We had worked together all game, and between us had taken out one of the two AI opponents. However, one of the victory conditions is destroying a certain number of capital cities (in a game of four players you need to have taken out two). Grimmie saw this as a race to see which of us could kill the remaining AI capital first. As he had the majority of his army on their continent and I had only a small horse there, he was confident. I led my small horse to the AI city.
"Oh, I see what you are doing there Joose."
"Do you?"
"You are trying to get the last city before me."
"Am I? AM I?"
[Joose has declared war on Grimmie]
"Oh, hello Grimmies capital city!"
You see, I was playing as the Cultists. Their main method of recruiting military is to convert the small villages that dot the land, who then spit out a free unit for me every dozen turns. I had nearly all the villages on our continent. They had been spitting out units most of the game, and although I had sent the bulk of those free units over to the other continent, that was many turns ago and I hadn't bothered sending reinforcements. I had spotted that Grimmie would easily be able to snatch the last AI city from me, so the only option left to me was to take out Grimmies capital first. To that end I massed my now sizeable army of brainwashed villagers just outside his city. It took me bloody ages, but they arrived *just* in time. They crushed his doods. I felt bad. It felt awesome.
To be fair, it was a bloody close thing. I suspect I only had a turn or two to get his city; If I had waited just one more turn or if I hadn't managed to take him unawares he could very well have beaten me.
This game is bloody awesome.
We are going to give it another go (and I suspect Grimmie will be less trusting this time), anyone want to join us? Its a good few hours to finish a game but you can save and come back to it so we don't have to do it all at once. Next time I am thinking of being either the diplomat dragons or the self harming wizards (all other 4X games could learn a thing or two about interesting race design from this).
