Well, the other embarrassing thing is that this is something like my 8th MP game... so technically I "should" be better. And admittedly I am improving. But... it's just generally a frustrating experience.
As someone once pointed out, an 8-player MP game has 7 losers. So to enjoy Dominions MP, you generally have to enjoy losing
I can tolerate it when I learn a valuable lesson, like "Don't send astral thugs against astral mages". But I get irked when I learn the same lesson the AI keeps teaching me over and over -- "don't send inferior forces against superior forces". OK, but then what do I do if I have only inferior forces? Hide in my castle?
Which is my strategy at the moment -- I'm in full retreat. Vanheim will have most of my provinces soon. But I'll be building up something useful for counterattacking (I hope!)