It's the end of the world, and Dave feels fine

[DaveV]

Not much going on: no wins in the witch lottery, still waiting for the ones I'm slow building.




I zoomed way out for an overview, since I played this turn on my (relatively) big screen.

[DaveV]

Turn 96. jalepeno built the Heron Throne. As Iago so aptly put it:



I can't complain about lottery luck this turn, because another mobius witch spawned:




Checking upthread:

... pretty much any magic sphere will have at least some use (possible exceptions: Nature and Shadow)

... which are exactly the two promotions on my newest witch. Is the game trolling me?

But, a free unit is a free unit. In five turns she'll be able to chuck fireballs. jalepeno's power is increasing rapidly, so I need all the units I can get.

[DaveV]

Probably no reason to take this screenshot, but I did so you lurkers have to look at it.




Surprise: he won, taking a little bit of damage that will quickly be healed.

I'm moving some units into Aurorarcher's territory to head for jalepeno's cities:




I have a worker in position to build a road W of the tiger, and summoned a skeleton to protect him.

I asked for Fire mana from Aurorarcher, so my two witches that will be built next turn start with Fire I.

Note the barb city that just spawned north of Bow. Mardoc's warrior is cornered by the barbs on the extreme left of the shot. I'm guessing his second warrior was Waned, since none of the barb units has extra XP.

And now I have to stop complaining about the RNG, because another witch spawned:




Water and shadow mana. Water is nice because it lets me add food and/or hammers to four tiles that are already in my culture: the oasis, the capital desert hill city tile, and desert tiles in Famine and Red Horse.

[DaveV]

Apparently Aurorarcher declined my request for Fire, then re-offered. Thanks, buddy. When I have some spare time, I'll check whether my water witch can improve his tiles after she's done with mine.

My stack is now in Auror's capital:




At EoT, my two hand-built witches were born, with some very nice mana:



The new ones are the first and last in the list (I would expect insertions only at the front or back of the list, but I haven't studied that code). Both were guaranteed fire, of course, with bonus mana as follows:

First witch: Law, Life.

Last witch: Body, Entropy, Nature, Sun. Wow.

[Dreylin]

Last witch: Body, Entropy, Nature, Sun. Wow.

Is Wow mana as good as I think it should be?

[DaveV]

Last witch: Body, Entropy, Nature, Sun. Wow.

Is Wow mana as good as I think it should be?

Nah, it just lets me summon a Shiba Inu.

New turn: I got the worthless "execute a witch" event. Temporary happiness, yay.

I'm advancing toward the front lines; Aurorarcher seems to have nothing more than warriors and his starting adept.




The cursored stack is just east of Nimarail. I canceled our mana deal so I could take some Death promotions and summon some more skeletons. If Auror needs it, he has only to ask. Otherwise, I'll keep it for +1 on my spectres.

[DaveV]

I replayed turn 99 after taking those screenshots, because I forgot that my witch on the oasis was supposed to spring another tile . Then, on the replay, I forgot to cancel the mana deal, so I'm short a skeleton. I'll cancel next turn.

Here's what I saw in Treason's Harbor:




That looks ... inadequate. I also saw a metamagic adept to the east (under the turn number), so he may beef things up if he sees me coming. If not, he can always switch civics and whip/draft some defenders. But that will be painful in a chained golden age (he just built the Bone Palace), and I think I can kill a couple of pretty much any unit once my artillery rolls in. That city's worth +12 to the AC if he lets me raze it <drool>.

Aurorarcher settled a greedy city (couldn't you have settled 1S?), but I'm still planning to settle south of the corn.




At EoT, another witch spawned:

[DaveV]

Turn 101 started with the Mutation event:




I rolled the dice, since most of the mutations are beneficial. Now my starting adept is Heavy and can't keep up with my stack .

Hi jalepeno:




His garrison is unchanged, and he almost certainly still can't see the two fireball witches who will arrive next turn (3W of Nimarail). If he just reinforces with the giant, I like my odds of killing both of them. He could also pile in some of the swordsmen, which would be too much for me to kill.

[DaveV]

He switched to conquest and military state, and has a lot more units. I don't see any promotion shine in Treason's Harbor, so my units should be safe.




What a time for a forest to grow on the tile south of the mountain! I had to come up with a new staging area.

I declared war and bombarded his defenses down from 30% to 10% in Treason's Harbor.

Another witch was born at EoT:




Only needs Air for all four elements. That brings my total to 8 witches, but the newest four are all at least two turns from the front lines.

[DaveV]

Aurorarcher declared war and moved in a big stack of well-promoted warriors. But he's still standing in the blast range for Maelstrom .

He also requested fire mana, which I granted (still 5 turns left on his gift of fire mana to me). Does this mean he's close to having adepts?




I had to run a quick worldbuilder test to make sure Blinding Light would affect jalepeno's units and not Aurorarcher's. I also bombarded the defenses down to zero, and pillaged the road NW of the city.

A note on turn order: it goes me->jalepeno->Aurorarcher. That means I can benefit from his collateral, but jalepeno has a chance to heal between my turn and Aurorarcher's. So I'll probably have to do most of the heavy lifting here.

I also built the stupid city south of the corn, even though it's already culturally swamped.