Congrats on the win Ex. When I subbed in (see next) I did think you were Van for a turn or two (mainly because I thought WL looked like Ulm given the battles I saw), but then a few signs pointed to you being Ulm. Can't remember what they were exactly, most likely is I'm fairly sure I've played more games with you than any other player, so if I can't spot you quickly by now then there's something wrong with me! (or you've managed to change styles!). After that I instantly nailed WL as Van, as I could see no way he was C'tis (graphs indicated C'tis was way too turtley and passive for WL). And there was no way I had taken over for WL as my nation was a joke which WL would never has signed his name to...
I subbed in as Svarogia for half a dozen turns or so, entirely to repay a favour or two to rdonj from previous YARG games. The sudden upward turn-around in the graphs, followed by an equally sudden and rapid decline, will likely give away the turns I played
The nation was a complete mess though, and no idea how it had gained as much land as it had. The original player, whoever it was, also completely failed to notice in pre-game testing that Svagoria's freespawn chaff has .66gp upkeep. Which on top of the hundreds of Cav units, and (to me) a useless "feck diversity just take scales" build meant the nation was swimming in horrendous upkeep and sucking hard from the well of stink when I took over. Not my worst ever sub experience, but certainly my worst "important nation" sub ever.
I won't go into ranty detail on the nation or the turns I played, but in brief I turned the Eriu war around to the point of booting them off land and into the sea (also had my highest ever single turn fort gain at one point
). And was all ready to turn on Ulm when I had to sub-out and leave that for my successor(s). And apols for the clashes Van, and the things I killed (thanks for the Arch Devil though). Although I really have to ask why you moved your death stack towards the Eriu cap after taking that Eriu fort on our border? As that sent me such a negative signal that it meant instead of moving all my stacks towards Ulm as I had planned, I had to re-route them to the Eriu cap as I thought you'd had a brain freeze and was trying to challenge me for it. This resulted in a 2-turn delay of a strike on Ulm. Doubt it would have made much difference, but it certainly made some. (partly because I would have still been playing to do the first strike, and first two turns of war)
No idea how the Svagoria VPs fell at the end. I left whoever with 2 Master Enslavers that I was hoping would have been able to deal with an army of Ulm national troops, and enough Astral mages to deal with solo SC storm attempts. But then not too surprised Svarogia were the ones coughing up the VP's, since as far as I could tell the nation was just an illusion of strength built on wet tissue paper. And I'm very certain Ulm or Van could have walked through Svarogia with ease at the point I joined the frey. (and even when I left they were no match for the top two)