Dwarf skipping

Last weekend I took part in a four player Small World.

Game started with Pillaging Trolls, Dragonmaster Giants, Mercenary Pygmies and Flying Amazons. That's actually the turn order, too.

Pillaging Trolls and Dragonmaster Giants had no contact, but Pygmies were bordering with the Giants. Flying Amazons were everywhere, as was to be expected. Main body of Amazons, however, locked Pygmies up in a corner along with the Giants, and disappointed with the race, Pygmy player went in decline right after the first round.

A couple of turn later there was a big decline trend, and new races and combos were (in vague order of going in decline):

Mercenary Pygmies/Mounted Ratmen
Dragonmaster Giants/Commando Pixies
Pillaging Trolls/Spirit Orcs
Flying Amazons/Swamp Tritons

Ratmen took out Giants and Pixies had a revenge on, well, just about everyone. Spirit Orcs carved an empire in between the ashes of remaings of Pygmy and Giant civilizations, as far from original position of Trolls as possible.

However, combined efforts of Tritons and Ratmen took out all but one of the Trolls, so Spirit Orcs went in decline quite soon. With such quarrelsome races around all over (actually all but the dwarves had some kind of mechanic for conquering regions cheaper) another great age of decline was soon in the horizon.

I think new order was this:

Commando Pixies/Were-Sorcerers
Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls, which would have been a pretty nice combination if everyone didn't beat the Orcs...
Mounted Ratmen/Catapult Elves

Tritons were still continuing because of their awesome decline race of Amazons.

Sorcerers entered play during night, so they removed most of Ratmen and a lot of Amazons, too, finally arriving close to Spirit Orcs.

Imperial Ghouls just played one turns and went in decline right away, because why not? There was a maximum of only one troll remaining. Ghouls started from a corner where they could kill as many sorcerers as possible. However, this was happening near the end of game, and whatever new race would be, it would only play the last turn.

Catapult Elves also considered Sorcerers to be a serious threat, so most of their attacks were directed that way. Sadly the Spirit Orcs had their share of attacks nonetheless.

Finally enough Amazons had died, so Tritons went in decline.

Before it was last turn also Sorcerers went in decline, and they continued to play with:

Were-Sorcerers/Fortified Humans
Swamp Tritons/Barricade Dwarves

Everyone had been jumping over the dwarves on a regular basis, so the player who picked them got seven victory points just from that. And Barricade Dwarves is one of the only combinations that might be worthwile for that sorry race. I think all of us were trying to get the dwarves by then, but they ended up with Triton player.

Humans started clearing rat infestations, and as has been hinted, game was nearing end. Also Catapult Elves went in decline to play one last turn with a fresh race.

Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls chose Marauding Goblins as the last race, and those guys really stormed the board full of decline tokens.

Catapult Elves took Hill Homunculi that had two extra race tokens.

After counting final scoreboard was:

Flying Amazons/Swamp Tritons/Barricade Dwarves: 113
Mercenary Pygmies/Mounted Ratmen/Catapult Elves/Hill Homunculi: 96
Dragonmaster Giants/Commando Pixies/Were-Sorcerers/Fortified Humans: 85
Pillaging Trolls/Spirit Orcs/Imperial Ghouls/Marauding Goblins: 75

Funnily enough, that is exactly the inverted turn order.