My initial expansion went well. I grabbed my share of territories and then set to building some forts and researching. But TC had other ideas and attacked me with his D9 sacreds backed by archers. The initial attack surprised me and he quickly took an almost empty fort I had just built. The D9 bless was a real problem since it was capable of killing my thugs. On top of that if he researched Ench. 5 he'd have full lightning resistance on his sacreds, taking thunderstrike off the table as well (actually all my elemental attacks would be shut down). I could try archers against him but I'd have to win an archer battle against his superior archers (and bows of war were too far away in research to be useful). He even had several mages and indie commanders leading the force so I couldn't even try using seeking arrows to leave him without someone to bless his troops. So definitely a problem. I did notice he didn't have an E bless and I thought it might be possible to tire him out with chaff and then follow up with my own quickened E9N6 sacreds.
But then Hinnom took advantage of TC's attack to launch one of his own and shortly afterwards Aby joined the party. At this point my prospects of winning the game didn't look promising but this wasn't discouraging to me as the only thing that saps my will to fight is excessive micromanagement.
In short order all three nations were two provinces from my cap. I had a couple of problems at this point. First, who to prepare for? TC in particular needed different preparations than the other two. Second, the multiple threats to my cap limited my ability to launch a counter strike since I'd be leaving my cap vulnerable to one of the others.
Soon enough Sauro attacked TC, reducing me to two active opponents. Unfortunately I had been expecting to fight TC so there was some wasted research as I shifted to Evo. for thunderstrike. Eventually Aby laid siege to my cap while Hinnom swept through my lightly defended eastern territories. At this point the game was about defending my cap. Aby attempted to storm it first but fortunately I had managed to research thunderstrike and he lost almost all of his sacreds in the attempt. At that point I think Van was putting the pressure on him so he never sent another army to try again (btw I did think Aby had launched an attack on Van but I thought it was shortly before he attempted to storm my cap - I didn't realize it had actually been earlier than he attacked me). Hinnom then grabbed some of my territories from Aby and began a lengthy siege of my cap with repeated attempts to take it. Austen and I spoke after Hinnom was eliminated and I think the main problem was that he didn't send his A-listers to finish the job. His first attempt had a lot mages and I think I was lucky there but after that he mainly had mediocre troops that I was capable of killing and that then would just end up routing his forces. I think if he had sent a force of demons he would have been able to finish the job. I agree with vargr that Austen played well - the main problem is that playing Hinnom and having the enormous gem income lead he had it was inevitable that he'd have to fight everyone sooner or later. I think he should have put up AN since he was already at war with everyone.
So, once Hinnom was at war with Van and Sauro I figured that would be my chance to actually break the siege of my cap and get a few provinces back. Once that happened I figured the best I could do was play spoiler (and maybe not even that) - but I have to admit I wasn't too motivated to do that since neither Van or Sauro had attacked me. But then, oddly enough, I actually got mother oak and earth blood deep well. I figured the chances were still incredibly against me but maybe, just maybe, if I waited until one of you decisively got the upper hand over the other I could step in to swing the tide the other way and somehow play it so that I'd come out of it competitive with the nation I'd helped. But this was all very unlikely since in order to have much impact I'd basically have to use all my three dozen mages, which would put a stop to my research, which was already horribly behind.
I had the chalice - not forged, since I didn't even have Constr. 8 researched, but from Hinnom. I actually think he deliberately left it on one of his mages when I took back a fort from him, figuring he'd rather I have it then have it go to the nations that brought him down. So I was actually crawling towards Conj. 9 so I could summons some tarts.
Also, TNN would like to give employee of year(s) award to my force of Tuatha warrriors who worked without pay for years and never abandoned the cause. At the end I had 19 of them left, all with three stars of experience.
PS - Yes, I hate lychantropos' amulet. I actually go berserk every time I think about it.
I think it should cost 10N - it would still be useful for zmeys since in addition to regen it prevents them from routing but at least it would cost as much as a ring of regen.
Re: No_NAPs_Land happy warring under way
And how can you always resurrect from so worse situation? I have witnessed twice (this game and Nation2) you fought back (and even finally kill your enemy in Nation2) with only your capital, increable!
, I think it's the main reason I lose because I had no idea how to deal with it at that time. 
Linear Mode
