[SPOILERS] Tales from the Enchanted Forest - Thessa of the Ljosalfar

[Nyktorion]

Turn 69

The road to the furs is finished, and progress on the road to Yonna continues. One worker is even back to building cottages for Bruti.

I micromanage some cities to avoid growing beyond the happy cap while still keeping a full food box.



Foreign news: last turn, Mr. Yellow did not get a warrior, but just a scout. The remaining soldier point increase came from Cahir Abbey's population.

This turn, one of Mardoc's small cities grew to size 3, Thoth's third city grew to size 2, and Inishbofin grew to size 3. Finally, WarriorKnight founded his fourth city, Slane.

One final interesting bit of information: I saw some new Bannor culture through the fog.



EDIT: after hitting end of turn, Bruti's cultural expansion revealed Kabhalg, the barbarian city that caused me to found Yonna at Mr. Yellow's doorsteps in the first place. Also, it's nice to see that the broken sepulcher has indeed not been looted yet.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 70

Hunting is researched! Next stops: Gilden Silveric, then Fellowship of Leaves. Evermore finished our sixth worker; with his help, the fur camp will be finished already next turn. Evermore is building a hunting lodge now for another +1 to the happy cap, and the ability to build hunters and hawks (I'd like to get at least one of both for scouting). Due to the imminent increase of the happy cap, I all three of my big cities (Evermore, Hyll, Bruti) grow.



Foreign news: WarriorKnight also got Hunting! Good thing he told me of his disinterest in the FoL religion. Irgy founded his third city, and got another classical tech; soldier count suggests that it is a nonmilitary one.

EDIT: Vallus just got its second ring; very soon, it will grab my floodplains. Also, it now has 35% cultural defence; that must be 10% "real" cultural defence, and 25% from Odio's prison. Anyway, as soon as Yonna gets its own expansion from its own monument, it will grab those tiles back.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 71

The workers finished the fur camp, raising the happy cap. Also, the road to Yonna is finished, giving it a trade route from next turn on.



Foreign news: it somehow seems that Mardoc got a tech, and WarriorKnight and Mardoc got a pop point each. However, no matter how I add these pop points to their cities, the total won't add up with the numbers from the demo screen I'll have to look over that again at a more relaxed opportunity.

Soldier count gives another riddle to be solved: total increased by 2k, but rival worst increased by 3k - so somebody had a decrease somewhere (maybe even in pop points?)

EDIT: I see I'm getting tired - I completely ignored Mr. Yellow's score increase in my calculations. Now the score increases are: Mardoc and Mr. Yellow each got a tech, Vallus grew to size 5, Mardoc's third city is now size 3, and Slane is now size 2.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 72

As the road to Yonna is now finised, I'll start to improve Yonna itself. I can't do anything about the flood plains currently, as Mr. Yellow's "culture bomb" took them, but I'm building a cottage in the forest that is currently worked by Yonna.

Bruti finished its elder council, Hyll's council is due next turn. I'll build hunting lodges in all big cities next due to their happyness increase with furs. I'm also turning population that can't work improved tiles otherwise into sages now. Also, in at least one city, I'll keep a sage for long enough to get a great sage).



Foreign news: I'll leave my assessment of last turn's soldier point increases as follows: Mr. Yellow got 1k soldiers from a pop increase. Mardoc got at least 3k soldiers, and then there was a further loss of 2k somewhere. My wild guess: Mardoc's tech last turn was hunting (+2k, he took 12 turns for that ancient tech) he got a scout (another +2k), and Irgy lost another warrior (-3k, is he sending so many warriors on scouting missions? ).

This turn, Irgy's capital grew to size 6, and Trinity is now size 2. Mardoc's point increase should just be land points for his second city.

Looking at the demo:



I'm losing the lead in food and hammers again, however my GNP has greatly improved. With all the monuments and elder councils built in my cities, and all those cottages growing, I've moved from rank 6 to rank 2 in a few turns.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 73

Hyll has its elder council now, too, and is working on its hunting lodge.

The workers have finished another route to Yonna from the north. The current worker spread is as follows: 2 workers build a cottage in Yonna, 2 build cottages in Bruti, and another two just finished roading. Each of the roaders will join one of the other worker pairs next turn.



Foreign news: Mardoc's second (or third) city grew to size 4. Thoth's third city grew to size 3, and he got some land points for the six tiles grabbed by his second city's third circle. Irgy's second city grew to size 2.

WarriorKnight got another tech. It looks like that tech is another one of those ~200 beaker ancient techs.

The 6k increase in soldier count is split into 3k from population, and 3k from a warrior by Mr. Yellow, which just appeared in Vallus. So currently, WarriorKnight has 8 warriors and a scout, while Mr. Yellow has 7 warriors and two scouts. To compare: I currently have 8 warriors. I have lost track of how the soldier count could be split between the other three players, though, I'm currently only sure of their combined total.

Two more quick notes: two or three turns ago, Mr. Yellow made contact with WarriorKnight. I hope that won't result in me receiving actual punishment for planting Yonna. Also, in turn 70, Thoth was scheduled for repicking his second trait, and unsurprisingly, he chose FIN there.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 74

Not much to do this turn, just some more cottage building by my six workers. Specifically, Yonna's worked tile has its cottage finished now, so I am back to working only improved tiles (and sage specialists).



After hitting EOT, I got Archery, and Evermore finished its Hunting Lodge just in time to be free for building Gilden.

Foreign news: Thoth and Irgy each got a classical tech this turn, and Mardoc got an ancient tech. Thoth's capital grew to size 8, and he founded a fourth city. Irgy's capital is now size 7.

Global soldier count increased by 12k, and rival best is now 38k. I don't really know how the 12k are aplit up, but a wild guess would be 6k pyre zombie + 3k warrior + 2k a military classical tech + 1k for Thoth's pop.

I solved one enigma this turn: I now know where Mr. Yellow's increased culture output is coming from. My initial estimate that the increase is not enough to warrant an extra 12 culture per turn turned out to be wrong. The critical piece of information tipping me off was this screen:



Checking the same screen of previous turns confirmed: Trinity has been collecting 12 culture per turn for some time, so there is indeed a great bard (found in a lair?) sitting around in trinity. Counting back to zero culture reveals that the great bard was settled in turn 65 - that's exactly when my settling troop moved into the visibility range of Vallus' borders (however, I am behind the Bannor in the turn order)! So, that's quite an interesting new facette to Mr. Yellow's "culture bomb" threat, indicating that I was actually quite lucky there: if my settling troop would have been just one turn faster, this threat would have been very substantial...

[Nyktorion]

Turn 75

We know Archery now! Finally, I really set the research goal to Way of the Forests.

Evermore completed its hunting lodge, now GIlden Silveric is trained there. The sooner he is out, the sooner he starts accumulating XP from his Hero promotion.

The tile 1NW1W of Hyll grew a forest this turn.



Foreign news:

City growths: Mardoc's third city (4), Glens of Killybegs (6), Slane (3)

Mr. Yellow got some ancient tech, beaker-wise it's again one of those 200ish techs.

Soldier count: Last turn, WarriorKnight and Mr. Yellow did not get any soldiers. Taking rival best and rival worst into account, the soldier distribution between the three civs I don't know yet is 38k -38k - 30k. For instance, that would be consistent with my guess in the last post.

This turn, global soldier count increased by another 6k. 3k of those (1 warrior) went to the 30k guy, 1k was WarriorKnight's pop increase, the rest (2k) most likely went to Mr. Yellow, which should give him another (his third!) scout.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 76

Evermore grew another pop point, and Yonna finished its monument. Yonna's first cultural expansion is due in 3 turns, and I expect my two floodplains to be taken back about 2 more turns after that. Just as the big cities, Yonna gets an elder council now.

Kabhalg got a third orc warrior, so it shouldn't be too long until a barbarian raiding party starts menacing the lands.



Foreign news:

City growths: Thoth's capital (9), Irgy's second city (5), Irgy's third city (3)

WarriorKnight got some land points for Inishbofin. Mr. Yellow got another (ancient) tech this turn. One of the two techs from this turn and last turn is revealed by the trade screen:



So Mr. Yellow has Cartography now. He might have just gotten it for trade routes (with Thoth?). However, I can't help thinking that the true purpose of this research might be the Nilhorn Pact, a 335h world ritual that would give him three hill giants (I guess it should take him at least 20 turns to finish it, though). While Gilden Silveric would have positive odds against any of them even when attacking, the fact that there's three of them would pose a serious threat to both Yonna and Gilden Silveric. I won't get positive odds on city defense against them with warriors or hunters, but archers should far very well against them. So, to be safe from those giants, one of my big three cities will build an archery range and 2-3 archers after finishing its current project.

Further somewhat unsettling news are given by watching WarriorKnight's GNP grow:

[Nyktorion]

Turn 77

We are greeted by a nice event:



This allows us to finish Way of the Forests research at full speed!
So both our religion and our hero are due in 5 turns...
Bruti got yet another cottage, I think the workers might even run out of stuff to work on for some time soon...



Foreign news:

City growths: Thoths's third city (4)

I think the other 27-28 of Thoth's point increase come from 17 tiles his capital's fourth circle claimed 20 turns ago.

WarriorKnight got a classical tech this turn.

Global soldier count increased by 5k. 1k goes to Thoth for pop. 2k more go to Irgy or Thoth (for a scout/lightbringer?). The final 2k go to the other of the two or to WarriorKnight (maybe his classical tech was Bronze Working?).

[Nyktorion]

Turn 78

Workers are now getting riverside farms for Bruti, and are moving towards the sheep in Yonna. Otherwise, a rather quiet turn in the Ljosalfar lands.



Foreign news: last turn, neither Irgy nor Thoth got a 2k increase, but WarriorKnight had a 4k increase, instead. That might either have been from a scout + his classical tech, or from a hunting lodge.

City growths this turn: Mardoc's fourth city (1, just founded), Inishbofin (4), Irgy's second city (6), Irgy's third city (4)

After considering the 3k soldier point increase from pop increases, there's 5k left. Maybe the graphs next turn will tell me more about those.

Generally, the demo is becoming a bit worrying. I'm falling back in GNP again, and I'm also falling back in food, which is compounded by my settling space problem. I hope, Gilden Silveric will be able to do something about that.