Game 39 Debacle

General
#1

No posts from the now defunct game 39 debacle. I have a pretty good idea who played one of the opposing trios, and confirmed who one of my allies was. Tony and I played The Northern Gondor trio and we wanted to try the strategy of sending everyting after the Cloud Lord. We got some semi bad news when Southern Gondor said he was sending everything after the Cloud Lord as well as we felt he would ruin or sneak attack. Unfortunately, the game ended before we could determine if the strategy would have worked. We made a crucial error in judgement which delayed are move onto the Clourd Lord capital until turn 6 and allowed inner mordor to prepare for our attack. We took the Cloud Lord capital on turn 6, but the game had ended by then and it looks like the Dog Lord and Blind Sorceror had amassed enough troops to defend, but the game ended so we have no idea if we would have destroyed 3629 as well.

The early market crash basically ended the game which dictated our strategy of not engaging any troops of the dark servants. I think the Fire king did not get engaged until turn four, Blind sorceror on turn four, the dog lord on turn five along with some Dark Lieutenant troops. Basically the Cloud Lord, Ice King funded his troops the whole game. With food never going to 2 I am sure tis caused the game to basically end as we eliminated Rhuduar on turn 4 (not sure how) and then two more nations bankrupted on turn 5.

Disappointing outcome to the game. A crashed economy and winter setting in on turn two or three makes for an almost impossible dark servant strategy in gunboat.

People say one side or the other has an advantage in gunboat, but I say every game I have played in has been dictated by strategy and drops.

If you play gunboat, you have to manage your duo or trio of nations with the intent that you will get no help. If you expect help, you have played the game wrong and your side will lose because of your strategy, not your allies for not sending you money.

On to the next debacle. My fear is the gaming community is getting thin, as many good players I have played with in the past have stopped playing. I am not sure how to change this slow decline of talent leaving the game. Hopefully for only a short hiatus, but my fear is forever. Then again, I am not sure how much longer I will continue to play.

Tim Huiatt

#2

Tim,

I am sorry the game ended so fast, GB should last much longer. Usually, Marty and me would have joined that game too, having played a lot of gunboat, with the GB trio game 16 being the last.
But I must say I am simply fed up with the 1650 scenario, I feel I played it too often, though that might still be not much by the standards of most people. 2950 doesn’t work for me, and currently I am enjoying the FA all neutral game very much. Very interesting setup, needs to be tweaked a bit, but not much.
I am looking forward to Kin Strife, and hope that it will bring back some of the veterans. I also hope that we can revive our team VetaSchola from huiattus, er, hiatus :smiley:

#3

I here you Marty

Vet a Schola will need to come back to life, just not yet as Tony and I are playing two gunboat games

Enjoy fourth age. It is a great format that I will have to look into playing again

#4

That’s really odd news. With the resources of three nations I would think it a bit easier to manage the GB economies.

So the Tri-Nation variant is now 1-1…

#5

I played 12/13/20 combo with Mike.

We started out good, strong strategy in mind, had everything planned, did everything right (halted EO for several turns).

But some things were not to our advantage :frowning:

First of all, we located #1 to be in water, bummer…
Then #175 took the life of a CR 85 mage???
The next mage to retrieve it, left the hex with the first mage’s arts, and 1 health, this mage had 100+ CR, so hefty encounter :frowning:

But apart from that we were going along the plan, as planned. Then struck winter, which killed DogLord, who had made an error to purchase to much the round when it hit, and BAM 102% tax rate :frowning:
Glad the FP agreed to let us continue, sad it still ended.

We had a dragon incomming to the 3629 army, even Smaug, so think NG would have been stopped after that. Would have had it on 3630 the same turn as NG’s army, but the intended dragon moved after 1 turn.

While I usually think GB’s are well balanced, I think a turn 4 winter punishes DS very very harshly.
You start with the gold of Fall season, and 3 turns later you’re bumped down in gold income.
If you start in winter, you start with more gold.

DS could disband armies, or only recruit MA true, but you need a strong 3221 army, or EO/NM will tear you apart.

Not gonna complain, but winter turn 4 is really harsh for DS. Turn 6+ you’re okay, since you’ve burned most of your starting armies. By turn 4 BS hasn’t even engaged his army yet.

EDIT: I should add that DogLord died despite having 3 MT’s, and yet his tax rate went up by 30% from pure gold loss from going from fall to winter. That is harsh…

#6

We saw your armies on 3629. I was actually going to pull my troops back and let the blind sorcerer and your dog troops with the dragon simply rot with nothing to attack. Now if you stepped up to 3630 to save the cloud lord capital with the dragon then once again u would have outplayed us. I had great fear that you had a dragon with the army and our mistake was going to cost us the cloud capital.

You did a fine job of continually blocking the eothraim I have to admit. You outmaneuvered us just about every turn.

Did u have to disband an army? You had an army on row 17 that we can’t account for.

Tim

#7

To Doug,

The economy was so bad in this game that even three nations would have had a tough time managing finances throughout.

#8

Think you overran it…
We had some 1500 HI, but disbanded 1400 to save costs :slight_smile:

I only had 400 at 3629, so no high costs. It was meant as a nuker… dragon and few troops. Problem was dragon moved :frowning:

Turn 2 when you vacated 3024, I LAT Tarandor turn 3, and saw then what you were up to, so turn 4 we set in motion to save CL.

Could have been a good game, sad it ended so fast :frowning:

#9

My gold mines dropped 40% in production in one turn. That is rough for DS. And of course normal production got hit to.

#10

As to the economics of the situation in triple gunboat—

When we played game 16, my trio was Corasiar/QA/LR. We started right before winter. We knew the economy was going to be brutal to the DS. With the Corsair economic power-house, we decided to begin the buy-out process very early in the game. As a result, we helped to spike the sell price for products for the rest of the DS. (Our economy was doing so well, we sent product and gold to Dragon Lord and WK).

In this game 39, my triad played SG/Harad/Dun. From on outside perspective, we observed the triad of our former game out-recruit his economy, as unopposed to using his economic might to increase the markets. (It didn’t hurt our position that we took 3034, then 2135 from QA by turn 6). I was deathly afraid for Harad’s position militarily, but then realized that Corsair/QA could not have pushed so far and hard without the downside economic catastrophe that ended the game.

In short, in the version of gunboat, it is my opinion that one cannot sit back and wait for the market to improve. It needs to be manipulated often and early.

Mike Bel…

#11

I still think that this triad gunboat format is great fun. We have a team of three here in Kansas City that splits the trio. It is in essence, a mini-grudge team. One gets the fun of and comraderie of sharing with other players, and gets the benefit of shared responsibility with multiple sets of eyes on orders.

I know Rob is still looking for one more person or mini-team to take the last triad so we can get the next game started. I’d encourage anyone who wants a different spin on 1650 to give this version a whirl.

I was very sad to see Game 39 end on turn 6. The DS had a couple of good plans that seemed to peter-out just as they were about to come to fruition. For example, Dun’s forces went North to help take out Rhu and WK. Rhu and WK ran armies into the Dun backfield, and Rhu had a huge army on Dun capital on T4. (the very instant it went bankrupt - result Dun unharmed).

IK had a 5600 HI army in North Harad with no opposition. South Harad was under an MT give and take with our FP trio. We’d took 2 and they took 1. It appeared that such a ratio would have been kept or tilted towards the DS in the far South, but then the Corasir/LR bankruptcies occurred.

Din O was killing my Harad characters on T4.

Needles to say, a lot of excitement in 6 short turns.

Mike Bel…

#12

This is absolutely true. Count on getting no help in a gunboat. If you do get some help great - but count on none.

Kevin