[Psycho]

Valerius, I see you have ended this game. Thank you for being an excellent admin and keeping a watchful eye on the game at all times.

My pretender was a E4F4A4 Dom9 phoenix. He was there to cover the missing paths. High dominion was to make my eventual blood sacrifice push more effective and to enable more use of vampires. Also, he was a teleporting defender in my dominion capable of annihilating smaller armies with spells. Another idea, which I didn't get the opportunity to do, was to raise pd high in a province I anticipate an opponent will attack and cast flaming arrows with him.

At the start I fixated on conquering three provinces - 123, 85 and 27, which would enable me to cut off a significant amount of territory for myself. I was mostly successful and had a lead in provinces, but then TC rushed Ulm. Unfortunately those provinces were all wastes and swamps and I had big problems with cash. Very few were suitable for blood hunting as well. During my wars with Arco, Marverni and Fomoria, I recruited practically noone. I relied on mages I recruited during expansion phase and undead.

First war was with Acro. I was allied with Van and Fomoria. Acro had a big research lead and proved a good opponent. Congrats to Juffos. He was able to hold the three of us for a long time with his communions and PoD pretender. I forged mentors and hurried to constr 8. Arco was first there, but didn't forge any of the good stuff, so I took it all. And then hurried to conj 9. I defeated PoD with Djinn casting fire elementals and Arco gave up. After casting well of misery, my allies Van and Fomoria turned on me, with the help of Marverni.

In the meantime, TC managed to fight off three opponents. He defeated Pangaea while holding Rlyeh and Mictlan at bay. Congrats to Radioheart for that.

On the other side I got some elemental royalty. All I could afford, since I spent gems on unique items and started a tart factory. Marverni came with his huge armies and sieged my factory, but lost. I slowly started pushing into his territory while Fomoria and Van were mostly pestering me with rituals. I also sent my SCs to prevent Van from taking Arco capital which was the barrier between us. When Marverni was nearly defeated, Fomoria attacked with his 2 armies which were all he had and lost. One to horror harmonica, the other to barathrus and androphag archers. Then in a short time both Marverni and Fomoria went AI and I started growing rapidly. I finally had the money to buy some mages and troops. Also in Marverni lands I found the steel ovens and mount chaining (40% blood bonus). Van started taking over Fomoria and soon we had our first serious fights.

TC was attacked by Tir and finally started losing some battles, to my big relief. Valerius did a great job against him where an alliance of three failed before. But then Jazzepi took over TC and made a great comeback defeating Tir and Mictlan. Also congrats to both Valerius and Jazzepi. Rlyeh stepped out of this war at about the time Tir entered. He lurked under the waves, put up the forge knowing nobody would attack him at that point and clammed. And that brought him into great power later. Congrats to you too Executor. But I was also clamming in my steel ovens and forging fetishes, which nobody suspected I think. I also had an S5 tartarian who was wishing when he wasn't insane.

At first Van started losing badly, but then he equipped an ice devil prophet very well and won a first major victory over me destroying an army of mine and killing a HoF tartarian and EK. He started playing more cautiously then, hiding inside castles more. And I was afraid of the ice devil, since he was ridiculously powerful in cold dominion, so I took my time. Slowly I was taking him over and this last turn I managed even to take out the ice devil. He also proved a good opponent, so congrats to you Aethyr as well. Although, it puzzles me that you never once tried to magic duel my astral tarts.

In the meantime I was moving blood mages into Van and Fom lands to blood hunt. They had so many provinces with about 6000-7000 population. I summoned nearly all blood SCs in my blood discount province. Summoning 3-4 tarts per turn for a long time. Forging jade daggers and putting up temples and castles around my empire. I still had to get makabiel and three more ice devils (those were planned for this turn and next) and then was going to stockpile blood slaves for dom push. I had 2 enchantress sites, 2 sorceress sites and one high magus. I recruited all of them each turn. Sorceresses are definitely the best indy mages, they have so many uses. Also this last turn I was going to storm Van's castle with 20% conj bonus site, which, oddly, he wasn't using until the last several turns.

And then TC suddenly attacked Rlyeh's capital and the game abruptly ended. It was great fun for me and I am sad it's over. I'd rather still be playing this one.