Game #686 Tournament game#53 | Round 5 : 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament #53

The comment from Hellbrick "In retrospect, the game outcome was probably decided when you got the Bone dragon reward from a Wizard tower" had left me thinking and wondering for a very long time and I was very interested in watching the videos of the match from Marcus. I finally finished them today (had not totally finished watching the score when I left a comment on the last video earlier).

I believe the comment misses many points and the result could have been different. The final score itself shows it pretty clearly: Hellbrick was very close in score and most of Marcus' score was military with almost no research and a smaller domain. His cities (Hellbrick's old cities) were weaker than Hellbrick's cities.

I see at least two events that could have unravelled differently:
1/ the most important is that Marcus' economy was VERY weak. At some point, he almost did not have enough mana (and gold) to sustain his summons (and troops). Had Hellbrick summoned some Node Serpents or other stuff in his domain and moved them on the water, far from sight, then sneaked back to attack, he could have taken back cities (re-summoning immediately after taking a city to reinforce for instance) and destroyed Marcus' economy.
Another option was just to quickly dispatch an army back to his old Throne and scout ahead. Marcus moved through a northern and western route. Going through the center would have allowed to reach back the homeland without facing oposition.
And an even better strategy would have been to raze his own cities, to prevent Marcus from getting a way to stabilize the economy. Marcus took several turns to capture all the cities, there was enough time to raze. And Hellbrick also scouted him UG so had more than 2 turns to prepare. Having taken Marcus' cities, Hellbrick's homeland was not necessary for him.

2/ the final battle.
It was totally unnecessary. Hellbrick could have retreated.
But more importantly, some scouting would have shown Marcus was coming (all the sites becoming explored...) so it was not a good idea at all to move in that direction. I don't really understand the moves there... The game 5 turns before the final battle was very far from decided. Hellbrick had Eldritch Horrors and the debate about getting them faster than the Bone Dragons is not really relevant: the result would have been the same for the domain swap without Bone Dragons, and when the game ended, both had T4.

Better economy, better mobility, Master Illusionist... I think the game was winnable and was not lost because of True Resurect or Bone Dragons. Though it's likely that without both, Marcus would have lost as Hellbrick would not have surrendered. Hopefully we'll have all this (Forbidden Sanctum too easy + True Resurect at 25 CP) fixed in v1.25.

Cheers on Hellbrick, you did a good match up to 50% of it. Next time you'll do 100% good!

The logic behind that was simple: after seeing a glimpse of your army in the central lake of the UG, I came to conclusion that I should attack your domain, most likely initiating the domain swap. I was planning to cross over to your side of the river and clear the sphinx and nearby objects anyway, and from there it was not that much distance to reach your cities, so I should have been able to get there faster then you could get to my domain or return back to defend yours (which turned out to be true).

The problem was my theocrat hero was missing about a level of XP, so in order to get Divine justicars I had to throw logistics out of the window and go through those extra mines and node to level him up. This costed me a couple of additional days I'd rather not spend, but otherwise the battles for your cities would have been much more army-expensive for me. I still think it was the correct decision for the information that I had at the moment.

And the early onslaught on your frontline cities was a complete accident =) It started as a couple of scouts flying around and, you know, scouting, and then discovering a chance to mess with the inn and the city, so they did exactly that.

Shame, but at the same time understandable. What I was curious about was your thinking and actions from turn 28 and onwards, as that is where I spot you take the Sphinx tempel, you send a wyvern and wisp to buy units at the inn and then take 2 of my cities+fortress with that army.

Also, the turns leading up to taking my throne, as that saved me 80 mana and sustaining the 2 dragons upkeep (if I calculated right, I would have 10mana left even if you took it).

It was a very interesting match indeed! I'm glad I was a part of it, it was a lot of fun and definitely gave me some things to think about.

Regarding the classic long illustrated report: sorry to disappoint you, but there's not going to be one this time. I guess I could spend time going through the screenshots, picking interesting moments to talk about and describe the details of the game flow from my point of view, but it wouldn't really be appropriate, because in the end none of these things mattered as much as I hoped they would =) In retrospect, the game outcome was probably decided when you got the Bone dragon reward from a Wizard tower. That was a devastating blow to my strategy: as a Sorcerer, I was aiming to outresearch, outsummon and outmaneuver you, but no matter how much you try, the research of your own is never gonna be able to compete with getting a free T4 summon reward from clearing a site. I still had hope after the domain swap, as it gave me a chance to prolong the game, evade battle with your main army and maybe punish you for some mistake later on, but then the True resurrect from another Wizard tower became the final nail to my coffin.

One hell of a match, I thought I lost this game several times, but somehow find a way to win.
I get true resurrect towards the end of the game, but i don't think it mattered much, most sites was cleared at this point.

Amazing game of changing the thrones, and very well played Hellbrick.

Thanks for a great match, was a lot of fun, I hope you will make a good report, like you have done in other games!

My contribution is a series of videos, I've made the first 16 turns public.

Confirmed by marcuspers

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Yes, and actually it's only 1 warning with proof (+ 1 without proof) because the 3rd reload was requested by us to be able to launch in debug mode.

You're still 4 turns in front of Mr. Hawk and me.
Good luck for the rest of the game.

Hello judges, maybe you can confirm for Hellbrick that I get 2x warnings with proof and 1 warning with no proof?
I sent the turn to Hellbrick now.
And have sent the link to the last YouTube video with the end of my turn in PM.

Hi, I m outside, without wifi, I read your PM after I sent a PM myself, can t check the video before tomorrow. So please ignore my PM and let s wait tomorrow.

OK I will play the turn as is instructed tomorrow, but the fact is that I have had 2 crashes (and 2 more if you count the shadow elf game) without debug, and 0 crashes with debug. Only reason I turned it off before my shadow elf game was that I played a live game last night where debug mode only work if all players have it, and that wasn't the case.

Ok so since the recording of the whole screen should make it clear if there is any crash, let's continue the turn like this, without debug mode. The main function of debug here would be to provide additional info about the crash but we can do without it if it avoids a revert.
So you can continue on the current save. Fingers crossed that your match can be back on track soon.

Ok, checking with judges regarding the debug mode issue with turn already launched. Back to you in maximum 24 hours.

OK guys, I've rewatched the video again (I will upload it after the game is finished btw) and I must admit, it's rather hard to see at 26.33 that the message from AOW is "Application not responding", due to the fact OBS is limiting the screen recording to a set space of the screen (unsure why this is happening), but I've stopped using OBS now. AIX suggestion of iSpring is limited to Windows operative system, but I've made a test with screencast-o-matic.com and it's uploaded here and seems to do all what is requested.

I still think it's harsh with a warning without adequate proof, but lets leave it at that and don't ruin the game.

I have request though, since the turn was started (as shown in 27.31 of the video), I need to revert the turn, and then launch it in debug mode. 

Im sorry, but if Im getting a warning without proof when recording a video, saving after each turn and uploading to youtube for all to see, then I give up and leave this forum, it gives no joy to be a part of such a community.

Im happy to share the video with the whole community and I hope that will show that the reasoning for giving a warning without adequate proof is real bull****

To simply say: "So in short, the decision is that Marcus gets a warning for reload not justified by adequate proof, one reason being the video provided did not show a crash window or anything similar."
This is not enough. I need more information on the reasoning, I have done everything in my power to provide everything.
I told you in PM the 11th of November, the game didn't crash per se, but the video clearly show I press "save and exit" after the last fight, and then a black screen. I.e. application stop working (i even hover over the application and it says in grey text "application not responding"), and I have to quit the application to continue.

And since I press save and exit, I hoped the game would be saved, hence why (while still recording) I launch the game again, but when I see all progress is lost, I save, exit and send PM to judges (and post here).

Hi there! Sorry for the delay, it took a lot of time to communicate between judges due to IRL constraints.
AlX was nominated as 3rd (temporary) judge to help.

So in short, the decision is that Marcus gets a warning for reload not justified by adequate proof, one reason being the video provided did not show a crash window or anything similar.
We propose the following:

- using the software iSpring (better than Bandicam because no risk of forgetting to relaunch the video after 10min), suggested by AlX. Recording the whole screen.
- playing in windowed mode for AoW3 so that we can see all the windows that are open in the video.
- recording from the PBEM list menu to the completed upload
- saving after the big fight and backing up the save before continuing (should be in the recording too)
- debug mode activated
- if a new crash happens, please don't reload, wait for the judges to see
- if the result of the fight is different from the previous video, please save & quit, back up the save, end the recording, send us a PM and wait. One judge was not yet able to give his opinion and should give it tomorrow evening, so we are not yet sure how to proceed.

Please let us know if we forgot something or if something seems unclear.

Hopefully, this time it will not crash and you'll be able to continue the game. As you're turn 20 and I'm only turn 10 on my game vs Hawk, I hope the time spent waiting for the judges should not be a big issue.

Sorry, needing more time due to WE + as it's a bit more complicated with a 2nd crash, we're asking for a 3rd judge to take the right decision.

Checking the video sent by Marcuspers... looks like it will take more than 36 hours in the end.

Sadly the problem continues Hellbrick.
At the same place as previous turn, the game becomes non responsive (black screen) after I save and exit after one battle.
To not lose all progress, I saved after each fight I made.
At the last save and exit, it seems the game freeze at the save screen, or just before the message appear "game saved" when the screen is completely black. This resulted in application not responding and I had to restart it.

I have asked the judges for feedback how I should proceed, as the same location is where the game ends, even though last time it happened in battle, and now just after. Im thinking to just skip that battle next time I try
Oh and I used OBS which I have now thrown out of the window.

Sorry for all this problems, but I assure you this is also highly frustrating for me.

Thank you. I didn't want to sound impatient, but it was a little worrisome not to see any response from the judges at all, not even "we'll get to it in a couple of days when we're done with the team tournament stuff" or something =)

Guys, don't be so impatient, you're on turn 20, your game will be finished waaaaaaaaaaays before the deadline. I can understand it's frustrating as you have some stuff in your turn waiting for you but still.
Remember we have a life outside doing judges, and we also have other cases to judge (2 games on the 2vs2).

So following the answer from Fistandantilus yesterday evening, and me getting back from work minutes ago, I confirm we received adequate proof from Marcuspers. He thus gets a warning for reload justified with proof.
@Marcus: please record in full screen (so that we can see not only AoW3 but also all other windows) next time you suspect an issue. Please also provide a video in full screen showing the result of this turn (log of the fights...) to confirm it was done similarly to the 1st time.

Thanks!

@Hiliadan, is there any news on verifying Marcus' screenshots and video? It's a shame for the game to be blocked for days due to a technical issue =(

Sadly my game crashed, but I had a suspicion something was wrong when a blue square appeared around some defenders, so I launched the video recorder and have sent that along with the crash screenshots to the judges.

Ok good to go, have fun!

Please click here to read the rules. In order to avoid advantaging one team or the other, for each match, the team who will host the match was randomly selected.The first team in the "turn order" above (who is also the team on top in the tree here) must host the game. Tournament Game #53 Round ! When players do not show up for their match, the Tournament Judges have the right to change the match!

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