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Will you answer the call of Codexia?

Joined
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Bureaukratistan
What, it's not started yet?

I bet some team immediately starts to stale and screws the whole game over.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Nov 14, 2009
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Poland
Snake draft.

Spacebattles- Spacebattles
Malaia Druzhina- Russian Speaking COmmunity
Legend of the Long Knives- dom3mods
The Last Fantasy- The Last Fantasy
Warriors of Diversity- Codex
Team Name Literally Not Even Referred To In Reply Email- RPGnet
Kate's Speedbumps- /v/anhiem
Bay12- Bay12 Games
The Doom That Walks- T.R.O.W
Team Necropolis- Necropolis
Sum1's Scrubs- /domg/


Order will be 1-11, 11-1, 11-1. Secondary bans will not take place.

Banned nations are;

EA and LA Xib
Lanka
EA Caelum
LA Ulm
EA Vanheim
EA Abysia
EA Pangea
MA Nazca

You will have 24 hours to pick a nation from recieving notification it is your turn to pick. If you don't pick in this time I will random the nation
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
10,266
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Poland
Wow someone actually banned EA Pan over MA Pan. And someone banned EA Abysia. Other than that reasonable bans.

The obvious powerhouse nations left in the pool are Ragha, MA Agartha, MA Pan, Jotunheim, Midgard. MA Ulm maybe as a counter to MA Agartha. Not sure about Mictlan, amazing late game but not so good early on.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
We are fifth place for the first pick, seventh for the second. Not an excellent position, but whatevs.

Tell me the nations you would like, or everyone trusts Malakal? I'll start checking every day the mail as the option is "random" if we fail to reply.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Messages
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Poland
We had a discussion privately and we know what to pick more or less, but seeing as we are late in the queue we will try to discuss it as the picks come in.

As such please keep us up top date on the picks.
 

KoolNoodles

Arcane
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Messages
3,545
Wow someone actually banned EA Pan over MA Pan. And someone banned EA Abysia. Other than that reasonable bans.

The obvious powerhouse nations left in the pool are Ragha, MA Agartha, MA Pan, Jotunheim, Midgard. MA Ulm maybe as a counter to MA Agartha. Not sure about Mictlan, amazing late game but not so good early on.

Maybe not powerhouse but I'd go ahead and include Mictlan. Odds of starting near teams entirely of heavy armor LA/MA nations(that can also compete early), are low. So we should have one good pick at least.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Shaper Crypt
Team Codexia took MA Agartha, if anyone wants to know.


Some rabid madman in team \v\anheim took MA Ermor. I will leave to people far more skilled than me to explain why this is between borderline hilarious and just sad, particularly in this kind of Disciple game.

If anyone even cares, ofc.
 

Grimwulf

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MA Ermor + Lemuria + let's say, Therodos/LA C'tis. I see no probs playing with either Ermor's or Lemurian dominion in such a case.

Playing MA Ermor's dominion (provided you are half-arse decent in the game) grants you a single major advantage: nobody wants to waste time and resources fighting you. Even if you can conquer overgrown MA Ermor, there is no point in doing so. Waste of time, troops, and constant pain of thinking how to feed your armies on zero-population provinces. What do you get for your efforts? Nothing. Zero-income, zero-population, zero-value territory. Pretty much the same goes for LA Lemurian provinces, the only difference is in LA it's sometimes worthwhile to fight for gem-producing provinces, be it zero population or not.

I won't be surprised if they took MA Ermor for disciple nation, tho. Could be fun as an experiment (I had some ideas myself not so long ago), but not worth it to experiment in these circumstances.

In any case, /v/anheim is a bunch of crazies. Who cares about their plans? Better watch out for russkies. Vava is an experienced sunuvabitch. Good thing they also have Rammona to compensate for Vava's skill.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
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Ingrija
I won't be surprised if they took MA Ermor for disciple nation, tho.

How does it even work? What are they supposed to fight with? I've run Therodos as a disciple nation and it got no freespawn IIRC, but at least they have a full roster of recruitables. And Ermor? On summons alone?

Conversely, what happens with freespawn and disciples when main nation is freespawn? Basically, how does dominion freespawn work in combination with disciple games in general?
 
Joined
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I think MA Ermor as a disciple gets reduced freespawn, and disciples of Ermor get nothing.

What are their other nations? Maybe they're running tribless on like mictlan/ermor/another mictlan.

Or they looked at that winrate doc and went man, Ashen Empire is so op it'll carry our team.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
I won't be surprised if they took MA Ermor for disciple nation, tho.

How does it even work? What are they supposed to fight with? I've run Therodos as a disciple nation and it got no freespawn IIRC, but at least they have a full roster of recruitables. And Ermor? On summons alone?

Conversely, what happens with freespawn and disciples when main nation is freespawn? Basically, how does dominion freespawn work in combination with disciple games in general?

As Disciple Ermor you get 15 D gems and a Lictor. No recruits, nothing. No freespawn. It can work, in theory, if you have good support and someone carries you. It's a novelty pick, though, and taking it as a Pretender will doom the team to irrilevance. Grimmie once outlined a plan with heavy indies use and skillful integration (Ermor's 15 D gem output is great, tbh, and their research capabilities all rely on summons anyway). Get a Sage province and some indie mages, and it can even work.

It's still incredibly suboptimal. If they are going as Pretender Ermor, they will take Lemuria and maybe Asphodel (no one banned them) making it a great novelty team with an interesting evolution. Won't work, I guess, but the psych effect of Ermor is still great, as far as I can see.
 

mondblut

Arcane
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Ingrija
As Disciple Ermor you get 15 D gems and a Lictor. No recruits, nothing. No freespawn.

Needs a non-D disciple for ultimate novelty :lol:

So disciples get no freespawn; how about pretender? Do disciples of a freespawn pretender get his freespawns? Or it is he who gets freespawn in their provinces? Or freespawn only happens in the provinces the pretender owns?
 

Caul Shivers

Scholar
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Jun 21, 2015
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South Slav Siberia
Ashpohdel is already taken mind you so even with Lemuria the third nation has to be a living one.

Ermor disciple can sort of work if you have mad skillz and crazy luck for indies like sages, amazons, pegasi, etc ., but expanding is just ridiculously crazy. If it's a disciple they'll be forced to go awake so Ermor can take an Earth Serpent or something or else you'll end up with 4 provinces by the end of year 1. They can do a strong scales and dominion build or semi shitty scales, mediocre dominion and a double bless but you'd really want sloth nations.

Ermor pretender is just not viable in any conceivable way and isn't really even dangerous tbh. There'd be a lot of no population and 100 supply provinces, however the disciples would collapse in on themselves with 0 income and you'll more than likely be able to casually walk over them since you won't really need many troops. Ermor itself would be harder to kill but with no disciples shouldn't really pose a problem.
 

Malakal

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Arguably Ermor disciple is a solid pick past the expansion phase that is tricky. You get gold for indie priests that can animate skeletons just like Sceleria so that covers your troop needs, your dusk elders are excellent summons for a very reasonable cost and your team pools you all the indie mages to boost your research. Its niche but works on the quality of summons/animated sacreds alone.

That having said I am confident its going to be Team Cancer with Ermor pretender and Lemuria/whatever disciples. I talked with the team leader before and he expressed his lack of faith in their skills so instead they were going to go for avoidance picks - either cancer or UW. Seems they took cancer.
 
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Like what, Lemuria sends out one expansion party and gives all the land it aquires to Ermor and all the D gems, so they're playing a two-player team? Or a one-player team eventually?
 

Johannes

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casting coach
Ermor is the pretender if they have any sense. Everyone gets the freespawn, but also the dying population part of Ermor's dominion. With the points you have available from Ermor-grade scales, you'll take a massive bless obviously. A strong early game push then a transition to freespawn + gems economy.

Asphodel would be the obvious disciple pick, since they have increased cap gem income, but still a full sized starting cap. So it plays like normal Aspho but with different freespawn and faster popdeath rate. Plus they'd have a undead leader in PD to stop the undead evaporating before any random attack.

Probably they want some D available on any disciples they pick, so they can at least summon extra mound kings to ferry the troops around - or at least having D on disciple is total must if not. The disciples should also be able to run off Sloth scales. D income in disciple caps is a plus since you can ferry that to Ermor to use. Lemuria could be nice for the D income, but would be a total rump nation - not fun to play when most of your income goes to just feed another nation and you have no recruits either. And shit for expansion. Maybe they will pick Lemuria but it's a crap pick.

Sceleria could be nice since you can use priests for ferrying the undead and summoning them, and you get the undead buffing spells Ermor does. And D gems to hand over. LA Ctis otoh does not fit at all, their Tomb Wyrms need the same D gems Ermor needs and their living sacreds would need Prod. Therodos could work, Helheim, Niefelheim, LA Atlantis... (cold preference also helps with money) Somebody with good sitesearchers would be great, though having a strong early rush power is more important.

You shouldn't underestimate them (at least nation-wise, may be the players are crap). Basically, expect a tri-bless rush but with freespawn support.
 

Dayyālu

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Asphodel would be the obvious disciple pick, since they have increased cap gem income, but still a full sized starting cap. So it plays like normal Aspho but with different freespawn and faster popdeath rate. Plus they'd have a undead leader in PD to stop the undead evaporating before any random attack.

MA Asphodel has already been picked by another team. Again, more I think of it more I agree with Malakal, they are going for the meme pick.
 

Caul Shivers

Scholar
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Messages
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South Slav Siberia
Your capital population, which typically accounts for 50% of your total income early on, is almost completely gone within a year. Even if you expand fast, which you can with those freespawn and any triple blessed sacreds, you will still be struggling for gold greatly, unless you economize heavily, and by that I mean a strict diet of cheapest D mages + a few sacreds per turn at best.
Expansion phase is not the problem, but everything else is. Population death with creep up on you way too fast, you'll have little to no gold for mages, sacreds and those forts and temples you desperately need, and your research is going to completely suck balls. You could argue some clever dominion manipulation but that never works. Also upkeep.

In the end, you can expand quite easily. I just fail to see what options are left for mid-late game. You can't really pull an Ermor pretender without having nations with summonable mages and sacreds preferably, and there are none of those so even that potential triple or quadra bless will be wasted.
 

Johannes

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casting coach
Shit mde/lategame is a common problem for both Ermor and triblesses. But they do cover each other's weaknesses - tribless isn't often limited by gold anyway, but the freespawn give some complimentary chaff for free to make an actually stronger than usual early rush, and also they knock down walls great which is a common achilles heel of bless rushes. And the death dominion + freespawn make ganging on you both a bit harder and less profitable, too. When you conquer enough of your neighbors that alleviates some of the gold problems... Of course you must keep doing this, to new neighbors constantly, but that's not impossible.
And you only need one nation to really heavily get into research, really - it's a team game after all, you can and should divide roles somehow.

Now, a 33-player game is a bit unusual so it can well be questioned if this strategy has any hope of carrying you through to the finish line... But if you can expect them to possibly knock over several teams before running out of steam you don't want them as your neighbor.


When people have already won disc games with Ermor pretenders its p. silly to say its somehow impossible.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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Shaper Crypt
And you only need one nation to really heavily get into research, really - it's a team game after all, you can and should divide roles somehow.

So you are left with a single nation with, in any case, shit research if compared with proper nations. I fail to see how having a single nation focusing on research, as already in the midgame it's the research that carries everything. The only on who could manage a good research with a diet of D gems is Therodos, I guess, but that's it. Plus a Ermorian Pret team will maybe conquer the first opponents, then sputter when the others can manage adequate counters and you'll get the usual "Ermor\Lemurian troops meet woodchipper". No one will bother to conquer them and if the winning conditions do not require as such no one will even bother.



Now, a 33-player game is a bit unusual so it can well be questioned if this strategy has any hope of carrying you through to the finish line... But if you can expect them to possibly knock over several teams before running out of steam you don't want them as your neighbor.

Considering that they are the meme team going for the meme pick, it will be interesting if they manage to do so. Furthermore, we don't even know the map (stilll in the "design stage") so we could get something that boxes them in.


When people have already won disc games with Ermor pretenders its p. silly to say its somehow impossible.

Do you have a link for a game thread or something? It would be nice to read a postmortem. Grimmie's plan always struck me as possible, but incredibly difficult.

Could have sworn that Ermor disciples get no freespawn. I guess it could be intresting then.

They get it! Sure, they get also the Death dominion. a tad problematic for most nations bar Therodos and Lemuria.



Ahh, yes, another thing:

+ EA Mictlan
+ MA Pelagia
+ EA TC

have been taken.
 

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