Spiel #918 Turnierspiel#9 | Round 2 : 2018 PBEM 2vs2 Tournament #9

As it was stated before, the turn was cancelled and since Hiliadan did not save or upload, his units were not moved.

Good Report. You didn't mention that Dread's AI followed the idea of attacking my empire there I killed him with my mainstacks + built reinforcements. So I was prepared for Marcus attack more or less.

My screwed battle lead to no clearing options and without Hili's gold I wouldn't had been able to maintain my troops. The  battle occurred when I dropped at points and then didn't get stronger again.

We could had attavked Dread earlier (picture of my wash rider) but Hili thought it would be too risky as my best units wouldn't had been able to attend the battle because of slower movement). I was able to charm a Warbred from a Destruction node which was pure luck, got a 2nd Mammoth due to quest (all levelled to elite quivkly) and had strong enough leader + WL hero for standing their ground vs the enemies attacks but not a very good game from me overall. 

Marcus could had used his mobile mainstacks + upcoming reinforcements to beat me but was low at resources with nearly no cities as well so maybe decided to attack my vassal in manual battle asap.

So... knowing Dread, we were quite concerned he would build a pretty strong production base in his domain, and we decided to rush him as much as possible.

As a Goblin AD, my strategy was to quickly get to Hunters, then produce a bunch of them (see my videos playing AD vs El Lobo), and send them towards our enemies to scout them, sabotage them and if possible take their cities and slow them down.
The strategy went pretty well as I was able to kill a Settler from Marcus early on.

I was however not able to do much more mischief, but that Hunter stayed alive for most of the game, and scouted a lot of Marcus' territory.


Gladis was playing Rogue Frostling and was on the surface. He also sent Crow early on to do the same thing as my Hunters. On turn 12, we met our enemies and discovered they played Human Rogue and Tigran Necromancer.


I had a solid start and cleared a Wizard Tower Ruins early (in great part thanks to my AD hero, Kwepa, and her Call Ancestral Spirits) and was very lucky to get one of the best spell for us in this game - which surely contributed very significantly to our victory - Summon Spirit Elemental, which is excellent vs Necromancer. So I started to focus research on CP to be able to cast as many Elementals as possible as fast as possible.

Marcus started to scout me UG around turn 15 and we tried to come up with a plan to shoot the Crows down. I don't remember exactly how it went but we managed to kill it.

On turn 18, Dread appeared on a narrow path UG north of my Leader but behind Lava. I didn't expect it, but he was also rushing us!

Dread had chosen Air and had researched Zephir Bird as he probably is not satisfied with Lost Souls, and I can't blame him as I adopted a similar strategy in several games playing Necro, though Zephirs are a bit overpriced so in the end I never used them.

Around the same time, one of Gladis' Crow managed to reach one of Dread's city UG. It was killed shortly after though, so we didn't get a good view of Dread's Empire, and as he is playing Necro, we had no way to know how many cities he has (no spying of Racial Happiness).

We focused our scouting to get a better knowledge of Dread's army and it was quite good. But he had made the terrible mistake of concentrating all his heroes in one group. And then he made an even bigger mistake and sent his AD alone to take one of my city, as she was faster. I seized the opportunity and killed it with a summoned Elemental. The Elemental was killed back (150 CP :'() but at least, I had weakened him, and he could not refuel his army as he was very far from home and had (almost) no site to clear.
We did a war of attrition where I killed his units slowly one by one, whenever he made the mistake to isolate them. His forces were weakening by the day.


Meanwhile, Gladis was moving towards my city and we calculated precisely the movements and found out he would arrive immediately after Dread, with a (only slightly) superior army. Our opponents apparently scouted that army too, and Dread started to retreat, but took advantage of a Wraith (Floating) and 2 Hell Hounds (Lava Walking) to maintain pressure on me. An attack on my Throne was however averted.
The Theo hero I recruited around that time however still cautiously fled my Throne, and went clearing to pay for our numerous troops (especially Gladis who was using Bards to grow his army through Charm). He came back later to my Throne when Dread tried to threaten it again a few turns later.

In the meantime, I was in the center of the map UG where I cleared a Dungeon to get some T3, and did a first Naga Quest. I then moved through the central lake and an underground river to get closer to Dread: if Gladis could kill his Leader and me take his Throne, we would eliminate him! About 4 turns after the first Quest, I got a second one for a Naga Matriarch, just when my fastest troops had already reached the other side of the lake + river. My slowest troops were still nearby though, and I decided to take the risk and attack 2 Giants (and some Ogres?) without a hero: I won and got the Matriarch and a Slither! That proved useful as the Charm of the Matriarch allowed me to reinforce later on. The fact that she's a Support means she benefited from the +8 MP of Long Striders, and she then became a key part of my fast army, later helping in the war vs Marcus.

At turn 23, Dread started to move back towards me, through another itinerary. We started making strategic plans every turn and discussing the best way forward with Gladis.


His troops were not as fast as Dread but we decided to maintain pressure on our enemy by still following him. I also launched a Builder to try to speed up Gladis.

On the other side of the map, I launched the assault vs Dread, taking his outer Outposts first. While he moved his troops to his Throne to defend it, I took advantage of my fast mobility to move to the other side, from East to West, and take his other city there. In the process, I cleared another Wizard Tower Ruins and got Great Stoning (!), as well as 2 Mature Shock Serpents (!!). Dread had about 3 stacks of Reanimators and Sun Guards but he actually had no chance vs my own 3 stacks.
Gladis sent a Crow to help with the monitoring of Dread's troops near his Throne.

Dread took one of my southern city but Gladis was hard on his heels. Between my troops (and Elementals) and Gladis', Dread was never able to retain any of my city for 2 turns, so he razed none. In the end, when my Theo's stack combined with Gladis' 2 stacks, Dread had to retreat south and forfeit all my cities.


By the way, I don't remember when it happened but at some point, Gladis screwed up a fight and lost his 2ndary hero and many good troops. He was left with only his 2 main stacks pursuing Dread and no way to really recover. Fortunately Marcus was far away and Dread's troops were not able to beat Gladis'.

We were monitoring Marcus through the exploration of sites on the surface. And then through my Hunters and Gladis' Crow. He was apparently getting closer to us and I thought he was going to go for me. So I razed my Throne and my city closest to the Cave Entrance. As a Destruction Master, I was able to use Hasty Plunder and get loads of gold and mana for that. Either because he saw he couldn't take and Plunder my cities himself, or because it was never his plans, Marcus instead went for Gladis.





On turn 29, I was ready to launch the assault on Dread's final cities but he decided to attack me. He killed my AD hero but otherwise was quite badly butchered. He then quitted the game, leaving an AI to control his troops (not allowed by the rules => he got a warning for that from the judges).


From then on, I decided to rush Marcus directly and put pressure on him, and I hoped most of his troops were out of his domain. Gladis followed the remaining troops of Dread, now controlled by an AI, and finished them shortly after. Marcus used Crows to take 1 of his city, keeping Gladis busy there, and slowing down his redeployment to defend his own land vs the assault of Marcus' Leader.

Again, we combined our scouting capacities and we were able to find Marcus' 3 heroes, split into two groups. Confidend that he could beat Gladis with just his main army, Marcus decided to send his hero Nanhild back towards his Throne (also probably to do a Quest from the Fey on the way). Actually, his Leader's troops were not strong enough to beat Gladis so it was probably not the wisest move. Nanhild was quite far from his Throne and I had enough time to take all his cities before he arrived, and I burnt them all but 2 (which in the end I was about to Absorb).
Marcus made a good move and moved away the garrison of 1 city before I took it with an Elemental (I had not properly scouted as I wanted to take everything fast before Nanhild arrived), and then bringing back the troops to kill the Elemental. But he should probably have waited a bit more because I just killed everyone the turn after with my slayer stack composed of my 2 King Shock Serpents (evolved from a Baby Serpent and the 2 Mature Serpents, one of whom died earlier), my Matriarch and a Champion Spirit Elemental (I didn't send my Leader as I had no Throne, so risky).
Nanhild arrived too late and had to avoid me and instead go UG.

On Gladis' side, Marcus was putting some pressure on my ally, but his troops could not directly confront him, so my ally stayed cautiously on his side of the river. I bought units at the Inn and was financing him through clearing from my Theo (+ my economy stabilized after I absorbed Dread's cities which I had not all burnt).


Through my Concealed Hunters + Gladis' Crow, etc. we kept an eye on Marcus' moves and strength. Gladis put his Vassal to good use (Quest, Tribute).

On turn 37, Marcus did a mistake and split his Leader and hero from the rest of his troops to take Gladis' Vassal. My ally had 6 units nearby, 3 of them Concealed (Frostling on Arctic). He bought 1 more from the Inn (we had already bought the 3 others earlier), summoned a Crow and attacked 8 vs 3, it was the end.




Overall it was a pretty tough game and it could have gone both ways.
It's the first time I manage to set up a defense like we did with Gladis on my lands, it was a great success of cooperation. Gladis was quite weakened by his loss at the Sphinx Temple, otherwise he would have been much stronger. And I think we benefited greatly from a number of strategic mistakes from Dread during his attacks (losing his troops slowly one by one: hero, Wraith, Hell Hounds... + a tactical blunder at the Inn it seems, losing a Knight and HP). My early attack on Marcus weakened him and he was too slow to move against us, otherwise his attack would have been devastating if it had come a few turns earlier.
I hope our future games will be as exciting as this one!

Nice game! Good luck Marcus and Dread in the rest of the tournament!
Going to post some screenshots and comments this evening, otherwise I'll never do it...

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Thanks, for you as well

Good game guys, good luck in the rest of the tourney.

Video of the turn skipping and situation before it was skipped: https://youtu.be/qQp-jEf7GEo

My units had moved because I realized I had the wrong mod at the end of my turn when I tried to relaunch after saving & quitting.
Also my turn was skipped (so it became gladis' turn) and all that I did in my turn was cancelled due to the skipping. So gladis won on his own without any of my unit or spell or anything.

Hili was recording and could have done exactly the same moves as before.
I was able to kill Marcus Leader and end the game, I didn´t watch the battle to avoid a crash.

Also, turn wasnt skipped, its now gladis turn.

He already moved all his units so skipping the turn makes no sense.
I request you remove timer again so the judges can clarify.

Why he can't revert his turn?

Who were the Judges for this game?

Seems like Hili Needs to revert his turn, I´m unable to play

We agreed that you have to skip your turn, Hiliadan. 

Hi guys! I made a misclick when switching from the SR mods to the tournament mods and selected the dev build of the SDNR mod... So I switched the game to v1.27 of the SDNR mod basically (i.e. items based on site strength).



marcus, I think this is the end anyway, see screenshot:



Asking Jonny if Zaskow should share the dev build with you so that we can continue, as your version will now be older than mine.... Sorry about that... As I always get the "you're updating the mod" message due to debug, I didn't pay attention.

Please turn Off Timer. I feel sick, need to rest and don't think about AOW. Maybe I play my turn in the next 12 hours though  

Thanks for removing the timer, I had an emergency which prevented me from playing and writing in the blog.

9min left, I removed the turn timer.

gladis, 45min to play your turn, what's going on? I remove the turn timer temporarily...

the match is over, no reason to continue...

Alright you can play on. Please do auto-combat against the AI. Dreadreapr get´s a warning for quitting. Please do surrender in future instead of quitting, this behaviour may cause trouble and inconvinience for the other fellow players.

Please hold the game. We have to decide how to proceed. Due to the quitting, the AI took over, which leads to the question how to engage with that AI. 

Marcus, will you fight on?

gg i forgot to surrender so i quit from lobby

More or less
Didn´t had a Chance earlier, so I needed to Play..

57min before timer expire, nicely done

Hi guys! I was planning to play my turn this evening but unfortunately I have been to busy IRL due to a 2 days business trip so I won't be able to. I removed the turn timer temporarily and should be able to play my turn tomorrow early evening.

plz enable the turn timer again...

Hey i wont be able to play my turn for 36 hrs so can u please pause the timer ?

If the game is not finished by the deadline there have been granted extensions for reasons such as those you mentioned before, so its very likely the judges will grant such an extension also for this match.

We have lost almost a week waiting for judges, shouldnt we have extra time bcz of this? And what about the lost days bcz of the personal conflict between hilidan and gladis?

We decided it´s a reload without proof for Hiliadan.
Thanks for you patience

when it comes to salty jokes, dread is my favorite player. unchallenged.  such a good one there. but i guess the current german 2vs2 where i am in could easily "out-slow" this one here: we have no more than one turn per week! :'( I even did rediscover that I have other hobbies.  Soon I will forget about aow3 and thebattlefield and you guys and all my great deeds. Hope you guys are having a great evening!

i might just build settlers and try to win by score bcz this game is going nowhere, the slowest and most boring team game i ever played, the judges arent active enough and we have a very slow player , guess who

Hi! I just had something that hadn't happened in a very, very long time... The turn got downloaded, then connection was lost, so I was brought to the main menu of AoW3 (where you can select the campaign), before the loading screen of the game. And when I tried to enter the game, it displayed the Ironman warning (but of course the turn was not downloaded again because it had been downloaded properly the first time). Usually, when something like that happens, I quit AoW3, relaunch, and the Ironman notification is not displayed any more. But the new thing is that this time it stayed...

I sent a PM to judges. I'm going to remove the turn timer...

Thanks Jonny for organizing and fixing so quick, much appreciated.

Markymark and Ezekiel are the other judges on this match. Dreadreapr, warning with proof.
But it´s much more meaningful if you record in windowed mode, where the system time can be seen.
Thank you and have fun.

About the crash:
I asked Skuns and Henrysix to help with judging in this game. DreadReapr, you send me a youtube link that doesn´t seem towork, pls look over it and send again or put it on dropbox. Thanks!

i just had a crash while playing my turn, i already sent log files and video recorded link to johnny in private pm here on BF, can u pause timer meanwhile ?