[SPOILERS] Hoarse Lord DaveV speaks softly...

[DaveV]

Double turn report. On turn 107 a wild (?) Griffon appears:




I had to cover my worker and move some reinforcements in range of Seattle Slew.

In the southeast, the barbs are hunting my warrior.




Ellimist's power is jumping again:



Turn 108 opened with a peace offer from Yell0w:



I accepted, since Loki is apparently moving away from my borders.

The log shows that GreyWolf has cranked another Great Engineer out of his Golden Hammer machine:



Ellimist has scored Trade:



The barbs are still chasing my warrior in the southeast:




Here's the situation at end of turn: ready to build the Sugar/Cows city next turn, and a Marble city the turn after that.




Note the barb borders to the southeast. Is that why I lost routes to GreyWolf?

[DaveV]

Turn 109 starts with a favorable event:



Not a game breaking advantage, but 60 beakers matches most of a turn's output.

The barb lion attacked my warrior instead of the scouts, so no free unit there.



As seen in the log, I attacked the goblin and warrior so I could improve the cows right away. If Ellimist has some fast units in position, he could make me pay for this move, but I'm hoping that fast action pays off.




I moved a couple units to block Loki from attacking Secretariat. The ranks are pretty thin in the south here, and Ellimist's power is still climbing steeply. I finished my first stable at EoT, so the horseman assembly line starts next turn.

[DaveV]

Turn 110. Ellimist is making his move.



Which had a pretty spectacular effect on his GNP:



Now he'll grab a bunch of first-to great people, build the Bone Palace (which GreyWolf has unaccountably failed to do with his stream of great engineers), and chain together three or four golden ages.

Here's a shot of my two newest cities, and Ellimist's island city. I'll bet you a box of doughnuts he grabbed the island between him and Kredom, also.




Ellimist has established a nice border zone, with two hill cities in the Odio area of influence. My new city is not on a hill, but should receive the Odio bonus. His defensive stance here may mean he attacks to his east first, against Bob and/or GreyWolf.

[DaveV]

Turn 111 sees me bite the bullet and build the rational city in the north.




Have I complained enough yet about the placement of the happy specials up here? After looking at the setup for the other guys, I feel as though I was just screwed out of two happies by the map.

Note the RoK spread. +1 coin, yay. Not even any free culture.

In the south, I sent a scout to check out the barb city:




Two archers on flatland. Should be easy meat for my horsemen. Unless, of course, Yell0w decides to grab an incredible reach city with Loki.

[DaveV]

Turn 112. My old friend Magellan is back:




Now with commando promotion!

In the north, Ellimist converted the barb city and settled a blocking city, pretty well establishing our border.




My cities:




Turn 113. The log shows Ellimist grabbing the Great Commander from Military Science.



Now that the east is sealed off, I figured I'd spend my remaining settler on a mediocre city between GreyWolf and me. Another old friend might mess up my plans, though. Mr. Giant has three choices of targets: my scout, Loki, or the puppet.

[DaveV]

Turn 114. Ellimist scores two useful wonders.



He's still playing the long game, since he spent a bunch of SoKs on those wonders that won't pay off for a while.



Good news in the south: the giant decided to go after Loki. I'll build a city on the highlighted tile next turn and hope it doesn't make GreyWolf too mad. I gave the horseman a flanking promotion, giving him a 55% retreat chance if he defends against the giant.




I expect that to be the last settler I build in this game. All military, all the time now. Hoping it's not too late.

I also changed research after that shot, now beelining Deception.

[DaveV]

Turn 115. The horseman ran away from the giant, so I'll have an extra horseman after he heals.



Here are the barbs mentioned in the log:




Chased out of their cities by Rantine, no doubt. I don't know why Yell0w didn't use Loki to grab those cities.

In the south, I built the marginal border city and lined up my troops to take Ultigar before Ellimist sends Rantine down this way.




Demos are looking a lot better now that I have more trade routes. Doesn't matter much, since it's nowhere near the runaway.

[The Black Sword]

What's the attack plan?

[DaveV]

What's the attack plan?

Hark! a lurker!

Against Ultigar? Send in the horsemen at 70%, hoping I get a retreat on a bad roll.

Against Ellimist? Current plan is to accumulate enough horsemen to crack his city of Naga's Tail (about 12-15, given his current defenders). Then hope to wreak havoc using his roads. Plan B: attack along the northern shore of the lake, via Big Brown. This happens if he dumps more defenders into Naga's Tail.

In either case, fingers crossed that Bob and/or GreyWolf pile on. We need to do something here before this one gets completely out of control. I may just be creating a new runaway, since Bob is clearly teching his way to Snowfall.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, the Ellimist attack is a lot more interesting.

Are you far from HAs and Chariots?