[DrPraetorious]

Other people should feel free to expand.

Firstly, maerverni is not a strong position in the early game, even in experienced hands. Starting out in between two double-bless face-huggers, you were probably screwed no matter what you did.

But and however, you did make some defensive mistakes -
1) Don't split your army against a stronger opponent. Against a weaker opponent, you can split your army, but against a stronger opponent, it enables me to eat you piecemeal. If this means leaving one border completely undefended, this is what you have to do.

2) You want to fight as close to your capital as possible, so that you've had a few extra turns to reinforce. In fact, you want to make me *siege* your capital with your forces in it.

3) Get useful combat magic as soon as possible. Druids with gifts from heaven probably would not have been enough to save you - but it would have caused me horrific losses, especially in the afformentioned castle siege.

If you were heading for Gifts of Heaven as fast as you could and hadn't reached it yet, you probably should have just retreated. I know that's hard to do being attacked from both sides, though.

In general, I think Marverni is a poor choice for novice players, especially in MP, because you're so vulnerable to the rush. It's very powerful in the mid-game (with the ability to recruit druids everywhere. Aiee!) but the marverni national troops are weak even by human standards, even though they have competitive requisites.

Good game and good luck!