4th Age Game 43

General
#121

LOL, the free allied with no one, not even the independant neutrals. Hell, we never even attacked the allied neutrals till later and then because they were the only people we could reach.

The free could have survived and done so for a long while (save for South Mirkwood), but again it was internal issues and the cheating at the beginning of the game which cause our disolution.

Stop being so “high and mighty”. Things might have turned out like you expected, but not for the reasons you proscribe.

See ya,
Ken

#122

hand over kierchief

Yup, exactly my point of view, though one might disagree to whom this apply to.

Allow me the last two words : Celine Rulez!!

#123

This is my second straight team game where there was a lot of unnecessary drama, etc.

In my last one, my group of 5 teammates were immediate neighbors of the SK, and after our agents hammered a couple of FP nations, the other team of 4 DS wanted to attack all of the neutrals, when we had been sending all of our gold/goods to one of the people on their team who was alone against the FP.

A combination of that plus some of my teammates not having internet access and complete incompetence by the person handling postal turns (them being special serviced repeatedly when they mailed their turns over a week before the deadline) led to those three players dropping, and them vowing never to play again.

When the SK joined us when only my team of 5 and not the other team of 4 was in favor of it (we had no idea to what extent), the other team of 4 all dropped because the SK was going to “win,” even though the FP had a huge vendetta against him and were going to focus all of their efforts against him. Because of these two factors, we ended up dropping the game despite the fact that we were winning. We just couldn’t replace enough teammates.

Internal issues are often a factor in these games. Despite what Middle Earth Games says, Grudge Games seem much more stable, even when some of the people don’t know each other well. Our last 4th grudge game didn’t go well for us, mainly because we overlooked several things in nation placement, and many of us weren’t used to the LAS scenario, but at least we were competitive for a while, and the team never collapsed.

Anyway, from my experience, these types of things happen much more in team games than in grudge games.

Here in game #43, what the FP didn’t take into account was that attacking the independent neutrals also hurt the chances of the neutral team, had those nations stayed neutral, and that it would also alienate independent neutrals from joining their allegiance. This, coupled with our strategy of attacking the neutral team, to weaken them and make their allegiance much less attractive to independent neutrals led to some of them joining us.

In a game of this nature, FP and DS only attacking each other does nothing but nearly guarantee the neutrals an excellent chance to win. I firmly believe that the FP and DS each fighting all of their 13 enemies (8 from the other aligned team, and the 5 members of the neutral team, who ARE enemies) gives them a better chance.

The FP attacks in Mirkwood definitely made no sense at all to me, when there was a chance that Galvadi might join them. The FP should have marched in my direction, and made the game much more interesting. I have to agree with both Socrates and HolyAvenger that the FP basically “handed us the game,” by attacking independent neutrals.

At the beginning of the game, I wasn’t adverse to a nonaggression pact with the neutral team, because I knew that our attack on the neutrals would lead to the demise of one of our nations (Ered Lomin), but my teammates were in favor of the attack. Since I wasn’t strongly in favor of either attacking or nonaggression, I went along with my teammates. It would be interesting to see how the game might have progressed had we pursued the more peaceful route.

Anyway, plenty of mistakes were made by all sides in this game. I don’t have any hard feelings, though, and I wouldn’t even mind teaming with some of my enemies from this game some time in the future,

Mike

#124

Ok seriously :),

My ta

#125

Ok seriously :),

My take of this game.

After unecessary trouble at start the game went off. It didn’t went off as expected, the neutral team was obvious to all aligned parties quite early, neither DS nor FP were stupid enough to let them be alone to grow and be a threat to them. Geography and diplomacy, or lack of, would be the usual factors. What threw the game totally off was FP’s actions. It should have been obvious to any FP that attacking needlessly an indep neutral would force the reamining into a kind of alliance against them at a critical time (T6+) when alliances were starting to serioulsy be considered. Paranoia ran amok and cooler heads did not prevailed. By turn 8, boundaries were drawn, with more unecessary issues thrown in by some.

My view is that both FP and Neut should have then banded, if only for a little bit and hit hard DS and associates to even the balance. Unlike Mike, I think the game was done with by turn 10 under the, then, circumstances.

If anything, once more this game showed the effect of how lack of diplo affected the game.

Well, hope no hard feelings and hope to see you soon* whatever the position

Didier/Wisigoth

*With one exception of course. I don’t take racists in my own country, so no reason to tolerate them anymore when they come from abroad.

#126

[QUOTE=Bakta;28973]Ok seriously :),

My view is that both FP and Neut should have then banded, if only for a little bit and hit hard DS and associates to even the balance. Unlike Mike, I think the game was done with by turn 10 under the, then, circumstances.
QUOTE]

Didier - We tried to make an agreement with the FP twice. The first time the turn after the attacked independent neutrals. The second time they all dropped the turn after - sometimes there’s just nothing you can do despite all efforts.

Gavin

#127

Congradulations to DS team… You guys have definitely did the best job against me that I have ever ran into anytime. You was definitely peerfecting correct to not take any chances and attack me on turn 1 had you waited even 1 turn things would have been different.
Yes I aggree the Fp played thier role in Nuetral team’s demise at least as far and Vengers was concerned. Since DS already had the best Position in the game that is always luck of the draw. The DS team was front runner to win the game anyway to slice it.
Sk was always going DS. His refusal to let me place a camp at 3222 on trun 1 spoke volumes… But as Nuetral team groups go you have to go on the word from the diplos… Because there is no order to protect nuetral team from having DS or FP from sending friends into nuetral team groupsite. So I will never join a game with friends as a Nuetral ever again. You will lose everytime. By the time he actually left the advantage was so huge for DS team we needed to Gel and SK stay just to give you a real fight…
I may have had Some killer agents wit N. conclave and huge economic power but having 10 against 4 just meant we would have eventually been wiped the character war alone would have been to much at 2 1/2 to one on all fronts.
For me personally It always felt like I was just 1 turn behind and that’s what happens when the opposing team has the initiative. DS team has won a well fought game. And seya everyone until our next game. Congrats DS!

Terry Wilson (aka Venger)

#128

Terry,

Erving wouldn’t let Chesley (Wallarockians) create a camp at 3122 on turn 1, either. Without letting neutrals place there, either, he was keeping Gondor all to himself.

With the relatively small pool of 4th Age players, I imagine that we’ll meet again before too long, but good luck to everyone in their other games until then.

I’ve never played a neutral in any format (a consequence of knowing too many people), but I’d give it a shot. If I did, I’d try to talk all neutrals, independent and not, into keeping their status hidden until we were able to fully discuss the possibility of a neutral alliance.

Until next time,

Mike

#129

Gavin,
I’m quite sure you did your best, and that some in FP team agreed with you. It wasn’t meant as a slight.

Terry,
Trust me on this, some neutrals can be pretty anal when it come to territory infringment. For the record, I marked Erving as Team Neut for a while after my own decision was made/forced (not to reopen this debate here) and said so on DS mailing list, no offence Erving. You’re drawing conclusions from a slanted view, not from the whole picture, as I did, which is often the case in 4th age. There are many traps in this setting, one of them is -not- to talk with someone when something occurs which you find odd.

#130

The problem we really had was that the FP team were extremely schitzophrenic and not a complete team. They also seemed to have a number of new players so they didn’t act in a co-ordinated way. It was therefore difficult to get any deals going with them.

The DS were extremely well co-ordinated and knew exactly what they were doing. Added to the fact that they were largely all based in the north and east and therefore had a good base to start from it was difficult to stop them taking the Vengers out straight away which weakened our position. Anyway I think the DS played a very good game. The Ered Lomin player played a very good game despite the fact that I wiped him out of Lindon. The hold up moves he did helped the DS in Angmar get their forces together and invade me from the west at a time I was still worried about atteck from the FP to the south of me (due to random FP attacks in the south). I still think it would have been a good battle in Arnor, but the 4 versus 2 would have told eventually.

I would like to add my congratulations to the DS who played a really strong game. Well done!

Gavin

#131

Ian (Koxvelder) deserves all of the credit for the early attack on the Vengers. He did the math and figured out that we had enough troops to take out the MT/F on turn 1. I just supplied my 400 starting HC to that assault and hordes of HI to engage him south of the river,

Mike

#132

Ok, since the game is over, here was the situation with the free:

Pre-turn 1, South Mirkwood (who was teamed with the 4 free in the south) quit due to the cheater. He was the only of the 5 of us with any 4th age experience. All of us almost quit as well. Khand was only convienced the day before the first turn was run to stay in (roughly) and that turned out to be a bad idea.

When South Mirkwood quit, an experienced player (lorien) said he would take south mirkwood over. We said ok.

The free in the south, knowing we were all new to 4th age (and all but me had played 3 or less games with 2 of those games BOFA and one player brand new) were up for making an alliance with the neutrals to make a unified front against the DS (we knew which neutrals were allied which by the time turn 2 was run, perhaps earlier).

Lorien/South Mirkwood made a decree that all neutrals were allied against us and he was not going to ally with any of them.

We tried to get the SK to join us but L/SM attacked him. When Cap said he was going the same way as the SK we tried a last ditch effort to get the SK player to our side (Even got L/SM to not attack him one turn).

He did not keep his end of the bargain.

By this time, L/SW was attacking 2 of the independants and we in the south knew Cap was not going our way so we really had no choice but to hit him.

So basically the Free were fractured into 3 groups. The Free in the South, the Free in Mirkwood and the two free in the west who basically did little the whole game due to distance or bad luck/RL issues.

It was the difference in opinion of no-dip/attack all neuts (L/SM) and dip (South Free), the lack of interest in the game overall in the west and growing apathy overall (missed turns or horrid errors in the south) which made us drop.

After this experience, I think I will not be playing in a non-grudge game/non-gunboat game except as a single, independant neutral for a long while. It is just too frustrating.

I felt the DS were well corridinated and had great position, well played. I think East Mordor was an excellent player and did not make any mistakes till turn 9-10 that I could see we could exploit. When Khand had 2 basically missed turns, we had little we could do to save him.

I thought Darkness was a bit overly cocky in his placement and had I not had a bone to pick with the SK so much, I would have exploited it more than the MT capture. By that point though, most of the southern free were more interested in just hitting the SK than playing to win.

After playing this and a gunboat 4th age game, I also think:

  1. 3 ways suck overall.
  2. The camp limit is hit way too early in 4th age (turn 4!)
  3. The 4th age Gunboat is nutty and should be played with limited diplomacy option always.

Have a good one,
Ken

#133

Exactly… Had you not attcked turn 1 this game would have lasted alot longer considering the SNA’s of the the 2 sides… That was my setups greatiest weakness turn 1 attack. Was a good move Strategy wise horrible diplomatically… Left me on the complete defensive and had to be perfect with order submission which I made the right moves but made some mistakes on submitting them. Was a great fight though.
I wouldn’t worry to much about the Erving thing. I believe he see’s how changing sides midstream by joining usersgroups then leaving for opposition can put your reputation at risk.
My next venture into FA will most likely be aligned i need some easier games on the diplomacy side. Downgrading 16 to 18 nations in game rough to implement.

Terry

#134

The diplomatic approach might have been interesting, too. Had we made a nonaggression pact with the entire neutral team, Ered Lomin would have had a chance to become a factor. We were very disappointed with our overall set-up when Ered Lomin ended up getting the +20 k/a SNA and he started with only one 50A, and pretty much in hostile territory. He didn’t record a single assassination before he was knocked out. This was especially frustrating because Dan (Egyptians) had submitted a +20 k/a nation in the Northern Wastes, which was much less in danger, and he had 3 - 50 agents in his submission. Rather than choosing randomly, as was stated on the set-up sheets, Jay (Ered Lomin) got the +20 nation because he sent his in first. My team discussed a few things with Dan before he even decided to send that set-up in.

The reason that I was open to diplomacy early was that I thought it was very likely that our attack on you would result in us basically sacrificing Ered Lomin. Fortunately for us, Ered Lomin held out just long enough for Randy and Dan to get large forces into Arnor. Had we gone the diplomatic route (we would have considered it with your entire team, to protect Ered Lomin, but nothing short of that… In the end, my teammates didn’t even want to do that.), the main question would have been “How long would the truce last?” Given enough turns, Ered Lomin could have gotten several decent agents and turned Harlindon into a deathtrap with a series of camps/towers.

As far as your SNAs versus mine and Ian’s, I’m not sure how it would have gone. Conjure mounts was the only SNA of yours that was obvious. Both Ian and I had armies at no cost, and Ian had conjure mounts, too (although he really didn’t get HC going until later in the game). I’m not sure what type of naval power you had, either, but I had a halfway-decent sized navy, and ships at 1/2 TI, so I could have tried to use my navy to flank you later, as well, had yours been smaller.

Had we had a truce, however, Ian and I would have likely attacked the South Mirkwood position early and ended up busy with them. Thom (Darkness) would have eventually gotten into recruiting mode, because he had conjure mounts, as well. Thom ended up going the character route because 5 of his starting characters were emissaries (60, 2-3-50’s, and a 1-2 40’s), and he had the stealth SNA, and he rarely missed on it, hiring all 10c/20a’s. What few non stealthy characters he got became company commanders, rather than army commanders. Had we had a truce, once it was broken, Thom would have been forced to send some HC into Rhun, though.

Ken’s point about Thom’s PC placement being cocky isn’t quite right. Mainly, it was inattentiveness on Thom’s part. Unfortunately, Thom sent it to Dan, Randy (Nomores), and I (his 3 teammates) at the same time he sent it into Middle Earth Games. Dan and I yelled at him about the location of his second major town, but it was too late for him to change it by then.

As far as the Erving thing goes, if I know that an independent neutral has been in a neutral team users group, I wouldn’t want him joining ours. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that he was working with the neutral team that closely when he joined us,

Mike

#135

At least I managed to knock out one nation. I figured that the Ered Lomin were an agent nation as I had a few characters kidnapped by them, but they all eventually wriggled away. They did a good job of holding me up and made a very wise decision of getting rid of their port early on.

Still enjoyed the game despite the problems.

Gavin

#136

Actually, the early assassinations of your characters were done by the Egyptians starting 50A, who trained up a few turns stealing from you first.

Your downgrading of Ered Lomin (and perhaps doubling him, too) stopped him cold, including his 56A with 10S, even though he had the +20 k/a bonus,

Mike

#137

I not only had conjure mounts but name 40 com’s and mages and 20 training… My hope was to get steel production which was being provided… by turn 2 I would have had my starting HC to my backup MT/F… I believed upon setup given even 1 turn without attack… I would be ok… Pinnaless was actaully weaker in south than the north… I was the opposite… Koxvelder unfortunately for me was 1 hex to close for my backup location. I had the right setup for a nuetral like every nuetral position though weak against 2 nation attack on turn 1… There is simply no good way to defend it.
Once I was on the defensive then the hire for free was more effective against my setup… It was impossible for me to take offensive action.
One thing that was learned from this particular game under the new rules… Was that a King nuetral could not be your 60 as I hoped for… so Instead of having a 60 emmy I had a 50… This had a huge factor as I failed 4 times to upgrade my capitol to a city… If I had a 60 it would have been a city and yes 100 HC in steel armor would have changed things alot. getting the first upgrade of capitol to a city would have allowed my emmy’s off my capitol doing what they was suppose to do place camps… All my emmy’s had com skill. I was setup well for Rhun and facing multiple enemy’s longterm …
Even Though Nuetral having many drawbacks and limited on regional choices ( no pc’s in mountains on setup…) I like the Character options best. The game is extremely intense as a nuetral while your not being attacked normally until well after turn 6 the finding of all those downgraded and upgrade orders required to survive FA where everyone has their own personal emmy company makes playing and winning as a Nuetral from start the toughiest challenge in the game whether you fp/ds or nuetral team victory so rare just being in the game where nuetral team has one means your and old salt of ME games.

Terry

#138

I like the new system, because you can spread your character points around and get more decent characters…

The 1300 king points are perfect for 50E, so I like a 30c/50e or if you’re in a pinch for gold for other characters, a 30m/50e (where this character just functions as an emissary, and casts the occasional spell when in a company later in the game).

There are several options for the prince, including:
40A, I went with a 30c/40a
10c/10s, for an agent… Not bad for a 50a, for sure.
If I ever take the agents at 40 SNA as a nonhuman and start with a 50a, if I’d rather have an emissary than the 10 stealth points, I’d consider a 30c/40e/10m, too.

I went with armies at no cost because I’d have no problem getting into battle early, even if I marched to S. Mirkwood, instead. I then went with double scouts and teleport, as my teammates didn’t have those bases covered. I also went with ships at 1/2 TI, since I went with the port option, and I had extra SNA gold from my region. It was painful being human and spending 1400 on a 50A, but I’ve had that SNA before, and I’ve found that 40’s were useless when it came to finding enemy agents.

My starting characters were:

30c/50e (king)
30c/40a (prince)
60e (at 1300, because I was human, and who had no problem upgrading my capital to a city)
40e
50a
40c
30c/30e (the 30e bonus for being human)
20c/40m (with teleport and all of the artifact spells)

Then, I just named 3 characters with command skill and a mage right away.

My 50a scouted S. Mirkwood and stole from that nation (luckily finding a MT there, as Dan’s map just had one town on it) en route to Harlindon, to function as the scout for the agents there.

I got off to a slow start artifact hunting, having one mage get killed in an encounter, and having my starting 20c/40m function as a commander for several turns. Dan used his starting commander (he was lucky enough to buy a command artifact and a combat artifact), and he got me a 35-point mage artifact to get me started, and he got the Ring of Wind for us, as well.

Anyway, because I had nearby allies, I just went with one military SNA,and the others were used to complement my teammates.

The way things worked out, that was enough. Seeing that the bridges were our vulnerable point, I asked Ian to guard the one that had PCs on both sides (he’d hired a ton of agents and he sent two), and he caught one of the Allmerites’ best agents doing so. Had that not worked, I still had a navy for back-up,

Mike

#139

For the record, I was an eco nation, with 60 emmies on. I tried 4 times to get my Cap from Mt to City. Failed each and every time, even with still high loyalty after tax increase.

Didier

#140

well best way I found which I haven’t had a failure yet on… Is turn 1 improve Capitol to City turn 1 then raise taxes one turn 2 just before the first new camp arrives… But I didn’t have a 60 emmy even though I had 5 40+ at the start.

Terry