I basically had no real strategy
. I saw that there were no banned spells and thought I would go into the game, cast something nasty and go down in a blaze of glory. I got off to a good start, sort of, with pretty solid research that had me on top or close to the top on research for most of the early game. I was all set to go forward, except that once I got into the game I did seemingly everything in my power to prevent myself from going through with it! I made an ally early, which was completely contradictory to what I was planning to do. Then I for some inane reason agreed to a 10 turn nap with someone who was no real threat to me. Then I began plotting with 3 or 4 others to sneak attack ma pythium, who was at that time clearly the strongest player (and my only other neighbor) but each of my potential allies proceeded to get dragged into wars which ended up completely derailing the plan. I really wish I'd gone through with my original plan, cast burden of time, and just invited people to kill me like I'd initially intended. Unfortunately yet another thing that went into derailing that plan was a horrible lack of D gems
.