[DrPraetorious]

Abysia, post-mortem:

Early on, I decided to explore the central ring. This turns out to have been a mistake diplomatically - 1) I found Caelum, and 2) it caused everyone to go nuts over my rapid expansion.

If I'd simply stomped Pythium, I'd have been in much better shape.

Saurmarignon (I am still encamped on Saurs capital) offered me an NAP early on. This is not a sign of great strength - and I was not impressed with Saur's display of military acumen (I'm encamped on his capital, as I mentioned) so I said "fine, if you let me keep what I've got in the inner ring, we have an NAP."

He responded by signing a treaty with Caelum, and attacking me. Now, at this point I tried to get either Saur or Caelum to back off, and they negotiated a bit but basically they had a treaty and Caelum wouldn't back off.

Sauromatia may have been willing to back off, if I let him have the territory in the ring. On the one hand, this was territory near his capital, which is I guess why he thought he was somehow entitled to it. On the other hand, I'd just whallopped two of his armies (he did better later on, by deploying all of his mages while most of mine were at home) and killed his God. So I said, "give me 80 gems and the current border and I'll let you live." Unsurprisingly, he said no, although I will say - he'd be in much better shape now if he'd given me those 80 gems and left me alone. He's picked up six provinces in exchange for several more armies, and a lot of time spent with his capital turned off.

So I had a choice to make - I could take some disadvantageous deal with Saur, but at that point I'd purely be playing as a spoiler to prevent Micah+QM from winning, OR, I could fight all comers and get this over with quickly.

The choice is clear. Given that it was 2 or 3 on 1 (which does not enable the full spread of strategic choices one might desire) I don't think I did too badly.