[Spoilers] Dantski plays Rhoanna of Hippus

[Dantski]

Turn something or other +1

Another non-event greets me upon logging in.



Otherwise a quiet turn, scout moved along 1 tile, goblin moved NW and I decided to sit my warrior in my city and gain fortification bonuses because I don't trust that goblin to stay away.



Also someone is upto 18k soldiers on the demographics and someones down to 2k. Warriors and scouts have been lost and someone popped a tech or dwarfs vs lizards event or one of those thingies.

[Dantski]

More video games!

Just one screenshot for this turn and that's centered on my scout.



2W of the gold seems like an awesome city spot, the main problem with it is it needs a border expansion to grab its resources. So I'll need to see what the best way to do that will be later.

Goblin seems to have moved into the fog so I'll do some very limited scouting with my warrior east for now.

Calabim seem to have popped a tech, I think 11 pts is one of the starting techs.

[Dantski]

First contact!



Balseraph borders to the NW, as the crow flies the plains hill spot I noted in the last turn is certainly closer to him than it is to me which is unfortunate. However he doesn't know that yet.

Ellimist is the Perpy guy but I'm not entirely sure on the diplo allowed this game. I'll just send a generic greeting message.

Overall I don't like how this is turning out, Ellimist has better land to expand into towards me than I do and that's my main scouting info. I'll loop my scout back around to try and defog inland but I think there's a reasonable chance that Goblin will get me.

[Dantski]

1 turn not reported due to nothing new being scouted when the scout turned around and started being careful as I try to scout the west more thoroughly.

The game however had other ideas on turn 8.



Some multi bear action, this gave me 2 options.

1. Go SW, however this puts the scout directly next to 3 unfogged tiles and is a very risky move.
2. Go E, I can move SE first and see if either hill is occupied and if not then the scout only has to risk the single desert tile having an enemy.



Well flippity flipping flip! I guess that goblin was locked onto my scout and will probably kill him next turn as its 3 STR vs 2.5 STR.

Well in other news...



Modern Chants are in. Education selected as the next tech.

And finally the demographics.



Well someone has a 3 food tile in their BFC, could be a resource or floodplains or oasis or whatever. I'm concerned that the person with 18k soldiers may try an early rush once their lizards/dwarfs have been defeated but not much you can do about that. It might be the same person with higher production who wants an extra warrior for security, but it could easily apply to someone who lost a unit and desperately wants another ASAP. The land area numbers suggest to me that everyone has a coastal start, only one person has more land tiles than me.

Overall I think I'm doing ok so far, I really hope the scout gets lucky and wins because production is going to be low for military and buildings from my capital and replacing scouts may have to wait a long time.

[Dantski]

I haz save!

Some generic greeting messages have been exchanged between Ellimist and I.

Hey Ellimist

As I PM'ed you we met 2 turns ago, so I just wanted to say hi!

Not much to report on my end of things so far. Just trying to keep explorers alive in these harsh times. How about you?

Greetings!

I wasn't 100% sure we were in the clear, so I just reviewed the diplo rules in the settings thread to be sure and it looks like we're doing the "only send messages on your own turn" thing that I proposed.

I haven't managed to explore that much yet either, but it seems like the map is likely to be stronger than usual for FIN and also pretty cramped.

Have you met anyone else yet? So far you're the only person I have contact with.

Like me, he's not offering up free info, just confirming plenty of water elsewhere.

Yeah I wasn't too sure on the diplo rules but it shouldn't affect my usual chattiness.

No other contacts yet, I'm just thinking about map shape from what I've discovered so far. Not enough info yet though.

Onto the turn! The first thing to find out was the scout's fate.



I think the sign says it all.

Warrior has done a little bit of scouting east, here's what I've got there so far.



Worker is done EOT.

[Dantski]

Rather dull turn, I'll report it anyway.



Worker starts on the Wheat farm and will be finished in 4 turns, DEMACIA starts building a 2nd warrior for some security.



Warrior continues his limited western scouting, he spots Wheat on a fresh water lake and also a Dungeon. I'll have to spend a little time thinking and scouting some more before deciding on the best city spots on this side. As for the Dungeon, its probably best that I pop it and take the risk/reward. Leaving it up just invites someone else to open it.

[Dantski]

Not much to say last few turns, Bob's now been eliminated and the top soldiers count in demographics didn't go down to my disappointment. Seems Bob was in the same military situation as I'm currently in.

Which makes my move next turn all the more questionable.



What you can see in this screenshot.

1. My worker finished the Wheat farm.
2. My capital grows in 2 turns and produces a warrior in 3 turns (can be sped up to 2 turns)
3. My warrior is on the dungeon tile ready to pop it next turn.

Fingers crossed I don't kill myself!

[Dantski]

New turn and it wasn't pretty when I logged in.



Yes that's Ellimist's Combat 2 Lizardman on my border (with at least 1 promotion in hand). He didn't mention it in our diplo messages so he could well be going for an elimination here. Put simply if he wants to kill me he can. Normally the -20% city strength on lizards means warriors can defend against them, but with 3 promotions (he'll likely add shock) he'll have a +60% strength lizard attacking a standard warrior.

So what options do I have?

1. Do nothing, I'm probably dead so don't bother wasting more time on this game.
2. Ask him what his intentions are and hope he feels too guilty to attack me without much notice.
3. Plea for my civ's life, I'm against doing this and have no intention of gifting stuff to him all game. The only thing I can realistically offer is mana.
4. Some other option I haven't thought of.

Well while I mull over that, lets pop the dungeon!



Destroy the dungeon but my warrior is now plagued and useless, if I survive I'll just use him as a suicide scout.

So I decided to go with option 2, sort of. I'm dead if he attacks and so I'm going to play as if he's peaceful. That means putting my worker in range of him this turn because its the best thing for the worker to be doing this turn. Now if he chooses to attack, people will hate me for 'giving' him a worker but I'm not pussyfooting around.

Hey Ellimist

Noticed your lizardman found me this turn and that certainly answered my question on who got the lizard vs dwarves event!

Hope he has peaceful intentions as I am putting my worker right on the border in range of him this turn. Given that you have 3 promotions on him its not like I can stop you

I did originally mention that I'd found a dungeon to the east and was exploring it but then realized that would tell him I have my only warrior not close to my city. I expect my worker to be dead next turn and my city the turn after but oh well.

[Dantski]

Well that's over then.

Hey...

I'm going for either a choke or elimination.

Sorry. It's nothing against you personally. If you review any of the games that I've been successful in, you'll see that I tend to be pretty aggressive when the situation calls for it.

The best time to attack someone is always going to be when they aren't (or can't be) prepared for it.

Probably no more updates, not really worth it when my odds of survival are similar to Bob's apparentely were.

It does however beg the standard FFH question of what should be done about dungeons and lairs. It seems Bob was screwed over by them, Ellimist got a large slice of luck to put him in a strong position, which then coincided with screwing me over. Is the answer to not allow Dungeon/Lair/Barrow popping before turn 50?

[Dantski]

The worst possible result may have happened.

Congratulations.

Does this mean my warrior actually won at low odds? This is terrible! I'd already written this game off and now I may have to continue a worker down. I'd rather have been eliminated...

This is just speculation as I don't have the turn yet.