Game #676 Tournament game#26 | Round 5 : PBEM 2v2 team tournament 2016 #26

Good evening, guys. It's about time I told you about the match. Though it officially ended by score and (what a pity!) had no big fights (3 vs 3 would be lovely), the game was intense and interesting. At least for me.
As Melciar has been playing really bad in his last bf games (spoiler: this one turned out to be no exception XD), I decided to let him take the class he wanted to play and felt himself comfortable with. It was sorcerer - a very solid choice for the midgame as the combination of apprentices and phantasmal warriors allows to easily clean the objects and later form a full floating stack of units. In case he fails, I was to cast summons to his towns to help him and that's why I took druid.
 
In early game we were definitely better in scouting: both central dwellings became our vassals. Fairies and Dragons. A perfect combination. Underground was my responsibility this time and I managed to examine it very well. One of the scouts came really close to Jonny's town:


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This is how the map looked like at that time:
Surface.



And underground


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Unexpectedly to all players Jonny's town was soon razed and that was no doubt a huge success for our team.




Another Jonny's town was soon attacked by neutral forces and I understood that he wasn't doing well at that time. So I figured out that I shouldn't be afraid of a powerful rush. And left my domain to explore new horizons.�


Still better safe than sorry, you know. So I kept a defensive army.


And soon produced some Sun Guards in order to tackle a possible cavalry rush.
�
Suddenly Melciar made a very pathetic fight against neutrals (in my opinion one shouldn't attack if he isn't sure =)




He lost 2 almost elite apprentices

And soon lost a town to neutrals. Not a very good start for a sorcerer.

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He became very upset and I understood I would probably have to fight alone in the match. So I studied the map very carefully and figured out I could get a huge advantage in research points. I made a very good route for my army. The idea was to visit this:


And this. Why not?



Damn, Melciar, you should keep your flying scouts on the water to avoid this.



He had big problems with neutrals, I had to make them follow my unit and tried to keep them as far as I could from Melciar's towns.



Soon a huge part of the whole map was opened. Have a look at this:
Surface


Underground


Melciar went to capture a huge elf town and soon found Rookie's scouts there. I warned Melciar to be very careful and asked him to scout a lot.
But it was Rookie who made a perfect scouting this time. He wasn't greedy to lose trained units because scouting was always more important. And he was absolutely right.�





Having lost 2 hunters, Rookie continued to scout near Melciar. This time it was an elite fairy.

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I was a bit worried but Melciar had already got a floating stack so I presumed he would keep himself safe going to the water/rapids if necessary.
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But he failed to scout and went blind to take a tavern where he was caught by Rookie >_<


And the game for my teammate was almost over.
He lost his army, heroes, the elf town and still had problems in his domain. With neutrals.



�
I understood I had to help my teammate now but that wasn't easy as I found Jonny slowly heading to my part of the map.


He was leveling up elems and it was dangerous. Another surprise was to come out soon:




A tier-3 Naga and some charmed units. Like a draconian flyer.
 
The good thing was that, having scouted all this in advance, I was prepared and managed to approach him with my defensive army. I wasn't able to win this, of course, but could easily block him here by building a fortress. 



And that was a perfect plan.


At that time I spotted another danger: Rookie was building a lot of towns, faster than me (as a human), I didn't want him to get monoculture and great morale bonuses so I prepared a sudden attack. Here.


Rookie's army was fighting with Melciar, Jonny's - leveling up elems. I was pretty safe but had to come quickly.



When I reached the town and captured it Jonny had already finished his floating tier-3 elem stack. He even made his leader fly! I was impressed. 
I found his army here.




He soon went back to the town captured by me. And was standing nearby with another stack.



I had to leave immediately but the town was razed and the goal achieved.

Where to go? - I asked myself. And I created a very good plan that worked and, in my opinion, brought us victory.
I decided to rush here.











Using haste berries and leaving Jonny long behind myself. I was finishing researching t4 at that time and was well prepared to fight Rookie on the surface. The only problem was Jonny. I had to find a way not to let him go directly to my domain. And I created an illusion of an attack. My fairy found Jonny's scout checking the north path to his empire.




So I took my defensive army which already had almost 3 stacks in it and started to go to Jonny through the north. The scout could perfectly see me.



Once the scout flew away I turned around and went back.�

�
And Jonny got into the trap. His main army went to meet me near the borders of his domain but never met anyone there.



And that was the gravest mistake. It gave me plenty of time.
My scouting was really good at that time and I'm proud of that ^_^


I found out Rookie had some problems too. He lost his leader (probably in the dungeon) and one of his towns due to rebellion (it wasn't a good idea to build human cities on volcanic). 
So he didn't rush Melciar after he defeated his army but captured the elf town and started to recover from losses. He later caught Melciar on another mistake: my teammate should have kept a wyvern near the dragon dwelling all the time but started to scout nearby and simply forgot to return it back. So Rookie took advantage of the moment and captured it on manual.





And that was a pretty bad fight on his part.
I was running there as fast as I could and managed to prevent vassalization of the dwelling.

With the first paragon t4 in my army.

Rookie had to leave to the water where he started to kill Melciar's scouts and slowly go to his domain.



He killed my invisible scout with a shaman so we lost sight of him for several turns.


Later we spotted him near Melciar.


Melciar's army was very weak at that time so I advised him to go after me to the center of the map. Jonny was still pretty far away from my domain in the underground so we had time to go to Rookie's empire. 
The route to Rookie was very rich in objects.



He probably should have taken these sphynx temples himself, now I got them and boosted my research points and gold.
I was able to kill Rookie's scout and prevent him from entering underground.


But I couldn't counter his attack on Melciar's towns.



Jonny went to my domain with his floating stack.



He built a very good town here stabilizing his economy but it was me who finally took monoculture.



Rookie took Melciar's towns but wasn't able to take the throne city with many archers inside.


Melciar's morale was very bad, we had to leave volcanics as soon as possible. Fortunately for us, we were close to Rookie's empire.


And Jonny was closer and closer...


Just have a look at his leader.






The best leader among us for sure.
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The judges announced we had to finish the game by score very soon. So the task for both teams was to get as much score as they could. 
I managed to attack Rookie's town before Jonny got there to help.



But had to leave the town for 1 turn not to split my army. The sphinx guys were slow in forests.




Melciar was near me.



The plan was to take Rookie's towns one by one and go further leaving them to Melciar who would guard them.
Rookie sent some troops to my goblin city but wasn't able to take it. The defense was pretty good there.

�
And now Jonny:



The bad thing for Jonny was that he had just one stack. I could never capture it on lava but I could easily defend my towns. Not all of them, of course. But once Jonny took my town he had to immediately run back on lava (otherwise I would have attacked him), so I was able to take the town back on my turn. 
My defensive army was pretty solid:






I had another stack in my throne city. I have to admitt I missplayed here: I should have built more mystics as they could easily counter elems. But I was so happy to spam shamans that I forgot about it =( 

So we had a kind of stalemate. And it wasn't working good for Jonny who had to capture at least something for the score.
He tried to come to the fairies.


At that time I understood how powerful my opponent was.
At that moment I tried to take one of Jonny's towns with a small diversion but failed.


�
In Rookie's domain we found out that Jonny went to defend one of the towns.



So we decided to go south and take Rookie's vassal. From there we could head to his throne city.
As we had just 1-2 turns left before the end of the match, I advised Melciar to take his defensive army and approach one of his towns.


Rookie immediately went there to defend.


But was that a good idea? The armies were like these:
Melciar's troops:




The chance of winning this was pretty low. But we just needed to kill the leader.
Melciar attacked him on his turn and...lost. Though Rookie went into the void!
Suddenly my t2 scout took Rookie's throne city which was undefended. 


So we managed to defeat our opponent on the last turn of the match XD Pure luck, I say.
The final situation in the underground was like this. Still the stalemate.

Confirmed by Jonny Thunder

Confirmed by rrrrookie

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Yeah, sorry forgot to post it:
Yeah, sorry forgot to post it:

Please also publish the scores here, i would like to see them.

Following review of the scores by Fistandantilus, Markymark and me, there is a clear and significant from Green Elephant so they are awarded the victory.
@Jean or Melciar: please report the win here.
@rrrrookie & Jonny: sending you a PM regarding replacement of West Coasters.

Hi there! Jean just explained to me there is a lot going on in these last turns. Jonny and rrrrookie, could you please send by PM to the judges what you expect would have happened this turn and next?
In theory, the deadline is not yet reached so Melciar should play his current turn, then you continue playing the turn and he finishes it when he comes back, and that's the last turn (as I said in my previous message).

Okay, then round 47 is the last turn of this tournament match.
I hope Melciar gets his turn before Sunday evening and we will be able to make this last turn and then wait for next Friday-Saturday till he arrives back. 

Another option is to continue playing until the deadline and wait for Melciar to finish his turn when he comes back next Saturday.

So the procedure is:
- when the deadline (see clock here: https://www.the-battlefield.c... is reached, the turn is played up to the last player of the turn (in your case, it's Melciar), then this player plays his turn entirely but DO NOT end turn.
- the last player saves & quits and backs up the save (copy the .apg and .~apg from C:\Users\[Windows user name] \Documents\My Games\AoW3\Profiles\[AoW3 user name]\PBEM and paste it to another place)
- the last player then opens the game again, surrenders, takes screenshots of ALL the scores, and sends them to the judges (Fistandantilus, Markymark and me). Then he sends the game to the next player so that other players can see there was no reload.
- the next player DOES NOT load the game.
- then everyone waits for judges' feedback.

In theory, the rules imply Melciar should play his turn Sunday and we wait for him to come back next week to do this.

REMINDER: the team with the highest score does not automatically win. The scores must not be judged "very close".

EDIT: Please let me know if something is unclear, I didn't copy/paste but rewrote so I may have forgotten some stuff.

Okay, unfortunately, we will have to finish the match on Sunday evening.
I'm really sorry it all happened in such a way. At least I myself didn't take any breaks and even played the turns with an eye disease

It's now round 46...We will be able to make several more turns.
This is the order of the turn:
Users: 
  - rrrrookie ( team 1 / it's your turn )
  - Jean_de_Metz ( team 2 / host )
  - Jonny Thunder ( team 1 )
  - Melciar ( team 2 )

I would ask one of the judges to describe the procedure of finishing the game by score (like what a player should do).

Good day. Next week (until Friday) I will not be able to play, as I will be on a working trip. Outside of the Internet.

You still have 10 days before the end of the round.
I thought I had posted that in your game blog too but I didn't, sorry (I did post it in the other ongoing match): we should probably anticipate a score victory, please have this in mind, and sorry about that. We still have 3 rounds to go for the tournament, so that's about 9-10 more months.

PS: regarding DarkRider and SeeR, we are still waiting for an answer from the devs but as it seems they won't answer soon, we'll rediscuss between judges to see what we write on the Player Pool, without the answer from the devs.TT

Turn timer is on once again.

Seems like Melciar doesn't want to write here himself so I'll have to do it for him.
He has told me that he will be out of the town till the early morning of Monday.

Thank you, Jonny!

P.S. Of course, you can concede =) I won't have to make my turns in this game then

That´s alright, i hope your eyes get well soon  

I have to inform you, guys, that unfortunately I got a quite severe conjunctivitis and I'm recommended not to use pc at all till the disease is gone.

That's why I decided to make a certain break in turns in my current games.
This one though is gonna be an exception cause I understand that we have very little time left. So I'll still try to make my turns in time (1 day timer). I'm gonna turn it off just to make sure I won't skip a turn if I'm not able to make it.
I'm sorry.
Jean

Turn timer on again now since everyone is present.

I will be out of town this weekend and will not be able to process my turn until the 15th.

rrrrookie

Melciar is away on business for 5 days (should be his last trip during this round), I turned off the timer.

Thank you for your quick reply, Hiliadan.
Sorry to all for the inconvenience, I'm gonna be extremely cautious now.
Turn timer on again.

So after discussions among the 3 judges, we see that Jean could not provide any screenshot, etc. to justify the reload. He thus receives a warning for reload without adequate proof.
@Jean: you already know your laptop has over-heating issue, please do not run any other program when you play your tournament match. Please also always play in debug mode when playing tournament matches so that we have at least some elements when an issue occurs.

@all: you can continue, we hope no other issue will happen. 28 days left before end of round.

I've had a crash and contacted the judges immediately. Waiting for their decision.
If they allow me to record the turn and sent it to them, I will do it but I will have to make sure everything goes right.
So it will take a bit more for me probably, maybe a day. Sorry for the delay and inconvenience, guys.

Everyone seems to be back so turn timer is on now

Melciar is gonna be home tomorrow and we can continue. I didn't make my turn these days cause I was waiting for him to come online in skype to discuss futher strategy.
Anyway, we aren't the only team who is a bit slow  

I am back and can resume playing at normal pace. We do a turn a day with everyone available.

Thanks for the answer, Hili!
Ah, sorry, looks like I missed Rookie's message. Sorry
It would be great to get some time extension. The game promises to be interesting.

Well...
In this case I would definitely ask judges to solve this issue. We can't just play the game when Jonny, Rookie and then Melciar are not able to play their turns one after another. 20 days left. I'm willing and even able to play several turns per day now (and try to finish the game) but the game is stalled. 

rrrrookie said he would be away until the 24th so it's normal he's not answering.

Please try to play more quickly after Melciar comes back. We're discussing a time extension with Markymark as the round started during the Summer holiday season (end of July) but that will still be short.

Kind day my friends! Passed two weeks, turns did not have been. Now for me business trip. For a week, to first October. 

Hi!
Well, the game is going super slow >_< Now Rookie doesn't answer and I don't even know if I can turn on the timer or not.
We are on turn 30 or so and I'm afraid we might not finish in time...

Hello! What turn did you reach? About 20 days left in theory.

Welcome back, Jonny!
Can we turn on the timer now?

Ok i am back, things should get back to normal i hope and i can play more regularly.

The timer has been off for already one week
Np, mate.
The game is going super slowly right now, I hope we can increase the pace later when everyone is present (since we don't have much time left for the round...)

Can you keep the turn timer off? I am out of town again Thursday the 21st through Sunday the 24th. I should be able to get some turns done but just in case I can't leave it off.

Hey guys i am away too from next monday to thursday, so pls keep the timer down ;-)

Done  Have a nice weekend.