Oh I'm totally playing out of obligation. You guys all know what I'm up to and that it totally won't work, so we certainly don't have to keep going on my account, I'm willing to call it whenever you guys stop having fun. But as BGN said, we (Byzantium) are trying to not screw with anyone else's chances of winning by totally mailing in our turns, since our crappy little empire would probably be worth something in the possession of our betters and that ought to be prevented if at all possible (the main reason why retiring to AI would be bad for the game and isn't an option). Obviously if I played 5 minute turns we could go ahead and eliminate Wetbandit as a competitor and that wouldn't be fair to him at all. Or if we decided to have a war for the fun of it that would probably be picking a winner, too. So I'll keep playing and reporting and hopefully you guys playing will keep having fun and anyone still reading our thread will continue contributing to our POST COUNT DOMINATION VICTORY!!!! 
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon