[Xietor]

In these mp games diplomacy is likely more important than battle tactics. Being able to kick butt is a very good thing, but being a feared player also tends to make you end up on the wrong side of 2 v 1 wars. And if there is no time limit or victory condition, then you may have all the time in the world to overcome a series of 2 v 1 wars and conquer the world.

However, in a game like Kingmaker, where there is a race of sorts to 15 capitals, and the winning players may never have any contact on a 900 province map with several of the other major players, then diplomacy is evn more important.

If Zeldor wins, it will be because his neighbors let him. They stayed their hands while he researched in the early game. And they stayed their hands after he got all the const. 8 artifacts. That is pretty good diplomacy.

Meanwhile in the East, many veteran players are beating each other up. And though there will finally be a major player eliminated soon(LA Marignon), it took far too long for the number of vps he had.

For my own part I saw early on LA Agartha's research and was willing to gate an army across the world to fight him in a suicidal war, but his neighbors refused to give me a friendly province to take and build a lab in from which to launch an invasion. And then when I finally had the means to launch a cross world attack without any cooperation from Zeldor's neighbors, Bandar Log and LA Marignon decide my 3 VPs would be easy to add to their own.

Having steamrolled EA ulm and Jomon, I guess they thought Ruin would roll over with no resistance as well. And that invasion put an end to Ruin's planned transworld invasion of LA Agartha. Fear not Zeldor, my resources are now depleted to the point that any such invasion would be futile, plus you are much stronger now then when i planned to attack you.