Duel Game Beta Feedback

[Lord Thanatos]

LT played the UN vs me as the Nomad.   Our posts were up above.

UN will be just fine. In 2nd Cycle I finished second with them in 2015 Championship and came within a single failed order of winning via Rex with UN. That is only to say I feel comfortable saying played as a straight diplomatic kingdom against a single opponent the UN will perform well.

[Mauler]

Just wrapped EL vs DW

A hat tip to the Gray Mouser for a game well played. I thought that the game was over when he caught the lions share of my agents and emissaries in my capital, but lucked out with the escapes.

I think that the disadvantage of the wider range of wizard competence is more keenly felt in this format. My suspicion, I'll let The Gray Mouser speak to this himself, was that I had more resources to scout and shore up shortages in food and gold due to my more significant wizard cadre and their spell selection.

I also think that all of the tweaking done to kingdoms in the larger map are more keenly felt in this smaller format. The starting locations of kingdoms like the DE and RD in the 2nd cycle were meant to make them easier to attack or take longer to come together in a single region. In this format, I think that the lack of those weaknesses are more telling.

Our game was fun with a good back and forth pitch. When I intercepted the battle hardened DW group, I thought that it would be about even but I came away with a significant win that took the wind out of the DW's sails. That and the hit from winter, carried me over the finish line.

Here are the turns:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0...sp=sharing

Lots of fun and a great match!

Mauler

[The Gray Mouser]

Back at you, Mauler - good match, well played.

I also have a few observations about the Duel format from this contest between Elves and Dwarves.

The Dwarves (and likely by implication, all kingdoms) have to play to their strengths, which are the stout military, political emissaries, and special abilities.

On the things done favorably, probably the best was gaining The Last Herd of the Winged Stallions early on in an enigma encounter.  That was pretty huge, especially for the Dwarves.  Unfortunately, the player probably didn't exploit that as well as possible. We also had foreknowledge of the Axe of Farin, and also recovered the Sword of Alvinitar.  We took Ezerbrite a turn after the Elves took Westania, and with a 10 brigade army marched on Sundown and took it with acceptable losses, while our 3 dukes were also busy.  I really thought the Elves would lose control of Westania, but they must have held on with like 52%. 

Now, several player mistakes by the Dwarves, and some bad luck.  Recommendation to most any kingdom:  do not fight an Elven army group in the plains, let alone the forest.  The missile phases are withering, even with the Dwarves having War Machines.  And the Elves have flanking in the plains.  Wasn't pretty.  I did take the Elven capital, got maybe 7 prisoners, but I believe everyone of them escaped.  I should have had a standing order already setup to execute them but didn't.  That one thing probably cost the game.  Also, while in control of Ezerbrite, had two bad results of denigrations failing, that also kind of cost the game.  Additionally, the Elven agents were really on their game: it seems every mission was successful.

On the format, I believe the changes made after these games started are good and were important, particularly having both sides subject to Summer only.  The Dwarves had the Elves on their heels during Winter (now not a factor), but were eliminated during Summer, when all PC's were now player controlled.  With the new, happy change that transfer orders don't count against the order limitation, the implications go beyond that one aspect.  I think players will dig deeper into their bag of tricks with extra orders available. 

The Elves recruited heavily, and had a force of 20 brigades, whereas I don't think I had more than 14.  More recruiting is probably good in this format.  The Dwarves had plenty of gold, probably 150k at the end of the game, but not enough food.  Villages seem more important, but again, the changes to the season effect will alter that.

While there was forum conversation about having all 24 kingdoms available and UM accommodated that, in my opinion some of those will not be good matches, unless a lot of handicapping is desired to offset the relative strength of the players.  I think there will be more fun, rather than less, with some staple matchups, such as Elves vs. Dark Elves or Dwarves, Amazons vs. Rangers, Sorcerer vs. Necromancer are a few that come to mind. 

Overall, Duel is a nice addition to the format library and there certainly is no way to complain about a 3 v 1, etc.  Even though you only have one opponent on a smallish map, in some ways its more intense, kind of like a boxing match.  BTW, I think the map itself works well with the terrain and the location of the cities and how that effects both strategy and tactics.

[Rogal]

1009 Halflings vs. Lizardmen

Well I was the 1/2lings and lost but I did learn about this 3rd cycle game.  I thought the games were going to turn 10, so my main focus was to learn the special features of this kingdom and the new interface/rules of this new edition.  Starting capital was in the swamp, but with so few turns, I wanted the trading company up.  I did my old school maneuvers to try and get my region as fast as possible and with two cities, that was not to hard to do.  Now the seasons hit me so I was limited on doing my next goal, which was get and use a High Priestess.  I made the mistake of not reading the rules and so it took me till turn ten to finally fire off a divine pop center spell.  Troops were also an issue cause there were a few issues with hiring but finally started getting Huns (No clue as to why Attila's boys would hang around with Frodo).  In the end, I am sorry to say that I was not super excited once I saw turn 11 arrive and my orders reflected it by just building my home up and not using my pretty impressive political corp.  

Notes I took away from the game:
1)  Kingdom match-ups need to be looked at, for I do not think a super strong  military kingdom will have many issues with one who needs to draft normal soldiers.  Sure experienced players can make this work, but for newer players, 2 similar kingdoms could work much better, like Elf vs. Dark elves.
2)  The new interface is great, but there is a learning curve if your use to the old system.
3)  Reading all the new rules should be done and do not just assume since you know 2nd edition that its basically the same orders.  It took me ten turns to get off a locate population divination and I could not get a 2nd one off because I figured I did not need to read the game changes.

[Lord Diamond]

1009 Halflings vs. Lizardmen

Well I was the 1/2lings and lost but I did learn about this 3rd cycle game.  I thought the games were going to turn 10, so my main focus was to learn the special features of this kingdom and the new interface/rules of this new edition.  Starting capital was in the swamp, but with so few turns, I wanted the trading company up.  I did my old school maneuvers to try and get my region as fast as possible and with two cities, that was not to hard to do.  Now the seasons hit me so I was limited on doing my next goal, which was get and use a High Priestess.  I made the mistake of not reading the rules and so it took me till turn ten to finally fire off a divine pop center spell.  Troops were also an issue cause there were a few issues with hiring but finally started getting Huns (No clue as to why Attila's boys would hang around with Frodo).  In the end, I am sorry to say that I was not super excited once I saw turn 11 arrive and my orders reflected it by just building my home up and not using my pretty impressive political corp.  

Notes I took away from the game:
1)  Kingdom match-ups need to be looked at, for I do not think a super strong  military kingdom will have many issues with one who needs to draft normal soldiers.  Sure experienced players can make this work, but for newer players, 2 similar kingdoms could work much better, like Elf vs. Dark elves.
2)  The new interface is great, but there is a learning curve if your use to the old system.
3)  Reading all the new rules should be done and do not just assume since you know 2nd edition that its basically the same orders.  It took me ten turns to get off a locate population divination and I could not get a 2nd one off because I figured I did not need to read the game changes.

I am curious as to what aspect of the 3rd Cycle changes caused you ro not get a divine until turn ten. Was it the whole temple-noble maiden-high priestess sequence?

[Rogal]

Yes , it was that and the seasons made me put it off as well.  Since I did not bother to read, I just guessed on getting a maiden then go from there.  I got frustrated since I usually had a 2nd cycle game going on as well that was more important to me, so I kind of did not get super concerned on if I figured out the Divination stuff real fast.