Faeruntest (Atlantis):
It is quite a bit early to be calling anyone kingmaker, especially since C’tis actually still has the game won. With Ermor joining the side of the righteous, then the game has become much more interesting. Basically, Ermor’s decision saved Man from death. For if I were still fighting Ermor, I would not be fighting C’tis. And the lizards would have put all those troops he sent my way against Man, totally crushing him by now.
By not having to fight Ermor, I also was able to feed stuff to Man for his galliant defense. I think I have sent him about 30,000 gold, and maybe 2000 gems, plus used another 2000 or so gems to protect him where I could. Had I used that stuff against Ermor instead, Man would be in very bad shape by now, probably dead.
The switching of sides by Ermor produced a nice result for me. All those Queens I had up north to banish the endless undeads? Well, they finally reached the southern front in the past few turns. And they turned out to be nearly as effective against sauromancers as thay are against Ermor!
This afternoon, I was trying to remember how the game has gone for the final 10 nations:
Place 10 - Pythium. He killed himself by not realizing the importance of the 0.5% growth scale. That was the first thing I noticed when the scales were announced. I did try to save Pythium by casting remote artillery spells against C’tis before we were officially at war, but the situation was hopeless for Ron. Pythuim did put up a very nice fight and set back the lizards for quite a while, helping me immeasurably.
Place 9 - Ulm! Amazing thing here, for Ulm was AI for around 40 turns before dying. Being in the corner helped a lot, though, for the battles were mostly elsewhere.
Place 8 - Pangaea. I am not sure exactly what happenned here, but he staled for a lot of turns and then went AI. With judicious use of remote summons and invading the resulting neutral provinces, I took probably 10 Pangaea provinces without even being at war with the AI. (Yeah, I know, taking advantage of the predictable AI is pretty low.) He therefore used all his troops up against Ermor before I eventually declared open war on the AI to help finish 'em off.
Place 7 - Marignon. What can we say about this race? Turin did a very fine job with this nation, and I was sorry to see all the name calling and stuff that happened when he went AI. Even as an AI, it was very hard to kill him with all those nice blood summons he had going.
Place 6 - R’lyeh. I know next to nothing about my underwater brethren, other than he never had much of an empire and was protected from elimination by the powerful lizards for the longest time.
Place 5 - Caelum. Same thing goes here, C’tis protected Caelum from death for a long time. I was sad to see him send his gems and gold to the lizards, for C’tis surely does not need any more of that!!!
Place 4 - Man. Ah, the humans. Mercutio has played an awesome game. The fact that the good Man mages are capitol only is a GIGANTIC penalty on a map this big. How has he lasted this long? Good diplimacy and amazing battle scripts, I believe. A worthy player for sure. When he dies, the house around me will fall.
Place 3 - Ermor. Ditto, ditto, and more ditto. He survived a gigantic early game alliance. He has done very well with diplomacy despite being the hated Ashen Empire. He has played in the true FFA spirit indeed. He was severly penalized by not being able to take advantage of the overdone growth scale. He surely deserves to be on the platform when the awards are handed out.
Place 2 - Atlantis. I have amazed even myself in this game. The only other time I played Atlantis, I wound up as the first eliminated! I therefore did not want that race in this game, but the Dice Man was not interested in a swap with me. I therfore got stuck with the fishies. So, how did I become a powerhouse anyway? I am not exactly sure. I played very quiet and passive early on, which is not my usual style. But I was having severe RL difficulties in December, January, and February which prevented me from entering any major war due to a time crunch. I did a bunch of turns on the road connected through my daughter’s cell phone! I played safe and sure, relying mostly on diplomacy and the natural abhorrance of any player to have to fight a water nation. I helped Pythium and Mictlan kill Machaka, but I did nothing more than keep him from expanding west. I got only 3 or 4 provinces from the war as Pythium utterly crushed the spiders into the ground. I helped Pangaea in the north a bit also from time to time. And then, when I had some RL time, I blitzed Vanheim after the switch between Huzur and Soapy. I remember my son was at my apartment looking over my shoulder when I put together the first attack, hitting 11 provinces in one foul sweep! Tauren predicted 5 turns for me to take all 18 provinces, which was precisely correct. That was the point at which I think I moved into second place, and I have been there ever since.
Place 1 - C’tis. The Huzurdaddi/Soapyfrog tag team has been incredibly strong. Huzur put the lizards into prominent early game power with his splendid play. And then he handed the reins to Soapy when the micro-management got too severe. Soapyfrog has handled the race remarkably well since that time, entering into his massive blitz over most of the eastern world.
I know full well that if Soapy were to invest 3+ hours per turn like I have done recently, he could likely break the back of Man’s resistance within 10 or so turns from now. And once Man falls, Ermor would not be far behind. After that, I am toast, though it would take probably another 100 turns from now to actually finish us all off.
By my best guesswork, I believe that C’tis has 50% the provinces, 60% of the gold income, 65% of the gem income, 75% of the commanders, and 80% of the SCs at this point in time. I cannot really imagine how he can handle all that! Truly, I can’t.
This has been a most enjoyable game. It is the first one I ever played to this stage, though a previous game of mine did hit Turn 140 (but on a much smaller map). I must say that this is the last one also, as I cannot see investing this amount of time into another Dom 2 game.
Kudos to all involved!
