[Spoiler] First rodeo: Jalepeno takes the bull by the horns.

[jalepeno]

Good news: I took out two longbows and Mary Morbus with a ritualist and about a dozen skeletons.

Bad news: That's most of my remaining army after TBS attacked out on his turn. I didn't realize that Mary starts with natural 2 move, which allowed her to take mobility, get hasted, and just barely reach my stack. Plagued (-60% strength!) + maelstorm + destroy undead gave TBS incredible odds. I think he lost 3-4 units while I lost ~30 vampires, moroi, bloodpets, and rathas. So it's all up to HK/WK to stop TBS from winning turn 115. I'll be able to attack with some scrounged units T116 if TBS takes that long to finish the ToM. I've got lots of pictures; I'll post them when I'm feeling less despondent.

[jalepeno]

Turn 114 aka "THE END"

My very last moves before TBS wins a shockingly early ToM.

My poor, battered "army"

The slaying of Mary Morbus

All defenders started at full strength, so it took A LOT of sacrificial skeletons.

Final overview of Calabim lands

Military advisor (EOT)

I'm actually pretty pleased with how quickly I was able to rebuild an army after losing so much to TBS. Had T115-116 come, we would have been able to do some damage. ~2000 pillage gold went into upgrades.

Graph/demo dump

[jalepeno]

Postgame Thoughts

First off, congratulations to The Black Sword for an excellent game! Good diplo, great macro, and the micro was clearly amazing (not just anyone wins Seven's micro challenge!). I'd also like to thank Ichabod for a really, really fun map, and Q for being a great sounding board (I just wish I'd listened to you a little earlier when you warned about TBS' power spike!). I had a ton of fun in my first mp game ever, so thank you to all my other opponents as well.

Ok, time for some +/-/delta thoughts on my game.

+ Pretty good micro plan at the start
+ Tech choices and avoiding unnecessary detours (still unsure about CoL v BW though)
+ Drama bard planning & execution
+ Sneak attack on Yell0w
+ Sniffed out a potential centaur/stumpy plot and talked HK out of it
+ built a real army to make the endgame interesting

- Responding too late to TBS' rising power, which goes along with...
- Getting tunnel vision war with Yell0w
- Not building strong agreements with any of my neighbors; everyone was a potential enemy at any time
- Detour to Empryean; it seemed so necessary to deal with mistforms (and a potential dogpile), but ritualists would have been even better against a dogpile, and made a world of difference in offensive action. 6 turns spent in that religion killed my chances of taking Kwythellar on my own. Mistforms were a distraction I needed to overcome, not focus on.
-Tactical errors: wasting a bunch of moroi on a low odds shot at Yell0w's capital, triggering blight, not pillaging enough roads to prevent Mary from reaching my stack, not covering my stack with enough Spectres, leaving a bunch of vamps in my stack unpromoted, etc. etc. etc.

Δ Diplo, diplo, diplo! Gotta make friends with somebody. I'd been batting around the idea of going cartography to open up trade routes, but wasn't willing to go for it until I had firm deals in place. HK went for it, and reaped a ton of benefit as everyone opened borders with him. Maybe they wouldn't have opened them with me, but foreign trade routes would have really helped my economy
Δ Focus on the real threats.
Δ Forewarned (hawks!) ≠ forearmed (actual units to defend against centaurs)
Δ Keep expanding throughout the midgame. I lost a lot of focus once I had decent soldiers on board.
Δ Don't play key turns in a rush, and try to avoid finishing a game during the last couple weeks of a semester

I've read the lurker thread: glad folks enjoyed reading, and pleasantly surprised to find you all thought I had a chance towards the end (I was getting pretty pessimistic). Let me know if there are any final screenshots or answers you'd like to see. And for the record, the Rod of Winds wielding spider was not mine.

One last pic to sum up my game

[The Black Sword]

and the micro was clearly amazing

Not sure about that, the best thing about the Kurios is that you don't need so much.

Yours is the first thread I managed to get through, great read. Thanks for keeping it updated so well. Someone said it in the lurker thread too, I loved your reaction to my inital power spike. I had gotten a low odds Great Commander and determined that the best way to use him was Recruit. So, essentially I was sitting on a lot more power the whole time than the graph looked and was waiting for a chance to surprise someone(well, you or HK) with it, unfortunately, the war with Yell0w was the first opportunity.

Anyway, you were a great opponent in and out of the game, the communication about when you'd get to the save gave me a fair amount of extra sleep!

Also, I haven't said it anywhere else, thanks to Ichabod for the map too, especially putting all the Kurio resources within my reach.

[HidingKneel]

Let me know if there are any final screenshots or answers you'd like to see. And for the record, the Rod of Winds wielding spider was not mine.

I'm curious who owned that troublesome Griffon to our south. Our guess was Sian, but maybe it was you?

[jalepeno]

I'm curious who owned that troublesome Griffon to our south. Our guess was Sian, but maybe it was you?

Not mine. I actually never even got any recon units up to subdue animal (just never had enough barbs to train on).

[The Black Sword]

Glad to see you killed the Griffon in the end HK, he also murdered my own two griffons who were scouting out there. I'm also curious if someone else did own him or if he was just a really successful barb!