With the latest Ermorian and Agarthan victories, over Ulm and Man respectively, controlling the globals, and two thirds of the map, I believe we've managed a very difficult task against some incredibly tough, resilient, and crafty opponents, and this game can be declared finished.
I know Ermor wanted to do a couple more turns, but I've just sent a skeleton turn in to clean up a few provinces and not stale, and I'm not sure how excited anyone else is about continuing.
I want everyone to know that my position was mostly about getting lucky and my chosen strategy just panning out. My early game was secured due to having a very excellent position in the southeast corner, Arco to the north having a slow start and not grabbing too much land, Ermor to the west, focusing farther west when Machaka invaded, and of course an alliance with said Ermor early on.
Things continued to go well when my only other neighbor, Oceania went AI for unknown reasons after I turned back an early invasion from them, and this cemented a position I could consolidate and build towards mid/endgame.
My strategy consisted of heavy diplomacy, limited aggression and significant defensive play, really extensive scouting and scrying, and building up vast gem producers for the greater part of the game. Being left alone for quite a long time and wasting few resources on continuous conflict was a large part of that.
My rainbow pretender was able to fill in the role of casting/forging anything I needed, early on the boosters which let me fill in everything else.
This allowed my gem income to be really grow to become off the charts, and to be free with such great spells such as Earth Attack, Blight, etc. as well forging significant amounts of equipment.
I was also lucky in getting a garnet amazon site early on which let me dive into some bloodhunting which otherwise would have been very difficult.
I can't help but mention how important scouting/scrying is. By knowing who is where, and with what, let's me really pick and choose diplomacy, battles, strategy, etc. and how to best deal with a specific opponent.
Hoplosternum deserves mention for being a trustworthy ally until we needed to conquer each other to win the endgame, meister_miagi for pure resilience and character in playing and staying around in a mostly unwinnable position when I've seen other players quit, and SSJ deserves mention for making me want to pull out my hair in frustration more than a few times.
Lastly, I was lucky that Saxon turned out to be such a great and trustworthy ally, with advice and opinions that significantly improved my game. As far as I can tell, Saxon's success can be attributed to his mastery of Ermor tactics, beginning with his skillful defense against the bless-rush by Machaka. His position was further improved by Van being domkilled by mistake early on, which left a vacuum that was able to be filled by him and Machaka, and eventually, just him. Watching many of his fights through scouts, was both inspirational and educational.
Thank you everyone. You've all made a very fun, challenging, and enlightening game.