[Saxon]

As much as I have grown attached to this match, I have to agree with Darkstone. Further play is pretty much foreordained and, while the results might vary by a turn or two, the outcome is clear.

I credit my success to lucky initial placement and diplomacy. Where I started was a long way from any other capitals. Given that I staled my first two turns, I could have been in trouble, but got lucky. I had a SC pretender, which I was able to turn into a lot of early provinces.

Karlem, as Machaka, managed a quick dom kill and then came after me with a SC pretender Cyclops and those holy spiders. The same turn I ran into Darkstone, so I messaged both. Darkstone offered a much better deal and was very transparent in his discussions. Essentially, he built trust, explained a deal and explained why it was good for both of us; so I went for the deal. It later grew into an alliance, largely based on verified trust. I can not emphasis enough how critical this alliance would be to our success.

Karlem went for the rush knockout, but Ermor is the wrong nation to try that on. It has a spell called Apostasy, which essentially charms holy units. Once the spider rider is killed, the very strong spider has low magic resistance and is easy to charm. His bless troops quickly turned into my bless troops and I then pinned his SC down with my death bless, which racked up afflictions. After that, I pretty much took the entire bottom quarter of the map.

Diplomacy was critical throughout. I was able to work deals with many nations to get magic boosters and, most critically, the Chalice. I was also able to set up some good NAP and even get a few attacks made to my advantage.

SSJ, as Eriu, launched a wise attack on me with Wind Ride. He saw my lead on the graphs and figured I was a long term danger. At that time I did not have the Chalice and did not have a good end game plan, so I did not agree with him. I felt Pyrthium was the real danger long term. In any case, I had a very hard time dealing with Eriu and if he had invested more in it, it might have taken me out. Truly, two or three more of those attacks, at the same time, would have crippled me. It certainly slowed me down a lot. I was also engaged in a war with Rhyleh, which saw him stall and maul me. Darkstone and I were coordinating and Ray invaded from the north, but meister-magi still hurt us badly. It would be many turns later that Darkstone finally took him out. As Darkstone said, a great performance for a nation in a very tough position.

Pyrthium and Ulm then launched a solid joint attack against me. Ulm came by land and took a fair bit, but I was not worried. They were so far behind in research that their large armies were really just targets for spells. However, I was limited in what I could do because of a massive air attack by Pyrthium. Harbringers and a Queen of Elemental air, took massive chunks of my back territory and had me reeling. I eventually managed to get penetration items and spent a fortune mind hunting them, but eventually killed them off. I also made a deal with Hoplosternum for the Chalice, some diplomacy which led to later success.

By that stage I was getting a lot of Tarts and, though painful experience, learned how to use them. Without them and the Chalice, I would not have been able to take the next steps and probably would have fallen to the next combined attack. However, with winged boots, I was able to move quickly. The only reason I had boots was that I had traded with Man for a Bag of Wind, again, diplomacy.

I cleaned up my back yard and jumped over the water to invade Ulm and Pyrthium. I chose to focus on Ulm, as they were weaker and I hoped to get lots of gem income from them. It was at this stage that Ylvali started staling, which did mean I did not face a counter attack. I had assumed she had been saving up for a new offensive and really feared she was going to hammer me. I had calculated she could get some of the high level global astral spells up, which could have been very bad for everyone else.

Ulm had some castles in key locations, but once I got the capital, they were in trouble. I also started a dominion push, as I saw they were very low. In the end, I think Man’s dominion did the actually killing, but I made sure it was low enough to happen.

When Piggles joined us, Ulm was in the final stages of collapse, so I turned to Pyrthium. Piggles made me pay for my advances, but was not able to stop them. I have been picking provinces off and he has not been able to recover them. Piggles, you might think your pretender has me pinned in that castle. Take another look at the current dominion and what it does to his hit points and regeneration. I was coming after him this turn with regular forces plus petrifaction, paralyze and soul slay!

Also worth a mention in diplomacy is a big thank you to Darkstone. We set up a good working relationship and supplied each other with a steady flow of information and ideas. Game wise, I got a great deal, as his intelligence network was remarkable and provided me with both strategic and tactical information. Thank you again for pointing out my Wraith Lord was using his fist instead of a sword! Also, having a rock solid alliance allowed me to focus on my troubles. If that had not been in place, I am sure I would have gone down to Eriu or Pyrthium. I suspect that Darkstone would have also had a lot of problems with Arco if he had not been able to focus. More important, I gained a lot of good insights into both people and the game through our discussions.

I am very curious to see what is happening in other parts of the game. I propose that we post our last turns somewhere, so interested parties can have a look at each other’s nations. Can anyone suggest where we could upload the turns? Alternatively, I would be happy to email my turn to anyone and would be happy to receive the turns in the same way. Let me know your address if interested. I am reachable at scottis100 at hotmail . com Also, if anyone wants to discuss an aspect of the game we just played, let me know.

Unfortunately, due to family considerations, this has to be my last full game. Through diplomacy, my wife has agreed to me playing 48-72 hour turn around games without long term attachments. I am going to offer myself as a sub for the slower games and see what I can get. I look forward to meeting with you there!