I'd like to apologize to the players in this game for disappearing. I take some pride in being a good admin and this was obviously the opposite of that. For RL reasons I did need to drop out of the game (my mind wasn't in the game and when I avoided staling I still ended up playing poorly) but I should of course have (at the very least) emailed Samhain and asked him to find a sub. Not that it was fair to saddle him with finding a sub and taking over admin duties after he'd kindly agreed to help out.
So, again, I apologize to the players in the game - especially to Samhain. Disappearing like that was unacceptable.
Also, thank you to Num for subbing in to a position that was a complete mess. I don't even recall what I was doing but one lowlight was the turn where I sent an army towards Sauro's cap and didn't bother providing an escape route if things went bad. Well, there went half the cap only mages I'd recruited thus far when that army was routed. I'm sure KeithZ was laughing at that turn.
Thanks everyone for playing in this experimental game and nice job Samhain - you were strong throughout the game. I also want to say good job HoleyDooley hanging in there for so long - it seemed like you were attacked by multiple nations but no one could finish you off.