Game 81 Grudge Begins

General
#81

Goblin-gate counts of course, I was just thinking NW as being Rhuduar/WK and Arthedain/Cardolan area west of misty mountains, but hey I’m wearing aTina Turner wig and golden tights so I’m not right all the time.
But I think I’m right on this one, its harder to win as Freeps than DS, coordination are a little more complex and other things like dragons tips the scale in DS favor. Thus the room for converting 10.000+ troops on the offensive in Rhovanion into nothing more than a conqured town and 7 dead/missing commanders and roughly 5000 DS troopers out,
is simply not there unless some silly is done by the opposition. You’ll have all the mockering rights if that happens of course.

Your favourite Blonde
Debbie Harry :smiley: :smiley:

#82

I agree that it is harder to win as the Freeps for several reasons; most of which needs some changes in their future variants.

1.) While initial armies are the Freeps main advantage, it takes time to position them correctly. Timing is critical and if the DS team can effectively block the Freeps out of Mordor, Angmar, Rhun etc, then the Freep armies are really ineffective. Add the challenge factor as the DS commanders are usually better and some good agent rolls, and you’ll stop the Freep advantage flat. Finally the fact that an agent (or 2) can wipe out a whole army a real break in the system. In our case an agent killed an EO commander, commanding a 3,000 HC army. So after the guy dies, the 3,000 well trained HC decide to go back to farming? But until they fix it, that is the way it is…

2.) Agent superiority. The DS team starts with it, and whille the Freeps must hire agents, it take a long time to develop them or augment them with artys. This is still a major problem in the game to me, as most people already know. Lets face it, Din cut through a 45pt agent last turn to kill a commander. He has now done it twice in three turns. That should just not happen except in rare circumstances but it seems common. Guards should be much more effective than they are.

3.) Defensibility. Mordor has natural defenses, so does Angmar but less so. It is much harder for the Freeps to climb the mountains than the DS team to run down them. Good blocking by the DS team can extend a game fairly easily.

4.) Dragons. This is the most broken part of the game. To walk up to Smaug and recruit him most of the time is a farse. At Cameth Brin we had 5,000+ troops versus 400 and lost due to a dragon happily joining an army for a while. Seems broken to me, dragon recruitment should be a rare opportunity. I played ME back when the tables were unknown; and it was still fun to try to guess what to do in a dragon encounter. I think you guys had at least 3 of them recruited by turn 7.

Oh well, that is the system we play in today. I’m really looking forward to the new variant or game they are developing that will fix some of these things. If we play again (once this one ends); I wonder if we can have them randomize the artys, dragons, etc… I’ve played this game enough times that I’m not sentimental about the ROW must be an agent arty, so what if the random roll makes it a +500 combat arty. :slight_smile:

This game isn’t over yet, we still have some fight left and hope that we can pull the upset.

Dave
Dwarf

#83

David, I rerspectfully disagree with you. The Free have a slight advantage. Every DS advantage you list is potentially counterable, but requires aforethought. If something is not working for you (say using agents as guards) then stop using it and try something else.

Special Forces (read agents), for example, are offensive unconventional forces. But linear thinking generals may insist on using them in conventional defense. Adapt yourself to the ‘reality’ of the game–which I found tracks the Real World to an astonishing degree. Or, at least, use to.

#84

Hi Dave

The Free vs DS discussion is well known, therefore it is possible to counter the DS advantage somewhat. This ofcourse leaves the Free only with few successfull strategies making the game a bit foreseeable.

As for the loss of the 3000 Eo HC, they were transfered to the 50 moral army, anticipating a move like that, the army became the priority target with our best agent on it.

Were missing some Free troops, by now its reasonable to assume that they were never recruited.

Top 10 of missing chars Turn 07.

  1. Eothraim: 4 coms assassed
  2. Woodmen: 2 coms assassed, 1 lost challenge
  3. Sinda: 2 coms assassed, 1 drowned
  4. Rhudaur: 2 in the sack, 1 KiA
  5. Northmen: 1 coms assassed, 1 in the sack
  6. Corsairs: 2 coms assassed
  7. Dwarves: 1 com assassed, 1 KiA (Fulla was weakened by his wart and boils decease)
  8. Drag Lord: 2 lost challenges (Orduclax, the only char without com. skill in this list)
  9. Cardolan: 1 assassed
  10. Arthedain: 1 in the sack
  11. QA & Harad: 1 drowned each

10-15k Free troops disbanded by agengts

One can see where the fierce battle stands.

Loke:D:D:D

#85

Hi Ed

Youre right about the initial strengt of the Free, but David describes our game quite accurate.

Loke:D:D:D

#86

Ed/Loke,

While a agree that changing tactics in this certain game becomes necessary; all of the points I list really only pertains to the grudge game scenario. Many of my points become muted in other scenarios due to a lack of coordination.

Ed, your right that most of my list has a counter to it; in a well coordinated DS game using Dragons and agents, especially if they predictably block major armies well early on, it isn’t until the mid to late game that you can build a dragonslayer character, or enough agents/curse squads to take out there power agents.

A part of my comments rises from the fact that I used to play this game back when the lists were not well known. We didn’t even have the nation setups at that time and spent considerable time just developing information databases. As for agents, I would like to see more common sense put into the rules, mainly for eliminating armies. (As most probably would). But if we were allowed to play a grudge game where all the artifacts were random, and/or the encounter lists were random in some fashion, I think it would be more fun for both sides. At least from my experience is was…

Dave
Dwarf

#87

David, that was my experience in the ‘old days’ also. The MOS and Harley’s anxiety to provide services has greatly eroded the game.

#88

Hi Dave

My impression of your starting stratetegy is as follows:

Your artefact hunt which went exceptionally well. Naming chars, both in anticipation of the longer, more char based game past turn 15 or so.

This was at the expense of the early army game, where you prefered to disrupt our recruitment, sending more capable armies in later to capture/destroy our PC´s. Taking out Morannon early was a risky move, but success, in theory, was possible. Destroying undefended pops and burning nothern Harad.

Spending your startergold quickly by naming loads of chars and hiring armies instead of splitting, but not doing more to crash the market.

Loke:D:D:D

#89

Loke,

Fairly stated. I’m not sure the artifact hunt went exceptionally well, or yours just stalled. We spent a considerable amount of resources on it, which shorted the resources to spend against your marketing actions. You only have so many orders… :slight_smile:

As for armies, we made some major mistakes early on and it cost us to some degree. We predicted your Dragonlord offensive early on and that help us initially, but losing the EO early hurt us badly. The fact that you didn’t stay on top of the EO has really been a blessing, but if you would have concentrated your resources there, it would have just hurt you elsewhere.

Bottomline is we learned some things as a team mechanics and play. In prior games we could get away with being loose coordination and some of our guys filling out last minute orders. But against you guys that just doesn’t fly. If anything, we get to see if my team is up for the challenge on getting to the next level of grudge play or not, it will be interesting to see.

Dave
Dwarf

#90

Hi Dave

We too went through the troublesome and demanding artyhunt, but somehow success eluded us the early turns. You did get the choosen arties almost without theese annoying riddles and got the encounters in the first place.

Terrorizing the Eos was an option, but as you pointed out it would cost us in the other end. We planned for it but abandoned it again, I still consider it a good decision.

The team dynamics are quite interessting on our side too, if things work out as planned, attention decreases, fu… eh blunder frequency increases.

Loke:D:D:D

#91

Maybe you guys were more on our heels more than we expected and we didn’t see it. We didn’t really have any more or less luck than in our other games at retrieving artifacts, or retrieved them in about the same speed. My assumption is we made it more of a priority where you guys had the market a priority. I don’t think we have ever seen the market so good.

Some errors on your side would certainly help balance the game some. We think your team has had the majority of the luck so far with threats, assassinations, gold steals and first moves…

Dave
Dwarf

#92

Hi Dave

We were a bit wary about challenging Elladan with old Elrond in the Hex, better keep a low profile:D

The market manipulation did not draw off orders from the hunt for artefacts and many DS chars start in their capitols, so orders are avaiable. The first 2 turns it costs some orders, after that its only 1 order pr nation or less (not buying every turn). This was the first time we inflated the market and we were pleasantly surprised by the result.

Its hard to start out early when you have to learn LATs, with half the attempts are failing while you try to cast it the the same turn.

I still disagree on the agents being lucky, their assigments had the risk of failure but in any individual case the risk was never close 50/50, far from it and it was on the safe side. If we had tried to cut NG coms down the present success would have been extreemly lucky, but we didnt and it is not luck:D.

Loke:D:D:D

#93

Hi Dave and team

I just realized that the past discussions must be quite unsettling for your team. So if you have felt paranoid it was justified, if not it might be wise to do so now, as there will be a filthy Dirty Servant lurking somewhere behind you in almost every corner of Middleearth:D. I guess you know pretty well what we have in store for you over next few turns and the battle in Minas Ithil will surely to become a memorable event, involving 15.000 to 20.000 troops of whitch very few will survive.

I hope you will be able to improve your coordination and advance “to the next level of grudge gaming” as Im enjoying this game and we are learning a fair bit too.

Backstabbing Loke:D:D:D

#94

Loke,

Obviously you don’t know me too well yet. :slight_smile: I’m enjoying the experience of this game tremendously. Maybe I’m just trying to give you a false sense of security? Or maybe I’m just stroking your Ego? Maybe I’m just a gamer that enjoys a good game despite the score at the end. Any way you look at it; don’t over analyze to much of what I say on the forums. :wink:

I’ve played enough to know what you are planning, and just hope our counter strategy catches you off guard. The problem with this PBM game is there isn’t much that hasn’t been done.

Don’t count your chickens just yet…WE will let you know when we hear the fat lady choir singing away and it is still a long way off. :slight_smile: Defining “a long way” is the million dollar question. :wink:

Dave
Dwarf

#95

Heyho Dave, Hounered leader of the remaining vertical challenged peoble of Middleearth

Obviously the forum is a place were hard facts and truth are in short supply and just another sphere of our virtual war. Cant remember who said it but here it goes:

“Truth is the first casualty in war”

This was my counterquote, disregarding your kind advice on chickens: I counted them, there are still 12 around:D, now it is up to us to select the first to go in the pot.

Minister of Information and Saurons favorite Chicken Counter

Loke:D:D:D

#96

If we are the chickens; does that make you all the Ducks?

Dave
Dwarf - and while small a VERY Stout chicken. :slight_smile:

#97

Quak, quat, what? A fowl trick!

Your spelling is somewhat strange, Dukes not Ducks - has a ring to it: The Dark Dukes:D. It least have the decency to compare us with vultures or other chickenbrained nasty flying things or preferable with the Chiroptera.

Funny, some of your recent posts didnt have the telltales of disinformation or PsyOps, it sounded more like a moment of despair where the truth forced its way. Maybe it is as you write a very cunning double inverted deception, one knows not what to believe:D. You must be very proud of little Fulla, weakened and covered with warts he fought and died on the battlefield. A real hero. We will happily arrange for further heroes.

Loke:D:D:D

#98

There you go again, over analyzing my posts. :slight_smile:

Here is the truth about my posts. Just received my scores for the CPA exam Certified Public Accountant for those not in the states), and I was really stressed out about it. I passed!! So you may have sensed that dispair as I wasn’t sure about passing. Second, I have small children, the “chicken and the duck” is a reference to a small children’s book. It is also a “quack” about a few episodes of “Friends” where Joey had a chicken and a duck.

As for Fulla, he died admirably as did Bain in Battle. If you didn’t get luck recruit the dragon, I’d own both Rhu MTs this turn. But you got the die roll and hence the dragon saved the Rhu’s skin. Fulla has already been replaced…

No dispair here, just having some fun with you on the forum. I guess if you want to try to analyze my posts in detail, that is your right, but I’m still trying to decide if that helps me more or not. :slight_smile:

Dave
Dwarf

#99

Oho real life issues, congrats Dave, I guess your now legal responsible for the things you sign.

Dont take it so hard, it is mostly fooling around, you must have suspected that much:D. What about exchanging the behind-the-scene events when our little war has ended.

Loke:D:D:D

#100

Loke,

You bet! I’m always open for post mortem on games. I think I enjoy the game the most when there is a friend on the other side of the table. If all you want is to win or you’ll be a poor sport about it; there is are much cheaper and quicker games out there to play to get your gratification, I play so I can have fun with my friends and make new ones. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like losing, but I would rather lose in a well played game than win and have a sour experience about it.

This game will still go awhile, but when it ends I’m definitely willing to share the experience we all had with you. No hard feelings here, it is just a game. :slight_smile:

Dave
Dwarf