Finally got to play this after wanting to for a long time. I played in a 5-player game, going last. I couldn't say for sure since my play was also pretty weak, but i came in dead last by a mile.
1st player was my ladyfriend. She was able to pick up flying humans which proved to be stupid good for her and ultimately led to her victory. Later in the game she declined in order to grab diplomat amazons. Although aggressive in nature, she clevery used the diplomat to leave one of her "fronts" poorly defended and declaring the person on that front couldn't attack her while bolstering the regions adjacent to who she walloped.
2nd player was the owner of SW, my buddy kaz. He started off with underworld elves, which he used to great effect to scatter all over the map. Ultimately the elve's resillience along with the underworld warping and capture bonus let him spread over the map, only to decline in an optimal position and rake in points. He followed up with bivoacking skeletons, which he mostly used to whiddle away at percieved front runners, though never to great effect.
3rd player was Tony. Tony started off with a strong team of merchant tritons. He used their bonus to capture to offset his relatively weak numbers, and with enough territories raked in strong point values. He scooped up stout halflings and used them to pick off some outliers among Dani, Erin, and Kaz in the north, then promptly sent them into decline thanks to stout. The only player to take 3 races that game, Tony used ghouls to assault Erin's amazons from the back, realizing she had a tremendous lead from the flying humans.
4th player was Kaz's lady, Dani. She started off remarkably strong with seafaring trolls. Both her race and class proved greatly valuable, as almost nobody wanted to invest the extra chips to overcome her troll lairs, and she handily spread herself across the southern edge of the map, only to decline and spend many turns collecting full points from her trolls. She inherited fortified ratmen, which while numerous never seemed to spread out as well as the trolls, and by the end of the game she was getting squeezed on all sides as i made a last ditch effort to erode her troll empire.
Finally was sad little me. I had swamp orcs, which i pathetically underutilized. I pulled between trying to occupy swamps while also trying to conquer, only to have my lovely lady do what she does best: smash me to pieces. Her flying humans handily sniped away what few orcs i had until it seemed unlikely i'd be able to achieve the "sprawl" that everyone else had the turn before, despite waiting to decline. Worse, by the time i declined my orcs were easy pickings for her amazons as she ruthlessly wiped them off the map. Ultimately I picked up mounted giants, using their immense bonuses to fields/hills adjacent to a mountain to erode dani's well defended trolls.
In the end I had picked the wrong target as my conniving gal had stolen the game with close to 100 points. Everyone else carried 80-ish and i sat sadly just above 60. Still, can't wait to play again!!!
