Gunboat 97 Ends

General
#1

All,
Would anyone be willing to trade pdfs now that the game has ended? I was playing the WK as a transfer (around turn 26) and would like to know what happened in other parts of the world. I do have all the WK turns and all of the DK Lt turns until it was bankrupted on turn 8. I was holding my own in the NW until the triple nations of Harad/Noldo/Arthedain combined with the Sinda/Cardolan ganged up on me. I know that they didn’t coordinate, it was just my dumb luck that all five of those nations decided that I needed to be removed from Angmar at the same time. I was in no danger from being eliminated as I owned all the dwarven pc’s in the northen wastes and had relocated my capital there. I had my own curse company and was trying to take out the Sinda pc’s but the Corsairs,BS, and Dog Lord beat me to it. I killed Gandalf and had located the One ring on turn 34 but didn’t bother trying to pick it up since I saw that the DS had nine nations vs only 7 freeps at the time.

Scavenger

#2

Who won? DS? FP?

#3

Hi. I have played the BS/DogL/Corsair player in game 97. I picked up the Corsiars around turn 10.

The Northern front
In the early I focused on hurting the eoplex and send troops through the pass.
This resulted in the burning of a MT in the eoplex and the destruction of Osgiliath.
With the early armies spent turn 5-15 resulted in skirmishes in front of morannon trying to keep the free out and to gain control of the road from the eoplex to Morannon.
Around turn 10 I captured a Mt in the Eoplex and never again lost it. The eothraim was very passive and I never faced the huge
amount of troops I expected.
Around turn 15 I gained enough control to launch a campaign that eventually around turn 20 captured the entire eoplex.
Dunland and sinda forces tried to counterattack me, but was driven back.
At the same time Morannon fell to a large attack, but it did not matter as my recruitment centres were outside mordor by that time.
With the eoplex secure the Rhun area could be cleaned up. The northmen took about 4 turns to remove from around the rhun sea.
Having finished the Northmen the troops now went into mirkwood and in a campaign of about 4 turns managed to burn and capture
the 7 Sinda MT/Cities in the area.
All operations in the north was by means of army conquest. Only rarely were agents and cursers involved.
My emmisaries focused on building up the conquered popcentres rather than influencing the enemy centres.

The southern front:
I took control of the corsairs around turn 11. By then the navy had been destroyed (it did take the Sg fleet to the bottom of the sea with it though)
The haradrim had only lost a town and had armies close to my popcentres. Noldo had influenced away the DrgL popcentre that the Corsiars had given away to its partner (2137).
From turn 11-16 it was a dance of pure survival. Noldo had sent a strong agent company down south and went around and assassinated a character a turn.
The Noldo also threatened with an army from the north that he landed in harad.
To make matters worse the sinda showed up with a full navy and also landed in the Coastal MT hex.
The Noldo ran an effective campaign, but oddly the harad forces never really massed against me, perhaps my allied had them occupied or assassinated?
Around turn 15 I had a long string of very lucky event happen.
First the sinda navy decided to not to attack my unprotected MT but a turn later he decided to suicide on my reinforcement army that was sent to clean up what I thought would have been smoking ruins.
The very next turn Noldo and harad forces moved on the same MT, but again miracles saved me. The Noldo forces attacked alone (with throkmaw) while the harad forces stood by and looked.
The noldo were crushed against the walls and the harad force were mopped up by my reinforcements.
The QA sent a large army to 2137 to evict the Noldo and in 5 turns southern harad was under complete evil control.

From that point and onwards the corsairs were unstopable. With a rebuilt navy and recovered sinda ships some 5000 HI landed in
Southern gondor turn 26. 2 turns later another 5000 HI landed in the Sg capital.
In a blitz that used all the combined assets of my nations Sg was pulverized in 5 turns. Most popcentres were taken by armies, but key popcentres with fortifications were influenced away to increase the speed of the advance.

A small detour around the Ng popcentres delayed the invasion of cardolan by 2 turns, but by game end another 6000HI landed on the Cardolan capital.

Next turn would have seen all remaining MT’s from Sinda and Cardolan either captured or influenced away.

Artifacts and character combat:
The BS was lucky to secure ROW early game and I decided to keep it. It enabled me to have a small but effective agent force of 2 killer agents.
Time and time again they made the difference between success and failure. I only assassinated very few characters but sabotaged a lot of fortifications.
Also the scouting ability was very valuable. When the Dk.L died I recruited Urzahil and gained the emmy artifact along with a summoning mage arty.

At the very same time that the battle turned for the corsiars I ran into a mega agent shootout with the Noldo. The noldo had Elladan, Elrohir and another stealth agent. I had 2 agents with around 80 agent rank, 1 with good stealth.
In the hex was also armies from both Noldo and Corsair forces and also Elrond and Erestor had showed up to the party. I was very much in doubt what to do but ended up trying to assasinate Elrond and Erestor.
I was almost certain I was going to get cursed or assassinated, but when the next turn came around I had not only survived, I had assassinated both elrond and Erestor and taken all their mage artifacts.
It was a major turning point for me. The extra mage artifacts enabled me to get a curse squad going. 3 turns later it was active and killing Noldo agents.
Noldo fled the area and by then I was convinced the Ds would win.

From turn 20 and onwards I focused all my activities on killing nations completely by influencing away their MT’s.
The cursers would remove any defensive armies and the emmisaries would then gain control of the popcentre.
It turned out to be a very effective nation-killing strategy. I also managed to gain some palantirs by around turn 20. With these
it became very easy to locate enemy MT’s. The eothraim gave me a chase by shifting capitals numerous times, but eventually they were
nailed.

I was never very active in supporting my allies other than the initial trip through the Ithil pass. I did try to make BS my own private Banker by having him build a lot of emmisaries.
The emmisaries built around 20 camps and most were upgraded to villages. Midgame the BS had no armies a part from the token 100HI in the capital and was able to send
large amount of money to my other nations. As a self-made banker nation the BS eventually ended up with lots of money. I decided that keeping a very large suply of
gold in my treasury would be the best way that I could support the other nations.
Mind you these decisions were made before the banker-nation was made illegal. Also since BS created all the money himself I am not even sure that it would be illegal to do the same thing again.
Around turn 20 I recieved a curse artifact from the WK, it was nice but not important since it was lack of mage artifacts that prevented
me from creating more curse teams.

All in all a nice game. It was close up until around turn 20, after that it was a mop up operation.
The last 15 turns of the game I felt as if I was playing alone. The agents must have been out there killing freepeople, but I did not see many armies.
I did stumble upon several QA/FK popcentres so I guess he must have had fun. I played very agressively but with a “kill the closest nation” strategy.

I had a large part in the elimination of the following nations: 2,3,(5),7,(9),23
5+9 would have been eliminated if the game had continued.

regards
Jesper Lyster

#4

Jesper,
I might have an answer for you about why the Harad had so few characters. Early on in the game, Tormog went to the Cloud Lord cap and passed off Cloak of the abyss to the Cloud Lord. Just like what he did later on at the Blind Sorcerer cap and passed off the curse arty to the mage you had there.

I didn’t know just how far you had pushed into mirkwood. I had a 2000HC army that I had recruited at 3423 and marched it into the xx17 row and then moved it to Caras Galadhon while trying to reveal it. That army ran in circles trying to find a target pc. I was only able to take a Sinda town at 2414 with that army. It also ran into a large Cardolan army at 2412. I did reveal Khazad-dum 2212 and flipped that and was set up to recruit HC from there. I also had a PC in the blind spot off the free maps from which I could ressupply.

I was tracking the Sinda/Cardolan curse squad every turn and was following where the elven agents were (I had doubled a few of the elves so I knew where they were every turn) It was a shame that I could not do anything about Elrohir assassinating a character each turn at 2321 for the last number of turns. I was about to go after the fledgling Noldo/Harad/Arthedain curse squad at 1609 when they called it quits.

Scavenger

#5

I had very great use of the 2 palantirs that I stole from Dunland mid-game. Knowing where your opponents MT’s are is a key ability.

In another gunboat game I played as a free nation and was extremely frustrated about my fellow players. Neither the arthedain, Noldo nor NG player gave me a palantir and I was forbidden from stealing them. The consequence was a blindness to the DS popcentres.

In this game it was much easier as I could just keep tracking the artifacts, then steal them. I considered giving one of them away, but decided against it as I considered myself the primary nation-killer combo. It is a huge advantage to be 3 nations. Besides there were a lot of palantirs left to steal.

Do you know what happened to the Dwarfes, Dk.L, Rhudaur and Woodmen in the early game ?
As far as I could tell they were not eliminated by the capture of their capital (except perhaps for Rhudaur)

#6

Jesper,
I wasn’t in the game at that time but I do know the Dark Lt went bankrupt on turn 8. (I have the turns) I do not remember the reason why but I do know that it was unforseen and there was absolutely no way around it so the position was cannibalized to save the WK. If it hadn’t been cannibalized, then the WK would have been dead as well. My friend that was playing the position talked to me about the game since the beginning so I was up to speed to take over his position when he was unable to due to medical reasons. I was his sounding board for ideas that he wanted to try. He was able to talk about it to me about the game since I wasn’t in the game nor did I know anyone else in it.
Scavenger

#7

I played QA/FiK throughout the entire game.QAv was built up into quite a powerhouse. The first half of the game was spent assisting the FiK keeping it alive and fending off strikes by SGo. By the end of the game I had a large emissary team up in Cardolan territory and massive armies (9k troops at 2421 moving west). A couple of turns before the end I had a 2k HC army assassinated away with a sub commander at Noldo 2321.
FiK recovered well from early setbacks and loss of capital midgame. By the end I was well established with cities in Northern Mirkwood, The south and at Carach Angren.
It didn’t help that my lack of mages meant I had precious little intel on what was going on. Over the last 10 turns or so as my characters and armies swarmed over “enemy” centres I kept finding that allies had captured them already.
I am quite happy to share pdfs/xmls. Any can be sent to me at mikesankey@ntlworld.com and I am happy to send mine out on request.

Mike Sankey

#8

Greetings,

I was the Cloud Lord/Rhuadar. Thanks mightily for the pass off of the Cloak of Abyss. Yes, yes I did turn it around and hit the Harad hard on the northen banks. I had agents running around his pop centers and wreaking havoc on his commanders. I also had cav armies on the north side taking pop centers. The fog of war was in full effect as I saw decimation of the Harad characters and the loss of its armies and a very strong QA so I figured that the southern side was well in hand.

I do feel like a grade A heel as I bankrupted Rhuadar because of a foolish mistake. I had the CL transporting funds and then the day the turn was due came up with a great idea to move the agent out to hit NG and forgot to reallocate the NatTrans. My apologies to the WK, though I had CL agents up there trying to make up for it picking on Arth and Cardolan and for awhile WK was leading the game.

Largely CL agents did what they did best and I was able to focus on them heavily. I made one foray in Sinda territory early to try to disrupt his newly forming curse squads but failed on the assass and the steal and lost Miramarth (it was a truly bad turn).

I picked on NG and the Duns influencing away pop centers, racing the WK with my cav armies. My emissaries made good use of themselves in an offensive capacity. I think when I pulled my agents out of Angmar to begin softening Dunland for my armies is when the FP moved in force to pick on the WK.

-Corbin

#9

IK/LR here.

I must say that this was quite a baptism into the GB side of the house. I lost both nazgul turn 4 due to taking stupid risks, and had an assassination of a mage around t10, but other than that, my woes were pretty minimal.

I must say that I am really glad that the BS stayed in Mordor to repell the NM and the EO that slipped through the backdoor. I was developing interests elsewhere, and like the Rhu gold transfer, it got past me.

By game end, IK had three agent companies and one emmy company in Arthedain territory, as well as one of emmies and one of agents of the LR, plus some independents

. It took me a while to play to the strenghts of each of the nations. IK came easiest (thx in great part the financial planning of the BS). The stellar economy enabled the IK to be a force to reckon with, holding both the ithil pass and the black gate by itself for several turns against NG, SG, NM, and Dun armies. By the time I got the LR set up in a position that he could be militarily effective, the war in the south and west was over. I realized that I needed fighting forces in CAland, but, since I only had 2 emmies in the IK, it took a bit. The LR spent several turns trying to get KD, only to have it go to the WK. Similar thing happened in the N. mountains of mordor, where an EO MT went to the BS after it had been softened by the LR.

Wound up with a REALLY lucky break about midgame. The Duns failed an assassination attempt on my 76E and died for his efforts, giving me 44 and the ROC. Gave the ROC to LR in exchange for his two lesser arties, giving me a total of 6 80+ A, 7 60+ A, and a couple that were less.

All in all, I, like the DoL/BS/CO player, felt that I played most of the game w/o ally support. Once my emmies started trying to offensively work their magic, though, instead of just defend the passes, I was made very much aware of how much work everyone else was doing.

I’ll give you credit. It seemed like SG fell in two turns. One turn, I stole successfully, but the next, I was on mostly CO/BS/DoL p/c’s. The next turn, they all were. That’s when I organized and went into CAland.

All in all, it was a fun game for me. I learned a lot, and am looking forward to applying said knowledge in the future!

Thx all, DS and FP alike! To the player that has already said so, I will be contacting you privately, but all turn files are available…for an exchange, of course…grin

Wade

#10

Dave,

DS, by a rather decided advantage. The only holding for the free were in the NW and in N. Harad.

Wade

#11

I was Noldo and that was the only time we seemed to be on the same wavelength as another FP player, we nearly had something going.

#12

Corsairs being part of 3 nations saved them Noldo and Harad were making big inroads and DrLo was out.

#13

Yep we had a strong Agent squad a teleporting curse squad, a dragon a couple of large and huge armies where did it all go wrong.

The CL I think swarmed harad with Agents and he ended chasing his tail a bit trying to take out the cav armies also meant we kept losing armies destined for the Corsairs.

The legendary turn where Noldo + Throkmaw charged the walls as the Harad sat and watched strained a good friendship.

But the heart went out of me a little during that Agent, Curse Squad shoot-out I took a big risk and then got absolutely no joy from 2 930’s with big Agents. I knew you were there I just didn’t know who you were. Took another risk by assuming it was Agents I had 930’d before and went aggressively for you and didn’t guard Elrond and Erestor - ouch!

Harad was down to 4/5 characters and the CL seemed to be all over him, my Agents were being cursed and we had no armies left, so we re-located north and decided to switch our attentions on the WK which was thankfully a little more succesful.

#14

That was fun and disbanding the QA army by assasinating a couple of his comms

#15

We did figure that if you were all out on us then somebody must have a window of opportunity elsewhere but yes you saved the Corsairs and made the Harad’s life quite miserable.

#16

Thanks all for a good game especially the Sinda/Card who stuck with it, we maybe should have dropped earlier but we couldn’t even co-ordinate doing that. We did want to remove the WK from Gundabad completely but 3 failed assasinations with a HC army rapidly running out of food meant we couldn’t quite manage it.

The ROW cost me a couple of characters but I think we killed Borhan whilst there did you get away with it that turn, I re-call it still being around the QA capital 4035 until about T8.

Ian - Noldo

#17

All,
I almost forgot. If anyone wants to share/trade pdf’s and xml’s you can reach me at:
John_Seals@yahoo.com

Scavenger

#18

Just a quick bit of trivia.

Bulrakur managed to be the commander of the same army throughout the entire game. The army went from success to success.

Over the cause of the game Bulrakur managed to capture:
[ul]
[li]1 City
[/li][li]7 Major Towns
[/li][li]3 Towns
[/li][/ul]
He also fought 6 battles besides the popcentre combats.

As far as I know noone tried to assassinate him, which is well. I was very fond of him. I actually keept him a respectful distance away from the sinda curse team near the end of the game.