[Groundworm]

I agree with what AoE said about the difficulty of committing to the endgame. I'm in another game (Smiting_Season) as Marignon. I'm very big... I don't have the most provinces, but my armies are huge, full of quality troops, and backed by vast numbers of mages. I have control of all 4 globals currently up, including Arcane Nexus. I'm under attack by Gath and Patala, both of whom are also huge, with huge (though largely inferior) armies. It's turn 84. I've managed to take about 2 turns in the last 3 weeks or so because the amount of time it takes to deal with everything going on is tremendous. The same can be said for the mental energy it takes to script that many mages, deal with that many SCs, and counter that many armies. It's also demoralizing because I'm falling slowly to attrition- I just can't protect as many provinces as I have from as many armies as I'm being attacked with.

I really want to be more active in the game, but I understand where HD is coming from- this game is one of the best I've ever played, ever... but at some point the endgame does become more work than fun.