DaveV goes on the hunt with Volanna

[DaveV]

So someone has a lot of happy, most likely Ventessel with his 3-ring city. Maybe he built a Tailor already?

Sprawling gives not just 3rd ring BFC, but also +3 /city.

Ah, that would do it. Can you tell I don't like to play as the Kurios?

[DaveV]

Turn 35 rolls around right on schedule. No new cities showing up in the demos. The skeleton did move onto the dyes, so:







I've had very good luck in combat so far: I've won one 93%, and two 96% battles. Losing any of those would mean I'd have to build an extra warrior or two. Instead, I should have 99% odds in future battles (which is still not a guaranteed win, of course). Only 21 XP to unlock FotT!

[DaveV]

Turn 36. Looks like another new city: average land area up 1.5K, which would match with a new city claiming 6 new tiles. Warriors and goblins start spawning with the next city.

[DaveV]

Turn 37, another new city:




Brace for barb impact!

[DaveV]

Turn 39. Apparently there's a second nearby barrow, because here comes one of its skeletons. I'm blocking the forest reagents tile with my super warrior. If the skellie moves onto my dyes, I'll take the 99% shot; if he moves across the river, I'll cover the worker with my warrior and see what happens.




My warrior to the south is building up fortification bonus on my soon-to-be city site. Also of note: the griffon to the northeast. We've seen plenty of fun tricks in the past with captured griffons, and I should have 95% odds of capture once I have Aristocracy and Animal Husbandry.

Demographics:



Looking pretty grim again. Rival best GNP is getting pretty ridiculous. I have one peer in the slow second city club.

[DaveV]

Turn 40. The skeleton moved south. He should move onto one of the clear tiles next turn, so I'm waiting patiently.




Rival best GNP was down to 45 this turn; I'm thinking the 52 last turn was someone running binary science in God King.

[DaveV]

Coward!

[DaveV]

Oops, I missed the lack of a question mark next to Aurorarcher's name last turn. He probably moved onto the hill where the skeleton is now standing, making contact, and moved away. The skeleton decided it would rather attack his scout (?) than my buffed-up warrior.




Contact means a graphs dump:

Several conclusions from those screens: he's stomping me in every category, which means his second city must have grown to a decent size already. I don't see any flat spot in his culture graph, so no revolt yet (and thus no aristograrianism). The uptick in culture a few turns ago would seem to indicate a monument in his new city. Since I think he has more population than I do, his crop yield lead is probably illusory (he has more people eating his crops). His power lead is probably also mostly due to population.

[DaveV]

Turn 43 opens with an event. Free money is good.




It gave me 33 gold, pretty much the expected value. That means I can turn on tech a couple turns early, so yay.

In the south, I can explore a couple more ocean tiles with my scout.




Unless there's something spectacular in the fog south of the elephant, that peninsula looks pretty crappy. I'll be able to do some more exploring in two turns when the borders pop on Oak. A city next to the mountain looks like a pretty good blocker right now.

Note the skeleton in the far west, still moving south. I guess he's Aurorarcher's problem free XP now.

[DaveV]

Turn 45. My scout is in position to look over the water.




That looks like another dead end to the south. No wonder I haven't been seeing any barbs, with only a few fogged tiles and animals/skelies to spawnbust. Good thing, since my garrisons are paper-thin (3 warriors, one scout).

Aurorarcher has changed his name to Stoneskin and his city names to Basalt and Granite. Seem stronger than my Maple and Oak, but everyone knows trees->paper and paper beats rock!

In other not-news, I'm at the bottom of the scoreboard again.