[SPOILERS] DaveV: The vampire bites! Goodbye level 9.

[DaveV]

It's me by myself against four other players.

It is you against only 3 other players.

My original quote was four other players *and ded-lurkers*. Ilios is posting so much in plako's thread that it's pretty obvious he's a ded-lurker. Now, I'm grateful to plako for joining in mid-game to keep the game alive, and I know from personal experience how difficult it is to take over someone else's civ. But if there's anyone who doesn't need help from a vet ded-lurker, it's plako.

Hi Dave,

Just wanted to pop in and say that I, for one, am thoroughly enjoying the way you've played and shared this game. And given the thousands of views your thread has gotten, I'll wager there's a good number of others who are enjoying it as well. At some point perhaps you could list what tools you've used so others might better emulate you. I'm guessing you use more than just print screen and MS Paint....

Also, outside of the tools you use to post, I have no clue where those three little icons on the upper right-hand of your screen are coming from. In your most recent screen captures, all three were vampires...is that from some module or something?

Anyway, for what it's worth, I'm learning a lot from you and being thoroughly entertained....

So...play on...!

Thanks for the support. It's frustrating to spend so much time and effort on the game and still feel as though it's slipping away from me.

As for tools, I'm just one step up from your guess: screenshots and IrfanView, a freeware editor for graphics files. The icons on the side of the screen are a result of checking the "minimize popups" game option. I think they mean that three cities produced Vampires and need new production orders (my turn would have started by popping up a production prompt for each city if I didn't have that option checked).

[DaveV]

Turn 151. Grueling, but I feel better about the game now. The log:








In Thoth's repatriated territory, I cut the road and attacked the weaker city.




The griffon showed he's moved his stack of trebs out of the capital.



Found them!




Looks like he wants to back-door Skeleton key. Time to scramble some Vampires over there.

Against plako, I took some losses but captured the two target cities. As a huge bonus, he had his stack of wizards and firebows two tiles southeast of Kalocly (where the lone bloodpet is sitting now).




I think I've taken out about 99% of his offense now; he has three medium-sized stacks in Cevedes, King's Landing, and Dragonstone, but nothing that can stand up to my vampires.




This sucks for plako. Make one mistake in one of these games, and you lose.

[DaveV]

Turn 152. The log:





Ichabod attacked my vampire stack near Zamboni:



He's still moving his army group B towards Skeleton Key.




I had more vampires moving in, and took out his attacking stack by Zamboni.




plako's cities were thinly defended; he had his biggest stack in Dragonstone and another in Cevedes. Both could be hit by Tsunami. The gory details:










I took most of his original territory.




City screen (I used some pillage gold to rush-buy vampires).






Military:




Demos (war is hell):

[DaveV]

Post-game analysis: I think I called this one in my pre-game analysis.

The Calabim are ... arguably the only first-tier civ in this game.

Vampires are a very, very good unit, and I got them in numbers before any of the other players were able to counter them. Decius has good synergy with his Org trait, and, as several people mentioned, Raider Death-boosted spectres are too strong. I apologize if I overdid the paranoia and angst in my thread, but I was documenting how I felt at the time.

I think the units killed/units lost statistics give a good retrospective on this bloody, bloody game.







That's from reloading, but not replaying, my last turn. So add a bunch of units to the "killed" total, and a horseman and a spectre to my losses.

Summary in one more picture:

[Qgqqqqq]

Did you draft the excess moroi?

[Ellimist]

Not a single warrior built?

[Qgqqqqq]

Not a single warrior built?

No, because he built bloodpets

[DaveV]

Did you draft the excess moroi?

Yes, plus nine more that were upgraded to chariots.