[Micah]

Thanks Wraith, this will be one less thing to worry about while I'm out of town. The Forge was mostly motivated by Utgard's E9 pretender/bless, and wanting to take it away from Amhazair, and that providing a guaranteed overwrite, as opposed to being proactive about boosting my own power...I did chip in 800 or more gems for it though, so I felt I could demand forging rights.

The only bit of "manipulation" that I feel I am guilty of was the ceasefire with Marignon when Utgard came into the war, but that was because I had my back to the wall between having Gath's remnants coming after me while I was barely holding off the biggest, nastiest nation in the game. I quite overestimated Utgard's strength (he should have been much better off than I was with national clammers and a better start) and that ended up taking him out of the running, which I hadn't envisioned. I figured that if I could hold off Marignon for 6 turns Utgard could too, especially knowing that help would be coming. Once Amhazair broke his seraph force on Utgard's cap it put me solidly into the lead, a position I wasn't about to give up. So yeah, a bit of guilt there.

Anyhow, more reports may be coming later, gotta get to my flight now!