[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

Actually, you could have looked at the log when you got the great artist to make a reasonable accurate guess as to whether the Drama Artist was still available.

Good point. Wish I'd thought of it .

I'm very happy with the way the game is going so far (3rd place in score, PB perceived as a runaway winner). As long as I'm allowed to tech peacefully to Vampires, I really like our chances. The longer the other players percieve us as an "also-ran", the better.

[DaveV]

Just a turn of repositioning units. The lizardman and skeleton seen in the Dirage capture picture moved past my units, toward Nubia.

An overview of the Vampire Empire:



Demographics, now that I'm in golden age and PB and Selrahc are not:



Correspondence with Iskender:

All right, no culture bombs in the new city. What's your ETA for opening the barrow?

ETA is turn 122 (turn after next). If your city will be built before then, I'd ask you to line up three units to the west, southwest, and northwest of the barrow, else if I pop a bad guy he'll spawn on one of those tiles.
Otherwise, I'll have enough of my own units to surround the barrow and prevent spawns.

[DaveV]

Sareln has a hawk exploring the map, and has been sending me screenshots. He may well have posted these already in his lurker thread, but I'll post them here for future reference (and to show Bob that we're getting some return on his investment ).

[Bobchillingworth]

Neat stuff! Yeah I think saving Sareln was my best decision, at least from a Fun perspective if nothing else.



Something I should have mentioned earlier, from what I understand copper isn't at all spread evenly throughout the map. We amazingly have three sources we can obtain- one we already have, one I think Sareln ought to settle (it's a little ways West of his southern city), and the other I suggest you settle toward after your next two cities before Cull can reach it.


I'm sure the other players will pay absurd sums for copper, so I'd get them all secured ASAP for commercial reasons as much as denial.

[Lurker]

An overview of the Vampire Empire:

Heart-shaped borders, how cute. You must be the friendly, peace-loving kind of vampires after all (the the smoke rising from the previously independent city of Dirage? Optical illusion, I'm sure)

[DaveV]

Heart-shaped borders, how cute.

I hadn't even noticed that.

You must be the friendly, peace-loving kind of vampires after all (the the smoke rising from the previously independent city of Dirage? Optical illusion, I'm sure)

Yeah, peace, love and understanding. And Feasting, too, but that comes later.

Turn 120 started with one of my favorite events:



Oh, wait, I'm not evil . There is an equivalent event for good civs, but nothing for neutrals. 61 gold for a great prophet is just a ridiculously good deal.

On the western front, I have my bloodpets lined up to pop the barrow. Iskender said:

I won't have the city built by then so feel free to position your troops.

[DaveV]

Another aerial view from Sareln:

[DaveV]

I wasn't as lucky on the lair exploration this time: it tried to spawn spectres. I sent in a second exploring unit (a risky move, since if he had gotten a result like "diseased", it would have been applied to both units), and he scared up some skeletons, but cleared the barrow.



In the east, I forgot to move out some bloodpets from Nubia last turn to cover my settler. There are two bears east of the city marker; I just hope one of them doesn't move onto my city site next turn. I had to move my worker onto the city tile to make sure there wasn't a two-move unit lurking in the forest northeast of the elephant to eat my settler. If the bears don't occupy the city site, I can found next turn.

The wandering lizardman moved onto my gold mountain . Four hammers and ten commerce down the drain! I should have covered that tile with a bloodpet...

Meanwhile, up at the very top of the screen, the barrow has spawned a skeleton, who looks as though he may be moving west to harass Sareln.

[DaveV]

Another email dump:

It took two tries, but I cleared the barrow, with no ill effects to my units. It tried to spawn spectres and skeletons, but there was nowhere to place them, so nothing happened.

Well, at least you got that Golden Age couple of turns ago. Let me know if you're still interested in trading Gold for Wine.

The barb city I just captured has both wine and gold in the first ring, so I should bring both of those on line at about the same time. Here's another idea for the gold: I give you gold, in exchange for you researching Cartography and signing open borders with me. This would give both of us a boost in trade.

[DaveV]

... and a *really* interesting reply from Iskender:

Wine and gold, a nice spot!

Let me put forward a different offer: there are two jungle/gems tiles within my teritorry that need some serious machete work. In exchange for the job I can offer free Ale or Gems for a reasonable period of time. The tiles are 4 worker-moves(about 8 tiles) away from the grassland hill I want to settle on.

My reply:

By "within your territory", you mean inside your borders? I'm pretty sure we'd need to be at a state of war for me to be able to chop jungle inside your borders.

If that's the case, how about this proposal: I move two workers into your territory to chop the jungle; you move two workers into my territory to build roads where I tell you to. Once the chopping is done, we can move the workers back or just capture them and declare peace.

I'm hoping this leads to closer cooperation with Iskender.