[Calahan]

Thanks for the AAR and feedback Rytek. Very much appreciated, and it certainly helped explain a thing or two. I should have paid more attention to those turn 2 prophet announcements!

This was also my first ever game as EA/LA Mictlan so had no idea if the lack of dominion spread was 'normal' or not. Knew LA Mictlan's dominion would be bad early on, but no idea how bad. And I was also somewhat relying on the VP province I picked up to hold my dominion over until the slaves came in. Will do some major testing regarding that at some point (will post my results)

With hindsight I should definitely have contacted you about diplomacy. I wasn't actually intending to fight you to be honest, which is why I moved away from your capital instead of towards it. When I clashed with your mercs, I only took that province since it seemed the most reliable to capture with just a handful of troops (still very much learning just how big a force is needed to conquer certain Indy's)

Although to be honest diplomacy is the one area of Dominions that is doing my head in with MP games. Most of my games are turning out to have less to do with strategy, tactics, skill etc. ie. the things a game should be decided on, and far more to do with how sweet tongued you can be. I personally think that far too much diplomacy goes on in MP games, especially considering the whole "there can be only one" nature of the game itself. But if you don't do diplomacy, you will lose to those who do. Think I might limit myself solely to RAND games in the future, where diplomacy and communicating is banned. Be interested to see how some players cope in that environment.

But thanks again for the lesson Rytek :-) much has been learned. Certainly look forward to playing in future games with you (and all the other players in this game of course)