[SPOILERS] DaveV: Seriously, Capria?

[DaveV]

Another event. Again not 20-50 gold, and so, ipso facto, a bad event. Not as bad as a permanent health malus or loss of population, but I'm falling behind the other guys who probably are raking in cash from events.



In case anyone cares, this one extinguishes fires and smoke within your territory. The Smokey the Bear event.

My scout exposed another tile (the hill west of the mountain and 2S of the pig), and a scary griffon appeared (4S of my scout, at the very bottom of the screen). To get to C2, he must have won two combats, or one at roughly coin-flip odds.



Scores show that Mackoti is a turn ahead of me on tech, but he and Cairo are still at size 4. Once again, I was a couple beakers short of finishing Crafting last turn.

[DaveV]

After all my whining about events, I have to report my first inarguably positive one.



I'm going to finish my farm next turn, giving the same equivalent yield for worker and settler building, but this gives me a good tile to grow onto after I acquire more happiness, at the cost of zero worker turns. I just have to protect it from barb pillagers.

[DaveV]

Apparently I jinxed myself by mentioning the event that kills city population.



It's a clever way of masking my new city, since the population component of my score doesn't change, but I'd rather not have to spend time regrowing. Or a bag of gold would have been nice [/broken record].



It looks like I'm third to build a second city; Mr. Expansive Cairo was first with a city that claimed an extra four tiles (plains hill west of ivory, maybe); this turn, I can see that Mackoti made a big reach for an additional eight tiles (plains hill east of cotton, I'm guessing). My city claims five tiles on top of the starting 34; paths are clearly diverging already after the mirrored start.

[DaveV]

And the barbs show up, right on schedule:



I'm trying to herd him onto the cotton tile, where I can take a coinflip attack in hopes of gaining a shock warrior.

Whoever's adjacent to Mr. Cairo will have to deal with extra barbs, because they'll walk through his territory to attack his neighbors.

And I'm regrowing my capital on a warrior. He will be useful long term, but for now he just increases my expenses. So far, I've had one good event, two neutral ones, and a bad one, putting me behind my rivals already. Soon I'll have to spend another turn refilling the coffers instead of burning through free gold.

And I can see from my screenshot I forgot to move my citizens around to grow before the warrior finishes . This game is already not going well.

[DaveV]

I killed the first barb on defense, earning a promotion. Now three of his buddies are charging in for a piece of the action:



I hope the other guys, with their weaker armies, are having similar barb invasions.

[DaveV]

Business travel cut into my reporting time, so here are three more turns of my barb (mis)adventures.



The guy who crossed the river attacked my warrior on the grass hill northeast of Light Brigade, doing a lot of damage and giving only 1 XP. I retreated the wounded guy into Light Brigade to heal, and scrambled into position against the next wave (still three barb warriors visible: north, south, and east).

Also, no sign of copper anywhere, so I guess my early exploration wasn't good enough.



The other guys are definitely ahead of me now, due to better micro, CRE trait, and not having to regrow random population loss.

Next turn, I rolled the dice on a 50% attack, since I had a backup guy:



And won! If I can win another coin flip attack, I'll have two shock warriors and will have a lot less to fear from the barbs.

Next turn, another event:



I always go for the third option, since that lets me work the mine as long as no scouts have line of sight on the tile. And maybe someday in the distant future I can recruit the spider onto my team.

You can also see that neither of the remaining two barbs attacked. More fortify bonus for my guys!

[DaveV]

The remaining barbs suicided into my defenders, giving 1 XP to two units. This turn, I finally got the bag of gold I've been whining about:



I received 34 gold, one less than the average value, so I can't complain (although I still will, of course!).

There's an incoming goblin NW of the beavers. If I can herd him onto open flatland, I can kill him for 4 XP.

[DaveV]

The eastern goblin moved onto the reagents tile, and I was able to kill him with one of my 1 XP warriors, yielding exactly enough XP for another shock promotion.



A stack of two goblins is coming in from the north, and I will be able to attack out against the stack. Assuming I win, I'll gain XP without the attacker actually moving outside my culture and being exposed to griffons.

Meanwhile, I'm falling far behind in demographics:



I'm #1 in army strength, and dead last in GNP. Could those two be related somehow?

Even though they're costing me at the moment, my host of warriors will be useful later (and they're useful now to protect my improved tiles).

[DaveV]

I attacked out at 80% against the southern barb warrior and won again. I've had really good luck against the barbs, winning one coin flip battle and seven in the 80-100% range, with no losses. I guess that makes up for some of my bad luck with events.



I'm still way behind, though. Someone else (Aurorarcher, the score leader?) has three cities, a couple turns ahead of me. Largest foreign city is size 7.

Next turn I'll revolt to God King and be able to match Mr. Cairo's settler production advantage. I'll also crank out a (half price) Pagan Temple and start accumulating Prophet points.

[DaveV]

My undefeated streak against the barbs still holds, barely.



I'll build my third city on the cursor spot, and will face another key battle against the warrior NW of the sugar. The guy 2S of Light Brigade barely beat a barb warrior at 73%, and will be able to promote to shock next turn if a griffon doesn't swoop in and eat him. The guy N of the reagents sustained 50% damage from a barb warrior attacking across a river, into the woods, against a C1 shock warrior (less than 1% odds). So I have a couple units that won't be much use for a few turns, but at least they survived (so far).

I'm hoping things turn around for me soon; I'm last to a third city and languishing in score. My plan is that finishing Festivals and building some cheap Markets will help me turn my economy around, and that God King will let me catch up in settler building.