[Groundworm]

Sorry, long post incoming.

Regarding the game in general: I didn't know Oceania was that big either. My spy network really never made it to the south. Or the west. Or anywhere outside Shinuyama's lands, for that matter. And, as Zywack has stated, neither him nor I are contenders for victory after our war. So if T'ien Ch'i feels that he's out of the running, then I'm fine with giving the game to earcaraxe.

Regarding the war with Shinuyama: I don't feel the need to continue the game just for fighting this war, as I'm now rather confident that you'll win, in the end. It will still be a long war and hard-fought, but you've been playing *far* better than I have, and your superior strategies have allowed you to do vast amounts of damage to me. I've done far less to you with better gem production. The ghost rider spam is inconvenient, I'm sure, but you're dealing with it just fine... it's not actually gaining me any provinces. And you'd get the Sword of Aurgelmer next turn, because it's trapped on one of my Yogis with no adjacent friendly province to retreat to. All of my armies are smashed; I'm down to just raiders. Your overwhelming victory last turn killed well over half of the mages I've recruited this entire game. I couldn't Mind Hunt you until this last turn, as I never researched evocation heavily because Bandar is not an evocation nation. I also spent most of my early astral pearls on Gandharvas (useless), and my later ones on artifacts and Rudras (much better, but very expensive).

Bandar can't blood sacrifice. You didn't assassinate a Daikini with a jade knife- you assassinated an Asrapa with a blood thorn.

No, it wasn't a master enslave communion- see above re: evocation research. I did research enough evo eventually to communion my E and W Rishis, and that was a mass-evocation spam communion.

In sum, I have no objection to ending the game. In fact, I'm not really sad to see it go. Shinuyama and I had an excellent war and you've all been great to play with, but I made numerous major mistakes, several serious tactical and strategic blunders, and I'm not sure I like Bandar Log after having played with them.