Indeed, all hail Mictlan! My stale last turn was unfortunate but I don't think it made any difference. I don't know if everyone noticed but the earth blood deep well I used all my E gems to put up a few turns ago was casually dispelled just a turn later.
It looked to me like Mictlan was the front runner from fairly early on. It seemed like his war with Van was hard fought, with Van recovering from Mictlan's surprise attack before Mictlan finally won out.
When I opened my first turn I cursed myself for not doing fixed starts since I was on a peninsula with only two neighboring provinces. On top of that I lost my starting army in its first fight and Van soon appeared to my east and Pan to my west. It appeared Shin was off to a slow start as well so I was able to expand a bit to the south but I still finished expansion with only 6 provinces - not an auspicious start.
Soon after, Pan launched an attack with his E9 sacreds backed by an army of maenads. My cap walls were immediately breached and I just managed to fend him off. Then I had my one piece of luck this game when C'tis launched what seemed to be a suicide run, attacking Pan, Shin and even Van and myself. This provided a distraction to Pan and I was able to field a couple of thugs and some thunderstrikers and eventually besiege his cap and two other forts. I don't think I would have ever taken his cap if he hadn't tried to break my siege and lost most of his Pans when his forces were routed. Even with that, it took forever to make progress, what with hundreds of maenads already inside. Then I had to redirect those forces to his other two forts, which had their own maenad garrisons.
Mictlan was obviously running away with the game so once I finally finished off Pan I was going to prepare for a couple of turns and then launch an attack on Mictlan, hoping Shin would join in. I was dismayed when Shin attacked me before I could do this and tried to send a signal that I didn't want to fight by only defending and not launching any counterattacks. I don't know if this would have worked but it become a moot point when Mictlan launched a broad attack on Shin. I immediately attacked Mictlan since of course if Shin fell the game was over. But of course it turned out to be too late.
Btw, I have to say I wasn't too fond of my "absolutely no indies" settings this game. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had gotten off to a better start but I don't think so.
Thanks everyone for playing!