Please do not take any of my comments as a personal insult or as a criticism of the game 'Alamaze', which I very much enjoy. Rather, I hope that my personal insight and unique perspective may, in some way, help make 'Alamaze' more fun, a more successful financial venture, or simply more sustainable as a long-term project. Anyone who reads this post should feel completely free to ignore, disregard, scorn, implement, improve, dispute, or otherwise comment upon its content.
Dwarf – Wow, this game was started March 5[sup]th[/sup]! Over six months of playing one game and we only had two players drop! This was a great game and I had no aspirations for victory until near the end. I’m still surprised that nobody managed a secret victory.
Early on I made a point of leaving the Red Dragon, Witchlord, and Darkelf alone in this game. I fully expected one of them to attack me, but they all seemed to be content with going elsewhere so long as I didn’t molest them. This arrangement lasted all game even though the Witchlord eventually dropped. I decided to become the Dwarven version of the Underworld and went crazy with my agents. At the end, I had nine that were levels 11-13. I also decided not to declare anyone enemy unless they invaded Talking Mountains, which they never did. I hoped to keep my activities secret from anyone who might take advantage. The Elf took my R2 village early on. I swore to get revenge, but at my convenience. For now, I looked south… far south. In my experience, the Dwarf and Gnome have rarely fought head on. I had this very nice portal and thought, why not hit Runnimede? Who would suspect it? Would anyone even notice if I left the Talking Mountains empty and gave it a try? Around turn 14, I landed my big army at Cradia and I can only imagine that the Gnome was surprised. In return, he surprised me with my first experience with the 615 – Spoil Food Supplies order. That hurt! With his denigrations, I also found out why the Dwarf and Gnome almost never invade one another. I just couldn’t get any traction and my army was sinking deep into depression. I still owned Cradia, but was about ready to give the South up as a lost mission when the Black Dragon landed on my ancestral seaside estates at RR. And then he actually attacked me! Well, I had a mission now. Rather than send my nobles home to R3 in disgrace, I sent them into the Southern Sands. I can’t say that I enjoyed my visits in the desert kingdom, but I doubt that the Black Dragon enjoyed my visit either. I knocked a lot of pcs neutral, bounced around a lot, and eventually lost most of my senior nobles. Well, that didn’t work as I had planned. As soon as I moved east, the Gnome surrendered. Apparently, the Troll and Ancient Ones were nibbling at him the same time I was attacking. I managed to claim his old capital (gold production of over 69k!) and another town and village that I held the entire game. The Ancient Ones did take Cradia twice and kept it in the end. During this period, the Ancient Ones was also trying to invade the Northern Mists along with, and opposed to, the Elf. With my army mostly recovered from their grueling visit to Runnimede, I decided to invade the Northern Mists. I eventually took everything the Ancient Ones had and almost all of the region from the Elf except for Viperhead; the Elf maintained an Army Group with three P-7s there, so I avoided it. We were trading some pcs back and forth until the end, but I had regional control. Remember that village the Elf took? I got my revenge! I assassinated a lot of nobles and agents this game and that was fun for the Dwarf. I lost two of my poor wizards attacking a Sorcerer town on turn 3 (sorry about that) and another in an unusual sighting, but ended the game with a P-6 and two P-5s. That was nice. Congrats to the Elf and Darkelf for your podium finishes!
Lord Diamond
Please do not take any of my comments as a personal insult or as a criticism of the game 'Alamaze', which I very much enjoy. Rather, I hope that my personal insight and unique perspective may, in some way, help make 'Alamaze' more fun, a more successful financial venture, or simply more sustainable as a long-term project. Anyone who reads this post should feel completely free to ignore, disregard, scorn, implement, improve, dispute, or otherwise comment upon its content.
09-14-2015, 08:47 PM (This post was last modified: 09-15-2015, 01:30 AM by DuPont.)
Troll - As everybody knows, I don't quit games no matter how things go. This was a long game and from early on, I realized I had no real chance to win it but I stayed on with the goal of revenge! I wanted to keep my foes from winning and if I was able to accomplish that, I would count it a success.
In fact, I acquired my first foe because of a mistake I made. Early on, the AN and I were dancing around in Torvale. I was hoping to split the region with him – giving him the city and me control. Of course, it's hard to communicate that in anonymous. One about turn 3 or 4, we both wound up on each others villages. I misinterpreted his moves as planning an attack and so I attacked his village in anticipation of him attacking mine. Much to my horror on my next turn, I saw that he had not attacked my village, so I had been the one to declare war. I declared him an ally the next turn in hopes of showing that it was a mistake and I still wanted peace, but he went into attack mode. I didn't blame him as I'd struck first – I decided I'd head south and set up shop in Runnimede.
I had some early success against the GN but I was also bedeviled by the RD taking my Amberland town the AN continuing to take the rest of my Torvale holdings. He took my capital which I thought was pushing it a bit, but again, as I'd started it, I considered it in bounds. What really annoyed me was the EL taking my village in Oakendell as the summer started – I really needed that food source and he didn't need that one extra village. That got him a full slot on my enemies list and I filed it away for later.
The AN, having secured Torvale, then chose to follow me into Runnimede and attack me there. That was it as far as I was concerned – since he wouldn't let me be, I would turn around and focus on him. Thus began a long war of attrition. It was mostly military – my King was captured when my capital fell and my influence throughout the game usually was around 10.0. My wizards died early, so I had no defense against regional reaction spells or anything else. I did manage to get a couple of good agents who helped out.
The RD decided he wanted to join the party in Torvale as well. While that was fine as far as I was concerned and I would have been prepared to leave RD pop centers alone so he could focus on the AN, he did not discriminate between ones held by me or ones held by my foe. I decided to make him the third member of my enemies list.
After a number of turns, my groups were quite battered and morale was very low. They needed a break so I decided it was time to go after the EL. He'd had his region secured and was off playing elsewhere. Going up there would enable me to recruit fresh troops, get out from under the AN regional effect spells and let my morale recover. I had no illusions that I'd be able to gain control of Oakendell, but that wasn't my goal – my goal was to bring the EL back from wherever he was expanding and make him defend his home region. I was going to make him pay in blood (and status points) for that village!
Things went more or less as I hoped – I was able to get some morale boosts for my troops, hold some pop centers long enough to get some food stores and hire some more orcs and bring the EL home. Then I moved back into Torvale to screw with the AN/RD again. I'd gotten my capital into the Sea of Mystery and while I could not afford a navy to protect it, the RD at least could not reach in there and the AN did not make it a priority.
Eventually, I used my agents to bust my king out of the AN jail and restore him to his throne. I also stole a couple of artifacts from the EL in aid of keeping his status point number down. As turn 40 came out, I was tickled to see neither of my foes in the #1 slot (though the EL did manage to land at #2). I, of course, came last of the surviving kingdoms, but that was as I had expected.
I did have a blast with this one – I do enjoy playing from behind and bedeviling my opponents. All played very well and I look forward to seeing them soon in another game!
The first few turns were pretty normal a rush to gain Eastern Steppes and start moving wizards and agents up. My first mistake of the game is to forget to put in SVC, I have the ESO in but alas forget the other. I keep my eyes open to the rest of the board and see the BL take his second region on turn 12. I have collected a number of good artifacts already including Wizard Slayer and Elan so lets start diving BL holdings and look at region 9. On turn 14 BL has Junkanta but no politicals at home and I have started to move my Army Group around the horn recruiting as I go. I invade region 9 on turn 15 with a good amount of politicals but in reality I should have waited one more turn so my 1DA would have hit at the same time. I do move a patrol with 3 power 5's invisibly to Junkarta. Turn 16 sees the DA take the city and turn a few others but not as good as I would have liked, the same turn I take the city the BL shows up with a Army group and a Warlord. Not sure if he sees me but on the next turn I kill a Warlord, Marshall and General and his attack is repelled doing some pretty good damage to his group, it takes me until turn 19 but I get control of 9. This is where I realize my SVC was not put in sigh.... The black has moved his forces to 6 and is attacking, I take them back with politicals but it goes back and forth a bit. I move some politicals into 10 along with my group to scare the BL out of 6 as it will take too long to march my group back up. I also have the RA, SO and BL all now in kind of a free for all and not to be left out the DE attacks into 6 on around 21 assassinating a P6 and P5, ouch. I will pay him back. I abandon 10 and move what now is a pretty big Army group with Warlord into 5 ultimately destroying a DE small group with a P5 and assassinating one of his agent 13's. The DE takes my city in 6 on 25 but I am able to pull off another kill wizard and get a P4, his group takes the city but losses 37%. My group is now back in 6 and I manage to execute from my dungeons a DE Demon Prince x2 and a Duchess while assassinating another DE normal Prince. He cant be too happy about that. I reserve myself with all this chaos to hold 6 and make it to 40 top 3. I cant win with SVC and too many kingdoms are just seething in this chaotic battle over 5,6,9 and 10. Around 36 both the DE and SO invade politically but I manage to get another Duke, Count, and Baron x2 from them to my dungeons which is on auto kill and assassinate another SO Duke. As a final shot in the game I kill the SO agent 13 as I figure out he has been the one kidnaping my agent 1's but decide not to engage his main group with mine as I was dumb and never got a good look at his wizards. The SO barely knocks me out of control of 6 at the end to move me from 2nd to 3rd. It was a fun game and I finished with:
We possess the following artifacts:
Short Status
Full Name Name Possessor Type Pts
Demon Bane 88956 Agent Napola Covert 200
Elan, Flaming Sword of the North 56731 1st Darkelven Weapon 600
Key of the Slayer 53835 Agent Napola King 100
Last Herd of Winged Stallions 88462 3rd Darkelven Benevolent 400
Oracle of the Old Gods 86604 3rd Darkelven Covert 300
Ring of Protection 15675 King MENZOBARAN Benevolent 200
Standard of Valor 67815 1st Darkelven Weapon 300
Wizard Slayer 57760 1st Darkelven Weapon 400
The reality is I should have done things a lot different but I made it to the end and at least gave as good as I got.
09-15-2015, 12:10 AM (This post was last modified: 09-15-2015, 04:00 PM by Vulkar.)
Ranger:
I posted this to the initial active games thread, however I see this is where to chime in my own post-game thoughts.
Congratulations to Lord Diamond on the DW victory, and to Blue Golem (EL) and Lord Alz (DA) for their 2nd and 3rd place finishes.
After a very long hiatus from Alamaze this was a fun contest to reintroduce myself to the game. Selecting the Ranger kingdom turned out to be a dubious decision given how contested the region is from the start. I was hoping the Sorcerer would be one of the three kingdoms not in the mix, alas there would be an early war for Synisvania.
Not more than one turn after a successful siege of the Sorcerer capital gave the Ranger the upper hand the first of many waves of Black Dragon wyverns and emissaries came. After a costly defense of the capital against a BL army group that would see both armies retreat the capital was safely relocated to the seas, serving as a secure base to fight a protracted war. Not long after the BL invasion Darkelven forces and Demon Princes would enter Synisvania and start vying for population centers. The Darkelf in particular came in force, sporting an artifact-laden military and emissaries. For some time it seemed hopeless that the Ranger would ever become a force in Alamaze.
Fortunately the Sorcerer wisely left for less hostile environs relatively early, eventually finding success in the Steppes, and the Darkelf and Demon Princes didn't stick around for too long, probably because of the marauding dragons, persistent resistance from Ranger emissaries and the threat of Ranger assassins.
After a long war the Black Dragon diverted his focus elsewhere, allowing the Ranger nation to rebound and levy some vengeance during the final months. Along with capturing the undefended sands, the Ranger would add King Dracus to the long list of assassinations successfully executed by Ranger agents.
Overall, I'm pleased with a fifth place finish and to have joined Lord Diamond as the only race holding two regions by game's end.
Thanks for the game everyone, especially JumpingFist, who presented as challenging a foe as I remember encountering in the old days.
Successful assassinations included a Black Dragon King, Prince, two counts, two barons, a governor and level 11 agent, DA Count and DE Prince (normal).
I actually entered this game around Turn 10 as a standby. Who knew then that it would go to 40? I spent most of the game expecting it to end at any moment, but it never did.
At the beginning, it was a three-way brawl between SO, RA and BL in Synisvania. Okay - it was a brawl between RA & BL, with SO sniping on the sidelines. My capital had already been sacked a couple of times, and it ended up being sacked a couple of times more. I was finally able to move my capital to my village in the Steppes, which happened to be in the Sea of Drowning. But my armies were entirely wiped out, my emissary corps was decimated, my regional reactions were crap, and my capital was the only PC I had left. I holed up and hoped to be left alone.
So what to do now? Well, I'm playing a wizard kingdom - might as well work on developing wizards. Hidden Ore and Create Gold are marvelous things - my development was slowly, but steady. As I raised my wizards, my gold creation capacity also increased. And my need for gold decreased - want to raise your influence? There's a spell for that. Want to improve your regional reaction? There's a spell for that. Want to build an army that doesn't eat or get paid? There's several spells for that!
My initial goal was just to maximize status points by raising my wizards. But then I looked at Valhalla and noticed that the highest number of prisoners for the Sorcerer was 4. I already had three in my dungeon at the time(captured during the whack-a-capital phase of my game - sure it wasn't my capital when you entered the usurp order, but that was so five orders ago), so I had my plan. I would become the new Dungeon Master of the Sorcerer! I began training my two remaining agents and scouting around for targets. I found DA & RA's capitals, along with their envoys plus locating several L1s. I began sleeping & kidnapping, eventually building up to eight prisoners.
But the game kept not ending. I had a P7 and three P5s, over 20 influence, a Friendly reaction in Eastern Steppes, a rebuilt emissary corps and 18 brigades of Ghouls. Holy crap! I might actually be able to take Eastern Steppes! I made my move on Turn 35.
Naturally, things didn't go quite as planned. I scouted my moves and saw three DE emissaries moved on Eastern Steppes at the same time I did. So three of my emissaries did status quo instead of usurp. Another baron of mine got himself captured. And this allowed DA the opportunity to declare me an enemy, thus reducing my regional reaction and preventing me from one-stepping any towns. But I had two invisible armies in play, plus a Demon and a high level agent. I was able to assassinate a couple DA barons, and sleep other emissaries which still allowed me to two-step towns. 1DA showed up, but my two groups could take back PCs a bit faster than his one group.
It ultimately came down to Gundibar. I'd taken what I could politically(expect for a hail mary shot at one last town), and the land-based PCs my armies could reach were just being exchanged with 1DA. On Turn 39 I consolidated my forces at KU. At which point, my wizards detected a group in ambush. Of course, they couldn't tell me what group. And it turned out Gundibar had a bit more defense than I had anticipated. If my wizards were killed by spell and/or my group surprised by ignoring the ambushing group(necessary in order to attack the city), it was a real toss-up on whether or not I could take the city. But the die was cast - no chance to do anything else, but attack with 14 ghoul brigades, a P7 Earthquake and two P5 Earthquakes.
And it worked! I took Gundibar, and with it the Eastern Steppes. And with eight prisoners in my dungeon, I now have a Valhalla title - Dungeon Master of the Sorcerer.
09-15-2015, 11:54 AM (This post was last modified: 09-15-2015, 11:55 AM by Lord Diamond.)
I would really like to hear from the Elf. I want to know whether or not taking the DW and TR villages was worth it.
Great write-ups so far.
Lord Diamond
Please do not take any of my comments as a personal insult or as a criticism of the game 'Alamaze', which I very much enjoy. Rather, I hope that my personal insight and unique perspective may, in some way, help make 'Alamaze' more fun, a more successful financial venture, or simply more sustainable as a long-term project. Anyone who reads this post should feel completely free to ignore, disregard, scorn, implement, improve, dispute, or otherwise comment upon its content.
Demon Princes: Congrats to the Dwarves on their win--I thought for sure it would be a SVC at some point, but I think people were watching conditions closely. My early game revolved around gaining control of Arcania; I secured the two cities and most of the other PCs. I planned on building up steadily but kept a watch on numbers of regions under control. I planned to attack the BL when he went to 2 regions, but the DA struck him first (by a turn, I think) and I ended up going after the DA after he went to 2. The initial political offensive went well, but Synisvania was a sinkhole, with like 5 players being involved there, and I ended up fighting with all of them (except maybe the SO) at one point or another. After several turns my elite political corps had been whittled down and I took the opportunity to pull back and rebuild it somewhat. A late game attack into Eastern Steppes went badly, but I had more success in Amberland. One demon prince survived the DA retribution and made it to the end of the game.
