....we shall not see them lit again in our lifetimes"

So let's go out with a bang, not a whimper!

KoP, Shadow, cb, AncientCrone, and Bede all have characters at the Brink of Hell in Nightmare Elite, or near enough. Let's get them all together and make a final assault: "To the Hellgate".

One last rush through the streets, sewers and and abandoned buildings of Hellgate: London before the lights go out.

WiserCrone and SniperBede are working their way through the labyrinth of the Necropolis this weekend (Saturday starting at Noon EDT, Sunday after 9:30PM EDT) in the hope, perhaps vain, that they can finish the game before the servers wind down.

Please join in if you can!

Since I didn't finish the game, this is not for reporting. Rather, this is only for the purposes of discussion, especially about whether this game is "broken" or not. It's not. I'll post the fragmented notes of my incomplete game.

Epic 20 – Bakumatsu

My pre-game thought was that this would not be such a difficult scenario. Firstly, theology is a pretty advanced tech at this point in the game, and once I wait for everyone to finish researching alphabet, I could trade it around for almost ancient or classical techs I want, as long as I am very careful. Secondly, you do not really need 16 archers to adequately defend your empire. I am planning to stick 2 archers in each city for happiness once hereditary rule comes around, and then keep a mobile stack for whatever comes my way, later.

My first priorities are as follows: build Church of the Nativity, clear out my worker techs with libraries, and steal workers from enemies if I see an opportunity. If I steal 3 or more workers it might even pay off for me to then give them theology to pacify them. But that I will have to see.

Finally: I refuse the AP victory. It is cheesy, broken and plain stupid.

350BC: One of my cities are 1 turn from growing to size 5. That would leave me two cities to construct workers with. Disbanded down to 10 archers, opened borders with anyone that would, and off we go.



215BC: Horses revealed last turn, and Hannibal reached alphabet. He wants monotheism, but I really should not trade until I cleared agriculture and mining too. Yes, mining. You did not even give us the slavery civic.

80BC: Met Justinian. So he’s the runaway AI is it? Interesting. What’s also interesting is that all the AI’s have different religions, practically. Theology can be used to bribe AI’s into fighting each other too, if I want to. I am also officially out of gold.

65BC: Islam FIDL. Something is very wrong.

10AD: Traded away monotheism for sailing. That 1 commerce per turn really helps. No, not sarcasm: it really does help my pathetic little tribe. I should’ve done it earlier.

265AD: I better trade theology away now.


Note that I had to partially research mathematics for that one.

280AD:
Traded alphabet and ironworking for theology.

310AD: traded theology for currency and 30 gold. Switched to hereditary rule.

340AD: Got the health event. Who cares: my population can’t even grow quickly enough to the happiness cap anyway.

355AD: heresy event (I’ve never seen that one). Now my 5-city empire is thoroughly Christian.

370AD: traded currency for construction with Justinian. Montezuma also declared war on me. I saw that from a mile away, I even pre-moved my archers to my holy city.

460AD: 6 archers held off against 9 units, even with no cultural defenses. Now try busting CG3 archers.

475AD: everyone wants aesthetics… but Justinian won’t trade literature. So great library is lost to me now. That worries me a little more than Montezuma’s invasions.

610AD: started horseback riding. I really need to take that bugger out.

655AD: Finally Montezuma took peace for theology and alphabet. But I’m not worried. He usually lags behind later.

745AD: Montezuma declared war on Darius. You’ll be crushed, you idiot.
Also, Catherine demanded aesthetics from me. Gladly. That’s some turns of peace I need.

775AD: I’m pretty sure someone removed iron from our territory, and we can’t build samurai, but I still need civil service. Lightbulb philosophy (good), found Taoism (bad), and get a few tech trades. I’m looking to partially research civil service and trade philosophy for that. Meanwhile…

805AD: traded around philosophy for feudalism, metal casting and calendar.

835AD: Hannibal requested literature. Note: requested. I accepted though, even though I am loathe to do it, and here’s why:


990AD: Finished off compass, started on paper. I’ll never be able to get 3 GS’s in time, so I’ll settle with 2. Also, I flat-out rejected Montezuma’s demand for feudalism, because I’m now 50% of his power-graph. I’m stocking up on longbows, elephants and catapults.

Soon I’ll be in economic collapse again, because I am still not really working on cottages. Rather, I’m still trying to grow my damned cities. Food, people, food is by far the most important factor in choosing cities. Everything else can be pop-rushed, including units, which can grab you more land and more happiness resources.

1060AD: Montezuma declares war on me again, apparently just to steal one worker, which he promptly kills. He’s getting on my nerves but, anyway, try breaking CG3 longbows, gashole.

1190AD: Took a city off him, and then gave him aesthetics for peace. Who’s doing the appeasement? I don’t know. To me it looks like an outdated tech, and I did keep his city. Plus that city finally gives me iron.

1270AD: Lightbulbed to liberalism, took nationalism, like finally. I swear it could’ve been a one-turn difference, as everybody and their dog had education for a long time. Turned down my starving GP farm, and my beaker-count is still 28 at this point. Traded education to the backwards Rameses for machinery, gold and drama.

Next plan: draft samurai.

1300AD: State-of-the-empire:


Catherine is about to discover economics. I’m starting to think whether she’s a more sensible target, now that Montezuma is backwards, undeveloped, and prone to being smashed by Darius.

I also apparently forgot one of the more important components to the drafting plan: “need food”. An empire struggling with food doesn’t generally draft very well.

No seriously, this empire lacks FOOD people! I can live with a shortage of hammers, commerce, but NOT FOOD!

Let me preface this by saying this was my first real game on CIV. I played around on Noble with random games but never really completed one.

I decided to try this set up. I dont know how to do the pictures and never really planed on doing a report but figured why not. This wouldnt be an offical report since I have played it over several times. Been learning with this senario. Best was attempt 3

Immediatly when I opened the game I restructured everything promoted the defenders had my one size 5 city build a worker and got open borders with everybody. Set research to mining since I figured I would need metal sooner rather than later.

Researched mining on my own and part of bronse working.

Hanible got alphabet so I started trading (sorry didnt keep details) watched the screens and traded away theology as soon as I could with anybody to get caught up. Hooked up gold immediatly which helped abit.

Once I got my copper mine hooked up started building axmen and spears and sending them up to satsuma(holy city).

Monty attacked and his stacks bounced against defenses I asked for peace and he agreed

Was building CATS to go get monty when Cathrine declared. All my troops were sitting in the wrong place but she had a city close with 2 longbow axe and archer. Took a gamble and sent the kitchen sink from satsuma and razed the city. Imediatly asked for peace which she bought. (bluff)

Couldnt do anything militarily any more so I tried spreading religion around but couldnt get anybody to convert. Cottaged and waited until I could tech at a reasonable pace. By now I was way behind in tech. Was gifted several techs and Catharine had offered a defense pact. Monty went to war against Darius and was vassalized and never bothered me again.

Noticed that my borders were starting to be crushed by culture then unexplicably Cathrine canceled defense pact and took my capitol and holy city in one turn. Most of my army was down by Hanible just in case (quantity over quality)

Couldnt re-take citys and Cathrine was going to roll me up anyway so I quit.

It has been fun.

Not quite finished yet. I'm pretty sure I will get domination sometime, wait for a report later this week. It's a shadow report anyway because I patched. Hannibal and Monty are no more and I'm bashing on the Persians right now.

Yeah, I'm not done yet so this is a placeholder ATM. It's a 3.17 shadow anyways. I'll keep it as authentic possible by not reading the other reports until I'm done playing.

EDIT: Ok, game complete, 1895AD space win. Brief version was a lot of abuse. I felt kind of bad about it but wasn't sure if I could win from such a difficult setup. First abuse was tech trading of course, besides Theology I hit paydirt by being the first civ to horseback riding; after self-researching most of the skipped worker techs used those two to get almost everything in the classical era. Second abuse was elephants+cats, fought a long war against Monty reducing him to two cities. Cathy came after me too but fortunately not until I was ready, she was up CS, Engineering, and Feudalism during our war but more phants and cats saw me thought. Vassalized her for tech leaving her with the island city west of Moscow. During these wars I spent about 900 years self-researching civil service; I was glum about missing the first Stagnation game so I was happy to partially recreate the scenario in this game Somehow managed to get to Liberalism first and used the techs on those paths for another big trade/broker round to catch me up to the early Renaissance as my economy slowly took off. At the end of a golden age in the 1600's I noticed Hannibal was plotting against me; abused Nationhood rifles + upgrading siege to Cannon to take all of his mainland cities (this last abuse wasn't so bad, I was way bigger so this allowed me to win a war quickly instead of winning a war I shouldn't have). Chief prize was his capital which was an excellent Ironworks site far better than anything I had. Founded Sushi and cruised to space well ahead of Darius and Justinian. Full report will be up soon hopefully.

EDIT (again): After reading through the other submissions, it's clear I was on the way-lucky side as far as AI behavior. As noted above Cathy didn't declare until I had taken what I wanted from Monty. In the beginning Monty declared on Darius despite same religion, giving me the time to get HBR + Construction. While Cathy was building up I was nervous b/c Hanni was also getting ready, but he declared on Jusitinian though more sheer dumb luck - Hanni had captured a barb city giving him close border tensions and fought a war with an empire separated from his core by Darius. He also bought in Monty so I didn't have to worry about Monty backstabbing me as I fought Cathy.

No report here.

For the second game in a row, the sponsor wildly and fatally misjudged the level of difficulty. We can handle one choice from the variant menu of stagnated economy, lunatic rivals, and screwed diplomatic relations (the Christianity lock-in). Two of those would be a challenging variant. Three was unplayable.

I was blown out before the game even started. Four wars before 50 turns had passed: Catherine in 100 AD, Ramesses in 100 AD, Hannibal in 280 AD, and Monty in 350 AD.

Just before declaring war, Catherine blew up my copper mine with a spy. With no axemen, I could never hold the ground to rebuild it. I held on by huddling up in my cities and letting the AIs suicide lots of units. Hannibal, though, captured the southernmost city in a bad RNG swing. Three out of four attacking axemen beat my (Protective) archers, and the fourth cleaned up the next turn.

I finally managed peace with the other rivals, slowly limped to Construction to build elephants, and recaptured my city. I even got back in the tech game by lightbulbing Paper into about a nine-for-one brokerage sequence. But just as I signed peace with Hannibal, Catherine re-declared again in about 800 AD. Her 10-unit stacks got to both Tokyo and Satsuma before my army could return from the southeast. Both cities fell and that was all she wrote.

I loved the original stagnation, and this one was similar. Two big changes were no tasty barbarian Worker lying around, and we couldn't whip Workers below population six. On top of that, we are surrounded by a bunch of nuts and the civics/religion restriction almost guarantee conflict. I started the game by noting we were paying 6 gold/turn in unit upkeep. Bye-bye Warriors. Bye-bye about 3 Archers if memory serves. I then set cities with three food tiles (e.g. floodplains) to max growth, and then Workers at size 6. I also send a bunch of Archers out scouting, leaving the home defenses thin (signing Open Borders with everyone in the process). Research stayed on Agriculture, although Alphabet was tempting. Theocracy is a big nut to trade around, but I decided to wait for someone to get there first. All the risky, clever things you would expect in a failure, no?

Monty converted to Hinduism the very next turn; I can't help but feel that was ordained. I rolled Archers to his border. On turn 159, just 9 into the game Hannibal discovers Alphabet. I flip him Monotheism for Priesthood and Mining, then Theology for Alphabet and Bronze Working. Copper shows upnear Kyoto, that's a priority. With the monopoly broken I move Theology around like crazy. It goes to Darius for Iron Working, Animal Husbandry and Sailing. I trade Alphabet to Justinian for Mathematics, and I just generally gift techs around to get +4 trade relation bonus with everyone. Workers start completing and I focus on hooking up resources and connecting cities, then on farms for a lightbulb economy (at least initially). Unfortunately the evil AI bulbed Philosophy just before I got my first GS. That stunk. Then, on turn 172 the inevitable happened. I'd been scanning for WHEOOHRN literally every turn. Every leader, every turn. Predictable it was Monty who went red first. We were incredibly well positioned at Satsuma:



You can see my defenses aren't exactly the bomb. He went read and declared in about two turns. Usually the AIs decide to declare war, and then spend several turns building troops and moving things to the front. Not good old Monty, of course. Without roads it looks bad, especially when one of my scouting Archers found this nearby:



That Archer on a forested hill killed a Chariot and a Jaguar before dying, which helped. I was able to roll a couple of more Archers into Satsuma before Monty showed up with anything too scary. A trade of Theology and Alphabet to Ramses for Calendar and Monarchy helped, I immediately revolted to Slavery and Hereditary Rule. Monty finally gets a big stack in place, but I had time to whip an Axe and a Spear. He goes at me and I'm reduced to this:



And he is willing to talk peace thank goodness, cause Satsuma was toast. I gave him Monotheism and went back to focusing on my economy. All the other leaders were Pleased with me (even Catherine, she predictable made a resource demand and a tech demand which I of course agreed to) except for Justinian and Ramses, who were too far away to worry me. I decide to go for the Pyramids which hadn't been built yet for some reason. My Workers were sent to chop the forests around Kyoto and my other cities were still building more Workers. On turn 208 Monty comes demanding Currency, which is the first tech I'd researched in a while (I was still well into the tech trading game, and my economy was coming around, so I liked my chances). I told the bozo to take a hike and BAM, he hits me with a war declaration. He takes Satsuma with a big stack just a few turns later and I retire in disgrace.

Moral of the story: don't turn your back on Monty. Duh.

Darrell

Just posted this on the AB forums, but I figure people here might get some use out of it as well. I'll probably post it on the site later depending on feedback.

To put it simply, quarter-knocking is using 2 or more knockdown skills timed in a way so that your target is standing for less than a quarter of a second before they are knocked down again. If used effectively, you can keep an opponent on the ground and unable to do anything for 6+ seconds, possibly 12 depending on your build. While doing this might not be entirely needed on classes such as warriors or dervishes, due to their relatively slow activating skills, it can be deadly against monks and ritualists that can often save themselves if they're able to get that quick 1/4s cast off.

Quarter-knocking is really all about the follow up knockdown (kd) and knowing when you need to activate that skill. There are really only 2 options for this: a hammer attack and Shock. There is also Shove, but I really don't like that skill due to its adrenaline loss effect; even so, it's a 3/4s activation and can therefore follow the same method as Shock. In order to understand when to use this second attack, you have to understand a little about the Guild Wars animation system. When you knock someone down, an animation plays out. When they get back up, another animation plays out. Watching the second animation and knowing that it's not 100% accurate is the key to quarter-knocking. It is not 100% accurate because the game considers someone knocked-down until the entire animation is finished playing, and part of the animation involves the player standing; thus making it seem as though the kd is over, when, in fact, it's not. This can be confusing at first, but once you watch it a few times and have the animation down, you shouldn't have any trouble quarter-knocking. It's recommended that you have the camera zoomed in as much as possible (use first person if it helps you) while you're still learning so the animation is easier to watch.

Once you understand the animation, quarter-knocking becomes rather simple since you don't have to try and count the time between your attacks, which is another option, but one that I won't go into much detail on since I'm not really a numbers person. Depending on your kd, you should look for the following parts of the animation:
- Hammer attack w/attack speed boost: Right when the get-up animation is finishing; when they stand up, the character does a little wobble. This wobble could also almost be described as a bounce. If you watch the full standing up part of the kd animation, you'll notice that when characters get back up, they are in the "combat ready" stance, that is, the stance characters use any time they attack or are attacked. When they get up from a kd, they will stand up slightly higher than they normally do and then go back to the regular height. That brief moment in time where they stand up higher and then go back to normal combat readiness is what I mean by the wobble. Activate the attack during that time.
- Hammer attack w/o attack speed boost: The timing for this one is a little tricky since it's still mid-animation, about 2/3 of the way through it, give or take. This is hardest to describe, so I've included a screenshot which isn't 100% perfect (due to the way screenshots are taken in the game) but it's close enough to show you what you're looking for:

- Shock: Just before the character finishes standing up; it's literally a split-second before the standing wobble described previously.

Please be aware that these times may not be perfect due to input lag and ping being different for each person, but they should be close enough that you can see where you need to activate the skill for the next kd. Also, there are a few other methods of knocking someone down via the elementalist line, such as Gale, Gust and Slippery Ground but are not recommended. Gale used to be rather prominent, but it no longer will be affected by Stonefist Gauntlets and can therefore only kd for its listed 2s.

There are several, relatively simple methods you can use to quarter-knock:
**Please note that all of these methods assume you have a Stonefist insignia equipped**

- With axes/swords, the only way to quarter-knock is with a Bull's Strike, Shock combination. This method is actually really easy, the only hard part about it is getting the first kd with Bull's. Once you get that kd, Frenzy 2 attacks (any 33% stance will work, but since this is PvP the most common one to use is Frenzy) and then activate Shock. That's all there is to it; the speed of the axe/sword with the 33% boost is enough that you can activate Shock after the second attack and it will land when it needs to, you don't have to count or watch the animation at all. The catch is: you have to get those attacks in without having to run to your target. Anyone that's used Bull's knows that if you're running slower or at the same speed as your opponent, you have to catch up to them before you can attack them again. That slight delay can mess up your quarter-knock, so when you're using Bull's be sure to have a run boost up, Rush being the most common and most effective. To sum up: Bull's -> 2x 33% IAS attacks -> Shock.

- Using Backbreaker followed by Hammer Bash. You don't need Stonefists for Backbreaker since it's already a 4s kd, but they will still increase the duration for Hammer Bash. This is another really easy method to use for quarter-knocks. Once you get the hang of it, this is probably the easiest method there is. To start: do not have any attack speed boost activated at the start of the combo, that will mess up the timing. When you're ready to chain the attacks: activate Backbreaker. You now have time for 2 attacks; the first without a speed boost, the second with one. The easy way to pull this off is to use Flail and an adrenaline attack, such as Mighty Blow or Body Blow. Activate the attack skill right after Backbreacker; once it connects, giving you the strike of adrenaline but before the next attack starts, activate Flail (you can also activate Flail mid-attack on an energy based attack, such as Crushing Blow), and use another attack skill, such as Crushing Blow. Now, after Crushing activates, queue up Hammer Bash. The game will take care of the second kd for you. As with the Bull's/Shock combination, the timing can be off a bit if you have to catch up to your opponent, so use the same preventative measures as with that one. With this combination you can also use Pulverizing Smash and Heavy Blow, but I prefer Crushing and Bash because Bash doesn't require weakness in order to trigger. To sum up: Backbreaker -> normal speed attack -> 33% IAS attack -> Hammer Bash.

- Using any 3s kd followed by Hammer Bash. This one is slightly more complicated than the other methods described since you have to actually stop attacking between swings. There are two methods, with IAS and without IAS.
-- With IAS: Activate the first kd. As soon as it connects, use Flail and activate an attack skill (will have to be Crushing or another energy based attack). As soon as that connects, press the Escape key to stop attacking. You now have to wait about a half-second before you activate Hammer Bash. You can either watch the animation and time it to that, or you can figure out some method for counting.
-- Without IAS: Activate the first kd. Press Escape to stop attacking. That's right, you won't have enough time for another attack before you use Hammer Bash. You have to wait between 1.3 - 1.5 seconds before you activate Hammer Bash because hammer attacks have a speed of 1.75 seconds. Sad, but true. You can either count the second and a half or you can watch the animation, the screenshot I provided earlier should give you an idea as to where in the animation you need to activate the skill. Because of this, I really don't recommend this method of quarter-knocking, but it's there in case you need it.

- Using any 3s kd followed by Shock (hammer edition). This method is almost identical to the previous method using IAS and Hammer Bash, but with one slight difference: You have to activate Shock a sliver of time before you would activate Hammer Bash. Refer to the wobble described above.

Well, there you have it, quarter-knocking made somewhat easy. I recommend practicing against the Master of Healing on the Isle of the Nameless, as she has 2 spells with a 1/4s activation that she'll probably try to use when getting up: Reversal of Fortune and Contemplation of Purity. Once you get the timing down, you can practice in Random Arenas, where you'll have to start dealing with pressure; enemies won't just stand there and let you hit them... well, maybe they won't. Either way it's still better practice since you'll be able to get used to pressure situations.

How quickly can you win a game? Adventure Thirty-one is now open!

Epic Twenty is now open for reporting. Please post your reports in the Tournament Discussion subforum.