[SPOILERS] DaveV and Averax end the revels

[DaveV]

Turn 31. superjm is retreating. I moved a warrior to cover the tiles he could move to if he doubles back. I'm hoping a griffon will come along soon and eat him.




The farm finishes, and now I can have my 2-turn settler and GNP, too .

[DaveV]

Turn 32. superjm is back. Warrior is blocking.




I will finish my settler at EoT; demos show that no one else has a second city yet. You're wasting your worldspell, Bob.



Exactly middle of the pack, and I'll be working these five tiles for quite a while. I'm hoping my new city will contribute enough to boost me a bit, although it will take a while for the workers to catch up on it.



Power graph shows TBS with two warriors + Lucian + scout + 3 points from population. superjm has three warriors + scout + 2 pop points. Why is my scout the only one that's irresistible to barb animals?

[DaveV]

And a quick turn 33. Still no rival cities; the worst I'll do is a tie for first settlement.

[DaveV]

Turn 34, and I'm the first to settle a new city? Baffling.

The new city is named King Lear, because of this classic from James Thurber:

The Get-Ready Man was a lank unkempt elderly gentleman with wild eyes and a deep voice who used to go about shouting at people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of the world. "GET READY! GET READ-Y!" he would bellow. "THE WORLLLD IS COMING TO AN END!" His startling exhortations would come up, like summer thunder, at the most unexpected times and in the most surprising places. I remember once during Mantell's production of "King Lear" at the Colonial Theatre, that the Get-Ready Man added his bawlings to the squealing of Edgar and the ranting of the King and the mouthing of the Fool, rising from somewhere in the balcony to join in. The theatre was in absolute darkness and there were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lighting offstage. Neither father nor I, who were there, ever completely got over the scene, which went something like this:

Edgar: Tom's a-cold.--O, do de, do de, do de!--Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking . . . the foul fiend vexes!
(Thunder off.
Lear: What! Have his daughters brought him to this pass?--
Get-Ready Man: Get ready! Get ready!
Edgar: Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:--
Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!
(Lightning flashes.
Get-Ready Man: The Worllld is com-ing to an End!
Fool: This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen!
Edgar: Take heed o' the foul fiend: obey thy paren--
Get-Ready Man: Get Rea-dy!
Edgar: Tom's a-cold!
Get-Ready Man: The Worr-uld is coming to an end! . . .

They found him finally, and ejected him, still shouting. The Theatre, in our time, has known few such moments.

But enough light comedy. The game is quickly heading in the direction of tragedy.




Yes, that's combat II Lucian lurking on my borders .

Here's the demo shot, proof that I have the first expansion city. Now let's see if I can hold it...

[DaveV]

Turn 35. Both bad guys moved into the fog, which means there's a 2/3 chance Lucian is moving away from my territory. Best case: he kills superjm's scout, and ends up diseased.




Demos show someone else (not Bob ) has built a city. At least I didn't miss the rule that we're all supposed to be playing OCC. The only way I can make the numbers work is to assign the city to the guy who had 29000 land area, which means the city only has three (new) land tiles. Ouch.

Edit: rival scores are all exactly the same as last turn, which means this was an odd population point. Ergo, I'm assigning the new city to TBS.

[DaveV]

Turn 36. No visible rival units, no changes in land area or power. Here's an end-of-turn shot of my creative culture doing my exploration, since my scouts are nothing but griffon chow.




Edit: stop the presses! I checked power during my turn, not after. Here's the power chart after the barbs played:



That's a drop of exactly 8 for TBS, meaning Lucian was eaten by a barb animal. Sucks for him, but that's why you don't send units outside your culture that you can't afford to lose.

[DaveV]

Turn 37. superjm's scout is baaaack.




It looks as though superjm built a city this turn. Here come the orcs and goblins. From the look of things, Tholal and Bob are still sitting on one city.

[DaveV]

Once again, I've been overthinking this. Planting a new city apparently gives a score increase of 4, so Bob planted on turn 35 (one turn after me ), superjm and TBS on turn 37. Tholal is still on one city. Since rival worst land area is 31000, Tholal must be the one who moved for that amount of land, and Bob was the one with 29000. Rival average went up by 3000 this turn, so superjm and TBS added a total of 12 tiles with their new cities. If I weren't Creative, I would have settled SE of my King Lear location to get the incense in first ring, which would give 6 new tiles by my count. That all adds up nicely.

[DaveV]

Turn 38. Tholal still hasn't built a second city, but someone's power is spiking.

Here's a screenie after I ended turn. Note the combat II tiger. I think he's too far to the northeast to be Lucian's killer, but he must have eaten something pretty fattening.

[DaveV]

Turn 39. Here's a shot after I ended turn.




Lowest opponent land area has increased, so Tholal must have finally settled his second city. Everyone except me has grown his capital to size 6. superjm's annoying scout is still alive.