08-14-2021, 04:12 AM
First, the obligatories:
Victory By Lion's Share Is The Gnome Kingdom!
Game End Status Points
Place Kingdom Player Results-40 Grand Total
1 GN The Painted Man 64,693 101,153
2 HA DuPont 26,406 47,126
3 SO Windstar 27,956 46,839
4 NE CosmicWizard17 24,934 38,789
5 PI Vball Michael 17,092 27,928
6 DA Wookie Panz 15,049 27,747
7 DE HabeusCorpus 11,804 27,658
8 LI Flevis 11,015 26,189
And now, the tale, as told by Gnomish.
You can't have it all, they said. You can't dominate with a kingdom that's only "pretty good" at most things, they said. You can't take a supremely well-built legendary castle of a capital, they said.
"They" were right.
I set many goals for this game, absolutely zero of which were accomplished. So, by those standards, this was a colossal failure. The worst. And not only that, but my failures were due in large part to my nemesis from the good old days, DuPont. Oh how I hate those little Halflings. 2 major blunders were made, and both involved him. And, sadly, this led to my accomplishment of absolutely none of my goals.
What were those goals, you ask? I wanted every major city, and I wanted to have legendary castles on each. I wanted a Power-10 wizard, because in my time of playing the highest I have ever achieved, with any kingdom, was a Power-8. I wanted to make 1 million gold per turn.
In every way I fell.... short.
My theory was simple, and one that I've held on to with my love of the Halflings (damn you, DuPont): Economics makes all things possible in Maelstrom. Companions, recruits, fortifications, etc... all available to all kingdoms but at a price. If you can afford it, you can compete with anyone. So, let's take a kingdom that I enjoy and see what happens if I focus almost entirely on building for the first 10 turns or so, but economically rather than crazy wizard raising and massive army building.
A brief history of Gnomenomics:
Turn 5 - Capital Production of 74k gold
Turn 10 - 156k gold
Turn 15 - 300k gold
It slowed down after that. Final turn's production at my capital was 378k gold. Total production for my kingdom, 721k gold. So, failure #1. I never hit the 1,000,000 mark. You probably want to know about food. Who cares. You can't spend food.
So how does one accomplish such a thing? Hidden ore at Power-2. 6 of those per turn and 15k gold increase without taking a single PC. You can have 9 wizards if you take the extra adept and then take a combination of 2 adepts and a Power-1 (or vice versa) with your ESO. I also got lucky with a coastal PC for my starting capital (allows for a port), so just had to bank on nobody attacking me long enough to build up defenses. I set standing orders to increase gold, food, and defense by 3,000 each turn on turn 1 and sacrificed troop payment and getting my region right away as a result. Worth it. The only times those standing orders didn't go through was the first summer. After that, clockwork. I also avoided doing a lot of bounty spells because I didn't want to invite the attention and, again, you can't really spend food. Sure, important for improvements and fortifications, but in a pinch you can trade gold in...
I had wizardless troops out beating up my own town and recruiting from it to get zamorans, leaders, and troop upgrades, and so by turn 10 I had a respectable army with some zamorans and war machines and took to adding in some undead over the next few turns. I won't bore with the details, but around this time I had a couple of p6 wizards and was ready to take to the road. First stop was Zanthia as the DW apparently was dropping. Because of my goal for all the cities I teleported to Destiny's End and took it. Mr. Lizard and Mr. Dead were both eying the region so I announced that I only wanted the city and, so long as they left it alone I would leave them to it. And thus the idea was born. I won't give up the person that originally suggested the post cards, but that also seemed like a fun idea, being that Gnomes like to travel and all...
We were allowed an ally, and I originally asked Mr. Prince. He said no. Quite politely, but it was still a no. I had enjoyed working with the Well Tanned Elf in prior games and he was amenable, as he too suffered from nobodylovesmeitis, and so we buddied up. Looking to expand, I saw signs that the Tyrant was either very noncommunicative or was also dropping, and so Blackfire - and significantly improved postcards - happened next. This angered the tiny-pinkied Mr. Prince and he was the first to break the loudly spoken rule of "touch not, lest ye be touched" by taking 3 of my villages. He owned Stormgate. I remedied that. He owned Bronze Canyon. Also fixed. Somewhere in there I stopped by Sirocco. I honestly don't remember when but wanted to poke as many people as possible to see what happened. So, by midgame I had all but Imril and Ramhorn. Life was good.
Then Mr. Prince got a new friend, the Warlock, and he sent invisible groups to my region to blow up and/or further annoy my village people (even the ones at the YMCA), as well as a town. So... I had to break a rule and take a minor city. It was awful. I lost a p5. He lost a whole lot more and never really recovered... but it was my only wizard loss of the game and was quite a bummer. I had to go from 4 functioning groups down to 3 if I wanted to be able to teleport around. Quite tragic.
Anyways, short version is I gave the Warlock about 19 chances to say sorry and leave me alone and he refused, so I took all his stuff. Mr. Prince had, for the most part, stopped being an effective adversary and so I just ignored him - except for the forums - and turned to deal with the new fun of the Sorcerer and Halfling both getting after my stuff.
Enter mistake #1: Stormgate. I had been watching the HA build up his army at Ramhorn and correctly guessed when he would show up at Stormgate. Awesome. He can't take it because I'm there. I have what I believe to be a superior force and so attack him. I attack at standard, he defends at standard, we take nearly identical losses, but I retreat... loss of morale on my side and he gets about 20 brigade promotions. Not joking, I think I counted and it was just about 20. So I had handed my adversary a significant combat boost. However, he left the area and I never saw the group again in combat, but I had to take a few turns to regroup, and this eventually led to mistake #2.
After that debacle is when I mopped up the rest of the War-ish-lock and he dropped, at which point the Sorcerer was making himself known by attacking mostly the WTE but did take a couple of my things, and so reprisal was necessary. I took a page from Mr. Prince's book and poked him in his villages to buy time and then met up with him when he came to Zamora. He sent a group to Python Cove and I figured he would take it and march on my capital, just south of there, so I sent my smaller army group and a division there to essentially run interference so that he couldn't take it. My main group was busy taking Imril and teleporting to Ramhorn. He opted to blow up 13k worth of defense at Python Cove and send two small groups to my capital (likely to do the same). They were invisible, but I had true seeing and so it was a non-issue.
Turn 39. Sorcerer army group at my city in Zamora. Two "invisible" Sorcerer groups at my capital against two much bigger groups of mine. My main group at the Halfling capital, which was the second best city in the land (though behind mine in every metric, to be clear), which was guarded by a division with crap wizards. I have all but Ramhorn in my collection. Enter mistake #2. I protect my city with a combination of ward PC and domes. I eradicate one SO group at my capital (other was a patrol) and the Halfling division protecting Ramhorn. I attack Ramhorn... and I fail. I didn't get beat, my troops simply ran out of juice and left the field exhausted. The real pain of it? I turned a bunch of Halfling villages neutral that turn in Darkover, and he lost control (and the 10% bonus to defense that comes with that). So I could have waited a turn and attacked the city that now had less defense with a stronger group that wasn't tired. Not sure I could have taken it, but odds would have been significantly better.
Taking Ramhorn would have given me the resources to build a legendary castle at Sirocco, which in turn would have kept the mean nasty Pirate from taking it (pretty sure). It would have also pushed my production over the 1,000,000 mark (in combination with keeping Sirocco) and allowed me one final chance to raise the two Power-9 wizards in the 2nd Gnome to Power-10s. They had failed 5 times previously, but this could have been the one.
And so, I failed. At every single stated goal. And all because of the Halfling. Fitting, if you ask me.
So what did I learn from this failure? Economics is, indeed, king. It's a risk to build too much too quickly, but if you can get lucky and develop a "mostly" untouchable capital... that industrious trait more than pays for itself.
To my friend, the Well Tanned Elf: You were the shield that Mr. Prince, the War-Ish-Lock, and the Sorcerer blunted their blades against. Thank you for taking not just one, but several, for the team. I know I didn't help much, but Gnomes are selfish and I did have a standing order in to send you gold and a hug.
To my enemies, all of you: I hope you enjoyed the postcards and the posturing. Of all of you, I was most jealous of the Halfling, most afraid of the Sorcerer, and most bored-to-death by Mr. Prince. All the Necromancer did was declare me and enemy and he was just as effective in the end. Mr. Pirate... I am much less upset than I would have been if you had ruined my city sweep, but I still hope you develop a bad rash. You know where.
May Go(l)d be with all of you, even the ones I hate. Which is most of you. If you visit my cities, be kind to the staff. They were once as pitiful as you are.
-Gnomish
Victory By Lion's Share Is The Gnome Kingdom!
Game End Status Points
Place Kingdom Player Results-40 Grand Total
1 GN The Painted Man 64,693 101,153
2 HA DuPont 26,406 47,126
3 SO Windstar 27,956 46,839
4 NE CosmicWizard17 24,934 38,789
5 PI Vball Michael 17,092 27,928
6 DA Wookie Panz 15,049 27,747
7 DE HabeusCorpus 11,804 27,658
8 LI Flevis 11,015 26,189
And now, the tale, as told by Gnomish.
You can't have it all, they said. You can't dominate with a kingdom that's only "pretty good" at most things, they said. You can't take a supremely well-built legendary castle of a capital, they said.
"They" were right.
I set many goals for this game, absolutely zero of which were accomplished. So, by those standards, this was a colossal failure. The worst. And not only that, but my failures were due in large part to my nemesis from the good old days, DuPont. Oh how I hate those little Halflings. 2 major blunders were made, and both involved him. And, sadly, this led to my accomplishment of absolutely none of my goals.
What were those goals, you ask? I wanted every major city, and I wanted to have legendary castles on each. I wanted a Power-10 wizard, because in my time of playing the highest I have ever achieved, with any kingdom, was a Power-8. I wanted to make 1 million gold per turn.
In every way I fell.... short.
My theory was simple, and one that I've held on to with my love of the Halflings (damn you, DuPont): Economics makes all things possible in Maelstrom. Companions, recruits, fortifications, etc... all available to all kingdoms but at a price. If you can afford it, you can compete with anyone. So, let's take a kingdom that I enjoy and see what happens if I focus almost entirely on building for the first 10 turns or so, but economically rather than crazy wizard raising and massive army building.
A brief history of Gnomenomics:
Turn 5 - Capital Production of 74k gold
Turn 10 - 156k gold
Turn 15 - 300k gold
It slowed down after that. Final turn's production at my capital was 378k gold. Total production for my kingdom, 721k gold. So, failure #1. I never hit the 1,000,000 mark. You probably want to know about food. Who cares. You can't spend food.
So how does one accomplish such a thing? Hidden ore at Power-2. 6 of those per turn and 15k gold increase without taking a single PC. You can have 9 wizards if you take the extra adept and then take a combination of 2 adepts and a Power-1 (or vice versa) with your ESO. I also got lucky with a coastal PC for my starting capital (allows for a port), so just had to bank on nobody attacking me long enough to build up defenses. I set standing orders to increase gold, food, and defense by 3,000 each turn on turn 1 and sacrificed troop payment and getting my region right away as a result. Worth it. The only times those standing orders didn't go through was the first summer. After that, clockwork. I also avoided doing a lot of bounty spells because I didn't want to invite the attention and, again, you can't really spend food. Sure, important for improvements and fortifications, but in a pinch you can trade gold in...
I had wizardless troops out beating up my own town and recruiting from it to get zamorans, leaders, and troop upgrades, and so by turn 10 I had a respectable army with some zamorans and war machines and took to adding in some undead over the next few turns. I won't bore with the details, but around this time I had a couple of p6 wizards and was ready to take to the road. First stop was Zanthia as the DW apparently was dropping. Because of my goal for all the cities I teleported to Destiny's End and took it. Mr. Lizard and Mr. Dead were both eying the region so I announced that I only wanted the city and, so long as they left it alone I would leave them to it. And thus the idea was born. I won't give up the person that originally suggested the post cards, but that also seemed like a fun idea, being that Gnomes like to travel and all...
We were allowed an ally, and I originally asked Mr. Prince. He said no. Quite politely, but it was still a no. I had enjoyed working with the Well Tanned Elf in prior games and he was amenable, as he too suffered from nobodylovesmeitis, and so we buddied up. Looking to expand, I saw signs that the Tyrant was either very noncommunicative or was also dropping, and so Blackfire - and significantly improved postcards - happened next. This angered the tiny-pinkied Mr. Prince and he was the first to break the loudly spoken rule of "touch not, lest ye be touched" by taking 3 of my villages. He owned Stormgate. I remedied that. He owned Bronze Canyon. Also fixed. Somewhere in there I stopped by Sirocco. I honestly don't remember when but wanted to poke as many people as possible to see what happened. So, by midgame I had all but Imril and Ramhorn. Life was good.
Then Mr. Prince got a new friend, the Warlock, and he sent invisible groups to my region to blow up and/or further annoy my village people (even the ones at the YMCA), as well as a town. So... I had to break a rule and take a minor city. It was awful. I lost a p5. He lost a whole lot more and never really recovered... but it was my only wizard loss of the game and was quite a bummer. I had to go from 4 functioning groups down to 3 if I wanted to be able to teleport around. Quite tragic.
Anyways, short version is I gave the Warlock about 19 chances to say sorry and leave me alone and he refused, so I took all his stuff. Mr. Prince had, for the most part, stopped being an effective adversary and so I just ignored him - except for the forums - and turned to deal with the new fun of the Sorcerer and Halfling both getting after my stuff.
Enter mistake #1: Stormgate. I had been watching the HA build up his army at Ramhorn and correctly guessed when he would show up at Stormgate. Awesome. He can't take it because I'm there. I have what I believe to be a superior force and so attack him. I attack at standard, he defends at standard, we take nearly identical losses, but I retreat... loss of morale on my side and he gets about 20 brigade promotions. Not joking, I think I counted and it was just about 20. So I had handed my adversary a significant combat boost. However, he left the area and I never saw the group again in combat, but I had to take a few turns to regroup, and this eventually led to mistake #2.
After that debacle is when I mopped up the rest of the War-ish-lock and he dropped, at which point the Sorcerer was making himself known by attacking mostly the WTE but did take a couple of my things, and so reprisal was necessary. I took a page from Mr. Prince's book and poked him in his villages to buy time and then met up with him when he came to Zamora. He sent a group to Python Cove and I figured he would take it and march on my capital, just south of there, so I sent my smaller army group and a division there to essentially run interference so that he couldn't take it. My main group was busy taking Imril and teleporting to Ramhorn. He opted to blow up 13k worth of defense at Python Cove and send two small groups to my capital (likely to do the same). They were invisible, but I had true seeing and so it was a non-issue.
Turn 39. Sorcerer army group at my city in Zamora. Two "invisible" Sorcerer groups at my capital against two much bigger groups of mine. My main group at the Halfling capital, which was the second best city in the land (though behind mine in every metric, to be clear), which was guarded by a division with crap wizards. I have all but Ramhorn in my collection. Enter mistake #2. I protect my city with a combination of ward PC and domes. I eradicate one SO group at my capital (other was a patrol) and the Halfling division protecting Ramhorn. I attack Ramhorn... and I fail. I didn't get beat, my troops simply ran out of juice and left the field exhausted. The real pain of it? I turned a bunch of Halfling villages neutral that turn in Darkover, and he lost control (and the 10% bonus to defense that comes with that). So I could have waited a turn and attacked the city that now had less defense with a stronger group that wasn't tired. Not sure I could have taken it, but odds would have been significantly better.
Taking Ramhorn would have given me the resources to build a legendary castle at Sirocco, which in turn would have kept the mean nasty Pirate from taking it (pretty sure). It would have also pushed my production over the 1,000,000 mark (in combination with keeping Sirocco) and allowed me one final chance to raise the two Power-9 wizards in the 2nd Gnome to Power-10s. They had failed 5 times previously, but this could have been the one.
And so, I failed. At every single stated goal. And all because of the Halfling. Fitting, if you ask me.
So what did I learn from this failure? Economics is, indeed, king. It's a risk to build too much too quickly, but if you can get lucky and develop a "mostly" untouchable capital... that industrious trait more than pays for itself.
To my friend, the Well Tanned Elf: You were the shield that Mr. Prince, the War-Ish-Lock, and the Sorcerer blunted their blades against. Thank you for taking not just one, but several, for the team. I know I didn't help much, but Gnomes are selfish and I did have a standing order in to send you gold and a hug.
To my enemies, all of you: I hope you enjoyed the postcards and the posturing. Of all of you, I was most jealous of the Halfling, most afraid of the Sorcerer, and most bored-to-death by Mr. Prince. All the Necromancer did was declare me and enemy and he was just as effective in the end. Mr. Pirate... I am much less upset than I would have been if you had ruined my city sweep, but I still hope you develop a bad rash. You know where.
May Go(l)d be with all of you, even the ones I hate. Which is most of you. If you visit my cities, be kind to the staff. They were once as pitiful as you are.
-Gnomish