gamesforleague.com

Result	Player	Classes	Races	Team	Points	Extra Points	Missed Points	Rate
1	Nook	Archdruid	Draconians	5	86	43	0	here
1	Jean_de_Metz	Warlord	Dwarves	5	11	0	0	here
1	HellBrick	Necromancer	Goblins	5	61	30	0	here
1	Melciar	Theocrat	Elves	5	35	17	0	here
2	Jundland Banshee	Rogue	Frostlings	3	0	0	-82	here
2	Castaneda	Theocrat	Tigrans	3	0	0	-60	here
2	$eeR	Sorcerer	Draconians	3	-36	0	-50	here
2	spockimpossible	Theocrat	Humans	3	0	0	-86	here

Published on Sun, 14 May 2017 10:13:31 +0200

Written by HellBrick

No on the scores, I clicked "return to the map" and haven't figured out how to get to the scores after that =) But I do have some screenshots of the map at the day 35.

Surface (I haven't captured the south of the map, Castaneda and Jundland were actually a bit lower):

UG:

Published on Sun, 14 May 2017 06:36:10 +0200

Written by Hiliadan

Nice! Would you have a general screenshot of the map? And screenshots of the scores?

Published on Sat, 13 May 2017 21:54:52 +0200

Written by HellBrick

Alright, the report. First of all: this was epic! Secondly, where do I even startâ€¦? The problem is there was just too many things happening in this game for me to attempt properly describing all of them. Ever since we hit the day 20 almost every turn brought something interesting, excited and/or unexpected, and going through all the details would take quite a long time for me to write and for you to read, so Iâ€™ll try to be relatively brief and reduce the story to the most interesting and impactful events.

Things went wrong for us right from the start. Even before that actually: out initial plan was to have me and Jean both start in the UG and leave the surface to Nook and Melciar, but Jean forgot to choose the underground start, leaving me there alone. Then both me and Nook managed to lose our cavalry early on and were getting by with the help of Jeanâ€™s Raise militia. Melciar, however, outdid all of us on the day 3:

Which had obvious negative impact on his clearing, which affected his economy, with affected his capacity as our designated scout.

I managed to restore a viable army faster than my teammates by getting lucky with the quests from my vassal. It gave me a quest for a beetle, I completed it, and right when I had planned to capture the city it gave me another one, for another beetle =) Two beetles, as alive as they were, still allowed to start clearing some nice places. Eventually the leader and the hero started ghouling more units, which allowed going into nicer sites and ghouling nicer unitsâ€¦ You know how it goes =)

On the day 24 something very frightening happened. A planetary alignment occurred, and at the same time Seer completed Sage. We all imagined the worst: that Seer went straight for the Eldritch horror and got the spell via the cosmic event. That possibility sent us into a slight panic mode and caused us to search for ways to get access to T4s of our own as soon as possible.

Iâ€™ll get back to the T4 rush a bit later, but for now let me tell you a story of the dragon dwelling. It occurred at about this time chronologically and turned out to be one of the decisive things that changed the fate of the game =) Here it is:

They gave me a quest somewhere around the day 20. Initially I wasnâ€™t really planning to go there, because the dwelling itself was a bit out of the way and I considered it would be better to simply buy their allegiance and continue marching towards where we had thought our enemies were, but the chance to ghoul some giants outweighed the strategic concerns. While I was walking towards the dwelling, the dragons became impatient and offered quests to both Nook and Jean, which made the location of the dwelling much more appealing for a necromancer. By the day 28 I completed all three quests, and immediately after that the dragons offered Jean a new one =) Unfortunately, the ghouling wasnâ€™t as successful as I had hoped, but still, I managed to get a fire giant and an ogre there. And, most importantly, two wyverns: a fire one and a frost one. Not kidding =) Youâ€™ll see the role they played a bit later.

I still had to vassal the dragons though, and in order to save some money (which, as you could see on the previous screenshot, was a bit of a problem for me), I decided to build an outpost right next to the dragons. Found a very nice place for it too, and because of the central location it was planned to serve as an operational base for dispatching builders and settlers to the high-level sites that the underground was surprisingly rich with this time.

The population boost came from Castaneda, which he wasnâ€™t particularly happy about =)

Back to the perceived Horror threat. In order to speed things up Iâ€™ve decided to split my army in two. Having no idea where Seerâ€™s army was (at that point we thought it was very likely for him to be located in the UG as well, which turned out to be true) and having crappy scouting in general it was kind of a risky move, but desperate times called for desperate measures. So I ignored everything else and went straight to the sites that could help to get a Reaper summon.

On the day 30 my secondary army cleared a Sphynx temple, finishing the research of Deathbringer. Right after that my main army attacked the Pandora box in an attempt to get another planetary alignment. None of us were sure if itâ€™s possible to get two cosmic events of the same kind in a single game, but it was worth the shot. It didnâ€™t work though, I got two crappy choices instead. So I had to finish the research manually, and by manually I mean by clearing another Sphinx temple and a Wizard tower by the main army. The Wizard tower, however, presented a very interesting reward:

I still went for casting a Reaper first though. At that point it looked like Seerâ€™s Sage had been a false alarm: if he had researched Eldritch horror, he would have already casted it. So I proceeded to cast a Reaper, because getting a Paragon for a Phoenix seemed a bit redundant =)

From there things escalated very quickly. We were concerned about this Archon dwelling falling into the wrong (Seerâ€™s) hands, and capturing it was my next goal. We decided not to bother buying it because it was along the way and was considered cheaper to simply take by force.

However, right when I was about to clear the old quests and capture the dwelling, Seer beat me to it. As it turned out, one of the quests had been active, and he completed it, getting both Archons as vassals and a Titan as a unit reward. A battle that should have been very easy suddenly turned out to be very dangerous, but we had to attack right there and then while Seerâ€™s army was wounded. The losses were substantial, but it was worth it:

Meanwhile the other frontlines were packed with action as well. First of all, letâ€™s turn our attention to Jean. He cleared a bunch of dungeons and was building Berserkers with Killing momentum, and on the day 35 he used these forces to surprise Spockâ€™s leader in the center of the map.

A few days later Melciar gathered some forces and managed to defeat one of Jundlandâ€™s armies.

Unfortunately, while he was gathering forces, he decided to visit a dungeon, which didnâ€™t turn out well for his leader (unfortunately, Iâ€™m missing the screenshot of the battle result). And thatâ€™s how in just two turns 3 out of 8 players on the map were relocated to the void =)

Just a few days later Jundland launched a counter-attack on Melciar. He sneaked across the sea and attacked Melciarâ€™s homeland with a very powerful leader, two giants and a flyer:

We thought that was it: Melciar had a small garrison in his throne, but it was no match for Jundlandâ€™s army. And all we could do to help him was to cast a couple more Initiates by Jeanâ€™s Raise militia, which probably wouldnâ€™t have helped, considering Jundlandâ€™s leaderâ€™s 60% Shock protection. If Jundland had attacked immediately, that could be the end of Melciar, but he hesitated and Melciar and Jean managed to organize two stacks of ranged units to garrison the throne. Which allowed to hold the throne long enough to allow Melciarâ€™s leader to return from the void and escape.

Now, remember the two wyverns Iâ€™ve mentioned earlier? They had joined a Feathered serpent ghouled at one of the Lost cities and a Lost soul that had been hovering nearby to form a scouting army, mainly responsible for small mischiefs like capturing and razing Castanedaâ€™s underground outpost. But then one day they stumbled upon Spockâ€™s throne that had been relocated to what I assume to be former Seerâ€™s village:

At that moment it had been two days since Spock returned from the void, so that wasnâ€™t an immediate game over for him, but he had to be somewhere nearby, and adding a Phoenix to this army provided an unexpected threat to his leader. A threat that was acted upon the next turn:

However, that wasnâ€™t the end of this armyâ€™s story. Seer moved his home army to capture back Spockâ€™s former throne (not sure why he did it without disjuncting Scorched earth first though) and got outmaneuvered by the faster flying army, which proceeded to capture his throne:

He tried to take it back, but Phoenix is a hell of a weapon against a Theo hero and a bunch of Elders:

The same turn the location of Seerâ€™s leader was discovered by trying to attack his last big city:

Attacking right there and then could have been very dangerous, but luckily, I had the reinforcements coming in, so I didnâ€™t have to attack right there and then =)

Not willing to wait for the siege to happen, Seer attacked my army in the field and lost:

Letâ€™s get back to the surface. The day before Seerâ€™s demise Jundland finally captured Melciarâ€™s throne:

However, that was probably his last big success in the game. The next turn his home army encountered Jeanâ€™s berserkers in all their glory:

From there it was just a couple of days to (basically undefended) Jundlandâ€™s throne. Castaneda moved towards it with his army of Exalteds, probably planning to get the city back:

However, while Castanedaâ€™s army was out in the field, Jeanâ€™s secondary army climbed out of the underground and launched an attack on Castanedaâ€™s cities, including his throne:

This caused Castaneda to turn back to save his throne without fighting for Jundlandâ€™s:

While hurrying back, Castaneda split his forces by leaving slower units behind, but Exalteds proved not to be very dangerous on their own and Castanedaâ€™s army was annihilated in the field:

At this point the outcome was pretty much decided. We controlled most of the map; Jundland and Castaneda had some armies, but no cities and no real way to fight back. Castaneda tried attacking us through the north-western continent, but he encountered the forces lead by Nook and me, the forces he had no chance against, so he surrendered. Jundland spend a few more days running around the map, but eventually was caught by Jeanâ€™s Manticores under Death march.

Soâ€¦ yeah, that was the briefâ€¦-ish version of events =) Kudos to those who are still reading this. I hope Iâ€™ve managed to capture at least some of the charm of this game and youâ€™ve enjoyed its chronicles. As a bonus for the most patient readers, Iâ€™m gonna finish this with a couple of screenshots that bear no importance whatsoever, but that I find kind of amusing.

First of all, I present you the final residence of Melciar that he occupied after vacating his throne:

And finally, hereâ€™s the legion of builders joining the final hunt for Jundland:

Published on Sat, 13 May 2017 16:21:55 +0200

Written by HellBrick

Thanks everyone, it was epic and fun =) I'll post a proper report later, there is a lot to write about here.

Published on Sat, 13 May 2017 16:18:38 +0200