Game 7 gunboat has ended... who was who?

General
#1

With game 7 over (gunboat 1650), who was whom?

My compliments to all on a game well-played, especially my allies the Northmen (you never gave up!) and and the Dark Lt./ Cloud Lord / Witch King player for making Barry’s life miserable (who picked up Arthedain).

I was running the Eothraim; my plan was to smother mordor and torch everything I could get my hands on initially, then tie you down with infantry armies while the real threat (a big HC army with 80 war machines) raced in to hit Morrannon and Durthang.

The Dog Lord marched out to fight Dunland and Northern Gondor at 3020 (Eothraim camp/tower) with his dragon army around turn 15 (?), narrowly missing my HC force so I was able to get to Morrannon and reduce the Dog Lord capital and the keep to ruins. I then did the same at Durthang and Osgilaith before running back east. All I wanted to do was strip the outer ring of defenses from Mordor and make it increasingly difficult to throw forces at my home area while setting up Southern Gondor’s (Ken Shannon) attack from the south.

My second wave of HC was delayed my endless agents and thefts, though I did eventually get it put together and throw it at mordor… only to run into a moderate-sized Dark lt. army with dragons moving north. Sigh.

I did send multiple armies east to Rhun to reinforce the Northmen and see if I couldn’t drive the Long Rider back into the sea, or at least put the northmen in a position where they could gain military superiority. I diverted five or six armies east over the course of the game-- several of which I battled the Long Rider with at the Northmen capital, and two others which I used to beat down LR forces in the area and wipe out LR infestations. (laugh). I should have listened to Ken and sent additional emissaries to the new Ice King capital at 3329, but I was afraid to send emissaries there before I cleaned up the Harad and Corsair population centers in the far south… so the Ice King backup capital didn’t fall (he must have had multiple emissaries influencing it each turn to fight off Southern Gondor) and the Ice King remained a thorn the entire game.

Barry Guertin took over Arthedain on turn 5 and threw what he had at the Witch King, but he’d lost time and had to endure a massive assault on his capital at 1407 by a dragon-infested WK army and emissaries. We decided to resist in a showdown of emissary power… 1407 held (until turn 20 or so) but I’m not certain that crippling Arthedain was worth all of the character power that the Cloud Lord and Dark Lts. diverted there, since I suspect it opened up holes elsewhere. A very nice move by the Dark Lt. agents at 1704 to save the Witch King capital… Barry was never able to return to the offensive as he spent the rest of the game resisting rather than attacking.

Ken Shannon (Southern Gondor) went south to massively reinforce Harad. One big army went to 2534 while his cavalry raced south as well and hit 3335, 3533, 3437 and reached 3034… only to learn that the Noldo had already taken it. A couple waves of Southern Gondor armies and cavalry managed to overwhelm the Corsairs at 2438 and then 2339 and 2039, around which time the Corsairs went bankrupt. VERY nice play by the Noldo and Harad down here (they dropped at some point, and harad bankrupted somehow) to smash the Corsairs; Southern Gondor was able to slip in and finish him off only because Harad helped tie them down, and visa versa. Southern Gondor also sent a few armies into Northern Harad to clean out the Fire King, who’d managed to get himself entrenched in the area.

Once everything in the South was under control (with Ice King emissaries showing up and influencing things, which was irritating) Ken ran north with everything he had-- Osgiliath had already been flattened at this point. I timed my attack on the north for the same time, but in true WWII battle of the bulge fashion, the Fire King and Dark Lts. annoyingly sent everything out the NORTH gate into me (bah!) rather than out the WEST gate of mordor to stop Ken. The Fire King fell when Ken’s HC managed to get to 3224 and burn it, and then onto 3423, although by this time we were seeing signs of heavy Free involvement in Mordor by our allies.

It probably hurt the Blind Sorcerer when the Dog Lord went under, because he couldn’t see what was happening in northwest Mordor at that point.

My compliments to the Long Rider for being extremely annoying the entire game. I grew very tired of having characters kidnapped and my treasury reduced to zero (I deliberately kept it at zero several turns to starve you).

My compliments to the Witch King/Dark Lts./Cloud Lord for making Barry (Arthedain) so miserable.

And it was very nice of the Northmen/Dwarves/Noldo (not sure who here) to keep killing LR agents around turn 18 or so, causing my various captives to escape. I appreciated the help (oh, and thanks also to the original Harad/Noldo for sending gold. I was being careful to not risk bankrupting, but the massive influxes of gold were appreciated. I actually sent some to Arthedain when he was under heavy pressure at one point)

A good game, everyone!

Bradford (Eothraim in game 7)

#2

Greetings,

I played WK/Dark Lieu. and took over CL at turn 10 after two SS turns.

And thank you all for an enjoyable game!

With Rhudaur out very early in this game, WK was fighting alone in Angmar. Tons of Dragons (were I the only one to recruit?) helped out, and Dark Lieu. agents saved the day at 1704, where Tormog challenged the backup commander and assassinated the army commander. I managed to get hold of RoW and with that Tormog and Carrog moved northwest to help out.

The economy was extremely tight. I had to run at 80% with WK and kept suppling them with gold and goods. A silly mistake in the X-mas hollidays bankrupted WK - the very same turn as 1407 was threathend. Sigh. But that is how it goes, when you are keeping the nation under pressure.

After I burned Cardolans capital I tried hard to get Arthedain out of Angmar. With no troops from the west I had a feeling I could hold back the forces of Woodmen, Dwarves, Duns, and of course Cardolan.

When I took over Cloud Lord by turn 10 it was of course in a miserable shape. Only two agents above the rank of 50. I redirected the strongest to Angmar, where I knew there were targets for them. Bradford question whether they could have been better used elsewhere, and that can of course always be discussed. The curse of Gunboat is that you only have the information that your nations provide, and there weren’t many targets elsewhere. I had a few agents south at Harad to help FK out, and a few in the passes. A cursesquad also patrolled the passes hoping for the Noldo agents to stop by, but they wisely kept away.

Keeping agents in Angmar provided WK the opportunity of being in the offense. With emmies I was slowly beginning to take over Cardolan starting towns as they suffered from the burning capital.

All in all a fun game I think. I hope the rest of you also enjoyed it.

/Jesper

#3

Well played FP it was a struggle throughout to stay alive economically and bring any pressure to bear. Despite naming 6 Emissaries and trying to establish a strong economic base I only managed 9 attempts (only 5 successful) to create camps before the limit was reached around turn 9. I was continually frustrated at landing on 6 occasions on already camped hexes. It meant every turn was hand to mouth to survive economically and very few Dragons.

IK combined capitol armies and headed for Osgiliath. North Gondor dropped the Osgiliath bridge and army headed up 3123. With IK, LR and FK took Osgiliath and NG took 3123. Moved south to 3026 and ran into rest of NG armies destroyed them but Baltab killed on the walls of 3026. CL and BS starting armies go through the Osgiliath gap. Eothraim pouring through the Black Gate IK and DkLt move to block at Morannon. By T8 cleared Morannon and moved off to 3120. Hoarmurath loses a 2:1 challenge in his favour at 3120 to Athaulf. T13 IK move to recover 3123. T15-17 Eothraim attack 3120, 3221 and 3122 with I presume a nice evasive move past CL fortifications. Northmen starting army follows up at Morannon but destroyed, however Hukor and Kathog killed in a subsequent overrun with all IK artefacts. T18 Eothraim and Sinda attack Durthang and Osgiliath. Capitol taken and moved to Olbamarl.

IK by now has one Agent squad picking on the Eothraim and Northmen trying to help the LR take out the Northmen. Also one Agent squad and an Emissary company in the south trying to build a base down there.

The LR tried to concentrate on the Northmen and this seemed to work in the main despite some bad luck with respect to Din Ohtar’s agent artefact early on, love to know the rank of the agent who stole it? Never quite could ship and recruit enough troops to make a difference and some timely interventions from the Eothraim saved the Northmen although the Agent squad in the area must have had an impact with the gold stolen and characters assassinated and kidnapped. Saw one small BS army all game around Rhun and that was only DS intervention.

Also LR towards the end moved 2 Emissary companies and some Agents south to try and build a base but it was too late and the SG had down a pretty good job in cleaning up.

Picked up the QA on turn 10, had to retire half the characters, hike the tax rate and crash all armies just to survive. Made it through to T19 before finally being knocked out. Managed to at least cause the FP some discomfort and think the QA must have contributed to the Harad’s demise with their final turn suicide tactics.

May be it’s just my perception but it did appear that at least half the DS nations suffered from drops and many turns being ss’d, certainly the QA/FK had not effectively been played in the first 10 turns. I think it was the Cloud Lord player who had picked up the QA prior to me and had subsequently dropped, probably so demoralised by the state of the QA. Also not sure how active the Dog Lord and BS were.

Credit to WK and DkLts who stuck with it and well played Eoth / SG who certainly were the biggest influence on the game I saw from the FP side.

#4

PLayed SG this game teamed up with Bradford (EO) and eventually Barry (Arthedain). Got to hand it to the WK/DarkL/CL team, man did you work over Barry. Poor guy got Arthedain turn 5 with 1 of the 4 previous turns run! he pulls it together and then you got the excellent move at 1704 (we hoped you had not seen the back-up commander). Still, Barry held in there at his capital until turn 22 I think (though by this time he had 4 back-up MT’s). We did everthing we could imagine to keep you at bay, and fighting off three nations with half of one was difficult at best. Great play Barry!

In the south my main goal was to support Harad first, then NG. I sent my entire starting group down south and over ran the corsairs armies even as harad moved south with me. The Harad/Noldo player really did a great job and seemd to get the hints as I telgraphed moves (such as landing at 2535 so he would see me moving south, etc). I sent my cav army south arcoss the bridge and picked on the QA, from whom I took all starting pop centers except the major towns (eventually took those as well).

During this time I had to move in to north harad to clear out a FK infestation (I got a rumor of Uklurg challening ELrond… Who won?

My second wave also went south with war machines and took out the corsair capital while shielding harads army movements so he could go west across the top of the corsairs. After the capital was taken, I moved to the MT below the following turn (bet that was not seen) and removed the corsairs from their southern locations. The turn I was to work with Harad to take Vamag and finish the south, he bankrupted. Of course I moves to the QA capital the same turn with another big army and it was now Noldo owned.

After cleaning up the harad pop centers I moved the last major offensive with two massive armies (about 10K troops and 100 war machines between them) to mordor (during this time the EO’s and My emmys were working on the IK, who just got his army up in time at his new capital.

My (and Barry’s) agent company astarting working around mordor and in the south, but the curse squad kept killing people so we left for a bit (was that a Dark Lie or BS curse squad in the pass?)

By this time one of my armies had a 80+ commander with a 100 morale army and 5 turns of food. I moved evasively pass minas ithil with it and took the FK capital. My other major army failed to get to Minas Ithil due to 3 friggen DS armies moving west the same turn and with the CL working back in Mordor, all three commanders died (the previous turn a 4th commander died there due to an overrun, which occured because of a computer glitch which kept my main force as a navy. Was a bit irritated over this, but oh well.

The same turn (due to lots of scrying) we had moved our emmy to the FK backup capital which had no army on it while the main force moved to the Dark Lie’s capital.

In the end Bradford and I did ok, burning 5 dark servant starting capitals and we gearing up for another massive assault.

It was a wonderful game. The original Noldo/Harad player was really great and his ability to guess what I was telegraphing really made the game a ton more fun. Props to the WK/DArk/CL player, you were excellent. the IK/LR/QA player also did some good play later in the game, but I think we had a good handle on the south by then and there was little left he could do. Also props to NG/Dunlend for holding out and dropping the bridge early. Well played. I felt the weakest of the opponents was the original FK/QA who let us stomp on him without much effort.

Finally, why did the noldo player hide the dragon lord capital turn 24? Had you flipped it? LOL we were about to flip it or the Dark Lie’s back-up the turn the game ended!

See ya,
Ken

#5

Hi guys,

I took over the dropped Dragon Lord/Fire King position on turn 17 when I volunteered to put me in the pool for picking up dropped GB games.

I was hard to get a good picture from the game based on the old turns. Seeing that FK ended up with the QA town at 3533 on turn 1 I must assume that the original combination was actually FK/QA.
At start there was no sense of direction to take but to try and survive with both nations. The state they were in was no doubt the reason the game was dropped in the first place.
I managed to build some back-up PC’s and a curse squad that became effective about 3 turns ago but it was all too little too late the balance of the game had long since tipped in the favor of the FP before I took over the position.
When SG very cleverly bypassed 3124 moving evasively and ended up on the FK capital with his huge army while all my armies were out trying to block at different locations I was caught by suprise. I had no characters in the back-up capital and went bankrupt because I could not execute a single sale.
At the same time DrL capital had lost its defending army in two turns of assassinations and then surprisingly the Noldo hid it. I have no idea what his intention was there and would like to hear from that player why he did it.

In the end I feel I did the DS team a disfavor by picking up the position. Had I not done so then a new 3 nation combination would have been made making the DS stronger, the FP already having 2 3-nation combo’s when I started. A few turns later (clearly because ME games could not find a player to pick up the positions) a 3rd FP nation combo’s was born and that for sure was the end of the game if there ever had been any chance since I picked things up at turn 17.
The discussion already took place elsewhere but I really look forward to future no 3 nation combo games with the pooling system.

A congrats to the FP who, from every thing I have read above and from the little I have experieced, must have played an excellent game.

Cheers,
Alain

#6

Hi Guys,

I was Harad/Noldo and then picked up Northmen and Dwarves.

With the help of SG harad romped over QA and Corsairs with Harad exclusively naming commanders, unfortunately just at the turn when I knocked out the QA I spotted I was in danger of being sieged due to having so huge armies, I gambled based on the QAs play to date and unfortunately the QA did indeed suicide on several harad pops so it was mutual annihalation of QA and Harad at that time. Shame as the Harad was looking in a superb position :slight_smile:

I tried to give out Noldo and Harad cash to most nations in the first 10 turns then things got a bit tight.

Moved dwarf HC over the mountains fed in a suprise move which knocked out the WK by suiciding on Mt Gram.

Mark

#7

Why thank you :smiley:

No, harad went out due to having pops sieged in a move I could have prevented sadly, Noldo controlled for the entire game.

I lost elrond by turning up at the BS capital (sick) but did bag Akhorahil and stack of mage arts including tinc so was prepping a sick squad with the remaining elves

#8

Yes thanks for that this enabled us to spank the corsairs very quickly.

A huge Harad army on the corsair capital took out a dragon army just as SG turned up to take it :smiley:

#9

My most enjoyable moment was locating ring of curafin on khamul and then sending Elrond to 210/500 him :slight_smile:

As Noldo I tracked ROW all game and tried to steal it a number of times but you did well to guard it. On about turn 2 or 3 I had an elf at the encounter for it who attempeted to steal it but died

#10

Lol this explains a lot, QA had been doing nothing all game and thats why I didnt defend against the risk of suicide taking out Harad :slight_smile:

#11

This challenge never happened, Elrond eventually died on the BS capital to a sick squad.

Indeed, it was great to work out what SG was going to do as Harad and try to coordinate accordingly :smiley:

I had no info about mordor so didnt know how well you guys were doing, the reason for hiding was as follows:

I was hitting it with big challenge and agents so it meant I knew the DrL would have no info about what characters were at his capital but the main reason I hid it was the chance of knocking out the Drl player. If gold was being sent to his capital it would have failed.

#12

Yes, I had forgotten about that. Thank you for reminding me :slight_smile: When I ran through the PDF and saw that Bolvag killed Elladan during his theft attempt I think the sound I made was “muahahahaha”. :smiley: I was also great fun to capture those Noldo agents, though it seems you gave up on it in the last part of the game.

I on the other hand tracked Collohwesta on Elrohir for I don’t know how many turns. You kept it south for many turns and then up to the BS capital. I hoped that would be the start of a tour to either FK or Dark Lieu. capital, hence I kept the curser there, when there were no targets around. You never did show up though.

#13

Still love to know who stole “Ring of Binding” off Din on T4. The FP seem to have had a pretty solid team throughout the game whereas certainly the FK/QA didn’t seem to bother, CL/Rhu appears to have given up around T7 when he lost Rhu picked up the QA only to find it in a complete shambles and not sure how active the Dog/BS player. Hopefully the no drop and player pool will put an end to games being imbalanced in such a way.

#14

Hi guys, just been reading this thread of what seems to have been quite an enjoyable game.

I’ve been away for a while (nearly 12 years lol) and need to catch up on a few things. I’ve just been reading about Gunboat and I kind of like the idea of running 2 nations and not have any worries about having to communicate with anybody but I’m not sure that I really understand how this works?

I would guess that ally lists are not published - in other words you aren’t given the contact details of the people on your side. What is to stop people who know each other from different games contacting each other to make plans etc???

#15

It’s against the rules to contact each other in the game. There’s a certain level of trust - if you want contact me and I can send you the rules. Allies are not posted so out of the 11 other players out there then you don’t know who is an ally or not.

We also do spot checks throughout the games just in case.

Clint