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[Il Palazzo]

I would like to remind you that if you win the elections because, say, the church votes for you, but you have no nobles on byzantium the game does not award victory.

Weeeell.
I wasn't aware of that. Nice of you to tell me about that, as it was exactly my plan for the last five turns or so.
I evacuated all my nobles save for that one, which was supposed to serve as a distraction, while I struck all my proscribed techs and waited for five turns to pass before I signed the writ.
Alas, that's all for nothing, as you appear to be right. I even ran the game in single player to see if that's true.

Oh well, guys. Looks like I won't be winning this one after all. I suppose we might just as well call it a day, unless some of you want to revel in the destruction for a while more.

[mainiac]

Finally.

[Margrave]

And here I was going to try and invade Holy Terra. Maybe. Still might just to push in the Patriarchs shit.

Oho. I see what you're trying to do Il Palazzo, you're trying to trick us so we instantly turn on each other and clear the way to Byzantium. Well it won't work! Kebooo is too powerful.
SO THERE.

In all seriousness this has been a hell of a ride and I'm glad to have been a part of it. If you had told me that the last 20 turns would be a race against the clock or heck that at some point someone would be in a position to almost grab the throne I would have been shocked when I first joined.

Any dirty laundry/plots that anyone wants to air out now that we're finished? If we all agree to finish. The amount of pms we've all passed back and forth is considerable.

[Kebooo]

I think we just call it since Palazzo has no way to win. Plus I wouldn't have needlessly thrown that noble of mine away if the game was intended to continue on. I have a single noble left, back on Severus. Gorakhan will live out her days.

There are a lot of moments that stick out in this game, and while I've been in one game that went on for longer (and ended in stalemate), I think this one has the most political intrigue. No one was really trustworthy but we had to find ways to use one another for our own ends. There was no natural alliance, as everyone seemed to be wary of one another behind the scenes. The closest thing to an alliance I had was with Palazzo, but that was more...moral support. I just wanted to convince him to weaken mainiac, and somehow that turned into a full-fledged Lazarus takeover. I have like, 30 freighters, so taking out the Church scepters would have been the next step, probably the League's too. Are there even any Hazat units left on the surface?

By the way, I want to say I like that there weren't nobles on islands. I feel like there should always be an open hex next to any noble stack. Because if it wasn't open warfare on Byzantium, how would a stack of SEALs beat a stack of DNA assault legions with a noble on an island? It kills assassination attempts.

Oh yeah, kinda curious about everyone's passwords so I can check out people's domains and planets.

[Margrave]

Password for al-Malik is jacinth, but I feel you're going to be underwhelmed. Especially these last ten turns.

mainiac was right on the money way back when as he summarized our various strategies from his viewpoint. This whole game I've been doing my damndest to make sure:

A.) Il Palazzo and Aqizzar never formed an alliance against me.
B.) Neither mainiac or Kebooo completely won against the other
and
C.) Maintain the status quo
 To the point where I'd betray two Houses to keep Aqizzars Regency propped up (with tech as a happy coincidence, really I never intended to let either mainiac or Palazzo get the Fleet/Stigmata)

mainiac and I were fairly cooperative as I had no desire to see the Decados win and it kept them from expanding to Cadiz/Artemis.
And Aqizzar and I were probably the closest oddly enough, splitting one planet and trying to convince him to steal Vau before Palazzo goes a long way.

[mainiac]

I stand by my original assessment that Il Palazzo should have attacked Aqizzer, not myself at the end of the great northern war.  I was completely honest when I said that I wouldn't move to Aqizzers aid, I wanted to see him removed from the game so as to reduce the number of players and move things towards an endgame situation.  I though Il Palazzo would see the same way because that would be an endgame that would favor the both of us.  We would have Byzantium sandwiched between us with Keboo and Margrave stuck on the periphery.  To me that seems like the desirable state of affairs, you reduce the contenders for the throne to increase your chances.  I think in such a situation it would have been a better then 80% chance that either Il Palazzo or myself would have ended up the victor.  But for me the goal was decades in the future, I wanted an economy geared towards a sustained war on Byzantium while fighting a delaying action in the north.  Making a grab for power without supply lines wasn't a possibility I even considered.

[Kebooo]

I was trying to spread as far and wide as possible, without drawing too much notice from anyone. Too bad the score graphs start to work against me. Mainiac is the real threat! That was my rallying cry. Perhaps I should have left Tethys alone and went for Cadiz before it. I felt from the very beginning that I would have to make mainiac my enemy, because at some point his stranglehold of my supply line would have to give for me to ever have a chance. So I was trying for brute expansion. It's too bad those damned relics showed up and ruined my life.

My password is dffd and my last and final turn can be found at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60053610/EOFS_T72_ILPALAZZO.sav

[Il Palazzo]

I bet Aqizzar will be just as willing to finish this adventure in political intrigue and micromanagement.

I had no password, so anybody can go ahead and check my "empire". I have two nobles left(never captured one) and only some Imperial Fleet stragglers are left on Byzantium.


As for the intrigue, I couldn't be happier to see mainiac duking it out with Kebooo, sending encouragements and promises of help to the latter, and maybe even a couple to the former. I was hoping for the war to continue for a few years more, but a peace was reached, and I had to hurry things.

I had very cordial relations with Aq, even though the tensions inevitably arose as the game progressed. Vril-Ya ultimately proved to be my demise, as lacking full control of the final world on the route to Byzantium when shit finally hit the fan, meant I could not reliably ship all those troops I'd been building on the mainland.

Mainiac, I always saw as the most immediate threat, his economy being the strongest. Years of Eye control and his ruthless politics only reinforced my fears. Despite mainiac's agitation(or "assesment"), I never feared Aqizzar much, as he had even worse economy than me, and had less luck looting ruins(found four cruiser+2xfrigate stacks, and one dreadnought as a reward early on). I can't say this hasn't bitten me in the arse later on, as stated above, but still, I knew that I could compete with Aq economically, but not so with the rest of the players.

Margrave was the big enigma. I lost the eye transports I had sent there to some PTS fire quite early, and never managed to gather more intel but the bare basics.
The one time I tried using him to grab the regency or the fleet together with mainiac, ended up with him using us for his own ends.


Other thoughts:

The stealth raids in the final part of the game cost me a lot of shipping power, compounding the logistics problems, which only showed my poor preparation for the power grab.

I've made some mistakes that I shoudln't, but then again, one part of me doing so well was you guys making mistakes as well. Kebooo throwing away his nobles' lives, or mainiac leaving his noble and a relic barely protected in orbit over Absolution, when he knew I had fighters on Byzantium.

And man, what was I thinking when I took my fleet away from the capital?

By the way, I want to say I like that there weren't nobles on islands. I feel like there should always be an open hex next to any noble stack. Because if it wasn't open warfare on Byzantium, how would a stack of SEALs beat a stack of DNA assault legions with a noble on an island? It kills assassination attempts.

Yeah, I thought that was too exploity to use, though I can't say it hadn't crossed my mind.

[Margrave]

I will give you the credit you're due Il Palazzo, that play was mighty ballsy, and this way we all get an ending while avoiding disgruntled players and agonizing turns.
One thing this game did give me was a ton of images, if you'll indulge I'll post a few so the readers at home get to see the sheer scope of what we were all throwing around.

=============================================
At one point during the Hazat Occupation of Byzantium Secundus

Ground Pre-Occupation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ground Post-Occupation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Space

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ground Post-Post Occupation Surveillance Plans

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[mainiac]

The one thing that really threw me off was that Aqizzer continued to seek the regency after he'd made that fail bid for emperor.  That was all really confusing.  It was putting a huge target sign on his back.  If Il Palazzo hadn't made his move, I was going to kick Aqizzer off Byzantium a couple turns later just for spite.

[Kebooo]

By the way, what's mainiac's EFS password?

[mainiac]

deeds

[Kebooo]

I see the Li Halan let rebels take back cities on Sutek. How did that even happen? Plague reigns on Sutek and Cadavus (probably from the change over, but still). The Decados were always the most fit rulers of those planets.

I like the way Palazzo builds his city clusters. They look like the borg. Curious to why there is a group of seven hospitals on one planet though. Does that actually do anything?

[Il Palazzo]

They were mostly making those cybercorps that are now sitting on Pandemonium.

[Kebooo]

Oh right, I forgot they aren't made at forts.