Game #753 Tournament game#57 | Round 7 : 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament #57
Jean_de_Metz
vs
gabthegab
Match Details
| Played: | 2018-03-12 |
| Rating | 2 - Nice Game |
| Amount of Humans: | 2 |
| Kind of Report: | 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament |
| Kind of game: | PBEM |
| Game-value: | 49 |
| Result | Player | Classes | Races | Team | Points | Extra Points | Missed Points | Quitter | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jean_de_Metz | Sorcerer | Orcs | 2 | 11 | 0 | 0 | here | |
| 2 | gabthegab | Necromancer | Tigrans | 1 | -11 | 0 | -20 | here |
Posts to the game:
A very close game. 
Written by Hiliadan
This report (as other reports from the final phases of other tournaments) clearly show some stuff the balance mod needs to prevent. Among other things, I'm really looking forward to the use of the Strong Defender Normal Reward (SDNR) mod to reduce rewards. I believe we should beef up the anti-mind-control arsenal, in terms of upkeep, preventing easy mind-control of Regrowth units... And also we need to make it harder to sustain armies without economy like you both did.
Written by Jean_de_Metz
It was my first match with Gabriel and it turned out to be really challenging. As he didn’t make any report on his own I will describe the game how I saw it (and, I guess, you will have to believe me 😊
But before I start it I want you to understand that I made a lot of work trying to understand Gab’s playstyle. For me he appears to be a very aggressive player who perfectly levels up his heroes at the beginning of the game. He likes to make snowballs and attacks his rivals at the beginning of the match. So I figured out that he had pretty little experience in playing late game and I could at least make him feel uncomfortable in the game not letting him win against me in his usual style.
I was 100 % sure he would take necromancer. I could have taken it myself but I don’t like to play mirror matches. That’s why I chose sorcerer. It was the only class which could have let me create a full floating stack. Gabriel, making a huge snowball, would have plenty of units but the vast majority of them wouldn’t be able to catch me on the water or on rapids/lava – that was my logic.
I had a very impressive start: researched wisp and a theocrat hero. It allowed me to take an early ruins and research apprentice on turn 4!
The first wisps were sent in possible Gabriel’s direction making screenshots of the objects on their way (I needed to know what could be snowballed by him).
I myself was talking objects in my domain and trying to level up my theocrat to convert ability as fast as I could.
I made contact with Gab on turn 10 destroying his fortress and killing undefended builder! The wisp though was immediately punished by Gab’s heroes. I still think he should have shown me only one hero but it didn’t make any difference: there was no doubts in his skill in fast level ups.
I saw him taking a tavern which meant he was about to go to the surface. My second wisp was killed here by his carrion bird and I understood there was no more use trying to scout here.
At least I had the map opened and I could follow his movements by the cleaned objects on the map.
My real success was taking a dungeon very early losing only a wisp which split the guards. I also managed to convert a warbreed!
Here I want to clarify that we had some chat in steam and Gabriel said he was really unlucky in this game. If honestly, I can’t agree with that. I think we both had lucky and unlucky moments. Gab said his ghouling strike failed many times but, well, you can’t always rely on it. We made everything we could in the balance mode in order to make snowball abilities to fail at least sometimes.
I can name at least several things in which Gabriel was very lucky. First, as I later found out, he got a big neutral dwarf town on the borders of his domain. I myself didn’t get such economics but I scouted the central giant dwelling much earlier than Gab but the dwelling…declared war on me. That was horrible since I hoped to make some quests or at least vassalize it.
Secondly, Gabriel had a perfect path to my empire.
A sphynx temple, a sanctum and 2 ruins giving him 4 ghouled trolls. My heart went into my shoes when I saw it.
I ran to the center in order to take another sphynx temple cause giving 2 these objects to him would have been too much.
And here was my first revelation of this game.
I am gonna say this and I want you to believe me here: I really did everything I could at the beginning of the game. I played it perfectly. I sacrificed research (building only a laboratory for medals) to spam apprentices and ruined my moral hurrying production. I cleaned everything I could and got as much converted units as the game allowed me. I trained everything and summoned phantasmal warriors for all the mana I had. On turn 17 I had almost 3 stacks of trained units (which is incredibly strong for a sorcerer) and I had a small hope…But no.
No matter how perfectly you play this class at the beginning of the match…you still can’t compete with a necro snowball. Gabriel came with more than 3 stacks of units and when I saw the army I understood I had no chance defeating it. But I was fast and came already to the center of the map. Here is the position:
Gabriel had this:
Another stack was almost there too.
Including units from the tavern he took nearby and banshees he summoned.
In order to understand the correct strategy in this situation let’s talk about different scenarios. What would you do?
Take a look at this screenshot once again:
The main and very common mistake in this situation is that many players run back to their domains when they understand they can’t meet and defeat an approaching snowball. The problem is that going back gives you nothing: you can run back, build a wall in your throne city and defend there but your opponent will take your vassal! And everything else. You can’t defend everything at the same time – that’s the problem.
The best scenario here is to exchange domains. To go somewhere else. Make your opponent pursue you because when a player pursues his opponent he is always behind him and goes through already cleaned objects.
Here I forced Gabriel to take the dwelling and went further to his part of the map. I understood that it was no use sending everything to his towns – they would probably be undefended since the snowball ate all his gold. So I split my army and took only the leader stack to his domain. The stack was made of apprentices and phantasmal warriors + 1 gryphon rider, it was a full floating stack which soon gained invisibility. All the units left were led by my theocrat and I sent it to clean the map.
So we have the following situation:
Gab in my domain.
I am in his.
This is the whole surface. I found a small dwarf village in the south-west corner of the map and vassalized it.
My theocrat hero with his full resurgence army began to take such structures.
And here Gab makes the most crucial mistake in the game. He leaves some towns to me.
He managed to raze his throne city but I was so close that I lacked just few mps to reach it. But I got 2 other towns. So why didn’t he raze everything? Being a necromancer he could have done it easily not losing any morale.
I got an artifact with resurgence ability and sent it to my leader.
My third hero with a stack of apprentices (this was the guarding stack of my domain) was sent by the water to the north-west corner escaping death.
It later reunited with the main theocrat army.
And Gabriel got a difficult situation here. My theocrat army was becoming stronger and stronger and it came to the place with several sanctums!
So Gabriel came here too.
The upcoming screenshots will be all about maneuvers 😊
His scouting was really perfect at that time so when he saw the whereabouts of my stacks he made such an attack on my vassal.
I decided not to fight for it. Instead, I went for all the greatest mythical structures of the game, my plan was to deprive Gab of them.
Again maneuvers.
Here I force Gabriel to come back to the borders of mine (well, now his) domain because otherwise I would go there myself.
Yeah, well xD
Making another full floating stack!
When the surface was explored and Gab blocked the way to the domain I decided to go to the underground with the theocrat army.
I was suffering with my economics and had to stabilize it as soon as possible so I got a temporary control of the undergound.
While the leader was exploring the underground himself.
You might be wondering now why I put a 37 turns research clock with the Eldrich Horror – well, the last spell I needed was School of Enchantment but I slowly researched it with the objects. I had only + 47 research from the towns, it was irrelevant to research any expensive spells BUT we didn’t have Sage yet. So putting the horror at the end of the turn on research was an option. A doubtful though.
The underground had a central dwelling too. Again the giants.
I didn’t want to fight for it at all till this part of the game. Now I was once again ahead, Gabriel was pursuing me so I approached the dwelling clearing the wizards’ towers!
I made another split.
Now I had a full floating theocrat stack with resurgence and I later reunited with my leader to have more than 3 stacks of floating units.
Gad tried to go underground and clean something too, he took the dungeon but failed with the lost city as I was faster.
I also took the last sanctum.
And another lost city.
And another wizards tower where I was finally rewarded.
I vassalized the giant dwelling and Gab went to the underground with everyone because nothing was left on the surface.
I immediately responded with combining my floating armies and going to the surface to Gab’s domain.
So when Gab was close to my underground cities
I was here trying to be invisible
Gabriel finally made a split of his army sending one of the stacks here.
The second part blocked me here.
That’s why I moved to the north ug town planning to defend it till the very end.
Gabriel leaving his surface domain. We were about to make the second exchange of domains!
He took my giant dwelling with a swimming druid stack.
And then suddenly I noticed this…
It looked like a hidden attack but I spotted it.
And next turn he approached.
On my turn I was able to reach him only here.
The lost soul allowed me to attack his army not on the objects = without buffs.
I summoned the phoenix and won the battle.
And his leader went to the void after which I took the throne city which was now in my former domain.
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As we are probably going to play the finals with each other I don’t want to make any conclusions about this game right now. I thanked him for the game when it ended and I thank him now once again. It was interesting and competitive.
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Written by xlnt
Written by marcuspers
Confirmé par gabthegab
753 | Age of Wonders 3
Sorry for not making my turn today, I got too many problems at home. I managed to get some free time only now, at 3 a.m. and I'm sleepy.
I will make more turns tomorrow. Maybe 2 or even 3.
P.S. We're on round 39 at the moment. We should be able to finish the game in time anyway
Gonna finish my turn in an hour.
I'm gonna take an older version from dropbox then.
Did you update the mod even though Hiliadan made a lot of effort to prevent this from happening, when save and exit and continue later?
If the second, there is instructions in the tournament pool with links to the "old" versions of the mod.
https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=bfmgames&listid=55
I can't continue making my turn today, got this message, can't upload the turn.
What shall I do now?
- Jean
Anyway, round 19 already, I don't think we're running out of time. I will try to make several turns today. A new one coming very soon
System notification
Round 7 : 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament #57
My pc is overtired after the whole day of work.
Good luck, Gab!
Waiting for the green light to start the match
I'm not following, as usual
Nah, there are only 2 options:
1. You're too good.
2. The others are bad
XD
I don't believe in anything else.Â
It's a great pleasure to finally meet you in a game. I expect it to be a very interesting match and hope I can compete with you. Would you like to play on PBEM++ in addition to the main branch? This mod was designed by Hellbrick (you already know him) and gives some nice features like no rapids on the map, no preresearched summon (crow, cherub, wisp, etc) which gives both players equal opportunities in early scouting and some other interesting things.Â
I'm able to play the match fast, several turns per day if necessary. I will join the game in 2 days, need to finish some testing first =)