The Dark Forest - where we fight one another before getting overrunned by thrash mobs
Documenting the turns. I am still at turn 16 (17 according to Dayyalu but oh well).
And turn 17 :
Turn 18
Turn 19 :
Tour 20 :
Tour 21 :
Tour 22 :
Turn 23 & 24
Turn 23:
Turn 24:
Turn 25
The End
Full disclosure : I am team Italy. It is nice to see them winning for once :).
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 27 September 2023, 14h35Full disclosure : I am team Italy. It is nice to see them winning for once :).
I may have missed a turn somewhere. I'm not having the most relaxing days in RL.
Also, I don't know if I should be glad or offended by that.
I... really don't know.
Yeah I think the turn numbers went slightly awry earlier, Morpheus corrected it.
Really enjoying this, good diplomacy is required and interesting decisions to make. But I don't think it's a coincidence that players 6 and 5 got knocked out first. A relatively easy modification would be to shuffle the player sequence each turn... maybe including the Grud, Wizard, and Spectre in the shuffle.
It will be interesting to see how it works out now, with Dayyalu having the largest territory and recruitment rate (the army size is obscured by the Forest, the Spectre, and the Wizard, but near the frontline it's probably at least on par with Morpheus) but being the last to play.
Quote from Baron Rastignak on 27 September 2023, 17h29It will be interesting to see how it works out now, with Dayyalu having the largest territory and recruitment rate (the army size is obscured by the Forest, the Spectre, and the Wizard, but near the frontline it's probably at least on par with Morpheus) but being the last to play.
I think at this point being last to play is not a huge issue anymore :
- The initial "production advantage" (having one more turn of recruitment "defensively" than the other player) is exhausted,
- There is no more grud attacks to open holes in the defense
That leaves the magician and the spectar - overall fairly minor impacts.
On the game itself, that magician movement is insane luck for Dayallu ; his spear is protected from attack just as it approaches the "final" castle.
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 27 September 2023, 17h37Quote from Baron Rastignak on 27 September 2023, 17h29It will be interesting to see how it works out now, with Dayyalu having the largest territory and recruitment rate (the army size is obscured by the Forest, the Spectre, and the Wizard, but near the frontline it's probably at least on par with Morpheus) but being the last to play.
I think at this point being last to play is not a huge issue anymore :
- The initial "production advantage" (having one more turn of recruitment "defensively" than the other player) is exhausted,
- There is no more grud attacks to open holes in the defenseThat leaves the magician and the spectar - overall fairly minor impacts.
Yeah agree, as the number of players gets smaller the effect of being last is certainly lower. But who want to be those last players in a 5-6 player game.
My other thought for modification was to have an off-board Grud-only region "Z" that is connected to everywhere. Would create a minor partisan effect every few turns throughout the game since their stack size is limited, and they tend to attack sooner than later. It doesn't really mess up the early game where the Grud spread is wide.
The Wizard and Spectre can be significant to the last player's IMO.
The fact that the Wizard always relocates at the end of the turn makes it totally impossible for the last player to summon him as a block. As player 2 I used that tactic quite a bit against Dayyalu.
Similar disadvantage if the Spectre chows down on the last Player. I lost 5 men in his last attack, a pretty big hit. Playing last means you are unable to reinforce after an attack like that.
Calm before the storm
Morpheus moves on M with his biggest army. Notice how M has a boat, underlying Morpheus' dominance of the waves since the beginning.I bet this won't mean he will do some creative maneuvers on my borders, no sir.
Porkbelly concentrates all his troops in the dark on N. Should be a nice doomstack by now.
Dayyalu conquers 4, and for a single moment he enjoys four castles. He still doesn't have all the ones he needs.
The Spectre eats some of Morpheus' men on J and gives Dayyalu a man on F.
Also the Eternal Free Republic of The Gruds is reborn and starts pumping Gruds.
Fun fact: to win, you need to search personally the castles, the searches done by other players do not count. Even if I manage to take next turn 6, I need two extra turns of "searching" to win. This mean I need to break Morpheus, and as the Scribe predicted, essentially kill everyone because my treasures spawned silly.
Once you have found a treasure I don't think you need to still control the castle. As per the manual :
"Once found, your treasure is forever yours and will be removed from the board"
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 28 September 2023, 11h01Once you have found a treasure I don't think you need to still control the castle. As per the manual :
"Once found, your treasure is forever yours and will be removed from the board"
Well, this changes things. And I checked, it works. Well, this is an improvement.
Honestly I don't think there is any way to stop Dayyalu now except some very powerful Wizardry - especially if all he needs to do now is to search 4 and capture and search 6 (which he already has a killer stack ready to strike at). Especially if he doesn't even need to hold all three castles at the same time.
@Dayyalu don't you have a treasure sitting in Morpheus' home Castle 5 too?
Maybe I missed it but I don't remember you having any treasure in 1, 2, or 3.
EDIT:
Ha ha, I totally missed it. Man, I've been playing all along wondering how you were going to take Castle 5. Jeez...
Yeah, it's true that you don't need to hold a castle once you take the treasure out.
Quote from Porkbelly on 28 September 2023, 13h09Ha ha, I totally missed it. Man, I've been playing all along wondering how you were going to take Castle 5. Jeez...
Ah, the plan was simple and I can even tell you: crush your stack with the troops near N (due to the game structure, I can't afford having two players to fight against, I had to kill you) and then slowly grind Morpheus with the limited 4-5 men production advantage, hoping that the game would not get too stale.
The fact that I don't need to do this is another plus on The Dark Forest's design, and now I can see from where it comes from. Raiding for treasures is possible: neat to know.
Yep. Raiding for treasure was the strategy I settled on way back.. I felt more inclined to try that approach than play kingmaker against two buddies, and wanted to see if that would break up the big stacks that were forming.
Morpheus takes the boat from M and conquers E with a daring drop. Truly a lord of the waves.
Porkbelly, following his Hun instincts, has become nomadic and pushes north with his doomstack going for M.
Dayyalu searches the Castle 4 getting his second Treasure. The Magician is so kind to give him additional five recruits, added to the problem solver on G.
The Spectre eats one of Dayyalu's men and the Magician gifts him one. Again, balance.
I wonder how exactly the conversion of winner's lands to Gruds works. If all lands are just switched to, say, "001", it's workable. But if soldiers are converted 1-to-1 - the 60-Grud-doomstack would be a sight to behold
Quote from Baron Rastignak on 28 September 2023, 17h53I wonder how exactly the conversion of winner's lands to Gruds works. If all lands are just switched to, say, "001", it's workable. But if soldiers are converted 1-to-1 - the 60-Grud-doomstack would be a sight to behold
From my tests all lands are switched to 001.
The Great Grud Host would be.... I think easy to defeat truth be told. Gruds attack and split, in 3 turns you'd have reasonably sized opponents.
The amount of border gore becomes unfathomable. This will require some explanation so let's go slow.
Morpheus occupies O from Dayyalu and summons the magician on 6. This means that for this turn the doomstack can't attack the Castle on 6, giving Morpheus another turn of relative safety.
Porkbelly migrates on R, leaving more Gruds behind and in striking distance of a Castle.
Dayyalu destroys Morpheus' garrison on I.
The Spectre eats some men from Dayyalu and the Magician summons extra Gruds. The reborn Free Grud State is now sizeable and difficult to counter.
Historians will know this time period as The Very Confusing Era of Many Things All Happenning at Once in a Very Confusing Manner.