Corbeau fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Mar 25, 2017

Meme Poker Party fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Mar 25, 2017

I just got a throne victory in Battlesnek Earth as Marignon on turn 56.

My Pretender:


The overly long story of Pissbitch's rise to power that everybody now has to listen repeatedly to for the next several aeons:

I was concerned early on, because I first-turn expanded into a forest using both Pissbitch and my staring army, with mixed results. The positive thing is that I gained a province with lizard shamans on the 2nd turn who went on to provide buckets of research and battle communions, but Pissbitch was cursed by a shaman in her first battle. I had to be extra careful expanding with her after that. From then on I mostly used her in conjunction with some regular troops just to be safe. I also hired most of the mercenaries and recruited lots of lizards to fight for me. All of this allowed me to conquer a sweet 29 provinces by turn 12, exceeding my previous record of 27 (also with Marignon led by a Virtue). Although I should note that I called for two water nations and we got three, so there was a bit more room for everybody on land.

Turn 12:


In the second year I focused on taking the northern provinces, building tons of forts and doing lots of research and site searching. I was largely unmolested except for when Oceania (tagichatn) took the northernmost throne a turn before I was going to. Not being willing to tolerate a hated water nation on dry land, I prepared for war. After I "bumped" into an Oceanian army of 50 centaurs and wiped it with my Chalice Knights et al, I suggested to Atlantis (Burna Boy) that Oceania was weak and should be invaded. I was hoping to distract Oceania by opening up a second front, but it turned out to be a lovely and undesirable Throne of Law anyway, so after some diplomancy I bribed Oceania with 1500 gold to sink back into the waves. This chain of events possibly resulted in the unintentional destruction of Atlantis, since they invaded Oceania on my advice right after I handed over the huge bags of cash to Oceania.

By the end of year 2 I had 50 provinces and about 4k income a turn, on a faction with sacred upkeep reduction on practically everything. Somebody had found a static site that provided income graphs, so I was starting to hear ravings over the grapevine about Marignon being yuge and having twice everyone's income. This was most unwelcome, so I had to start plotting distractions. To my south was weakling Abysia (Shogeton), a faction I had no fear of whatsoever since I had researched Light of the Northern Star and Stellar Cascades. Plus, our borders was largely cut off by mountains allowing me to block him off entirely with a pair of well-garrisoned forts. My other neighbours were Pan (Naksu) and Asphodel (howareu). I felt like that was far too many centaurs, especially with sea centaur neighbours, but Asphodel could be dealt with later so I wanted Pan gone first. I reasoned that the torturous turns of Dryad seduction would only get worse the longer the game went on and somehow convinced myself to invade Pan with a bunch of male, human commanders.

It turns out that Pan was also plotting to attack me with Abysia around that time. I doubt that Abysia could realistically have done much to bother me but I tried to bring them over to my side nonetheless, since they could at least serve as a distraction if they became my ally and I needed to mollify the "holy poo poo have you seen Marignon graphs" crowd for a while. After giving Abysia absurd promises, including something like 75% of Pans territory, Pan's capital, bribes of gold, and sage wisdom regarding the inherent evil of temptress harlots I finally brought Abysia around to my point of view. Smart man! And he was the guy who was telling everybody what a threat I was, so I was glad to have him as an ally.

The Flame Bros promply burnt Pangaea to the ground. It was a tough slog and many Marignon Friars and Abysian Warlocks were seduced by Dryads, but we eventually gassed them all. Go team! (the Abysian pretender was later banished for eternity!)

My only concern at this point was my limited magic path diversity and gem income, although I had broken into nature quite nicely. I begged everyone in the game to make me a flaming skull until Nazca (jsoh) offered to forge me one for 3000 gold, which was a huge loving rip off. He was lucky that I possessed Crassus levels of disgusting wealth. He was on the other side of the planet from me and fighting against Tien'Chi so fine, whatever. Sucks to be China I guess. I think China was about to start losing anyway but this was the second time that my gold contributed to the downfall of a nation. Eventually I got the fire skull thingy from Nazca and cast Eternal Pyre. Since I had alchemists from a site providing me with +50% gold from distilling fire gems, I made my gold back quite easily. I eventually got some Troll Kings on top of my Harbingers and empowered a Shaman in nature so I was set for magic paths.

Suddenly, Sea Hitlers. I was invaded by the treacherous Oceania while subduing Pangaea. He sent lots of sea-centaur armies at me and it tied up my secondary armies for a while. He was making it difficult for me to progress towards my goals. I was still able to conquer Pangaea while holding him off, but I'd rather be crushing Pan while also moving towards a throne victory since I was haunted by he spectre of a global coalition rising against me. So of course I diplomanced a bunch of gullible fools into a coalition against Oceania, instead. There was a grand scheme for Caelum to cast Thetis' Blessing and then Marignon, Abysia, Caelum and Vanarus would triumphantly sweep into the seas and execute the finned ones. Sadly, it was a total shambles. I got my rear end kicked undersea with the loss of many troops and so did Caelum. Not sure Abysia or Vanarus even participated. So the plan went from glorious conquest to desperate containment; Caelum cast a magnificent 200-gem Sea of Ice. Did he alchemize all his other gems?! And then, somehow, it was dispelled. But by this point Oceania had lost interest in me and was invading Caelum. N

At this point I decided to go for a throne victory. I needed five more points and there was a level-three throne on my border, so I just needed to cap that and get two more points from elsewhere. I had two options, once of which would have been invading Nazca and Asphodel simultaneously for a pair of 1-point thrones in order to win. But I decided to invade my good friend and long-term pal Abysia instead for a 2-point throne in his territory, since I felt that there was risk of war on three or four fronts if I went with the other plan. A thousand troops split into three armies overran his defences and I worked my way towards the thrones, eventually triple-claiming the remaining 5 points I needed on the last turn for the win.

TL;DR I hyper-expanded, diplomanced and bribed my way to victory.

Mukip fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Mar 30, 2017