This was a fun game, and there would be so much to tell - although I feel my game was less dramatic than others reported already. But the new PB is starting so I'll have to make it short, first, victory screen:
Now, back to the beginnings.
Something's unusual right from the start:
... but nothing of it affects me, so the start's pretty normal. Sadly I didn't take pictures. Second city to the south, third NE, then settle the coast SW until reaching Os-Gabella's border, who apparently didn't feel a need to get cities, with all her super techs. Sabathiel otoh gets quite a few down, including a barb citiy that I would have liked to the south of the mountain range, blocking me out from there.
This gets buried in snow:
- but notice how the bad guy walks out of the city to the east after casting his mean spell? He'd always do that when approaching with a warrior.
So, we easily bait him, with two stacks waiting out of range of his snowstorm
and after tossing some:
That city of course was a huge thorn in my side, and getting it was very nice. You can see though that I already had claimed a barb city by Letum Frigus, and was now able to expand past the mountains. Mostly by the pickaxe, because the barbs had already settled most of it.
To stay on Sabathiel's good side, and maybe due to some moral feelings, I had joined him fighting Os-Gabella. She would now start sending these random stacks at me:
Nothing nice to fight off when you have nothing but warriors, but doable. Of course she had much more in the cap, and had she used that, or just loaded some on her galleys, that could have been the end of me. But of course she didn't. I actually rushed Aquae Sucellus with the first GE though, to be able to get the plague from the Diseased Corpses off, and not have to send units to Varn Gosam into the Pool of Tears. Think I didn't end up using it, or maybe on like 3 units.
Some fun:
Here's an overview from t144:
Sabathiel dedicated his game to building up increasingly huge stacks of axes, and not using them:
Later on he would fight off some pathetic invasions from Tasunke, but never step outside his borders.
While scouting, I had the feeling that Bob had intended fro Volanna to get into a relevant position in this game:
Spoiler: She did!
Then Falamar attacked, inevitably:
at this point, I was finishing my first siege workshops (and had trade tech) and mage guilds, but was still fielding only warriors. I had to give up the two cities seen here, but then by Letum Frigus stalled him in the mountains, and with the first better units went into counterattack. But the sheer brutality of my fierce gnome warriors was still carrying the victory:
Important grab:
Dwarves are not very good at magic, and even though I had Sorcery, my adepts were all still mostly brawnies. This one won:
bagged the Celestial Compass.
On t200 I'm pretty sure I'll win this, having seen the AI's tactical capacity. Here's an overview:
Right after, Falamar does something smart for a change:
He had Kingsport full of horse archers and could have obliterated my army. But he preferred to stay at home, so I had to pay the visit:
Here's an F5 from the time:
You can also see the international borders. Differing from other reported games, the Infernals stayed on one city, and remained peaceful until shortly before the end of the game. Volanna grew huge, but later on couldn't make headway against the weaker Kandros Fir, even losing a city, while also making only glacial advances against Auric. I got a lot of resource trades from here, even Mana. Varn Gosam was also in good shape, and I hoped to keep him as a friend.
Still due:
Nice price with city of a thousand slums (actually that cam later t237, two turns before my due date in Khabalg
), Tower of complacency, and the OO shrine, but required some work. Also you can see that I rushed the Pillar of Chains into Innsmouth, a quite dubious decision 
Now, back to the beginnings.
Something's unusual right from the start:
... but nothing of it affects me, so the start's pretty normal. Sadly I didn't take pictures. Second city to the south, third NE, then settle the coast SW until reaching Os-Gabella's border, who apparently didn't feel a need to get cities, with all her super techs. Sabathiel otoh gets quite a few down, including a barb citiy that I would have liked to the south of the mountain range, blocking me out from there.
This gets buried in snow:
- but notice how the bad guy walks out of the city to the east after casting his mean spell? He'd always do that when approaching with a warrior.
So, we easily bait him, with two stacks waiting out of range of his snowstorm
and after tossing some:
That city of course was a huge thorn in my side, and getting it was very nice. You can see though that I already had claimed a barb city by Letum Frigus, and was now able to expand past the mountains. Mostly by the pickaxe, because the barbs had already settled most of it.
To stay on Sabathiel's good side, and maybe due to some moral feelings, I had joined him fighting Os-Gabella. She would now start sending these random stacks at me:
Nothing nice to fight off when you have nothing but warriors, but doable. Of course she had much more in the cap, and had she used that, or just loaded some on her galleys, that could have been the end of me. But of course she didn't. I actually rushed Aquae Sucellus with the first GE though, to be able to get the plague from the Diseased Corpses off, and not have to send units to Varn Gosam into the Pool of Tears. Think I didn't end up using it, or maybe on like 3 units.
Some fun:
Here's an overview from t144:
Sabathiel dedicated his game to building up increasingly huge stacks of axes, and not using them:
Later on he would fight off some pathetic invasions from Tasunke, but never step outside his borders.
While scouting, I had the feeling that Bob had intended fro Volanna to get into a relevant position in this game:
Spoiler: She did!
Then Falamar attacked, inevitably:
at this point, I was finishing my first siege workshops (and had trade tech) and mage guilds, but was still fielding only warriors. I had to give up the two cities seen here, but then by Letum Frigus stalled him in the mountains, and with the first better units went into counterattack. But the sheer brutality of my fierce gnome warriors was still carrying the victory:
Important grab:
Dwarves are not very good at magic, and even though I had Sorcery, my adepts were all still mostly brawnies. This one won:
bagged the Celestial Compass.
On t200 I'm pretty sure I'll win this, having seen the AI's tactical capacity. Here's an overview:
Right after, Falamar does something smart for a change:
He had Kingsport full of horse archers and could have obliterated my army. But he preferred to stay at home, so I had to pay the visit:
Here's an F5 from the time:
You can also see the international borders. Differing from other reported games, the Infernals stayed on one city, and remained peaceful until shortly before the end of the game. Volanna grew huge, but later on couldn't make headway against the weaker Kandros Fir, even losing a city, while also making only glacial advances against Auric. I got a lot of resource trades from here, even Mana. Varn Gosam was also in good shape, and I hoped to keep him as a friend.
Still due:
Nice price with city of a thousand slums (actually that cam later t237, two turns before my due date in Khabalg
), Tower of complacency, and the OO shrine, but required some work. Also you can see that I rushed the Pillar of Chains into Innsmouth, a quite dubious decision
, but they do a lot of collateral - certainly more than fireballs!
. Normally I would have gone for something more climactic. 
