nice arr earcaraxe, congrats on the victory. It seems that, on such a small map, great scales with good troops or an awake combat pretender is the way to go. I obviously went with the awake great sage + a minor earth-bless for my sorcerers. My goal was to hit the crucial early evo and then crush someone with a huge army + battlefield spells.
This may be a strategy more suited to a larger game/map, since Man could comfortably focus his full (higher quality) army on mine without worrying about any other front, indeed I had to give Ermor my territory just to allow him to attack Man. And you're quite right earcaraxe, I totally attacked you cause I had no choice!
In any case, Man's army was much stronger than my own, our early war became an attrition contest that I generally lost, though my mage-support did win me a few battles.
The spies disabling my capital was really the final blow in a war that wasn't going well already; I had no choice but to return my army to desperately try to quell the unrest and try to nab those nasty spies. Without any money to build new armies and my existing forces stricken by desertion and drawn back to the capital, it basically became a last stand for me at that point.
Also, my early expansion was hampered by my faith in banakono warriors, who duly disappointed me
