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

[Bobchillingworth]

Btw, what adaptive trait is he using right now?

[DaveV]

Btw, what adaptive trait is he using right now?

Financial.

Some return messages:

Hi Dave,

Nothing much, similar story to your war in that I'm carrying out a few tile improvements for Iskender.

Regards,
Pb, Brief Boy-King.

If true, maybe he's pillaging roads? Iskender was pretty paranoid about roads during our brief war earlier, and that's not something my worker could do (nor would he want to ).

Moving into position. For starters Iskender now has Archers in all
the cities I can see.

Interesting. I'd rather have a couple bronze warriors than an archer, but they look more appealing if you don't have bronze.

[Bobchillingworth]

Heh heh, see, Raiders is an awesome trait! It's so powerful that it makes your opponents declare on each other just to remove roads!


About the archers, I assume that Iskender built them both because he needed archery for HA and he's scared of us. I suspect he thinks you intend to declare as soon as the NAP runs out and you have a vampire army- be on the lookout for him to launch a preemptive strike.

[DaveV]

Another boring lair result:



But the interesting part of that picture is in the lower right. The Armageddon Counter has jumped by exactly 5 since last turn. I figured PB had built the AV shrine, but it doesn't show up on the top 5 cities/wonders page. Maybe there's a delay before it's shown? But it doesn't appear in the log either.

Alternative explanation: Hyborem. I'd expect him to be shown in the log, and added to the list of players.

Another thing that will increase the AC by exactly 5 is the elimination of a good civ, but PB is the only good civ in this game.

Puzzling...

While researching, I printed the religion screen, which is worth reproducing here:

[Bobchillingworth]

Hyborem won't show up in the list of players if he doesn't spawn within visual range and if you aren't at war with his summoner, I think.


I'm not sure if he would appear in the log. Probably not, there's not a wonder associated with him like there is for Basium. And other civs founding cities doesn't appear.


Now that I think about it, PB's thread and the lurker thread have been even more busy than usual- perhaps they're discussing how or who someone could take over for Hyborem from the AI?


I'd give the map a very close glance-over for Hell terrain and flames.


Another possibility might be the founding of the Overlord Shrine, several evil religion spreads + maybe an event, or an Illian ritual. Although all of those might show in the log.



EDIT: Wait, it can't be Hyborem because no-one is following the Veil- you have to have converted to the Veil to research Infernal Pact, I think. So it's something else.

[DaveV]

Good point about Hyborem. I guess it could just be events and grave robbing; I'll check the wonders list again next turn in case it's a delayed reporting problem.

[DaveV]

The turn opens with a warning about the Armageddon Counter, in case I missed it:



Still nothing I can see that would cause the jump in AC.

There's a lizardman moving through my territory (visible in the bottom right of the screenshot) who's been keeping me from improving my floodplains by Adonais. He's probably on the same path as the earlier guy who ended up on my gold mountain; this time I'm blocking him. Meanwhile, all my workers have been moved out of range but they'll take a couple turns coming back .



I offered my spare ale to Sareln this turn, and sent this email:

I'm lining up to kill the lizard and clear the ruin in your territory. Since it's your territory, I'll offer again to let your unit explore it. If I surround it, it won't pop any military units (can still pop great person or disciple). Your unit can still be lost (only if it has no promotions), diseased, enraged, etc. I have enough units to explore it myself if you're not interested.

While I'm doing email dumps, here's a new one from Iskender:

First, thanks for getting your worker on site, I hope your trip through the Green Empire was enjoyable, the view on the Goblin Archer Zoo in autumn can be breathtaking.

If I'm not mistaken that's the exact schedule for your worker:

Turns 132-135 chopping the southern gems tile
Turn 136 moving 8
Turns 137-140 chopping the northern gems

Now my part of the deal:

I'll have culture control over the northern gems in turn 146. The road will be already there and the mine is scheduled for turn 148. Initially I planned to have both gems within my culture sooner. I wanted to settle west of the gems but before I did that Pocketbeetle intervened, claiming that this location is unacceptable for him "for strategic reasons". He offered to chop several tiles of jungle for me if I decided to settle east of the gems instead. I agreed, without much enthusiasm, as I'm not in position to be choosy with Pb right now. One of the consequences of this deal is that the gap between your chopping of the 2nd gems and getting the resource is 8 turns. I can't make it any shorter, I'm building a monument working a plains forest which will be lumbermilled in 2 turns. I could chop the forest but it'd speed up completion of the monument only by 1 turn and leave the city with almost no production potential.


I'm not sure how much does this gap interfere with your plans, if you find it unacceptable we can still call the thing off and capture each other's workers. If you don't mind waiting these several turns I have an idea how to leverage the situation: as soon as you leave my borders we could sign peace and open borders which would give us a few extra turns of trade and a tad higher sustained peace bonus. I could also move an archer to protect the worker in case something spawns in the jungle.

Thanks for explaining the situation so thoroughly. I'm hoping we can establish a basis for trust by working together, so I'm perfectly willing to chop jungle outside your borders. Open borders and extra trade are just I was aiming for. One note: I think your worker will be ejected from my territory when we declare peace, and capturing the workers will no longer be an option. My worker will be trapped on the far side of your territory; I could move him back home via a route you specify, but it will take a while.
An archer escort for the worker sounds like a good idea.

[DaveV]

The wandering lizardman died attacking my bloodpet. Sareln told me to go ahead and clear the ruin, so I attacked the lizardman defender and won at 75%. Next turn I can do the exploration.

Demographics are looking pretty bad; I need to work some more aristofarms and pump up my income. I'm paying a huge amount of support on troops, but I think I need to keep up my power.

[Ilios]

Since you're worried about keeping your troop level high, could you show a screenshot of the Power Graph (last 50 turns is fine)?

[DaveV]

Powergraph:



Financial advisor:



Military advisor:



I haven't built any bloodpets since the end of the war with Iskender. I'm starting a settler building spree while I finish up Sanitation, and the bloodpets are destined for city garrison duty.