Baalz' good player pledge

[Stretch]

And I've had bad luck on turn 1 to the point where I knew I was "defeated" and stuck the game out. (Dead pretender, for the record) I'm sure I played it a lot better than the AI would have and avoided creating a huge power imbalance in the game by fighting to the end as opposed to rolling over and giving my cap to my next-door neighbor without a fight. I actually managed to kill off HIS pretender when he got greedy and lasted quite a while (til level 6 research, I remember him casting arrow fend) The turns took 5 minutes and really weren't an issue.

This is the example of what I think that this pledge is designed to promote. Even with a big empire, someone playing it half-assed is still much better than the AI. Maybe you can't go full out, but you can set up some scripting, queue some rituals and try and catch a big few armies off guard. It doesn't have to be perfect, but at least you won't have a huge unbalancing effect.