[darloth]

I'm not too unhappy about how I played that game, although I did make a few big mistakes.

I'm pleased with how I handled my defensive play and strategic choices, and I think my choice of a sleeping Lord of the Gates was possibly the best I could have chosen given the game style - it wouldn't have been nearly so effective in a game where everyone was attacking from all sides, but as a source of cold-immune troops that could stop unequipped giants, it was wonderful. Sadly, they become equipped and I eventually ran out of other troops.

Unfortunately, I recognize now that I wasn't nearly aggressive enough early on (though I still don't know what I could do that would take out those elephants before the Wyrm took them - that really didn't help) and generally spent a few turns moving armies around without much benefit - I didn't want to lose them, especially not to the massive Hel raiding force I KNEW was there somewhere, but until recently I had nothing to really -fight- that with, as I wasn't focussing on evocation.

Overall, I think I did a good job of defending, but should have pushed a bit more, maybe lost some more forces.

Against Atlantis, I was/am expecting to finally lose, as darkness is useless, poison is slow (Foul Vapors is nice, but not -really- nice if you just die a few turns later), and all of those mages are just going to slaughter most of the chaff I can put up. I could maybe kill half army with shades before they get banished away, and poison the other half, but that second huge army, I suspect would kill my forts. I was going to donate most of my stuff to other people if the game continued.
Edit: I was going to gamble on a regenerating ethereal cold immune lucky astral shielded prophetized (so moderately air shielded - A6, not A4) soul-vortexed sauromancer in one fort, and a shedload of banes, the well equipped D27 banelord with some MR boosts in the other...

The 0-pd province was one Ermor planned to take eventually, so it didn't seem worth putting any there - I should have put 1 in to stop scouts though, yes.

Finally, some of my defensiveness may have been EA C'Tis's lack of national scouts - I had really, really bad luck with indie commanders in general, I only got 2 normal commanders and around 6 scouts for the whole game, plus two (admittedly very useful) 5d black servants. The NAP meant I couldn't retake certain provinces that I lost to the Wyrm killing indies early.

Thanks for the praise, I certainly tried my best.