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[Jilladilla]

VERY thorough sitesearching, and a bit of luck. Note that EA Agartha is very good at searching for their native paths (F2E3 Oracle, W2 Olm Sage. Bam, instant searching for most of the gems you care about. Having a D2 Oracle (or your pretender if you have D on them) sitesearch can help a lot with certain.... unconventional... endgame tactics. But that's part of my my bag of secret tricks, so no, I won't share.)

Effective army? Just give the mercury the appropriate buffs and it'll shrug off absurd amounts of damage. No seriously, each mercury has 160 HP (only 120 before I would call it mission killed though...), add ironskin, quickness and appropriate resistance buffs (or for this match, barkskin for pesky Vanheim.... Moss Agate was literally on the opposite side of my territory when I fought you ok? Big misplay there.) and they'll blitz through your lines while just absorbing your spellfire. That said, they aren't unbeatable. It's just trying to brute force them is a very very VERY bad idea.

Also, the main reason I fought Vanheim is that I'm pretty sure they could instantly lay siege to my capital with sailing... And Glamour/Sailing shenanigans... Also the combination of lightning + strong troops both demands protection buffs for my Mercuries and punishes Army of Gold/Lead.... And I can't stick Earth Readers close enough to my mercuries to ensure Marble Warriors lands on THEM (like I do with Olm Sages and Quickening) without them contracting a sudden case of dead.

Also, where is Agartha? In the center of the earth of course! 
But to be serious province #30. Southwest corner of my little chunk of land. You gotta overrun Xibalba or Niefelheim or teach your boars how to swim to get to it, because you sure aren't getting through Andoria!


(P.S. This post got all over the place. It's not even in chronological order, the last paragraph written (typed?) was the 2nd one.)

[ThtblovesDF]

Ugh, alright this ends the expieriment that there is boar-spam, it was fun for a while. Next time I'm going blood9 and nothing more and actually play with magic & shit : P

Agarthas lead is to large and the better research will - imo - eventually win out, since even if he is beat on land, he can continue to retake/haress from the sea.

I'll keep playing until the remainder also feels like the outcome is clear however.

[Shadowlord]

ThtblovesDF, looking at the scores, it's very amusing (and strange) that I have more research done than you.

With all the places you've conquered, you'd think you'd be able to spam tons of researchers.

Of course, I have had my researchers sitting in a fort under Agartha's dominion instead of mine since very early on, since they get +1 research there, instead of -3. Still, I haven't recruited any new ones in ages.

[E. Albright]

Of course, I have had my researchers sitting in a fort under Agartha's dominion instead of mine since very early on, since they get +1 research there, instead of -3.

*since they get +0 research there, instead of -3.

You don't get bonuses from hostile dominions, only penalties - or in this case, a lack thereof.

[Shadowlord]

Well that's good to know. Still far better than -3, of course.

[Jilladilla]

Of course, I have had my researchers sitting in a fort under Agartha's dominion instead of mine since very early on, since they get +1 research there, instead of -3.

*since they get +0 research there, instead of -3.

You don't get bonuses from hostile dominions, only penalties - or in this case, a lack thereof.

Wait really? Huh. Learn something new every day.
Also, that explains why your border fort never got a temple

IMPORTANT EDIT: My victory is imminent, if you have some ace in the hole, you need to deploy it NOW.

[ThtblovesDF]

Incase anyone didn't notice yet, he is grabbing a throne win and I for one welcome a end, seeing how the boar-tactics are only good as bacon delivery service.

PS: God recalled in 1 turn, thats nice.

[Shadowlord]

Congratulations Jilladilla!

(Also, I SURVIVED!)

[Jilladilla]

Good game everyone, it was fun.

Anyway, onto analysis:

#1: Even without the Mercuries, Agartha has a very good mage lineup, and Sacred upkeep adds up to a lot of saved gold, You guys let me research up and get all the fun spells. Really, Agartha really only needs Conj 3, Alt 9 and Evo 6 to really get going. Alt 7 is acceptable if you're willing to invest the Earth Readers and gems to spam Marble Warriors. It's a nation that really only benefits from a stalemate/being left alone, and my... well, very passive play style tends to mesh well with that. Most of the conflicts I've been in were started by the other guy first (Sauromatia, Marverni, Fomoria, Niefelheim) or was part of a gang up offer from someone else (Therodos, Vanheim). If you leave me alone I'll leave you alone, unless I see a way to rapidly win.

#2: This is more directed at Thtbloves, as a what I would've done if I was suddenly thrown into the game in your situation (Sorry everyone else, but I have no experience with giant nations and I can't blood magic for the life of me...): Stellar Cascades spam. Now don't say 'but Marverni doesn't have access to many S2 mages!', you have access to very cheap S1 mages (your Stargazers) and S3 (S random Elder Druid). Have the Druid cast Light of the Northern Star (Conj 4) and suddenly all your S1s are now S2, ready to bring the nigh unstoppable hammer of astral artillery onto my mercuries. It even has the upside of not inflicting direct damage, so your mages won't trigger your boars Blood Vengeance! Also, your regeneration bless would make your boars very resistant to the poison auras once my mercuries were knocked out.

#3: Shadowlord, I will say, your flying demon cats were the only thing that actually SCARED me (at least before I got Army of Gold online and I figured out THAT spells effectiveness vs Boar spam (Thtbloves know what I'm talking about ). I'm a little upset that we never saw how exactly they stacked up...

In similar note: Chaoticag while vanilla mercuries beat N9 Niefel Giants 1v1, 5v5, 10v10, there is a threshold (I don't know where) where your giants pull ahead, due solely to that frost aura of theirs, once they freeze the front line of mercuries their insane durability works against them, allowing the frost aura to freeze or mostly freeze those behind the front line. Of course, this tactic goes out of the window when Agartha hits Alt or Ench 8 (Warriors of Muspelheim/Frost Fend). I will note that this DOES work (IE: I've killed a Army of Leaded mercury doomstack with this (they forgot the frost resist buff), sure I wasn't using Niefel Giants (MA Ermor's Lictors to be exact), but the point remains)


TL,DR: You let me build up too much and let me prepare for the end game.
(P.S. This... Took a lot longer than I thought it would to write...)

[E. Albright]

This is more directed at Thtbloves, as a what I would've done if I was suddenly thrown into the game in your situation (Sorry everyone else, but I have no experience with giant nations and I can't blood magic for the life of me...): Stellar Cascades spam. Now don't say 'but Marverni doesn't have access to many S2 mages!', you have access to very cheap S1 mages (your Stargazers) and S3 (S random Elder Druid). Have the Druid cast Light of the Northern Star (Conj 4) and suddenly all your S1s are now S2, ready to bring the nigh unstoppable hammer of astral artillery onto my mercuries.

...you'd have done it once, for a single battle. Afterwards, when the Mercuries were done scraping the gooey smears of bacon-flavored Stargazer off their assorted appendages, you'd suddenly remember that Stellar Cascades won't target 0-fatigue (and/or Lifeless) targets...

[ThtblovesDF]

Lessons I learned:

#1: 4x Bless with 3 Attacks > 3x Bless with 1 Attack
#2: (The important one) Supply provided by ITEMS is affected by DOMINION
#3: I can win by hiding in the water. Others can, too.
#4: Agartha is even stronger then I previously claimed.
#5: Some people... have... scouts... with troops?
#6: Sometimes Boar is not Moar
#7: Next time: Less Temple spam 4 moar boars and more labs instead.
#8: Keep mobile (map move 3) squad around if sneaky armys are expected, have them move every other turn so by pure chance they might defend a real target
#9: Unlucky 3 + Chaos 3 = bad times
#10: Winds of Death or whatever it is called exists - that spell that Agarthas Pretender used to kill... all... the boars.
#11: Mass with Buffs = Awesome, Mass with moral-issues and no buffs = Real bad
#12: Shoulda cast mother oak sooner
#13: Early high level mage to search would've been good.
#14: Boars in the back, Priests up front, so they can "hit" more bless spells
#15: "Bless, Bless, Cast spells" > "Bless, bless, bless, bless, bless, Cast spells"
#16: Next time, maybe, map move 3 prophet.

Good game actually - I was somewhat curious what might happen if I get to fight vs the giants, how many boars can one jarl take on?

I'll be updating the first page with the results and maybe adding some notes to the timeline.

Btw Jilladilla - About 70% of my cash was invested in moving boars around, building temples and many of the mage turns itself suffered for producing/casting things. Really I had less then 1/2 of your income and of that I had to invest most in keeping the maschine rolling, so maybe 400 gold to spare/turn at most, but those where used or lost to events or repairing damage from events - add to that constant raids from flying bats, yourself and vanheims troops.... yeah no good times here.

[Jilladilla]

This is more directed at Thtbloves, as a what I would've done if I was suddenly thrown into the game in your situation (Sorry everyone else, but I have no experience with giant nations and I can't blood magic for the life of me...): Stellar Cascades spam. Now don't say 'but Marverni doesn't have access to many S2 mages!', you have access to very cheap S1 mages (your Stargazers) and S3 (S random Elder Druid). Have the Druid cast Light of the Northern Star (Conj 4) and suddenly all your S1s are now S2, ready to bring the nigh unstoppable hammer of astral artillery onto my mercuries.

...you'd have done it once, for a single battle. Afterwards, when the Mercuries were done scraping the gooey smears of bacon-flavored Stargazer off their assorted appendages, you'd suddenly remember that Stellar Cascades won't target 0-fatigue (and/or Lifeless) targets...

Err... What? There's nothing on Stellar Cascades that even remotely suggests that... I'm testing it now.

And.. Huh. Well E. Albright is right, Stellar Cascades won't target Mercuries, BUT it'll still affect them if they get hit.
Proof (look at the fatigue):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(the caster was targeting the Olm Sage right next to it)
Therefore, I conclude that one way or another, it is bugged. Either Cascades shouldn't affect targets like the mercury, or it should be allowed to target them. (Said casters resorted to spamming Fire Flies in the next test where the Olm Sage was all the way back... It didn't end well for them.)

[E. Albright]

It's been reported, but hasn't been fixed. It's REALLY wonky; like you said, they can be affected, but not targeted. I *think* it's the 0 base fatigue, as Vine Ogres (Mindless/not Lifeless/0 fatigue) won't be targeted either, but Lobo Guards (Mindless/not Lifeless/non-0 fatigue) will be. I'd say it couldn't hurt to re-report it, though.

[Shadowlord]

#2: (The important one) Supply provided by ITEMS is affected by DOMINION

It is?

#5: Some people... have... scouts... with troops?

I was getting tired of them being discovered and killed/routed by PD, so I tried sending some guards with them since zotz are all stealthy. It didn't really work very well.

#9: Unlucky 3 + Chaos 3 = bad times

I didn't have too much trouble with it, but that may have been luck, having less provinces, and letting foreign dominion stay on my provinces as long as I wasn't at risk of being dom-killed.

#11: Mass with Buffs = Awesome, Mass with moral-issues and no buffs = Real bad

My unbuffed longdead horsemen were still able to take out your completely blessed boars. It wasn't wtfpwning by any means, I lost just about as many horsemen as you did boars if the troop numbers were roughly even (I tried to avoid battles where my horsemen would have been outnumbered). Of course, I had to spend 10 death gems to summon a contingent of them, whereas once you summoned your boar mothers you got free boars each turn.

(Aside: my bats were free, spawning one per turn from Onaqui in my dominion, but I only had two of those because they're expensive and cause unrest)

#16: Next time, maybe, map move 3 prophet.

My prophet stuck with my sacred army for the entire game. :V

I like playing nations with H3s (or nations that can summon H3s), because it makes using blessed troops and claiming thrones far, far easier. Xibalba isn't one, mind you, but Agartha is.

Btw Jilladilla - About 70% of my cash was invested in moving boars around, building temples and many of the mage turns itself suffered for producing/casting things. Really I had less then 1/2 of your income and of that I had to invest most in keeping the maschine rolling, so maybe 400 gold to spare/turn at most, but those where used or lost to events or repairing damage from events - add to that constant raids from flying bats, yourself and vanheims troops.... yeah no good times here.

The death+chaos dominion definitely doesn't help with gold income, but that's the sacrifice you make to get a completely ridiculous bless. (Which wasn't very effective against me, at least, but that's because the boars had trouble hitting my sacreds, and when they hit a longdead horseman they didn't need the death bless to kill, since the horsemen only have 5 HP and 9 prot, so a single hit was enough to take one out.)

[Salabasama]

I weep for my beautiful someone else's giants.