[Zooko]

It is a nice tradition to discuss the strategy of a game after it is over so that others may learn from it.

My strategy was simple: recruit Niefelheim giants which have high number of hit points and are sacred, and use the Green Dragon Pretender with 9 Nature magic to give those units regeneration and berserk. By attacking fearlessly with those sacred units, my starting Jotunheim army, a Niefel Jarl, and the Green Dragon Pretender, I had the highest number of provinces every turn until turn 15 (with the exception that one turn my partner Arcoscephale had a higher number of provinces).

Then our strategy went into phase 2 when Jotunheim came into contact with Marignon. In phase 2, I focussed almost all of my resources on damaging Marignon's armies and depriving him of provinces, even though this was risky and expensive for me. I lost a lot of units in two separate losing battles, including my Pretender, but more reinforcements from my home castles arrived, I recalled my Pretender, and I was able to prevent Marignon from retaking his provinces by committing almost all of my armies, including my Pretender, plus a huge provincial defense (20, 26, and 32 provincial defense in three of the contested provinces), and a Niefel Jarl casting Rain, as discussed earlier.

The point of this strategy was that even if I lost, my reckless attack would probably have weakened Marignon enough that my partner Arcoscephale could finish him off.

This strategy pretty much worked. Pythium apparently tried to help his partner Marignon, since a couple of assassins from Pythium attacked my commanders at various points, but basically it seemed to me that Marignon was overwhelmed by facing two enemies.

My partner Arcoscephale and I traded gold, gems, intelligence, and magic items quite vigorously throughout the game.

So one lesson that I draw is that if you play a two-vs-two game, you have to have good scouting or other kinds of intelligence and watch out for both of your enemies coming at you at once. If you see them coming then -- I don't know what to do -- get into a defensive posture and encourage your partner to attack their rears?

Perhaps the map was too big. I never had any contact with Pythium, and I think the contact between Pythium and Arcoscephale was limited. So perhaps it wasn't fair to Marignon that he happened to start in a location where, in 40 turns or so, both of his enemies could reach him, but his partner Pythium couldn't reach either of them.

This was the Inland map with 150 ? provinces. That's 37.5 provinces per player, which seems way too much to me.

Too bad there isn't a wraparound map with only 100 provinces.