Yeah. Congratulations to Sir Squirreloid for his victory. I'll end the game the tomorrow, unless I hear any objections in the next 24h.
My short AAR:
My early expansion went well enough, but I couldn't find a indy scout province to save my life. So my scouting was really lacking. When I conquered a independent province and then noticed that it actually was a province bordering Vanheim cap, I took a quick look at graphs and came into the conclusion that I was dealing with an inexperienced player. I went into "SMASH NOOB!" mode and my armies got blasted by turbo-researched thunderstrikes (oops!). I took his cap twice and started some raiding action, but I eventually noticed that I really couldn't muster a force that would be able to storm his cap without horrible losses.
It also didn't help that Arco, my ally. Was proving pretty much useless in the war effort. He was likely just waiting for me to get exhausted from the war with Van and then do a backstab galore. I decided against this obvious losing mode, made peace with Van and started looking somewhere else to expand. I read about clevelands pleas to help in the UW war effort and decided to go for it. I wanted to test how effective the N1 breathing manuals really are at giving UW access so I made some and attacked atlantis.
It was a pretty ugly war for me. Shuras proved quite ineffective because MA Atlantis gets a H3 priest in the 20+ pd and Shuras had AP like 4 with underwater item breathing penalties, meaning that they got banished pretty easily (I had no S for ammies). I was also extremely pissed about having to equip my Ghost Samurais with underwater *breathing* items (they don't breathe! It makes no sense! GAAAH!). My armies got overwhelmed pretty quickly and since my raiding was completely dependent upon Shuras, I was quickly forced to go defensive.
I was able to hold my important territory until Nehekhara came in for the save and I managed to get my lost territory back. Then "Sea of Ice" came up and my route of expansion was blocked. I was now sandwiched between Nehekhara and Van, both of which could crush my exhausted nation like a bug if they wished so. It was a lose-lose for me, so I just sat on my *** and summoned stuff so that I would go out with a bang when either Van or Nehekhara would decide to cancel their NAP with me.
When I finally canceled our NAP Nehekhara, it was too late. There was no way I could do anything in time.
Well played Squirreloid. Thanks to everyone for this good game, we really got some good RP going in here, although the "Sirs" sort of died out in the end, but that was to be excepted based on my previous experiences.
Also, a suprise!
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Lolz!