DaveV goes on the hunt with Volanna

[DaveV]

Turn 74, I finally built a fifth city. I'm sending a promotable scout out to do some exploring (no need to promote him right now, I can see everything within two tiles).




I didn't show jalepeno's cities in my screen dump; here they are:



He has a bunch of them. F8 shows him as #1 in population.

Also, he beats me in cool points for his Order of the Stick naming scheme

[DaveV]

Turn 78, and I'm finally doing some exploring. I need to work on that facet of my game.

[DaveV]

Turn 79: FoL established at EoT.




A good spot for it. I plan to use the disciple to spread it to Hickory.

[DaveV]

I've been traveling for the past week, and have barely had times to play my turns, let alone report. So here's a big catch-up post through turn 83.

I've been running three specialists in Walnut for the past several turns, and the resulting great person was the most likely one: a bard. There's not much point in bulbing Drama, so I fired off a golden age, and immediately revolted to FoL.




I don't remember whether I noted it at the time, but Aurorarcher picked up the circumnavigation bonus. The rich get richer. In better news for game parity, jalepeno founded OO.



I've done a little bit more exploring, and bumped into Aurorarcher's borders in the northwest:




City list:




I think I'll be sorry later that I'm not building more settlers, but I'm still growing my new cities and I need to get the Leaves units cranking. Aurorarcher and jalepeno are out-expanding me because they're so far ahead in food and hammers and they're probably not wasting many of those hammers on infrastructure.

Despite my need for Sanitation, I'm going to push toward Priesthood after Bronze comes in. Tigers would bolster my meager army a bit, and also turn Carnivals into a 40 hammer building that provides +2 happy, +3 culture, and +20% culture. And, of course, the sooner I can start planting forests the better.

Demo dump:

[DaveV]

First ancient forest growth, NE of the capital.




It's starting to look as though none of it will matter, though. Aurorarcher has exactly twice as many cities as I do :

[DaveV]

Turn 86. I settled a border city with Aurorarcher, and attacked the latest skeleton (won with no damage). It's getting to be about the right time to explore that lair.




Aurorarcher's city is on a hill, mine isn't. But I expect to be able to win the culture war unless he's willing to make a huge investment. I'm hoping he views the division of territory as fair and doesn't mount an all out assault to remove my offending city.

Aurorarcher has a C4, Sentry, Subdue Animal scout in the border city, so he can easily check out my garrison (two bronze warriors). The griffon on my southern border (not shown) could also belong to him. If player owned, it could move into my territory and eat a scout and worker or a solo worker next turn, but then I should be able to kill or capture the griffon.

[DaveV]

This game is still happening once in a while. I decided it was time to explore the barrow, but didn't find anything game breakingly powerful inside. Have I mentioned how much I hate lairs?




The fourth line shows the results from last turn. No thank you, I would not like to teleport my best unit to some random spot where she'll probably end up as griffon chow. The really bad news is on the third line: Aurorarcher just built FotT. Not a big surprise given all the promotions his scout is dragging around.

This game is looking more and more in need of a dogpile. I think I'm going to send a fawn out looking for Dreylin to open up the lines of communication. Much as I have to admire Aurorarcher's performance, I would like to make him sweat a little for his victory.

[DaveV]

The land to my south is a lot more empty than I was expecting.




The griffon has 1% odds against the fawn, thanks to his woodsman bonus. I offered up a sacrificial scout, in case those odds are too long for the griffon.

[DaveV]

The griffon didn't attack. It's entirely possible he's player-owned.




It's depressing whenever I look at the trade screen with Aurorarcher. He's got about a bazillion happy resources compared to my two, and twelve cities compared to my seven. Here I am, settling cities for no resources at all.

[DaveV]

A much-delayed report while I wait for the new turn:




Note that I've found Aurorarcher's borders on the southern wrap.

Aurorarcher fired a golden age as mine expired:



It's dogpile time.

And here are the embarrassing details of the trade screen: