DaveV talks like a pirate, me hearties!

[DaveV]

Full credit to Ellimist: he's played me like a fiddle this game. He has a full slate of mages after training up on my units, and is on the rampage:



I re-took Crow's Nest, which gave me vision of the tile SE of Shoulder Parrot. He's apparently walking a parade of elephants to serve as garrison units for the cities he's captured so far.

I'm probably supposed to burn my world spell on his summons, but I'll keep it in reserve. He can't do anything with my cities and can't do much attacking if he's going to use his spectres as garrisons.

I finally figured out the funky symbol next to his elepants: it's the Illusion promotion. Then I was puzzled about how he got these units, till I vaguely recalled a post by Bob:

So, uh, the illusions created by a Balseraph city with a Hall of Mirrors are permanent.  Should that be the case?

You can trap a barbarian elephant next to a city, rush a HoM and receive one illusory elephant per turn.  For best results, feed the elephant some exp first to give it some combat promos.  Elephant illusions are pretty nasty defenders.  

This building is utterly broken though.  Not sure why I didn't realize until today that it gives you permanent summons.  I'm sure there are plenty of other absurd abuses I haven't thought of yet- like, you can probably use it to jack the AC up crazy high by copying certain units.  Or, oh, just cajole one of the Four Horsemen into camping outside a HoM city and rejoice as you receive one essentially invulnerable flying unit a turn plus their gear.

[DaveV]

Ellimist took several more cities, then offered peace in exchange for the return of most of the captured cities (all except Grog). No separate peace; I hope he chokes on the war weariness.



I imagine this means he starts razing cities instead of capturing them now.

My mobility scout made it through Bob's territory to Ellimist's southern border, found four workers building roads, and captured and deleted them. Then I deleted the scout to prevent the local adept from gaining more XP.

Players who are at minus infinity diplo points for trading with my worst enemy: Q and Bob.

[DaveV]

Ellimist left his mage stack exposed (1N of Bottle of Rum), and I'm one turn away from being able to take advantage of it. I expect them to be back on a non-coastal tile next turn.

[DaveV]

And, yes, the uber-phants did make a difference: I could have attacked overland against the mage stack if the elephants weren't blocking my path.

[Mardoc]

And, yes, the uber-phants did make a difference: I could have attacked overland against the mage stack if the elephants weren't blocking my path.

Dangit, that sucks. Losing to superior tactics would be one form of annoying, but a free Str 8 unit per turn is just ridiculous.

[Mardoc]

Within the diplo rules for this game, I feel that this was 100% inappropriate for DaveV to post here. I voted against these rules twice but have followed them faithfully.

I do not consider anything I have done to be exploitative of a bug or otherwise outside of the bounds of fair play.

I would hope not!  I disagree on the question of whether this is a bug, but I do at least believe Ellimist wouldn't exploit something he believes to be a bug.  I suspect his reasoning is something along the lines of 'the Hall of Mirrors is too weak and expensive for just one extra defending body, therefore this design must be on purpose'.

I have invested a VERY large amount of in-game resources into this tactic and the simple fact of Dave revealing and explaining it will reduce the utility and effectiveness considerably.

Um, huh?  5-9 units to herd the elephant where you want it and keep it there for a while, a settler to found a city next to the elephant, 5 turns for your borders to pop and hold the elephant in place on their own, plus a Hall of Mirrors in your new city.  Cities are something you want to build anyway, so the only resources invested specifically into this tactic are the temporary use of a small army and a Hall of Mirrors, right?  Maybe a bit of delay on city founding if the elephant AI is being obnoxious?

I admit that other people, knowing they have a huge Illusion army to face, may focus more on Empy or Dispel than they otherwise would have.  But from our perspective, the huge Illusion army shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Furthermore, Illusion units have so far played an insignificant(possibly zero) role in the fight against the Lanun. I can't elaborate further without revealing spoiler knowledge.

Ok, harder to attribute goodwill here.  If they are of zero use, then why do you care about Dave spilling the beans?  Why bring them along?

I mean, I agree that the first major battle didn't involve elephants, and without them Ellimist would probably still have been beating you up - Balseraph mages are possibly the strongest T2 unit in the whole game.  But not zero!

I am very disappointed that the game has been compromised in this way.

Well, we are too, we just place the blame at a different location .

[Brian Shanahan]

Within the diplo rules for this game, I feel that this was 100% inappropriate for DaveV to post here. I voted against these rules twice but have followed them faithfully.

I do not consider anything I have done to be exploitative of a bug or otherwise outside of the bounds of fair play.

I would hope not!  I disagree on the question of whether this is a bug, but I do at least believe Ellimist wouldn't exploit something he believes to be a bug.  I suspect his reasoning is something along the lines of 'the Hall of Mirrors is too weak and expensive for just one extra defending body, therefore this design must be on purpose'.

I have invested a VERY large amount of in-game resources into this tactic and the simple fact of Dave revealing and explaining it will reduce the utility and effectiveness considerably.

Um, huh?  5-9 units to herd the elephant where you want it and keep it there for a while, a settler to found a city next to the elephant, 5 turns for your borders to pop and hold the elephant in place on their own, plus a Hall of Mirrors in your new city.  Cities are something you want to build anyway, so the only resources invested specifically into this tactic are the temporary use of a small army and a Hall of Mirrors, right?  Maybe a bit of delay on city founding if the elephant AI is being obnoxious?

I admit that other people, knowing they have a huge Illusion army to face, may focus more on Empy or Dispel than they otherwise would have.  But from our perspective, the huge Illusion army shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Furthermore, Illusion units have so far played an insignificant(possibly zero) role in the fight against the Lanun. I can't elaborate further without revealing spoiler knowledge.

Ok, harder to attribute goodwill here.  If they are of zero use, then why do you care about Dave spilling the beans?  Why bring them along?

I mean, I agree that the first major battle didn't involve elephants, and without them Ellimist would probably still have been beating you up - Balseraph mages are possibly the strongest T2 unit in the whole game.  But not zero!

I am very disappointed that the game has been compromised in this way.

Well, we are too, we just place the blame at a different location .

I tried the illusion elephant trick too (also managed to get a metric ton of illusion bears for pens too), and boy is it way over powered. Although you can't go straight to the Hall of Mirrors, you have to build something a carnival first (cheap building) and have alteration magic.

[Brian Shanahan]

Any news on the game since the recent respite for jalapeno's laptop?

[DaveV]

Ellimist has captured or razed most of my cities (I have five left), which has helped trigger Blight. His mage stack is deep in my former territory. He sank my fleet with a few fireballs, which leaves me in a purely defensive role. I don't see any point in firing off my world spell since it will hurt everyone else much more than it will Ellimist.

Bob is still funding Ellimist's world conquest agenda by giving him open borders, but Q is eating him.



Ellimist's war weariness has to be insanely high; jalepeno is propping up my two remaining southern cities:



Summary: I'm irrelevant except for the war weariness I'm causing for Ellimist. Because of that, I expect his opponents to try to keep me alive.

[Brian Shanahan]

What's this gift Bob's talking about in the organising thread?