DaveV goes on the hunt with Volanna

[DaveV]

Turn 60. Borders pop at EoT, revealing that the Sepulchre appears to be on an island.




The scout will reveal a few more tiles next turn, hoping he doesn't spy any Dwarven borders.

[DaveV]

Turn 61. My scout does the aforementioned scouting:




Nice land, no sign of Khazad borders.

Two great people in the log:



The drama bard, most likely, and someone got a great sage the hard way (instead of popping it from a lair ).

[DaveV]

Turn 63. Since our last episode, the scout exposed one more uninteresting tile, I finished AH and horses appeared south of the copper. My next city will go where the scout is standing, to work that embarassment of riches (and why does the spell checker object to embarassment?).




As I suspected, Aurorarcher was the one with the Drama bard. Now he's pumping culture into his cities:

[DaveV]

Turn 66 opens with what is normally one of my least favorite events:



It temporarily turns grassland tiles into plains and plains into desert. In this case, all the tiles I'm working are improved so are unaffected. I think the only affected tiles are two of the grasslands by the jungle. I was worried about jungle spreading into these tiles, now I don't have to worry about it for a while. So, yay for bad events working in my favor!




Long-range outlook: Aurorarcher is almost certainly researching bronze working so he can bulb sanitation with his drama bard. I really want to push to FoL before grabbing bronze, but I'll have to keep a close eye on his power. He's clearly winning the game right now; he has five cities while I'm going to plant my fourth next turn.

[DaveV]

Late report for turn 67. The barrow finally spawned another skeleton. My odds were pretty good:




And she won flawlessly, moving up to 11/10 XP.

Note also the new city, which I forgot to rename.

[DaveV]

I just played turn 71. Not much to show, so no pictures. Aurorarcher continues to lap the field; he's up to seven cities now.

[DaveV]

Make that six cities for Aurorarcher. He's still dominating this game at the moment.

Cities screen:




Demos:



Ventessel is looking like he's going to have a weak first game. Way behind in score, a flurry of lurker posts a couple weeks ago. I can relate. I hope he uses it for a learning experience.

[DaveV]

I managed to take a screenshot without the interface for turn 73. Here it is:

[DaveV]

Turn 74. A Kurio scout is visible across the channel.




That gives me a lot more information, the most interesting of which is this:



Aurorarcher has declared war on at least two civs already. Is he trying to clear the table early with bronze warriors and axemen?

Current civics:



An, um, interesting combination from Ventessel. I think maybe the -30% military production penalty doesn't apply to the foodhammers from conquest, but it certainly does to the god king hammers. Aurorarcher is running exactly the same civics as me, which must mean he's doing it right .

City lists:

Ventessel


Aurorarcher


Me


Graph dump:

[DaveV]

Turn 76. Another skeleton spawns, and another scout appears across the channel:




I had pretty good odds, but that didn't protect my warrior:



The glance screen shows that jalepeno is the victim of the war declaration from Aurorarcher, although they're now at peace:



Another vote for the popular Aristocracy/Nationhood/Apprenticeship/Agrarianism civics:



Obligatory demo dump: