Spiel #841 | German 3v3

Very nice and of course funny match. The most entertaining part was in the middle of the game around turn 35 -50 I guess. First attack of Gladis with an elite exalted stack, after that the first attacks from Earl and me. Still a lot to learn for me and for some other players too. :-)

EDIT: And of course a very dumb decision to attack with my leaderstack while I was 2 turns away from casting age of machines. In addition to losing my leader I lost 600 mana and about 430 channeled CP.

Confirmed by EarL1893

I go very fast to the Center of the map.
One reason was Earl who buying my cities in the near.  used 1-2 scouts to find cities in Center and after i had reached Center of the map and searching a Player for a rush, i had overseen a camp. With creating Units from this camp: 
lost my Capitol and a settler and all other too.

Because i was in Center, needing more than 5 turns to recaputure  my Capitol.
Weak with one City (without having more than 5 turns no City) and less Units, the game was finished for me.

Maybe it will be better for all, Earl has taken my Capitol too, and resumed without me.
I tried to come to the Islands in the south, but it was very dangerous, because scout stack was stronger than my main stack, but founded 2-3 cities near water and Islands.
Than i go stronger after some time and maybe i can come into the match again, i lost my Capitol again. 

An Independent heroes defeated my manticor stack and my another stack, so i was beaten from indepedent units.

Sorry but this game was without me. think i have shall started in the ug, it was too less places for me, because Earl has expanded very fast and forcing me to go to the Center.
 

My starting position was nicely tugged away in the very northeast of the map with blackcat to my west and gladis a bit southwest of me in the underground. I actually wanted to quickly go towards human assassins with off the beaten path, trail running, scorched earth and hasty plunder and then spam them across the map. But that was not to happen...
After a very lousy start loosing nearly all my troops and heroes in turn 4 or something. I found myself in another tight spot in turn 20 or so when earl bought the giant dwelling to my south that I wanted for myself and the suddenly hostile Giants killed my builder, civic guard and a freshly seduced troll that were still in their domain. That left my pretty weak and slow main stack (leader,2 heroes 2 priests and some rubble) stranded south of the giant dwelling slowing me down even further.
Needless to say that by the time I could spam assassins it was not worth it anymore. And soon Earl showed up with a nasty stack of gold knights and shocktroopers led by a theocrat hero with divine justiciars. All I could do was trying to trap him into my realm so I could vastly outnumber him, but he didn't fall for it. I had invested in priests to counter stalkers and due to my slow start I was still far away from my own stalkers so I had no possibility to drive him away and so Earl was free to take all the nice sites in my south effectively locking me in until I would have significant stalker numbers.
A bit later Blackcat was invaded by Lobo and it was really only due to gladis that we managed to stay in the game as he managed to sneak a quick stack of elementals + an imba rogue past their lines and conquered and burned, but most importantly kept them busy at home. Even better Earl and Lobo started to focus heavily on gladis releasing pressure on blackcat and me in turn. I could send 2 strong stacks as support for gladis, but in the end they didn't do a single fight. In the meanwhile I started forming an attack stack with my leader and stalkers that would finally take the Giant dwelling. Lobo and Earl lost big chunks of their army underground against Gladis, but in return caught up with Gladis rogue in their realm. Gladis was smart enough to sent all the OP items to my leader before they seduced his rogue. When Earls theocrat stack, the one he used to block my south, + accompanying army fell for one of gladis traps in the UG earl gave up followed by mark.
I am not sure that was necessary as I am quite certain they were leading by a fair margin economically at that point and probably could have rebuild?
But at that point for the first time in the game the scales were tipped in our favour.
I was free from earls yoke and Gladis had eliminated almost all of the attacking forces so it was finally our turn to go on the offensive. But after earl surrendered the game was obviously over.
Lobo valiantly played the hopeless battle until the end but gladis, me and an eldritch horror from blackcat were just rolling over the land gobbling up the former empires of mark and earl in no time so there was no chance for the poor left alone lobo.

The game took 85 turns and was quite long but I have to say i never before played a PBEM where everyone is doing their turns so quickly! It was really a blast. Thank you for the game guys.

Edit: Some spelling mistakes

Massive Game,
I was the only Player in UG and could expand well. Fluks (Schnee Wittchen) and Blackcat started on Surface. Earl, Lobo (Willi) and Mark (Rish Kyan) all were on Surface what slowed their Expanding down as they admitted.

So I was feeling comforatable but around turn 50 Earl and Lobo were sending waves of stacks against me. Lobo even travelled through Blackcat's Domain with a powerful stack (Shock Serpent, 3 Flyers, Hero and some Obsidian Dragons he cast on the way) - but instead of finishing him off, he went into UG to attack me on another side of my realm.

Luckily I was more or less prepared and had Advanced Logistics researched. In order to survive the attacks, I had to learn from mistakes I had done some turns earlier in the game:
I experienced a defeat in the 1st big fight vs Lobo (where our Military Points decreased heavily around turn 50) without casting Mark of Heretics. ***
I missed to build a Builder in time to be able to send another stack in the fight.
And I wasn´t patient enough, so attacked anyway, loosing my best Exalteds (one was Expert 5 I think).


Around the same time, I suffered a loss at my attacking Leaderstack with Exalteds, Eagle and Wyvern as Lobo and Earl could attack him in joined Forces because I misplaced it. My very mobile Rogue Hero with 5 Air Elemenals had to retreat from Lobo´s Realm as he was engaged by tons of Frost Tanks. I wasn't able to cast scouts for it nor could I make them invisible with Cloaked in Shadows ***.
My teammates didn't put pressure on the opponents so they could concentrate on my Elemental Stack.
As I didn't want to waste more Units, I sent him from the other side of the map via a safe path in UG back to my cities to help defending against Earl and Lobo. I hoped to kill Lobo's Leader who survived the big fight as the only unit on turn 50 - but he was able to Escape and wasn't seen for a Long time.
The Problem of retreating with the only aggressive Stack of my Team is easy to understand: Earl and Lobo themselves could concentrate on attacking me. But one important Point is the "matching" of my Elementals. They are Obsidian Dragon Killers and strong against the most charmed Units of Earl while being "flamed" by the defensive Frost Tanks and Witches of Lobo.

So after some Errors and disappointing Combat results, my strategy was clear:
Build masses of Devout Units + a handful of Shrines, Vassall all my cities who faced the most pressure and use Building Streets to get a chance of having as much units as possible in the fights.
Concentrating on strong strategic spells of the Theocrate instead of summoning a lot of Elementals (Air/Fire) or Bone Dragons. In the last 30 turns, I only summomed 1-2 Air Elementals, never the other two.
I think my plan worked out as I didn´t take any single "Lost a City" penalty up to turn 70 although Earl and Lobo stole a lot of vassallized cities from me without razing them. Luckily I could defeat their strong stacks each time, running forth and back, from East to West with mobile Elementals, Wargs and Shrines together with Exalteds, Crusaders and Supports.
Earl and Lobo somehow didn't managed to attack me on two different sides at the same time. So I was able to manage my defence pretty well. Otherwise they should have been able to defeat me before Fluks sent support.
I am pretty sure they learned even more lessons than I in this game

My strategy was so strict and pragmatic that I often built cities to directly releasing them. In the end I had 1400 race happiness and I could demand offers from my Vassals without any relation penalties which helped me to achieve Centurion although fighting our military more powerful enemies.

Here you see some armies I had to cope with:
~T60 Earl´s weak charmed stack against my Rogue-Air Elemental stack who I called back for Defence + my 1st Shrines of Smiting:


T62 and T63: I was able to kill Lobo's mighty stack who he split for some reason.
This allowed me to get such a great outcomes:



T69: The waves didn't stop and now Earl sent two very powerful stacks of Dark Pact Stalkers and Lord of the Deep.
I cast Holly Domain to decrease their resistance and had cast Mark of the Heretics before. Righteous Zeal and Resurgance proved to be what they are supposed to

On the same turn I attacked Lobo's Machine stack on the other side of my Realm. I saw their armies coming for a while which allowed my to choose what Units I want to send against which Counterparts.


T73: Lobo's remaining machine stack attacked my Fey-Vassals and got defeted as well.


After I defeated Earl's last 3 stacks on T76 who were attacking me, he surrendered as he saw no chance in winning the game after he and Lobo suffered some crucial defeats.

I can understand this but on the other hand I think he could've performed better with a higher commitment to the game.

Mark quitted as well but Lobo fought bravely to the end as Fluks and me rushed over his lands. Game was decided already. Fluks formed a heavy army in the game although he was late to Research Dark Pact which prevent him to fight Earl's 3 attacking stacks properly. I rated Fluks as a strong strategic Player in later game stages as he has a lot of experience in Live Games. And he proved me right as he took the right decision most of the time in order to let me perform my tactic in letting the Enemies attack my Vassal Cities and then hit them back with Devouts and Shrines. So Fluks was aware of not Blocking the paths of my armies in the heart of my realm but he was ready to support me if Earl and Lobo would've moved more aggressively to my important cities/throne.

In the end, Blackcat was able to kill Lobo´s leader as he seemed determined to defeat Blackcat for REAL after sparing him before

Thanks for that BIG game guys although it was really hard to be under continuous pressure for ~30 turns. I'm happy to have finished another game as I have problems to make my turns in time these days!

*** no CP as AI casts Spider Horde excessively in Autocombats, preferable in unimportant scout fights. The gladis´ law proclaims: The more unimportant a fight is, there is a higher Chance of Spider Horde being cast. The main aim of the AI in doing so is to torpedo the strategic plans of the Human Player ***

Here are the stats and you see how strong Lobo and Earl were. Lobo even had more Knowledge than me although I was 4 turns away from All Knowing (?)





/gladis
 

Match has been reported, please confirm!