Grim from Tien’Chi sent me some comments about the game. If other players want to add some, I’ll put their words here.

Grim (Tien’Chi)

This was my second multiplayer game in Dom 5, the first started only 3 days earlier. And this was my first time with EA T’ien Ch’i in Dominions. As is, I hadn’t really had time to evaluate the new blessing system properly, and thus created a rather strange blessing, though not entirely bad.

My neighbour was Hinnom that had an imprisoned pretender. Both me and Mictlan attacked him and, together, we broke him … it was so early in the game that we didn’t even have time to see his blessing ! I got some provinces and the capital, while Mictlan got a large share of provinces. I tried to bargain an exchange of Hinnom (the capital) for several provinces, but Mictlan refused.

Afterwards, I had big plans. First, I wanted to go to war with Ur and get as much territory as possible. Then, the goal was to make a long term peace with Marverni and go to war with the lizards (obviously my most dangerous rival in the neighbourhood). I tried to get Mictlan to help me by opening a route for him to attack Ur, meaning I would give him some provinces to open the path … But he refused. So I went to war with Ur alone.

Some time after the first engagements with Ur, Mictlan broke off our NAP. Until then the war with Ur had been a success and even though I had to make peace, I kept all the provinces captured so far. On the downside I had now a rather large border with C’ti … And indeed, they took advantage of my war with Mictlan and I had to sue for peace. The peace agreement was rather in my disfavour and the lizards took back a large part of what I had taken from Ur …

The war with Mictlan was a bit boring. The first part of the war had some fun in the defensive manoeuvers, but afterward it was just stomping over his armies up to his capital. When it was over, I understood I had lost my momentum against C’ti. If I had gathered my main armies against him instead of Mictlan, I could have done something, but now it was too late. His reasearch was way beyond mine, as well as his economy. Besides, Marverni was overcoming Ur and it was time to finish the job against them.

The throne of Winter wasn’t necessary to me … but the Steel Ovens, with their discount on construction, I really wanted it ! Considering the quality of the cheapest mages of mages of T’ien Ch’i, magic items were needed to make them somehow useful.

The battle with Marveni for the throne didn’t represent anything special. Boars are helpless against trolls given they can’t trample them. However, may be I had taken too many powerful mages as two Masters of Five elements managed to get killed by the boars (blood vengeance).

At that time, I also tried to improve my gem income as much as possible with the globals, and then focused my research on the Arcane Nexus. When I finally got it, I first equipped 4 super mind hunters, and then started the Golem factory. In fact I could field 4 fully equipped golems per turn, along with a Huli Jing support mage !

I had almost decided to set up a protective dome on the throne of the Moon, until I realized that I would then prevent myself from teleporting units on it … Also, I had moved some months ago a large army from the throne to Mictlan to quench unrest, depriving it of a powerful defense … in fact I thought I could rely only on my mages and teleporters … Too much self-confidence, I believe …

And then when Helheim attacked, I had no clue this would be the ultimate battle that would decide the fate of the game. As such, I didn’t send everything I could, especially given I was expecting Astral corruption to come up soon. I wanted to keep on invoking and forging to the last moment, and the mages appointed to this task had to stay at work instead of fighting for the throne. I could have sent more mages, my pretender, …

About the battle itself, I had a flame spirit that was supposed to cast Vafur Flames just before the battle … he was killed by the Murdering Winter ! A simple ring of frost could have changed things for him, and may be for the outcome of the battle …

Glory to the winner !