DaveV goes on the hunt with Volanna

[DaveV]

Catch up post. I pulled my scout back into my borders on turn 5, and have been doing a little pop-out scouting (easy to do with the elves, since they can do it on any tile other than a bare hill or desert. In three turns my creative borders will pop, and I'll be able to expose some more tiles.

My original plan for next city was this one (labeled '2') for double rice:




Until I found this one. No food resources except the corn which would have to be stolen from the capital, but riverside incense for COMMERCE!!!




Sorry about the lack of resource bubbles, a pet peeve of mine when other people do it, but these shots were taken in haste.

[DaveV]

So, I've bungled this game already. That's what happens when you play when you're rushed and tired, I guess.




I'm not too worried about the double worker start, but my worker sat idle in the capital for four turns when I mistook him for my warrior. So now I'll be behind the curve for the entire game. The very observant reader will notice the red dot on my warrior from when I repeated my mistake. This means I'll lose a few turns of fortify bonus when the second skeleton comes calling. I expect him to attack across the river, though, so it's very unlikely that I'll lose.

[DaveV]

Turn 17. I got the dreaded Muris Clan event:




But I have Nature mana, so no harm done. Also seen: a forest grew on the tundra tile west of the coastal forested grass hill (right under the list of mana), so my scout can't do the scouting I planned. I sent him back to the capital in case the RNG hates me. There's still one coastal tile I can unfog in the southeast, but I'll wait till the present danger is past.

[DaveV]

Turn 19. The skeleton spent a turn building up his courage, giving me another 5% fortify bonus and decreasing his odds to 4.4%.




I (finally) finished my farm at EoT; I'll finish my worker at the end of next turn with six hammers of overflow.

[DaveV]

Thank you, RNG!




I'm a little bit behind:

[DaveV]

Turn 22. Here's the tile I was trying to unfog. I didn't expect anything exciting, and wasn't disappointed.




I had a big score last turn because I popped borders before everyone else, but now I'm back at the bottom of the list.

[DaveV]

A second skeleton came plodding up to my city and suicided himself (at 3.5% odds this time). Yay, now I can take a shock promotion and start attacking the skeletons instead of defending.

[DaveV]

... and I changed my mind. I'm running with a pretty thin defense, it would suck to lose my shock warrior in an unnecessary 96% battle. Instead, I'll wait for the skeleton to attack at .7% (and cry if he wins).




At EoT, my workers finished my fifth and sixth improvements, so this is my peak productivity for the next several turns.



Doesn't stack up very well, even with the 3F/1H/3C reagents tile ...

[DaveV]

Changed my mind again. I don't want the skeleton to cost me six commerce by stepping on my dyes. And I want to build a road on the hill so I can protect the dyes in the future.




The big news is in demographics. Best rival land area has jumped above 37K, so someone has a second city. Almost certainly Dreylin, thanks to his RoB head start. The increase in the average was 1500, so 6000 new land tiles claimed.



Also, biggest rival city is now size 8 (!). No one is CHA, and only Aurorarcher, at the bottom of the score list, has Enchantment mana. So someone has a lot of happy, most likely Ventessel with his 3-ring city. Maybe he built a Tailor already?

[Mardoc]

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.