[llamabeast]

Argh, now I've lost my USB pen-disk thing, so I won't even be able to see the last turn until tomorrow.

Anyway, huzzah for victory! Or at least being in the last two.

Valerius, you scared me witless for most of the game. I think your tactic of rapid expansion followed by turtling and inoffensiveness was a cunning one. We were all scared of you, but never ganged up becuase you weren't expanding any more. However, I think you're right that you made a mistake in not getting any allies. And after the mid-game I think you definitely would have done well to start expanding again. Once Pangaea and myself had finally grown larger than you you were pretty much doomed I think.

As for my game - I had a lot of luck I think. I managed to get a lot of territory without really being in a war where I was in danger of losing much. My first war was against Pythium, and I was thoroughly outplayed by Dr. P. But Pangaea came to the rescue, and due to Xietor's impressive honesty we stuck to the original deal and I got a load of territory, despite having fought appallingly. Then came a war against Man. Man put up a good fight, but it was three on one (with Pangaea and Ermor helping), so ultimately he was doomed - and again I gained loads of land. Then came a prolonged period of stagnation, which I didn't really enjoy (note to self - always be at war in Dominions: cold wars are not fun - which makes me think your game must have been very strange Valerius).

We attempted to organise a joint attack on Vanheim (because he was so scary), but that fell apart when Arcos agreed to peace with Vanheim. Pangaea moved swiftly to take apart the weakened Arcoscephalian empire - if he wasn't going to be on our side, he was better out of the picture. Once again I got in on a winning war, with my new legion of SCs flying in to rapidly overwhelm southern Arcoscephale. Then, after a bit more Cold War time, we decided to go for Caelum. At this point we fully expected world war, but for some reason Vanheim still remained quiescent. Once again my SCs pulled off a blitz, so again I got a heap of territory without a very hard fight. The only really difficult part was killing Caelum's Father of Winters, which was a real beast to take down, and killed several of my SCs before it fell.

Then R'lyeh rose up from the seas, and attacked me all over with demon lords. Happily I had some purpose-built Harbingers with boots of quickness and flambeaus, who largely made short work of the invaders. After that R'lyeh fell quiet, and it was just a matter of the last great war, the invasion of Vanheim.

My plan there was just to sweep in and take territory before he could react. I assumed I would not be able to beat his Tartarians, but I figured they couldn't be everywhere at once. I also made a lot of use of Ghost Riders, which is frankly a ridiculously good spell. It seems my Shock and Awe tactics worked pretty well. I did lose a vast army horribly and instaneously to Vanheim's earthquake trap at the beginning of the war though.

The remaining mystery is Ermor... what was he up to?

It was indeed me who took the Chalice. I had lots of sick mages in my capital, some of my angels had afflictions (my lovely Seraph was out of action from a blow to the head for ages), and I wanted to get started making more Tartarians. But obviously that never got off the ground. It was, however, the first time I've ever cast Wish, either in single or multiplayer.

And no, I didn't Wish for the Dark Knight - I mean come on, I only just posted to say that abusing him would be illegal in my games! But every time the Bogus event happens all of those heroes disappear to the new location, even if they've been charmed.

Great game guys, thanks for playing. Hope to play with you all again soon (once I've got my internet connection up, grr). You're all excellent sports and great fun to play with.