Nations - MA, CBM 1.6, max lvl 6, NI, Assimilation - Olm/Man and Louist/Ulm win!

[Samhain]

I'll try to recap Eriu's early position as best as I can. But, due as the time crunch that forced me out of the game was a creeping condition, I took scant notes.

Here was my design for Cailleach.

Physical: Crone
Awakening: Dormant
Magic: F4W4E4S4D4N4
Dominion: 4
Scales: S2C1L3M1

My strategy was to have a healthy enough gold income to build plenty of forts and push out a Tuatha and loads of Sidhe Lords every turn. Cailleach's purpose was to site search early then later summon some good mid game undead mucle with Hidden in Sand and Hidden in Snow. Spectres, mainly to guard against Mind Hunt, was to be my primary use of Death gems. Later, she would forge key gear for my top thugs.

The bless went far short of the classic Eriu/Tir Na N'Og bless of E9N4+. But, with no indie mages I felt the magic diversity was going to serve me better in the long run than the uber raider bless.

Expansion went well save for getting penned in by mountains and Arcosphale's expansion to his east. I envisioned the 28 cap nation to expand to the southwest after securing its adjacent provinces. Of course, ghoul31 went right into me.

When he built a fort in 40, I felt war was better sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, I completely underestimated the number of chariots he had. My Sidhe Lords couldn't lay down the False Fetters fast enough. He drove me back nearly to my own cap before Ulm weighed in on the other side and I was able to regain some territory before calling for a NAP to turn 36.

Fortunately, I lost no, or perhaps almost no, commanders. Still, I needed some peace to get things back on track. I was too busy at that point for war anyway. I turned the game over to Buzzsaw before things got interesting again.