Schem/Avy/Derek/Conan gamethis was a 4 way FFA under which I was almost everyone (save avy's) main opponent. the game went rather well, although I am apparently the only one with hefty amounts of time dedicated to Beta4, so I was at a bit of an advantage (something everyone else knew, which is why I was hounded the most)
in the end it was a fairly good battle. Unfortunately Derek was unaware of the new properties of culture, and thus lost both his main planets (his volc and his HW) to my culture siezure. at that point the game tippsied very quickly and in the vacuum of Derek I gained a lot of power. the game is AS OF YET not over, as I've got half the battlfield under my domain and the other half is split between Avy and Conan (to what extent I am unsure)
as it is Avy is in prime position to attack my weakened terrain that was once Dereks, although he is going to have to move quickly as I'm working on defending them every second afterwards. in any case he'll have to fight against a big armada if he tries ^ ^
as for conan he remains elusive, I had pulled off a small distraction of a culture grab on him, followed by an army attack (followed coincidentally by pirates) however my army was too small to do much, the planet I grabbed was too far away to bother with, and Conan was remarkably quick in responding to all threats, so I've yet to understand his motions and actions... although I get the fealing he's gonna come after me.
in the end what it came down to was that I was fighting Derek completely on my own (1v1 battle there), Conan was trying to fight me, although his major offensive failed. he needed to retreat in addition, as Avy was attacking him on the other side. I've not seen Avy's actions enough to judge... but in any case he was engaged solely in combat with Conan, so I dont know the extent of damage he accomplished.
