Hi All,

What a fun and interesting game! Thanks Mike for all your hard work and dedication to keeping this game as close to schedule as you could.

I had a few discussions with Mike concerning my opinions on the 'special powers'. Basically, I felt that any team who had powers with any of the following had a distinct advantage:
1) Being able to use their power at least once a year
2) Being able to turn invisible
3) Being able to move to (or attack) several spaces from their current position.

Looking at the powers of the final winners, I believe I was pretty on target with who had benefits and who'd be eliminated (although the Elves & Ogres surprised me with elimination, as did the Magicians and Wizards survival).

Personally, I found my power (Rainbow to other parts of the world) very intriguing, until I learned it could only be used once every *3* years. That made it totally useless, and only applicable to help for emergency survival.

Although the powers seemed to be out of balance, the best tactic by far was to choose your friends wisely! Alliances are usually tough to break -- in this game they were downright impossible.

I didn't get a chance to play with any strong alliances, to my dismay. I began a shaky alliance with the Undead, but we never had a chance to play together. I was attacked immediately by the Elves and he was attacked by the Magicians and Dwarves.

By year 2 I knew I wouldn't survive, so I changed my goal to "be the first with the complete map". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to bounce around the board enough, and when I did, it was usually into the teeth of the enemy and my units were wiped out. I did gather 2/3 of the map, though, before I met my demise.

Congrats to the Hobbits, and the entire MMA. When I was eliminated, I had picked the Hobbits to Solo, they seemed so powerful and abundant. Well played!

I'd like to play this game again with a little balancing of powers (maybe allow a Rainbow once per year, owls to stray further, Faeries to fly longer or soar high enough on the same space to become invisible, etc...) and with the partial-gunboat rule where you can only converse with powers you've discovered. In real life, that is how Diplomacy works anyway. After all, it would be foolhardy to send an envoy off to a country that you don't even know exists.

Thanks again Mike!

Michael Hoffman