[SPOILERS] The Reverend Varn of the Malakim

[The Reverend Doctor]

Ran some tests of growing to size 3 while producing two warriors vs. worker first.

Worker first led to a settler at t36.

Growth first led to settler at t42 +1 extra warrior for defense.

The forested hills help in that I can switch to max production to slow growth when needed, and spit out warriors more quickly than on a typical rainforest start. (Not to mention I have the skeleton-in-the-hole strategy if barbs bother me.)

Given this I think I'm already changing my plans and going worker first. Adept will stay home to guard the city/scout with floating eyes. Wish me luck. When settler is done I'll have two warriors for escort, plus a warrior to stay put with the adept. (I assume by this point my non renewable starting scouting units will have died.)

When I first settle the second city I'll be fairly vulnerable to anyone that is going all out rush. Hopefully the (usually) large map and the slow moving terrain will prevent this.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Blitz is on now.

I'll liveblog the important bits here.

Popped exploration from a hut on turn 3. Thanks RNG.

A good hut tech too... something that you have to tech eventually but you never want to waste turns on it.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Popped a hut for a map and see Selrahc's borders to the east. Ugh. Didn't I just say I didn't want to be near him and his sinister trait?

Explored a lizard ruins with my lightbringer. Withered (or diseased, one of them) but at least the ruins were destroyed and I won't have those lizards harassing my worker plans.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Popped hunting from a hut!

Wouldn't it be great to steal the leaves holy city from Selrahc? Of course, I don't want to encourage him to attack.

[The Reverend Doctor]

My starting warrior and lightbringer are both dead... as predicted.

Here's a wide shot of the lands I've uncovered so far. Selrahc is to my east and a unit of Bob's has been traipsing around to the west.

[The Reverend Doctor]

News ticker reports that Bob (the luchiurp) cast his worldspell a couple turns ago. Guess he went masonry first.... unfortunately he popped a couple techs so his mud golem might have things to do anyway.

Also, the first barb that can enter our borders approachs!

My skeleton is away next to a tiger so will probably die and can be recast. If not my adept should handle the goblin easily from inside the city anyway. Might be nice to get some XP on it.

Wildlands being on should mean more animals and less other barbs. Should be to our advantage, especially once I can get a hunter or two out collecting animals.

And an extreme closeup because I like to bust out some flying camera when I can.

Floating eye didn't spot any enemy units (barb or otherwise) to the west this turn. Rice farm finished at EOT and worker will move to farm the pigs next.

Here's a preliminary dotmap of a sort of first ring of cities:

1. Actually picks up 2 dyes (one is under the interface), pigs, rice, a hill, 2 floodplains, and ivory that is suddenly useful with the hunting pick up.
2. Might not actually come second... lots of food and grassland. Another hunting resource.
3. This city will definitely come later but was in the first ring so goes on this dotmap. Peaks so no one else can get to it. 3 Hills makes it a decent production city for this map.
4. Might give me a gateway to those gems to its north, also a good mix of green grass, food, and some hills thrown in.
The city I would want to place in the southeast would go on one of those lake tiles... I'll have to think on where to put it since one of the 10 or so water tiles on this map is already messing with my plans!

[The Reverend Doctor]

Not a whole lot to report... only a little slick map inference.

So, I sent my floating eye to scout southeastish and found a C2 Spectre guarding a lizard ruins.

Hopefully it stays there even if another barb shows up, but I'm not confident.

Anyway, how that helps with the map. During our blitz Kuro complained that he lost a unit to a skeleton and it created a C2 spectre, and he was calculating odds of it vs. a city defender. Fortunately (for him at least) it found some ruins and stayed there apparently. Kuro said the spectre was 7 turns from his capital. Assuming he meant lots of 1 moves through jungle, I can guess that the spectre is about equidistant from our capitals. He's probably mostly south of it as well.

Kuro also mentioned he had the pool of tears near him. Haven't found it yet but what a boon for the clowns! There are very few negative promotions on freaks that aren't washed away in the pool.

[The Reverend Doctor]

We blitzed again over the weekend.... turn 34 is pretty impressive for about 10 days of playing so far.

I still don't have scouting units (other than my floating eye) so no hut pops, lair explorations, or civs met to report.

Barb lizards/goblins have started entering our borders, with no losses yet. Even fought a couple battles with the adept and have some xp on her. Can grab another level 1 spell if I get in another fight or two.

Here's an overview shot... settler delayed about 2 turns from 'the plan' to build another warrior.

I've actually played turn 34 already. So imagine all those countdown numbers -1 to get a good idea of where I'm at.

Oh, also imagine about 5 of my BFC tiles being tundra because I got the damn 'illians get a golden age/ the gods freeze your land' event.

At least no tiles I'm currently working were affected. The wines were though... and should be online in 2 turns.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Settler is nearing completion and warriors are getting into position to protect his journey/guard the new city.

Some equatorial tundra for your viewing pleasure:

I think there was another tile or 2 affected when it happened... maybe it doesn't go away all at once? I don't have picture to confirm and am too lazy to open an old save to see if I miscounted some snowy tiles wrong.

Note that my adept is at 16/17 exp. New promotion here I come!

Once the settler finishes I'll grow working on a warrior (for 1 turn) and then switch to another worker. Probably.

Capital renamed to "Sleeping Dawn" in a lame naming scheme of "songs I like that I can see at least a tenuous relationship between the name of and the sun themed Malakim.".... Feel free to suggest a better one.

[NobleHelium]

Ouch, I hate those tundra/desert (anti-)terraforming events.