g 75 finally ends with FP victory!

General
#1

Hi there,

as the NG player I am glad to announce that the DS in g 75 have finally decided to surrender in a long (t 53) and hard fought game.
BTW contrary to the announcement of the LR player who told us the game would go on for ever :smiley:
As soon as I am back from my holidays I will post a detailed game report. I can say that I enjoyed this game very much, though I took quite a beating repeatedly and never had any illusions about ending up anywhere in the top VP ranks. In the end, I was down to 6 chars with 8 hostages, but ready to relocate my capital and build up again.
with a very few exceptions (I will get down to that later) I can say well played to enemies and allies alike, it was a hell of a game!

#2

The Long Rider player announced that the game ā€œcouldā€ go on forever. Heā€™s also the one you should thankā€¦ :slight_smile:

Dun - I have no idea what you meant by ā€œbaitedā€. I gave up on Arnor and your capital was the only pop within range on my way to more interesting climes. Presume you know nothing and youā€™re ahead of the gameā€¦ :smiley:

#3

Well, if my basic maths did not fail me, we would have had to eliminate just one more DS nation to win by outnumbering you. and I believe that DKL was not very far from being eliminated, even though he gave me a very hard time in the recent turnsā€¦

neverthelessā€¦ thanks Brad :smiley:

#4

Well , I for one didnā€™t vote to end the game and it wasnā€™t normal gunboat rules and still upset as it still should have gone on till the last one was taken out, I was coming around with some great agents again and a curses squad and everything ā€“ what a jip ā€“ was never no mention of putting it to a vote in the begining and Bernd you are wrong about one more DS ā€“ It was still nation 13,14,18,19,20,25 to 5,6,8,9,23 and maybe 3 left ā€“ so donā€™t know how you out numbered us !! Feel as if my money was stolen now, and never have in past. Joined this one as I knew it was going longer then 50 turns.

#5

G75 Sinda signing in

While not my best individual game, this undoubtedly was one of the most enjoyable scenarios in years. The format of everyone in contact, but only once a turn was a winner as was the listing of allies still active. To allies and opponents alike, thankyou for making it a good competition. I think both sides suffered from some dropped nations, but in general the war was decided by active nations fighting each other.

For my part the intial game had me and the Dragon Lord kicking each other. He took 2608, 2709 and 2915 weakening my economy heaps. I revealed and took 2908, but my mage was eaten by a worm. The Dwraf took goblin Gate. I seiged 2715 twice and he seemed to have died an ecomonic death.

Next major game effect was to recover Noldo quitting, collect all his goodies and offer them and my items to Dunland. Not sure how crucial this was to his decision, but he went FP. He got vilya, tinc, staff of bronze, orb of seeing, bracers of mist, anguriel and a few others I canā€™t remember. He supplied some double scouts to my agents also which became crucial later. I know the Noldo dropped because of the reply when I spent 30000 gold to recruit some of their characters!

I then hit Morrannon with some Dwarves from memory. We take the place, but Sauron just happens to be there and cooks our armies leaving the commander and easier assassins target. Dog lord kills a couple of my better characters giving him some comfort for his capital loss.

I pop over to Dol Amroth with SG planning to double some agents. I kill Erennis, get the RoW, capture a CL emissary and hide the pop centre. I do it as much to boost allied morale as anything, but the result is a real win. I give NG 2514 which the IK revealed and then promptly died. Hopefully it will take the enemy some time to find him. I return NG capital to NG after emmies take it and I kill the carrier of the RoC here. It was my VC pop tooā€¦

With Guelph the Dun agent now carrying the RoW his scouts are amazing. My would generate 200+ stealth in the hex was scrambling all scouts as is evident when CL didnā€™t kill me at 3622, but we didnā€™t see him. Now we get all non agents and 95% of agents too. 3624, 3426 and mainly 3622 are visitied.

I have a mixture of capture and killing. The 2 big emmies I captured were locked in 2908 for 15+ turns, but escaped 2 turns in a row. I suspect LR or CL tracked them and freed them from my hidden prison, which I was hoping you couldnā€™t do. Bothing getting out on consecutive turns was suspicious. Apart from those two I had 3xFK, LR and WdMn captive. The woodmen was to be released at 2816 for NG to recruit.

The Dk Lt suffered most at my hand. I killed about a dozen of his guys at 3622, most very recently. 4 more guys had just arrive including Bolvag, Feagwath and Carrog. All were due to die with emmies doubling the agents and them my agents ganging up 2-1 on each ā€¦

I think my strongest ally was Dunland. Thankyou for the scouting for my agent squad all game, except when you killed Borhan :slight_smile: Good job in smashing the Corsairs too. NG did great to hang in after so much pain while the rest of our team was supportive and played well. I had a fall out with Eothraim over the Khand, but see his point more accutely now. After giving Eoth a MT and temporarily hiding 3012 I ignored his plight. I spent more effort courting the Khand than the Eoth. I gave Khand his VC pop at 2614, had a lot of interaction later and was sending 7000 timber to 4133. Not sure if I was being played by Khand, but trusted he would not go DS.

I must admit I feared a CL confrontation mainly because he can replace lost agents much easier than I can. Dog gave me a good fight, but our engagements seem instigated by me most of the time. That geve me the advantage imo. Fire King also seemed well played. He had a good mix of agents emmies and armies to which I can confirm. I tasted his assassins blade, heard his emmies overtures and heard of his army exploits around the Anduin river.

In my final communcation to the DS I did acknowledge that the game could go on much longer as we need to outnumber them by a significant margin. I offered a gunboat count for victory at a turn they nominated. Iā€™m unsure if this played part in bringing the game to an close, but I thank those concerned for a graceful end. In the 52 turns that were run I felt as though the FP were stronger for most of the game.

Regards

Mike

Nation summary

My loyal followers
Emissaries
Gelleste E100/s25, Carnil E98, Elnar E96, Tarmagil E96, Seleste E92/s35, Finilin E84
Commanders
Elkin C60/A38, Haleth C60/A35, Ynevve C37/A18/E10, Traunil C21/A34, Sirin C14/A29, Sirion C10/A24/M14
Agents
Hathlin C10/A89(+30)/s31, Nimrid A92/s33, Ohtar C52/A90/s20, Belifil C10/A89, Zanix C10/A82, Iminar A75/s20, Pelnimloth C10/A72/s28, Neddet A40/s22, Delthinar A36/s30

My Holdings
Cities
2908, 2413, 2613, 3221 (3622 would have fallen, 11 loyalty with Eā€™s present)
Major Towns
2712, 4413, 2614, 2816 (Offering to Beldrielle of NG), 2325
Towns
2808, 2416, 2314
Villages
2908, 3108, 2518, 3722 (Marshall Kaldurmir about to take it from me)
Camps
2608, 2709, 3020, 3221 (Elkin attempting second threat at 3121)

My Economy
Taxes
26% equating to -16,000 a turn. 45228 reserves. Sales and thefts could easily cover and it made influencing away my population centres really difficult.
Supplies
Handed out wood and gold to allies along with a MT to Eoth and a City returned to NG. I had orders to send 7000 Ti to 4133 and 40000 gold to 2730.

My Armies
small threat armies
3321, 3121 (With 11 remaining WMs)
battle armies
2514 (1500HC), 2816 (600 mixed)

Character influences
Doubled
Beldrielle NG emmy 3128, Eowyn Eoth emmy 2339, Guelph Dun agent 3622, Hehlpme DkLt emmy 3422, Solidus Dun agent 3234, Welshman DkLt emmy 2924

#6

Funny ā€“ I remember the Arthedain originally taking Morrannon !!

#7

I stand corrected. Hopefully it is the only oversight Iā€™ve made

It was Arthedain and I that took it together. Arthedain ended with the pop centre. I came back and took it with emmies from the Fire King some time later. It seemed like Iā€™d owned it forever. When and how I got it had become a little vague. Sorry to Arthedain for stealing his thunder.

Eothraim were still in, but hurting. Eowyn was still active on my double report.

Khand were still neutral, but had inflicted wounds on the FP. I was courting with offers of wood, RoC, RoW, Collowhesta, Elenya etc. His attacks had relented as of 5 turns ago.

Mike

#8

There are the 5 DS, Easterlings was more FP than DS and the FP had more than you thought. If one more DS got eliminated the game would have ended. It was a hamster wheel in a cage this game. Iā€™ll never play another like it.

#9

I played the Easterlings and will do a full report when more time allows. My aim for this game was complete control of the whole of the Rhun Sea and then see where it would take me.

To start with I decided to attack the NM as he never diploā€™ed me and after his ending I was in the process of gathering resources to build transports to hit the LRā€™s capital but thats when Arth & Eoth got together to knock me back for a good number of turns.

Eoth nearly had me around the Rhun Sea area as at one point I was left with just 1 MT but with bringing an army from Harad up through and to the Rhun area I managed to sweep him out of the Rhun Sea area and then take the Eoplex with emmies & armies.

Towards the game end I had decided to go FP and was looking to flip this turn. I had over 7000HC & 2500HI ready for assults upon Mordor with attacks ready to start on turn 53. 4000HC+warmachines were to hit the CLā€™s capital, 2000HC + 2500HI through the backdoor and 1300HC through the Northgate. Even though I was going to go FP I had still decided to kill off the Eoth and was at his ā€˜newā€™ capital with emmies & agents this turn.

Cheers,
Ian

#10

Congratulations on playing to your strengths and the Easterlings National interests. Transports to take the LR capital? Seriously? Shame you didnā€™t have the opportunity to waste time and resources on such a silly ideaā€¦ :wink: Of course, with the FP running up the market (interesting strategyā€¦) and my emissaries and thanks to Arthedainā€™s Palantiri that I used to flesh out a very good amount of the map, the LR would never have been eliminated in this game. Back to the hamster wheel of complete boredomā€¦

#11

How did they have more ā€“ i know for a fact 1,2,4,7, and 10 where out

#12

Hi Blue

Sorry to here you feel so ripped off about the result. I looked at the end game conditions that were sent every turn and got quite a surprise.

  • Game ends when one One Ring victory occurs or when one allegiance (DS,FP) outnumbers the other 2:1 in active nations or when 2/3 of players on one allegiance (DS,FP) concede (dead nations counting as a vote to concede). Request for voting can be sent in at any time, with a maximum of once per 5 turns (so turns 1-5, 6-10, 11-15 etc, and weā€™ll email the players with the next turn.

Under the vote to concede option your DS team got to 12. You had 6 dead so only 2 of the existing players needed to vote to end the game and the other 4 still in the game were tied to the result. I think Iā€™d feel a little ripped off if 2/3 of existing players on my team wanted to continue and it ended.

I sort of assumed the game ended at turn 52, but was informed otherwise a few turns ago. I checked, no turn end rule in this game. I guess the morale of the story is we both needed to check our turn reports better. I would not want the rule that ended this game in future games or Iā€™d want it modified.

Nation 7 is Southern Gondor and he was active in turn reports and had a sickness squad working in Mordor FK lands. He was active on my game report too. The end game results will reveal it for you.

Hopefully that clears up a few issues. I hope to see you and others in future games where we can continue to challenge each other

Mike
winner 75, 96
not winner 28

#13

Yes, I have got to read the front page every now and then ā€“ will admit ā€“ even up till right now that I havenā€™t looked at the front page once in any game ā€“ I get the turn, download it, delete it and then sign off and go an open it to look at the results !!

#14

DUN here. I am writing from the road, so I cannot do much of a recap. This was by far the most enjoyable MEPBM game of my experience.

My apologies gents. I sent an email to Harly on Thursday asking them not to run my turn, but it appears they ran it anyway. In particular I did not want my diploā€™s to go to the DS, and I made that clear. I do honestly think this game was over. I do not think the FP were weak anywhere on the map, once CA and I got the LR armies in the northwest back in check.

Brad what I meant by goading was that I was trying to goad the DS into focusing on my nation. It never really happened, and my VP points are as much a reflection on my general freedom from DS attention as it is credited to my gameplay.

I think I declared around T15. I started out with a plan to create a curse squad AND to get my catalogue of lore spells fixed before I would choose I side. That changes when it appeared that one of the DS nations was sending out false diplos with my nation assigned as the sendor. And it did not help that the RH player waited until the WK was basically knocked out before he himself declared DS. SE I appreciated the mage artifacts, but I already had a curse squad with artifacts to keep casting ranks above 90. Somehow you made it clear to me that you could support your own curse squad if given the artifacts, so I sent the mage artifacts back. I split the stealth artifacts amongst my agents that were scouting for you and SG, but I am not certain that was the best use of those artifacts. Nonetheless thank you for the artifacts and the gesture.

I tried to use my economic power to supply resources and gold when they were requested. I also kept my gold reserve high with the belief (but not the request) that allies like NG and EO would significantly benefit from high commodity prices. SG and SE both had a +60rank scouter from me in their agent squads. I kept the offeror to double scout open to any ally.

I first focused on CO and claiming the NE popcens once I figured out he had dropped. I wanted the NE popcens primarily to keep them out of the hands of the DS (guessing correctly that some DS would move to take them, nod to you LR). I focused on the CO because it seemed unlikely anyone else could free the resources to move that far south. Reiterating that 50% of my success came from the relative inattention the DS sent my way. I think I had the CO significantly on the ropes before it was aware who was attacking him. I mostly 525ed and cursed his AComms. It was time consuming because of all the starting MTs that the CO had. I eventually took all of his popcens except his city.

Next up was the QA. He proved relatively easy compared to the CO, and I believe my allies were handling the popcens that the QA seemed to have taken from SG. If so then this helped immensly. I ended up with his starting MTs as well as most/all of the popcens that he had taken from HA.

During the last 10 turns I began focusing on the LR in the northwest. This was fairly difficult as most of my characters (18 at one time) were very far south. I sent the curse mages (via teleport) back into the northwest. I had one assassin move up as well. The rest of the work in the northwest was done with divnatfor, palantir, and a lot of hvycav.

I will be glad to share my final pdf if anyone is interested, but it will be 3 days before I can send my pdf out.

Clint & CO sign me up for another one.

#15

Well he was by far the least interactive of you all, thus thought he was out !!

#16

Mike,

the FP were winning. Dark Loo was next. When he went out the game was to end automatically. The FP were diploā€™ing and working togetherā€¦It was overā€¦

Iā€™m glad some of you appreciated the game. It took some work to put together. Thereā€™s another one similar, the ā€œludditeā€ game thatā€™s basically Game 75 with even less info - no Allies listed on your turn email.

Iā€™ll be honest, I thought game 75 was horrid. But as I was the one to put forth the ā€œnextā€ edition of it (Luddite Game) then Iā€™ll keep my commtment to play it. Maybe, as I started Game 30 out of thin air, and I work my tail off advertising the 1 week game, maybe Iā€™ll get extra Free Turns if we start another oneā€¦ Letā€™s see if MEGames passes Marketting 101ā€¦or letā€™s see if our game is dying as i suspect it isā€¦shameā€¦

Brad

#17

Hello Folks. Cloud Lord checking in. Lets see, lots to talk about but will keep it short.

First place FP. second place neutral and third place DS. Just the sort of thing that the original Miami game intended. I hope Cardiff got the message.

Game ends on turn 53. According to published stats in Bree, the average of all Harley 1650 turns is 26 turns. So, the no-fill format DOES make for longer games. Hope Cardiff got the message.

This is the most fun I have had with this game in years. Since it is unlikely that Cardiff will have another one like itā€”being fixated on teams and nothing elseā€”I am announceing my retirement from the game. Might as well do it on an up moment.

Played the game 18 years and there is no escapeing the Cardiff game is wearing thin. After 5 years, becomeing tired of waiting for the Kin Strife. After 9 years, tired of waiting for Cardiff to come out from under the umbrella. Color me tired.

Best wishes to you all, now and in the future.

#18

High praise from one of the gameā€™s elite players. Thanks Mick, even though your Sinda agents were a thorn in my side from midgame on. No, not thorn, let us say dagger. :frowning:

No long winded game summary from me. Basically, I built a very strong position but peaked so early that I brought down the wrath of the FP character nations before my allies pushed much out of Mordor. When I rebuilt the bridge and took most of NG, I thought I would get Cs support with naval landings and promised cav armies, but that never materialized. That was the beginning of the end for me.

A particular hats-off to SG, who used curse squads very effectively to influence away my Mordor MTs at the very end.

From what Iā€™ve seen posted here, I had figured out the player identities of 3 nations fo-shizzle, and my guesses for two more turned out to be correct. I thought it was obvious that some players wanted identified (character naming in particular), while others I figured out through their style of play and diplomacy.

And apologies Mike, I was one who voted to concede. I was falling further and further behind on reclaiming the Mordor pops the FPs were influencing from me, and my characters, army cmdrs in particular, were dropping like flies to assassination & curse. I couldnā€™t tell any of my allies were making any headway anywhere either, and I ā€œsmelled a ratā€ on the Easterling play; despite him sounding mostly friendly most of the game and giving him a little help in the Eoplex, I felt he was going FP once they obtained the upper hand.

I enjoyed the game early on, but turns became tedious once the worm had turned and I was taking a beating. I even missed 2 turns, something Iā€™ve never, ever done in any game since the advent of internet submission of orders!

Congratulations to the FP for a well played game.

#19

Ed, Kin Strife looks good ā€“ Iā€™m in the first alpha test game. The best elements of 1650 plus the best of FA. Stay patient; itā€™ll be worth it!

#20

Umm, 7 certainly wasnā€™t outā€¦ SG was having great fun with a curse squad and emmy team working on Mordor pops as Drew pointed out :slight_smile:

Enjoyed the game a lot, low point was probably talking Harad into joining FP which caused Cor to go DS and then Harad dropping on the following turn :mad:

Jon