Bearing the flag proudly, Sabathiel of the Bannors [SPOILERS]

[Ravus Sol]

I believe that the Goblin fort only starts with one Archer but i also believe that barbarian activity is focused on certain areas at certain times. So you could be looking at a increase in Barbarian rushing soon. More of a reason to pump out some warriors quickly.

Have you had any thoughts on the next tier unit you will go for? Just getting the ability to build something stronger then base warriors will give you greater control.

[Mr. Yellow]

To be honest, the only focus i have right now is economy and don't have any particular units in mind. One kind i will get into are mages later in the game.

However for units, this early i'm more or less focused on bronzed warriors. It's possible i will take detours to catapults and cavalry if the situation calls for it.

Anyway my build order for these first turns are worker-> warrior-> settler. Risky, but i'd like to get that 2nd city out asap. More warriors will have to be later.

[Mr. Yellow]

And the blitz session is done. We managed to shave 5 turns off the game.

Turn 6:

Scouting east, Dirk finds more floodplains and a hut, looks good for another city with the cotton in consideration. Odio's prison is located up north as well, making potential cities settled nearby easier to defend.



In other news, Nyktorion also gained 6 points from a pop increase, which means only I and WK went for worker first.

Dirk would next turn go for the hut and we get....

Turn 7:



...more lousy gold.

Well the land in east so far i great, although all the desert makes me wonder if the malakims are nearby.
Anyway, since the worker isn't done untill 3 turns, i decided to temporarily switch research from agriculture to ancient chants, to cause confusion.

More to come soon.

[Mr. Yellow]

Turn 8:

Starting this turn pondering if i should start scouting the other nearby areas and so go south and then east. But heck, discoveries in this dry part have been good so far and there's the possibility to find another civ, so we continue eastward...



...finding more dry land. Heck, look how dry it is, those poor sheeps are left in a corner of the harsh lands. In addition there's the standing stones, which nets anyone settling nearby another earth mana.



Back home, Birger finally arrives back to the capital. Ready to defend against the possible goblin threat.

Both WK and Nyktorion meanwhile gained 11 points this turn. Which means a tech, pretty sure they both went for Agriculture.

[Mr. Yellow]

Turn 9:

Dirk continues on southeast through the dry lands.



And we find green pastures on the other side of the mountain range, as well as the Broken Sepulcher bleeding out there. Gonna scout the woody hill to the east next turn, there has to be another civ over there.

In other news, Sciz gained gained 7 points and another population pop. Which pretty much confirms that he's the leader in crop yield and working flood plains.






Turn 10:

Before i ended last turn, i switched research back to Agriculture again, giving me this splashscreen for the final turn of the blitz.



At the same time, the worker has finally been created and is ready to....sit still doing nothing.



God damn it, thanks to the goblin the farms are delayed, slowing my progress.
And this happens as early as turn 10!

It gets worse from here, trying to scout the hill east, i get blocked off by a griffin!



Not good, this was the worst case of the likely scenarios. There's no good terrain for defence around and must simply hope that it won't attack me. Fleeing northwards we get...



Contact! It's the elves peeking out of the mountain range.
Their scout appeared damaged and poisoned, which means he just had a fight against a goblin or less likely, a spider.

Soon enough, i get a mail from Nyktorion.

[COLOR="Lime"]Greetings!

the age of ice has passed, and this land is coming to life again. Finally, all of us can settle down, and thus do the first step in allowing our people to thrive again. We are pleased to see other people who have survived.

We, the Ljosalfar, believe that the best way towards a blooming of the new life of both of our nations is to leave the ruthless, warlike spirit of the age of ice behind, and enter a symbiotic coexistence. There are certainly many ways for us to benefit from each other. For instance, one immediate possibility to do so would be to pass information about other civilizations we meet among each other. As a sign of our good will, we let you know that we have already met a group of monks calling themselves "Elohim", who have settled further to the south of our scouts' meeting point.

wishing you the best,
Nyktorion of the Ljosalfar[/COLOR]

And the response.

[COLOR="Cyan"]Greetings as well.

The shadow dictator and the bannors welcomes you these promising times with friendly hands.
To return the goodwill, we will tell you that we are located to the west of here, across a vast desert of fertility. The area around is sandy as well so I suspect that the Malakims are nearby, possibly south or southwest of here.
While knowing where the Elohim are is nice, i would like to know where the elves are located too.

Sadly we can't stay here for long, since we're currently fleeing from a griffon hot on Dirks (Scout) tail, located a bit south. I suggest you turn tail and run as well.[/COLOR]

Sir Yellow, Chief Advisor of the Bannor.

Meanwhile, Irgy as well got another pop increase.

For the demographics.



Someone is rocking the GNP quite hard. This is way to high even for a 3 pop city, one of them must gained a prophet or similar through an event and assigned him as a specialist.
But the big one is that someone has no power to speak of! What the heck happened here?! Someone's been eliminated already or is this a bug?

[Mr. Yellow]

Next turn rolls in and the griffin did attack Dirk. Sadly he failed the QTE and is now dead, waiting to respawn back home whenever it happens.



Speaking of home, the farmer is finally off farming tiles, though not in the most ideal of locations. Have to wait with the corn untill the goblin has darted off.



Now with the scout dead, there's frankly very little to be done in the coming turn. So be prepared for a massive borefest watching the farmer farm until we're able to explore the wilderness again.



Speaking of that, i didn't notice there were flooplains down south, so this will be the next destination for exploration. Whenever that happens.

In other news, both Mardoc and Irgy gained a pop point this turn, up to 3 and 4 and increasing the scores by 7 and 6. Irgy gained a pop last turn as well so i believe he gained the 4th pop through the immigration event.

[Mr. Yellow]

Forgot to add the response received from Nyktorion last turn:

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Dear Sir Yellow of the Bannor!

thanks for your information. In return, we can of course tell you that our settlement lies to the northeast of our scouts' meeting point.

best wishes,
Nyktorion of the Ljosalfar[/COLOR]

Now you might be wondering why I pretty much revealed all scouted info to him.
First of all I wanted to have a friendly contact for now that i could have use of later on. Secondly that scout already saw the flood plains to the west of him and would surely try to continue scouting westward. Doubt that griffin would have deterred him much.

Anyway, I pretty much know of the position of 2 civs now and have a strong suspicion of where a 3rd is.



For the turn itself; predictable yet dull. The farmer keeps farming, the goblin keeps gobling and Birger is striking an intimidating pose in the sun.



So lets talk city locations. I got 2 now.



The first spot I was pretty sure of is no longer my first pick. It nets me nice tiles, but the goblin fort next to it could cause issues.

So I will quite likely grab either of the latter locations instead, even if it’s far away from the capital. 4 floodplains, 2 cottons are pretty tempting and it closes the eastern civs off from possible expansions. Also Nyktorion might be much interrested in that spot, so that makes me even more determined to grab it first. The question then is to settle it on the hill for defensive bonuses or the tile south of it for less overlap from the goblin location.

Anyway, Mardoc jumped gained 22 points last turn. 2 techs apparently and if he worked the coastal tiles much it’s quite possible that one of them is Fishing (the other from hut).

Speaking of techs, from the looks of score gained at specific turns as well as how the demographics have evolved, each of us has researched/gained:

WK: 2 techs (1 of them Agriculture)
Irgy: 0 techs (researching Mysticism?)
Me: 1 tech
Nyktorion: 1 tech (Either Agriculture or Ancient Chants)
Mardoc: 2 techs (1 of them Fishing)
Sciz: 0 techs (Mysticism again?)

Speaking of Nyktorion, the GNP graph shows him jumping up on the GNP around the time he gained a tech. This means he’s now researching a tech with a prerequisite arrow (beaker discount). It’s either mysticism or calendar.
He’s been stuck on 2 pop for some time now so he must be producing a worker, meaning it can quite likely be Calendar.



Finally, a closer look at the demographics tells me that Irgy has 2 warriors and a scout now, followed by the 4 pops. Also WK must be the one with 0 power, since only he and I went for worker first and the first pop is apparently not counted in the power rating. Been reckless with both the warrior and scout or just extremely unlucky?

[Mr. Yellow]

OK, now i'm in doubt again regarding the power ratings and i contradict myself when talking of both Irgy and WK. I don't have much idea what the values represent.
Does someone here know how much units and pops equals in power?

[Ilios]

OK, now i'm in doubt again regarding the power ratings and i contradict myself when talking of both Irgy and WK. I don't have much idea what the values represent.
Does someone here know how much units and pops equals in power?

Unit Str = K power (eG Warrior, Str 3 = 3000 Power)

Population = 1K Power/2 pop (eG 5 population gives 2K power, 6 population gives 3K power)

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...aphics.php

[Mr. Yellow]

All right, thanks Ilios.

So let’s try this again. I was right at first regarding WK and no power. Only I and he have 1 pop cities at this stage.
That 13000 power…well. It can’t be Irgy, since 4 pop would only shave off 2k, leaving 11000, that’s either too little or too much for units. Warrior and scout count 3k each (lost 3k when Dirk got eaten).
Which leaves Mardoc or Sciz. One of them has 4 military units totaling 12000 k.

Anyway, this turn the goblin DID attack the capital and immediately lost.
Why couldn’t it attack sooner dangit?! Bah, at least that’s one less threat to be concerned about.



Birger gained 1 xp and suffered 0.1 in damage, as well as the poison promotion (Will highlight the units stats next time, sorry).

In addition, Sciz gained 17 points last turn. Both a pop and a tech. Still no sign of going for worker, though he must be rocking those floodplains pretty hard.