertheless, great game, could have gone very different if Thorgal didnt leave his leader exposed in front of his Throne.

Yes. This really was a cool game - But unfortunately It's over I just resigned. There was nothing I could have possibly done now that you found and killed my leader.

A well deserved victory and thanks for the game to all involved!

Game just crashed again. But the situation was pretty much the same. I uploaded the video and the logfile yet again...

I'm very sorry for holding up the game now for the 2nd time... I'm starting to believe that something is not quite right with a certain hero I enlisted both times the game crashed when I accessed his spellbook...

I sent a PM to Jonny, waiting for his answer.

I'm asking mauvebutterfly to be temporary judge on this match.

Hei sorry the game just crashed. I suspect it might have something to do with a VPN client that was still running while I played. Anyway Video and logs will be sent to the judges (Hiliadan and johnny thunder).

Sorry for the delay, we were so quick today otherwise

Game is open:

Name: 2v2 tournament game 28

pw: relax

Hope the settings as shown below are correct.

will start the game as soon as everyone joined unless I hear a stop from anyone.

Have fun everyone

Yes @Deaf Ogres: please host the game.

Ok for 2 day turn timer but please play within 24 hours.

Before we can get a go the game must be hosted!

Team Deaf Ogres are the host of this match.

Sure,

we are ready to start whenever we get the "go" from the judges.

Can we run it on a 2 day turn timer in the beginning? We don't need it usually but a 2 day turn timer cuts down the annoying "I can't play from x-y, please stop the timer during this time" by more than half typically.

I sent our class/race combos 2 minutes ago :-P

But I guess there is no need to hurry as the winner of this game will have to wait for the looser of game #25 and before game #25 can be played there is this qualification match between SleepingDog & Personian vs Gladis & Hiliadan afaik

So there should be enough time.

Hi! v1.29 has been updated on the Tournament Edition: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1585391987

@Deaf Ogres: please host the game with that version of the balance mod (+ SDNR).

@all: please send your class/race for the round.

Please start thinking about your class/race but we're still waiting for feedback from Jonny, among others, to confirm exactly how Round 6 and the match with Reckless Mortals will happen.

In any case, it will be played with v1.29, and it will be released only in 1-2 day (it has been updated on the beta branch).

The round will be played on the Tournament Edition of the balance mod, as an exception, because the main branch is locked on v1.28 for the Duel Tournament.