Just want to record this for posterity here. Overall, it was a very good game, and it's refreshing to have such an intelligent discussion after the fact.
(1) My main point is that for the 3 turns of any interest ALL 3 of your players went before ALL 2 of the BOT players.
It's true, that was bad luck. But if you want to know the worst luck, look at my starting spot. No clanmates, and it was pretty much right in the middle of the map. Sometimes you gotta make your own luck, y'know? And I still can't believe how badly my battle with Shakira in 34 went, that was also pretty ugly, although fortunately I did win.
(4) The real success of this game has been Nick's diplomacy. I must admit I did not see him as any threat at the start, I eventually found myself having to keep renewing NAP's purely because I was too weak to do anything about it. I did really expect Nick to be gobbled up by 1 of the bigger teams, but Mylantis's poor start gave him the chance to gain a deal the TFF.
You know my credo, diplomacy wins games. I've been working with TFF from turn 1, although our alliance was not set until after TR and Massie were RIPped. I thought that when we cancelled our NAP with Validon that he would alert you and we'd have to fight a 2-front war- fortunately that didn't happen though, otherwise things may have gotten pretty sticky for us.
5) After studying the Reports (mine and Shakira's) I actually beleive that we could have beaten you. All we had to do was to keep out of the Plains. Its a big shame Nick changed his spycode the turn we ran it. Again, OOP prevented us from gaining this. Nick went b4 both of us!
Yes, that much is true, but even if you had run my code it wouldn't have been THAT big of a deal. I didn't transform most of the knights I used in the assault until right before I attacked, so you wouldn't have gotten too much great info. Also, you only saw my big knights force because Shakira's lands are almost all plains. I have plenty of archers (with creature in tow, you got spy data on thirty-eight) and catapults lurking around still, plus more knights up north. And you couldn't beat me until you dealt with those knights eventually. I think our massive amounts of upgraded units would have prevailed in any case, but I do admit it might have taken longer if we had to chase you down.
It was a good game, that's true, but you slept too long. If you would have joined forces with Val and given Taker and I something to think about in the south then this one would have been up for grabs- you simply waited too long to act, and allowed Mylantis to recover well and Taker and I to focus our full forces on you. And I do want to say thanks to Mike for doing such a great job running this one, kudos!
"A Knight is sworn to valor, his heart knows only virtue, his blade defends the helpless, his might upholds the weak, his word speaks only truth, his wrath outdoes the wicked."