DaveV goes on the hunt with Volanna

[DaveV]

Turn 46, the other side of the southern peninsula.




Definitely another dead end. I need to spam out some cities to the west, or I could get boxed in here.

[DaveV]

Turn 47. Setup for my final exploring move (if the elephant doesn't get in the way). Here's a shot of the known world, rotated 90 degrees to fit on the screen better:




Settler in two more turns. I'm really falling behind on the development curve.

[DaveV]

Turn 48. All three flavors of seafood for that day in the distant future when I research Fishing.




I switched to the incense, and I'm now a *distant* second in demos.




Aurorarcher has an extra four culture in his capital, and ridiculous GNP. My guess: a GS pop from a lair converted to an academy. Sigh. I hate lairs.

[DaveV]

Turn 50. City #3 (finally!) settled, and a dotmap:




Red dot next, then probably orange dot. I suspect that may be my border city with Aurorarcher, in which case hill defense bonus is always nice. Yellow and Orange both serve as canals. I can settle a filler south of the deer someday if I go with Orange.

[DaveV]

Turn 51 arrives after some delay. Here are my odds against the fortified skeleton:




I didn't make the attack; I want to wait for a little more backup. Also, that skeleton is spawnbusting the plains hill on the northern peninsula, which I'll be able to see once my borders pop.

[DaveV]

Turn 53 sees Code of Laws research complete. Time to revolt.



That should be a nice boost to commerce and a decent reduction in city maintenance, but will greatly slow down my production of workers and settlers. Post-revolt demos:



I'm still well behind Aurorarcher in GNP, despite 100% research. Need to grow onto some more riverside farms.

[DaveV]

Turn 54 starts with more free money:




Here's an overview at EoT. I'm about to grow two cities, and finally produce the warrior who was delayed so he could pick up the extra XP from Apprenticeship.




My workers in the north finally connected Walnut to the rest of the empire. I'll march the new warrior up there so I can kill the skeleton and improve the rice.

[DaveV]

Turn 56: I noticed barb city borders across the channel (north of the cow in the NE corner of the screen). I'm *really* hoping they invalidate either of my next two city sites by settling some crap city I wouldn't want to keep. For those who don't feel like paging back to my dotmap, the planned sites are NW of the gold, and 3 SW of the dyes.




In three more turns, the borders of my capital will pop to 4th ring, which will give me a tiny additional amount of fogbusting. Fingers crossed.

Now that I'm getting a 20% prereq bonus (and more culture than Aurorarcher), I'm first in GNP.

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[DaveV]

Turn 57. I finally popped the skeleton so I could start farming the rice next to the barrow. The cursor is on the warrior that killed him; he should be as good as new in a couple turns.

[DaveV]

Turn 58. I finished Mining and revealed copper:




Awkward fit with my planned dotmap...