Hiding Doctor Yellow Mist: 4 heads, one body

[Yell0w]

Wow these turns came in fast, and since I'm sick and at home all day I was actually able to keep up with the pace for once.

So I moved our two strongest warriors towards the Barrow in the south, better to get rid of those quick. There are plenty around to supply us with an endless stream of barbarians and xp anyways.
The turn after I moved them to the sheep hill tile a Griffon showed up, but we got pretty good chances (99%+) to defeat him, not that I had a choice anyways.
But the turn after he hadn't attacked but still was around, so I decided to stay there until it actually attacked.


Which was a good decision since it did. Orthusbane was brought down to 1.8 hp and got another xp point. So I went ahead and killed the Skeleton at 98% odds or something like that.
I moved Orthusbane into our borders to heal quicker (well 4 turns instead of 6, which with moving around doesn't make a lot of a difference but still, he's saver there. I decided not to open the Barrows. Better to be safe than sorry. Let the warriors heal up, get Orthusbane in position to help and then open the Barrows, I just hope the next player has the good sense to do that.

On other business, after the OO Temple finished in Pirate Bay I could 1 turn a Market and did so.
Same with Tortuga, after the Sea Haven finished. Galley after that.
In our new city Club Mate I decided to work the Pirate Grove instead of the rice tile, it'll grow slower but those Groves are so good when they grow I'm sure it's worth it delaying growth a bit. I started a Market there, cause why not.
Libertatia is also building a Market while growing. We have a very well promoted Warrior to guard our next Settler, so I didn't deem it necessary to build another one before the Market.

This is the last turn before ending


I decided to build a Pagan Temple in The Pirate Bay, growing another size and running two Priest specialists for a quick Necronomicon. The water mana will come in handy later for Cultists - or does it? I can't recall if they need to spend promos like adepts for their spells or not, if they do Necronomicon is worth it, if not it's probably not - one thing it will do though is speed up the auto spread of OO along trade routes which is quite handy. And hey if someone wants to stack up Great Prophets to bulb MD (which is not worth it) or use the GP some other way, they can do that. After that I put a few turns into a settler.
Oh yeah and there was a Lizardman behaving exactly like you'd like, meaning, he went into our territory not occupying any tiles I was working, not pillaging but suiciding into a city giving another warrior enough xp for a promotion, well done. All in all I'm quite happy with my turnset, I think I balanced doing what I wanted well with doing whats best.
Sadly at EoT when BW came in there was no copper to be seen and I'm pretty sure you can see it right away, not the turn after.

[HidingKneel]

1d5 + 7 = 11. I'll take turns 80-90.

Turn 80:

Opens with a tech:



Bronze working! Except... wait a second, we don't have any copper .

So, what's the situation? Our traits:



I think that's from our original swap in my first set? Can't even remember. But it looks a lot better at this stage of the game... can start getting some use out of those traits.

Here's an overview of our cities as I found them:



Four cities. Perpentach of the Amurites has five, but he's expansive. Looks like we had a fifth but it got razed? At least, I see some city ruins. Anyway, we're hurting for manpower, but not as badly as where I left things. And some of the units we do have are well-trained:



Got another very experienced warrior sitting a little further south on the barrows. Those are probably best used for unit training, so I'll refrain from popping them.

Our city of Tortuga is pretty badass, with three Pirate Coves, a Heron throne, and a Sea Haven. It's at the happy cap for now, though, and for some reason is running Avoid Growth. I turned that off and let it grow into unhappiness while finishing a Galley (gotta get the happy cap up).

Meanwhile, the capital is building a settler. I'll let it finish that and then build a Zealot (we're running OO) to spread religion to
Club Mate (border pop will let us build two more Pirate Coves). Other cities were building Markets. Seems questionable to me. We don't need the commerce boost (Lanun!) and sorely need other things (warriors!). I swapped Club Mate to a Workboat (to build those coves), and I guess I'll finish the other market since it's almost done.

The capital was running two Priests. I guess someone wants a Great Prophet? Doesn't sound right to me. Both the capital and Tortuga are commerce powerhouses. Generating a sage for an Academy seems like a much better play. I fired the priests and hired a sage instead.

Finally, tech? Lots of things could be handy. I decided on Education. We're Spiritual and get free civic swaps. I think Conquest would be a pretty handy civic right now. Most of our food comes from the water rather than farms, and the capital's running an enormous food surplus right now that I'd really like to transform into an experienced garrison. (Maybe it would have been better to prevent Tortuga from growing? Eh, we'll see.) Also, we've got a huge GNP lead, so we should try to snag all the "first-to" bonuses starting with the Drama bard.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 84:

Opens with a tech:



Next up, saving gold for a turn, then Drama. Should finish up at the end of my turnset, and some other Perpentach can figure out what to do with the Drama bard (I'd sit on it if it were me).

Founded our fifth (or maybe sixth?) city:



And revolted into Apprenticeship/Conquest (Apprenticeship was iffy; 4xp isn't much better than 2xp, but I don't think the -10% will hurt us much in the God-King capital where I'm planning on building most of the units).

Miscalculation: I didn't realize that in Conquest, workboats are built with food. So building workboats in our small cities earlier was a bad move. Swapped back to a Market in Club Mate.

There's a barbarian kill team on the horizon:



Going to bring our good warriors home to deal with it, and maybe build a few more. First, though, I think the capital needs to crank out a few Zealots (and Tortuga some workboats).

Located some Pearls:



Not in a super-convenient spot, but I think we should try to grab them with our next city (+1 happy, goes up to +2 with Sea Havens, which we ought to build almost everywhere). That won't be in my turnset, though.

Demos look solid:



I think we're out of danger regarding triggering Pristin Pass (not that I'd recommend doing it at this stage of the game). In which case, I think our GNP lead will let us coast to victory. Especially if it lets us grab the Drama bard and MS Commander. Of note: Perpentach of the Luchuirp has generated a Great Engineer, so we're likely to miss an early wonder soon (would be a shame to see the Bone Palace fall, what with our Marble nearby and even hooked).

[Mardoc]

Apologies in advance: a family emergency has come up and I'll be out of town for a few days. I'll be able to play the next turn (assuming it comes in tonight), but after that I'll be incommunicado until (most likely) Sunday night.

Hey, do you want to cut your turnset here short? I could take over whenever.

[HidingKneel]

Mardoc, think you could step in for me a little early? Something's come up and I need to leave town early tomorrow morning. (I can still play the turns that come in today; T87 and maybe T88?)

[HidingKneel]

Apologies in advance: a family emergency has come up and I'll be out of town for a few days. I'll be able to play the next turn (assuming it comes in tonight), but after that I'll be incommunicado until (most likely) Sunday night.

Hey, do you want to cut your turnset here short? I could take over whenever.

You're quick! Yeah, that'd be great.

[Mardoc]

Alright, I'll grab them starting with anything that comes in past midnight. It'd be handy if you'll post a notice for whichever turn is your last., but if you're too busy I'll take my best guess.

And best of luck resolving the emergency! Hope it's nothing permanent.

[HidingKneel]

Doesn't look like another turn is coming in tonight. Last turn I saw was 87, so 88 is all yours.

[Mardoc]

T88:

When we last left our intrepid civilization of seasick clowns, we were preparing to resist the Orthus invasion. The one heralded by a million and a half other barbs and a burnt city. How'd the others do? Presumably they killed him, or the we wouldn't be getting the turn anymore, but...

Well, actually, I'm tired. So I'll just say - nice little five city empire, I love the Lanun, their awesome GNP might help make up for the odd tech choices. Still no Animal Husbandry, but we've got Bronze?! With no copper? And most of Drama...and well ok most of the rest is reasonable.

Long term, I have all kinds of grand ideas. But I don't have the long term, so short term, I've got to pick between three reasonable possibilities: Backfill the easy techs we need, like AH and Hunting and Carto...or press onward toward Trade (Foreign Trade is sweet with the Lanun)...or head toward something seriously military, like Mind Stapling or Priesthood. Leaning toward a mix of backfill and Trade. Maybe we can pick up the Great Library this game, too. But first I might as well get Drama, cash in the Bard for something useful like Sanitation.








Along with aiming for cash, I'm also going to aim for more supercharged expansion. A nice sheep/fish/cove city to the south is probably next, and why I cleared out the barrow. After that I've got to decide between a mediocre clams city to the north and a downright sad (but coastal, so ok) pearl city to the south. Pearls are quite tempting, worth 1-2 happy in every city and good commerce themselves. But it's backlines, and the city itself isn't worth a whole lot. But Pearls!

[Mardoc]

T89-90:
Man, at this pace, I may not have the turn much longer! Going to play 12, which will put my last turn at T99.

Man, HK got one thing very right, this was the perfect place for a Zealot. One border pop enabled 2 coves and a fish net to be placed, all of which can be worked immediately by different cities. Of course that still makes me doubt the value of Drama, but at least it denies it to the other teams, I suppose?

Also, I definitely want to spread OO all over the place regardless, it's worth 2 immediate happiness and one more with temple build (2 if we ever find incense)



Here are the cities I'm hoping to found in my turnset. Maybe I can't quite manage all, but it's good to have a goal






At some point we ought to go for some inland cities too, especially something to grab those gems. Only one luxury currently; religion is the only thing keeping us at decent size. But...I think I'll end up leaving that for the next player. Build up strong coastal cities and lots of tech and GNP, and it'll be a reasonable option.

Besides, I think we've got...1...worker. Only the Lanun can make that even remotely acceptable, but it does mean I'd have to get workers first if I didn't want coastal cities.

Drama in at EOT, next up...probably AH, although maybe Writing. Well, I don't have a worker ready to improve either the cows or the sheep, so I guess Writing comes first