Game 110 - Out Of The Silent Planet

[DuPont]

First let me say that I just LOVED this format! I wouldn't want to play every game this way, but it's so different from the regular give-and-take, it's like a whole new game. And I should also add that the kingdom that won, the GI (congrats to him!) was not one I would have expected to do well. I figured the teams to get were ones that had a clear shot at an uncontested region and ones with fewer neighbors. A kingdom that starts of sharing space and is basically vulnerable to attack from every player on the board is not who I would have expected to win. I will add that I had assumed he was going for a standard victory with five regions towards the end, there - or that the game would end on turn 40. Really looking forward to what he has to say.

As for me, I had a great start. Got a HC seat on turn two and was one of only three kingdoms to secure a region on turn 3. I made the decision to quickly move south into Synisvania, assuming there would be a RA/SO fight and I wanted to get in there before one side beat the other. Plus, that would give me some summer production. At first I made good progress - I got up to substantial within a few turns. But then things started going wrong.

First of all, the BL also invaded Synisvania - I'd hoped he'd go after Arcania or Runnimede instead, but no luck. Even worse, the DW managed to take out the RD far quicker than I"d hoped and he came south into the Eastern Steppes. In hindsight, I should have turned back north and refocused all my efforts against the DW, but I did not want to abandon my holdings in Synisvania. But this was a mistake - the DW knocked me out of control of the region and started hitting my capitals. I kept trying to move into the Sea of Drowning, but just as I'd try, he'd flip the pop center I wanted to move to. I also had some bad luck with high level agents getting caught when pop centers fell - stupid, they should have all been safely at sea. Eventually, on turn 18, he killed my king and I abandoned any chance of salvaging a victory. I kept hoping the WI or somebody would plow into the Talking Mountains, but it just wasn't happening. He controlled two regions, but he didn't seem to have a foe. I decided that I would make my only goal in the game to take him down.

I still had good wizards and my troops were mostly unbloodied. Because I had found the Ring of Spells, I was able to start teleporting an army group and went up to the Talking Mountains to hit DW towns. I also had the satisfaction of assassinating his king, though it cost me my agent in the process. Then the GI plowed into the TM - he took some of my holdings, too, but I didn't care as he knocked the DW out of the region. That enabled me to refocus on the Eastern Steppes. My diplomatic corps had been decimated by assassinations, but between the few I had left and my two groups, I was eventually able to recover the region. I did have some frustrations - just as I got back on the HC, the damn RA revealed my last skeleton, knocking me right back off.

But I was able to hold my region for the few remaining turns in the game and I beat the DW. That was my goal and I really enjoyed playing against him.

I also want to give a shout out to the RA who never controlled his region, but held on the whole game, fighting and clawing his way along. Great game all; can't wait for the next one!

[Lord Diamond]

I played the Ranger in game 118, the first anonymous (Chaos) game. I knew from the beginning that the Ranger would be tough to play, especially since he shared a region and there was no way to amicably share it. War with the Sorcerer was pretty much a given.

My war with the Sorcerer was going okay, but then the Black Dragon and Darkelf both moved into Synisvania. The only thing that prevented my destruction was that they were all three fighting each other as well! I seemed to be the common denominator, however, and was never able to really get ahead. Between them they stole my artifacts (just in time to prevent me from gaining my ESO!!), assassinated my agents, demolished my army, and pretty much assured that no Ranger king would be making much of a dent in this incarnation!

I like to think that I was an obstacle the whole game. Even after my last soldiers died, I still had my noble court. Though constantly captured and imprisoned, they always managed to escape when not executed. I was down to two or three minor nobles at one point, but ended the game with a prince, duke, count, baron, and two governors. They were constantly taking pcs from the Darkelf and Black Dragon (the Sorcerer surrendered early on) and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

The Black Dragon knocked me off the High Council twice, but I had my revenge when I revealed a skeleton for him as well. I also revealed the Darkelf skeleton just in time for him to get knocked off the HC the same turn he won his seat!

I did control my region for a few turns, but it didn't last.

I ended up with a meager influence of 10.3, a Fanatic 15, P-4 and P-3 wizards, four towns, and three villages.

This was my ‘in Memorium’:

AGENT 2 AESOP 13
GOVERNOR ARANDUR 19
AGENT 4 DARKWIND 10
ENVOY KEVIN 12
AGENT 1 MERVAI 19
COUNTESS THALIA 11
AGENT 1 WILLOW 16

To keep myself interested and entertained, I assigned myself a personal quest. I would find Elan and then toss it in that volcano! I used my HP and was able to divine the location of the Key. It ended up being at IW. Then I found the short name and location of Elan, which was at AZ. I managed to retrieve it and arrived back at the Volcano just in time for the Giant to declare victory! My patrol is sitting there now waiting for word to toss it in the volcano. Oh well, I almost made it.

It was a fun game and I enjoyed the anonymous twist. I’ll take my 7th place finish and feel proud that I survived 39 turns of Chaos!

[paway]

I played the Dwarves in 110. My game got off to a quick start as I took the city in Talking Mountains and quickly began flipping PCs with my emissaries. The Red Dragons made some aggressive moves early on, but having just played them in another game, I was pretty certain I knew what to do against them. Avoid engaging them directly (as the Dwarves end up on the short end of a military engagement), but go after their PCs aggressively and starve them to death. Pretty soon, I had a solid control of Talking Mountains and the RD threat was eliminated. Not bad so far.

The Dark Elves made the interesting move of declaring everyone an Enemy before the first points update. He also took my starting PC in the Eastern Steppes. Not that I needed an excuse, but that seemed a good enough reason (along with its close proximity) to migrate into the Eastern Steppes, so I went at the region with full force. As DuPont reported, I was able to gain control of the region, use my military to repeatedly destroy his capital, and eventually kill his king. At the point when I controlled two regions, I felt pretty good about how my game was going.

It was all downhill from there.

The Dark Elves are a vengeful people. While I thought he was down and out, he was just down. He spent the rest of the game developing agents and wizards and armies to take back his homeland. Not only that, but an invisible Giant army showed up at my capital city of Zabzanka, destroyed my 1DW with its wizards and took my capital. That combined with an assassination of my king by the Dark Elves and a flood of emissaries from both of them led to an irreversible change in my fortunes. I lost The Talking Mountains and never had a hope of regaining it, despite the provincial governors that I had spread out amongst my towns in the region.

I felt my best choice was to turtle up at Zabzanka, try to keep control of The Eastern Steppes, and rebuild my influence and strength. I moved my capital and my troops to Zabzanka and began raising its defense each turn. The BL showed up to contest the region, as did the DA. My army at Zabzanka launched probing attack after probing attack at would-be conquerors and it was just enough to deter them from taking the city.

Sadly, it was all for naught. In the final turns of the game, the DA regained control of their ancestral lands and the DW were relegated to being a speed bump in the annals of history.

Great game, everyone. I enjoyed it immensely. Congrats to Thalion on his victory with the Giants, Destitute Noble on his 2nd place finish with the Black Dragons, and Bluefile2 on his 3rd place finish with the Ancient Ones. DuPont, I enjoyed butting heads with you in a second game (despite not knowing it was you!). You are a tenacious opponent.

[Destitute Noble]

The Black Dragons - A Tail of What Could've Been...

I was immediately interested when I saw the posting for an anonymous game. When 110 started I was in turn 15 of my first Alamaze game 105 where I played the Warlocks. In that game, my brother-in-law Kulvac had played the BL, and I was able to see firsthand some of the advantages the Dragon kingdoms have so I was eager to sign up for them as my first choice and was happy to get them.

I set out with a few main goals: 1. Get control of Southern Sands as quickly as possible. 2. Train agents first and wizards second. Since the BL was already strong militarily, and since (in my opinion) battle spells are pretty much useless having seen that over and over in 105, I decided to go with a little of both, but focus on the agents and use them to help control foreign emmys. I wanted to level many wizards vs one figuring I’d need the sleep spells and/or wards (those two decisions paid unbelievable dividends to me in this game). 3. Garner my ESO. By turn 7 I had gained control of Southern Sands (though I held NO PCs in any other region at that point). On turn 9 my agent corps looked like this when I put them more in mission mode vs training mode:

Fanatic-10 Wailes
Agent 8 – Fink
Agent 8 – Bloodgard
Agent 1 – Ruslan

The top 3 were original members of the emmy corps, and died on turn 14, 33, and 39 respectively (curse whoever killed Bloodgard that last turn – that really crushed my spirit so well played)! I’ll give you more on their exploits later…! I received ESO on turn 15 and then it was on. The Sorcerer had dropped on turn 12 (I had only run across him a few times) and so my mind was made to go for region 9, then 6 to achieve my victory condition which was control of 3 regions and 3 cities. Turns 9-18 saw battles between my groups and Ranger groups 8 different times highlighted on turn 18 when I slaughtered his group and took the Armor of Anon which I held in my 1st group for the rest of the game (Lord Diamond – I’m curious – the readout says your group was surprised…why did you not put in at least a defense order?). I figured at that point, no more Sorcerer, no more Ranger (big mistake here as Paway mentioned earlier – Lord Diamond gets my IRON WILLED vote for sure), and I had caused the Darkelf some pain there too, Synisvania was mine for the taking! Nonetheless I did not control it until turn 31. When I read turn 31, I almost could not contain my excitement. Could basically a rookie win a game against more experienced players? Could I cement my legacy this early in my career?? The answer was no. Turn 32 came and I immediately lost control of Synisvania. In addition to that I learned that the Darkelven demise was also erroneously reported and at the end he showed up with large armys and constantly had emmys taking PCs from me. Then came The Giants in a wave of precision between their emmys and army groups that reminded me that I know very little about how to play this game – and that’s when I get my orders right! You get the picture though for my endgame…I basically had to go into a defensive shell the last 5 turns and it worked as I finished second!

This was/is a very fun format. I do however like this version better (no announcing in a thread who else is playing), and would prefer to see that going forward. I am also playing in 115 where there has been a TON of interaction – not sure at this point which format I like better.

Oh yeah – back to my agent corps. Though they were not perfect (including a level-1 agent getting killed on a recon the turn he was hired, and losing a level-8 and 11 on turn 23) they were pretty damn slick. Lord Diamond gave us his “memorium” – I present to you what I lovingly refer to as “Casualties of the Corps”

TURN
10 RA Agent-4 Darkwind
11 RA Warlord Trueblade in 1RA group
15 DA Baroness Vergara
19 RA Governor Arandur
19 DA Duchess Xerxas
20 DA Baroness Ghazza
20 DW Count Anvil
21 DW Baron Zethas
23 DA Governor Carlos
24 DW Governor Bertram
24 DW Duke Movius
25 DW Baron Quert
32 Wizard-4 in 1DW group
35 DA Agent-14 Phantom

Add to that one stolen artifact (Ring of Protection from the Ranger king on turn 10), and 6 skeletons learned and released (thank heavens I happened to read the forum about bribing emmys in prison), including all 3 against the Dwarves (a little payback for you stonewalling my efforts in Eastern Steppes), and 2 against the Dark Elves – I have to give it up to my agents.

Destitute Noble

[bluefile2]

Busy with the kids right now, but I will post my recap later tonight or tomorrow when time allows. I had a very interesting run with the AN kingdom as I had no armies or wizards to play with after turn 10ish, and it was a constant game of whack-a-mole between the TR, GN, and GI. Fun game but SUPER glad that it has ended!

[Lord Diamond]

The Black Dragons - A Tail of What Could've Been...

I was immediately interested when I saw the posting for an anonymous game. When 110 started I was in turn 15 of my first Alamaze game 105 where I played the Warlocks. In that game, my brother-in-law Kulvac had played the BL, and I was able to see firsthand some of the advantages the Dragon kingdoms have so I was eager to sign up for them as my first choice and was happy to get them.

I set out with a few main goals: 1. Get control of Southern Sands as quickly as possible. 2. Train agents first and wizards second. Since the BL was already strong militarily, and since (in my opinion) battle spells are pretty much useless having seen that over and over in 105, I decided to go with a little of both, but focus on the agents and use them to help control foreign emmys. I wanted to level many wizards vs one figuring I’d need the sleep spells and/or wards (those two decisions paid unbelievable dividends to me in this game). 3. Garner my ESO. By turn 7 I had gained control of Southern Sands (though I held NO PCs in any other region at that point). On turn 9 my agent corps looked like this when I put them more in mission mode vs training mode:

Fanatic-10 Wailes
Agent 8 – Fink
Agent 8 – Bloodgard
Agent 1 – Ruslan

The top 3 were original members of the emmy corps, and died on turn 14, 33, and 39 respectively (curse whoever killed Bloodgard that last turn – that really crushed my spirit so well played)! I’ll give you more on their exploits later…! I received ESO on turn 15 and then it was on. The Sorcerer had dropped on turn 12 (I had only run across him a few times) and so my mind was made to go for region 9, then 6 to achieve my victory condition which was control of 3 regions and 3 cities. Turns 9-18 saw battles between my groups and Ranger groups 8 different times highlighted on turn 18 when I slaughtered his group and took the Armor of Anon which I held in my 1st group for the rest of the game (Lord Diamond – I’m curious – the readout says your group was surprised…why did you not put in at least a defense order?). I figured at that point, no more Sorcerer, no more Ranger (big mistake here as Paway mentioned earlier – Lord Diamond gets my IRON WILLED vote for sure), and I had caused the Darkelf some pain there too, Synisvania was mine for the taking! Nonetheless I did not control it until turn 31. When I read turn 31, I almost could not contain my excitement. Could basically a rookie win a game against more experienced players? Could I cement my legacy this early in my career?? The answer was no. Turn 32 came and I immediately lost control of Synisvania. In addition to that I learned that the Darkelven demise was also erroneously reported and at the end he showed up with large armys and constantly had emmys taking PCs from me. Then came The Giants in a wave of precision between their emmys and army groups that reminded me that I know very little about how to play this game – and that’s when I get my orders right! You get the picture though for my endgame…I basically had to go into a defensive shell the last 5 turns and it worked as I finished second!

This was/is a very fun format. I do however like this version better (no announcing in a thread who else is playing), and would prefer to see that going forward. I am also playing in 115 where there has been a TON of interaction – not sure at this point which format I like better.

Oh yeah – back to my agent corps. Though they were not perfect (including a level-1 agent getting killed on a recon the turn he was hired, and losing a level-8 and 11 on turn 23) they were pretty damn slick. Lord Diamond gave us his “memorium” – I present to you what I lovingly refer to as “Casualties of the Corps”

TURN
10 RA Agent-4 Darkwind
11 RA Warlord Trueblade in 1RA group
15 DA Baroness Vergara
19 RA Governor Arandur
19 DA Duchess Xerxas
20 DA Baroness Ghazza
20 DW Count Anvil
21 DW Baron Zethas
23 DA Governor Carlos
24 DW Governor Bertram
24 DW Duke Movius
25 DW Baron Quert
32 Wizard-4 in 1DW group
35 DA Agent-14 Phantom

Add to that one stolen artifact (Ring of Protection from the Ranger king on turn 10), and 6 skeletons learned and released (thank heavens I happened to read the forum about bribing emmys in prison), including all 3 against the Dwarves (a little payback for you stonewalling my efforts in Eastern Steppes), and 2 against the Dark Elves – I have to give it up to my agents.

Destitute Noble

My L-15 agent executed your agent on the last turn and I don't feel bad at all!

I screwed up my order to defend and was devastated when you slaughtered the patrol with awesome leaders, wizards, and the artifact. I can't recall the details, but it was a major blunder.

Your theft of my Ring of Protection was also devastating, as I thought I had my ESO locked in. That completely screwed my only real opportunity to achieve it.

You played very well, especially for a new player. I might have been able to handle you 1:1, though possibly not, but you played the major role in whooping my butt.

[DuPont]

Oh, btw, I made the choice to declare everybody an enemy to try and keep people out of my region. I had hoped that people would see that it was all defensive - I just wanted to lower the regional reactions in the Eastern Steppes so nobody could come in with more than Tolerant. Probably didn't go over very well in the long term, but that was my motivation.
And one other thing - did nobody know where my final capital was? It was at a town in Synisvania and I kept expecting the RA or BL to show up on it, but nobody ever did. I was very glad about that, but somewhat surprised.

[Lord Diamond]

Oh, btw, I made the choice to declare everybody an enemy to try and keep people out of my region. I had hoped that people would see that it was all defensive - I just wanted to lower the regional reactions in the Eastern Steppes so nobody could come in with more than Tolerant. Probably didn't go over very well in the long term, but that was my motivation.
And one other thing - did nobody know where my final capital was? It was at a town in Synisvania and I kept expecting the RA or BL to show up on it, but nobody ever did. I was very glad about that, but somewhat surprised.

I knew where it was, but I haven't had an army since the late 20's. Your capital was safe from me!

[Thalion]

So, I’ve cracked the archive and reviewed all my turn results since this game was sooo long.

I started off worrying about the Warlock and thinking that going into the Northern Mists would be the best option to limit the growth of my natural enemy early, before the Witchlord grew too powerful. I’ve developed the habit of putting in a relatively low HC bid on turn 1, hoping that on one of the first 5 turns no one else will bid, and I can get on by default. I was surprised to see this go through on turn 1 (7502 gold!), but happy to get the influence bump.

Moved an emissary to Viperhead to slow down the Witchlord and focused on Evanon given the layout of my starting PCs. I was kind of surprised, but happy, to see no other emmies at MN. Went aggressively after the PCs in region 5 immediately and got the region on turn 5. Things worked out well with the region, the HC, and the fact that the Crown was in Amberland and found early – with the highest starting influence and a city’s income early, my influence was nearing 19 on turn 5. My other early artifact hunting turned up the Standard of Valor and a mighty ring of protection.

Didn’t see anything of the Warlock, outside of his having HQ, and I was happy to leave that to him if that was all he wanted out of Amberland. I had kept the WI out of Viperhead to this point, but saw that 1WI was there with RyVor at power 5. I had divined all of the PCs in 2 at this point and on turn 6 enamored to Suspicious (the WI had gotten the region without the city) and moved in with a few emmies and a group to start.

Turn 6 also had a Warlock group appear at a village in Amberland. This , I thought, would be OK – I can part with a village and be alright.

Turn 7 had more movements into the Mists, but the loss of the village in Amberland, AND the loss of Evanon where an invisible WA group must have been on turn 6, meant a reversal of direction. The WA put groups at a couple of other PCs in 5 (no emmie notifications, tho) so there certainly wasn’t any accident or disguised intent at this point. Although I was sitting outside Viperhead with a nice group, I decided not to attack and rush to recapture MN. I wound up turning right back to Viperhead on the next turn as I needed 2 cities for my ESO.

At this point my court included Prince, Duchess, Count x 3, Baron x 2 and a Governor , which combined with a full division and a mid-sized Army gave me plenty of punch to be delivered with 20 orders.

The Warlock did a good job of removing all but one town from my control in Amberland before my counter attack moved in. I regained control of the region quickly, but around that time some Demon Princes and Red Dragons showed up. Ugh. Several turns with back and forths on PCs via emissaries and groups. I was able to take out the WA capital at HQ and move my capital there to prevent a Diplomacy on his part.

My agents had great luck with a couple of assassinate wizard orders and I would up facing 23 brigades in the 1DE at MN, which the DE had taken.

Turn 15 saw a great (for me) battle between 8 GI/5 OG in 1GI (masked the turn earlier, but with P3,P2,P1 and 3 Marshals) against the voluminous 1DE with 8 DE / 15 SK, P6 and W,GII, CII for leadership. My wizards cast Protect Hero/Wiz (P1), Shield (P2) and Chaos (P3) against the DE. The DE P6 cast Guarded Attack and the Giant went through those skeletons like a hot halberd through butter.

At the end of turn 15, I had both cities, 4 towns and 4 villages in Amberland and the notice that the WA (in addition to the SO and UN) were out of the game. The Red hadn’t been doing much, so the DE really got my attention at this point and I divined all the DE PCs in Arcania. I was retaking a lot of PCs with my groups in 5 and catching DE emmies here and there, so set up a standing order to execute DE hostages in case I got really lucky and nabbed a Prince.

On turn 16, I moved some military down into region 8 (and got the notice that the Red was now out as well) and moved emmies into the DE homeland, wanting to force the DE into a choice between 5 and 8.

On Turn 17, my entire court was in Arcania, along with my 1GI (7GI/4OG) worth about 84k against PCs at the DE capital city of Triesa. I decided to Siege the city, to keep the DE guessing mostly. Turns 17, 18 & 19 had a lot of back and forth – I had to move a couple emmies back into Amberland to stem the DE success there, but the notable event of sleeping and killing the DE King was a great boon going into the final turn of the siege.

By the end of the turn 19, I had gained control of Arcania and was looking forward to completing the siege of VO. My biggest concern was whether being the only kingdom with 2 regions would change what other players were doing.

Turn 20 saw the Dwarf get his second region, hopefully relieving some of the 2 region owned pressure. We lost a couple of wizards to the Demon Prince as well, but were able to advance a couple of other wizards to higher levels.

Turns 21 and 22 saw more back and forth with the Demon Prince while Giant wizards continued to advance (2 x P4 at this point) and we used HPs to start filling in the rest of the map (regions 4, 7 and 10). Turn 22 did have the capture and execution of a Demon Princess attempting a political action where we had maintained status quo.

Turn 23 had more back and forth and heavier intelligence gathering into Torvale, which was identified as the next likely target. Turn 24 had seen a marked decrease in Demon Prince activity and our massing in region 8 near both Torvale and Runnimede. This wasn’t a great option since it seemed there was back and forth between the Troll and Ancient ownership, but it was geographically attractive.

Turn 24 was some dithering about Regions 4/7, moving up wizards and more divinations and recons. I thought some more about getting into that quagmire, and while the TR had made little excursions into Amberland, it wasn’t anything big or sustained there wasn’t that pull to go after the region.

Turn 25 was the start of my moves into the Talking Mountains. It occurred to me that he DW with 2 regions might be close to a Secret Victory condition. If his success in region 6 meant the Darkelf was dropping, it would be both offensive and defensive. Turn 25 also showed the Demon as having retired.

Turn 26 was the move into region 3. An invisible group at DU (3 GI/2 OG, P5, P5, P5 & 2 Warlords) and my full court (P, D, C, C, C, B, B, G) moved in with me at Tolerant in the region. DU had the 2DW with a single brigade, no leaders and P3,P2.

Turn 27, we were successful in 6 or 8 of the emmie actions and killed both wizards and removed the group at DU. The city’s defense was too high for the group, so we had to pull in reinforcements.

Turn 28, we had 4 GI/5 OG and 3 P5s W, W, C and 132% morale. We take DU and the region on the next turn, and are now sitting with 3 regions (3, 5, 8). The TR has claimed both 4 and 7, the Witchlord holds 1 and 2, the DW 6 and the BL 10. Normally this would be time to start thinking about victory, but my SVC was kind of difficult:
WIN BY HAVING SUBSTANTIAL OR BETTER IN AT LEAST FIVE REGIONS, HAVE MORE TOTAL
BRIGADES THAN BOTH THE WITCHLORD AND DEMON PRINCES (INDIVIDUALLY NOT TOGETHER),
AND HAVING AT LEAST TWO EMISSARIES OF RANK DUKE OR PRINCE.

Substantial in 5 regions! May as well go for the Standard Victory. Hey, wait a minute….

Turn 30, time to consolidate holdings. And move into region 4 with the military that hadn’t been sent into 3. No one has really moved against the Giant to this point. Maybe they had divined my SVC and saw the difficulty and figured it wasn’t worth it. Or maybe everyone was focused on their own battles. From the other postings, looks like it was the latter. Results however, showed the presence of the 4DA at HQ, 1TR & 2TR at towns, and 4BL at a village. Maybe they ARE starting to worry…

Turn 31, in position for some gains in Torvale (thinking it was just the TR there) and at HQ to take back the city from the Darkelf. 1BL (army group) and 2TR (army) arrive at MN, 1DA (brig) and 4DA (army group) at a town in the south of the Talking Mountains. Looks like it’s going to start crashing down.

Turn 32, we get HQ back, but nothing happens at MN? The DA disappears from region 3 after taking the town and the 3BL shows up in the region? The 2TR & 4TR appear at PCs in Arcania. What’s going on? My guess is that those 3 see what each other is doing and all back off assuming one/two of the others will continue.

Turn 33, we had made some gains in Torvale, but the Ancient appears in mighty fashion with 3 denigrates, which pretty much puts the kibosh on my moves in Torvale. I spy PI and see 2 Gnome groups with 4 x P6 amongst them and it is the GN capital. Not going there. We had spied XF earlier and move there with a group to take it. Troll owned with 43k gold production – we have to get some of that. But denigrates continue and there are way too many kingdoms active in that neck of the woods. If I’m going to have any shot at victory, I need 2 more regions that aren’t being contested. At this point the Elf has reclaimed region 1, region 4 is owned by the AN rather than the Troll, region 9 has been uncontrolled most of the game, so my gaze falls to region 10 and 2. I had already divined the PCs in both of these, and my guess was that region 10 would be quieter than region 2.

Turn 34, move emmies into the region , teleport a 1GI division inviso to XV and get to Tolerant. Notice that the GN is out of the game now too. Region 6 goes uncontrolled.
No sign of the BL, so things look good for a quick strike. Notice at this point that we have half the cities on the map – DU, HQ, VO, OB, XF, MN and am at XV, but the TR is at OB.

Turn 35, the BL still hasn’t declared me an enemy so my enamor gets me to Friendly in the region. Take a bunch of PCs and move to 2 more towns with invisible Giant divisions, and a third with a visible Army. Fully expect to get the region next turn and only minor back and forth in Amberland while trying to get the last of my assets out of Torvale.

Turn 36, we do indeed pick up the Sands, and see some more activity in Arcania from the Ancient Ones. Another turn of working over BL holdings in the Sands to juice the percentage owned. I teleport a Giant division invisibly to IV, maybe I can make a run at region 6? Oops, Gurisek’s defense is 61k+ - no division is going to take that. The DW shows up at DU (my capital with a 44k defense) and a BL Army Group appears in region 10.

Turn 37, a lot of battles don’t go our way, losing in group to group against the much larger BL army group, lots of PCs to the Troll and BL. I’ve started my move into the Mists, attempting to enamor out of hostile, hoping I can knock out WI control by taking Viperhead again (inviso GI div this time), but there is a lot of activity in regions 8 with the AN and 10 with the BL.

Turn 38, success in getting the Mists to go neutral while keeping a few emmies in 8/10 to try and hold on there. Fortunately, I realized I don’t need to control all 5 regions, just maintain Substantial in all of them. I have control over 3, 5, 8, 10 and am now Substantial in 2. All other conditions met, if I can hang on for one more turn in 8/10 the game will end 1 turn short of the max ride.

Turn 39, we hang on and are successful in the victory check. Lots of prisoners, and losses to our court. But in the end it looks like everyone’s focus on their own fights allowed the Giant to gather enough steam to make it across the finish line. There’s no way that would have happened in a game with communication available.

The anonymous format fits more of the playing that I had been doing before the restart, with one-on-one contests and no diplomacy. I would typically get the results for 110, mark up my map and draft orders in about an hour or so. Then the day before the due date spend another 30 min or so looking things over and submitting the orders. Without sending/waiting for communications the game is about guessing and executing.

This win was much more about circumstance and a bit of luck than anything else...

[Lord Diamond]

Thallion. That 222,222 gold bid for the HC pretty much assured me that you had the game in the bag!