[Warhammer]

Seriously man, you need to chill out about that whole thing. Stop having a persecution complex.

You let Oceania have your provinces. You didn't combat them. You even posted to that effect earlier in this thread. You went on to say that your whole reason for staying in the game at that point was to deny me a win. Fair enough.

Since Oceania and I are at war now, I can come clean about this whole thing.

After Lanka was destroyed, Caelum was the initial target. He was big and menacing at the time, and I knew they could put up some killer armies since they are a SP favorite of mine. Around that time, Helheim was destroyed. Oceania went flying up in the province count, and I realized that he would have to be dealt with. Caelum had contacted me about this, or maybe I contacted Caelum, I can't find the first PM in that thread, anyway, my target changed from Caelum to Oceania.

My fears regarding Oceania revolved around the fact that I had been worried about them getting "critical" land mass. After they joined in to finish Helheim, I noticed that they had really jumped up in provinces. So, I talked to C'tis about it, and started talking to Caelum about it. Meanwhile, Oceania is badgering me about going after Caelum at this time, who was the original target. The problem is, I needed to research construction 6 so I could get the good water items. Get that researched, then I have to transfer all the stuff to the front lines. Meanwhile, Caelum has patched things up with Oceania.

My fear all along, was that Caelum was trying to separate C'tis and Oceania from working with me. I forget who sent me a PM about this, but regardless, I knew there was some talk of this. I pointed out to C'tis that Caelum had been moaning about being in the middle of the board, everyone could gang up on him, etc., just before he annihilated that nation. So in all my dealings with Caelum, I am wary. Perhaps I was looking for something to be wary of, I don't know. But, my dealings with Caelum were much less cut and dry in complete contrast to my dealings with both Oceania and C'tis.

Anyway, trying to buy time for my move against Oceania who about now is really wanting me to go after Caelum, I suggest to Caelum that I take several of his provinces to buy a couple of turns so I could hit Oceania hard. I would pay him the income from the provinces and even suggested him sending an army down to "retake" the provinces later (i.e. after I hit Oceania).

The general gist of the strategy was to have Caelum hit the northern territories while I hit the southern territories. Meanwhile, I get a note from Caelum about having to watch out for C'tis. This plays up my fears about Caelum splitting my tacit alliances even more. The result was I go on high "screwage" alert at this time. I then shoot a note to Caelum, I privately called it my "Come to Jesus Note" (a play on the "Come to Jesus Meetings" at work) basically outlining my concerns and how I am trying to switch alliances here, and he wasn't making it easy (wish I could find that PM, I see the responses to it, but it doesn't have the original post). Part of the problem was that Caelum's response was the exact sort of wounded response I would have given. That was followed shortly thereafter by Caelum moving an army incorrectly, right before we were to attack Oceania. This just happens to put the army right by me. At this time, being suspicious, I put down a whole bunch of Astral Windows on the Caelum's border provinces with Oceania in the north, the result? I don't see a dang army on their mutual border.

I am at the time for a decision. I basically have to choose one of two options. I can switch alliances and go after Oceania which would be to the benefit of all, but has the big problem of getting screwed in doing so by Caelum hanging over my head. The result would be me being quickly eliminated from the game if things went bad. The other option was to go with the original plan and go after Caelum. The problem here was that Oceania would gain critical mass. My solution is to have C'tis deal with Yomi, since he needed and wanted to do something, and then play mediator between the two to counter the Oceania menace. My end game plan was to get to the final two with C'tis since he and I worked so well together and I felt I would have the upper hand when that time came, primarily due to magic diversity. Yomi would have worked as well, but I knew I would have more problems with them due to their ability to create pretty good SCs. Plus, I hadn't worked with Yomi much throughout the game as I had with C'tis.

Anyway, I am having an absolute nightmare trying to figure out which course to take. I call my buddy that also plays Dom3, only SP though, and talk to him about the situation. He basically agrees with my assessment, and asks the question about how much experience Caelum has in these sorts of games. I say I don't know, and then he basically says that I need to assume the worst.

So, assuming the worst, I opt to stay aligned with Oceania, but... and this is a key part of my thought process, but I will see how Caelum responds to me taking his territory, and see if there is any hope of strong-arming him into going after Oceania. Basically, "I took your territory because I couldn't trust you, are you going to attack Oceania like we discussed, or not? If not, I'll keep on going." However, it never came to that because I saw Caelum's response to my move, and decided that I had misread Caelum (experience playing diplomatic style games), and that there was no point in trying to get him to go after Oceania and repatriating the territory.

From there, I was hoping for a quick knockout, and I would have achieved that if not for the retreat of the big army of Eagle Kings back to his capital. The heck of it is that was the largest and best army in the game at that point. I squandered many of my sacred troops in the first attack, and then in another botched attempt where I didn't realize that someone who teleports/cloud trapezes into a territory fights before your army gets there...

At that point, I realize that I have a valuable tool in my arsenal for building up for the end game. Since Caelum has become my sworn enemy, I can build up my forces and my spell power while I prepare for the knockout blow against Oceania. Unfortunately, squandering a few turns earlier in the game (what killed me was the time and mages lost in taking down Lanka's pretender) was my doom here. If I had 5 turns at most, I think I would be in a very good position vis a vis Oceania.

As Caelum points out, why am I so optimistic? Magic diversity. I have the most diverse magic of anyone on the board right now. Plus, my sacreds can resist most stuff fired at me with the right buff, much better than any other nation's troops. The only problem was I needed a few more turns to prepare.

All in all, it has been a great game. I consider it a success because I did make it to the end game (3 players or so, depends on the flow of the game). That is always my goal in these sorts of games because the start of the game is largely dependent upon who you start next to, and who your neighbor's neighbors are. The mid-game you can show your worth and make your move for the end game. The end game is largely determined by your position entering it. Depending upon the situation, you might have a coalition against you, or you might be able to take everyone on with ease. Either way, the only thing you can consistently count on is making it to the end game.