Dreylin stops for a bite with Decius

[Qgqqqqq]

Oh, sorry, didn't I post since there?

I agree with it in as much as I didn't see any problems with it, and that all of the judgement calls are ones in which you will have a much better sense for it than me, because I'm not in-game.

[Dreylin]

t89 -

Here's an example of why I think Slavery would really help on the city set-up:

[Dreylin]

t91 -

Whelp, I've got a proto-nutter here in the NW:


I guess he'll probably throw himself against that Barb city the first chance he can get.

[Qgqqqqq]

With Cover and C2, he's got a decent chance of winning. Do you know if you can give Moroi that are crazed Burning Blood?

[Dreylin]

Maybe I'll find out, but then again are the risks of it turning Barb worth it?

[Qgqqqqq]

Depends if you think he is going to die against the city or not.

[Dreylin]

True, I guess it's a toss-up between the risk of turning Barb verses the risk of losing the unit entirely. Well, in the meantime I'm going to send him down to pop that dungeon ... I wonder what happens if he Enrages part-way through exploring?

I thought I'd taken a shot of the SE, but it didn't seem to work. I haven't popped the Ruins seen before because the area is also infested with Bears! Auror moved a Warrior and one of his Griffons that way too, so I'm camped on the next door forest waiting out Bear attacks. Interestingly, there is a second Ruins a little bit SW which is not currently occupied so once the Bears have suicided themselves I'll probably go pop that first.

Philosophy in, and I considered going for Bone Palace. Best production site is currently Bagpuss, but there it would be 17t ... in GA and with overflow. So it really doesn't seem worthwhile and I dialed up another Settler instead.

First Zealot is out and heading North to spread to Button Moon. I need to designate a second city for churning Zealots, but I haven't worked out which yet; probably either Pat or Willo. Magic Roundabout is going to build a Training Yard and be second site for Moroi on the Auror border.

Research overflow into Sailing, then I'll switch to FoL as my dump tech for gold saving now that some Markets are coming online. I think that the next run is up to Trade, with a stop at Cartography first to get some non-Auror cooperation going.

[Dreylin]

It seems I didn't post this from last turn:


My caution allowed Auror to sneak in and grab the Ruins ... and he kicked of a Golden Age at the same time.

He also brought some friends:


And I'm not too sure about that Bear either since it seems wholly unwilling to attack. Maybe the Spider will target his stack rather than mine, but he can still duck under my troops and pop it himself. His power is spiking a bit right now as well, so maybe I'll start building a few more units too.

Also trying to dotmap out the SW; here's v1:


I'd have liked to fit in a 5th city, but I can't see a good way to do it ad still keep the Barb city location - maybe I could do away with that, but it looks like a strong spot.

[Dreylin]

t94 -

Whaaaa!?


So my reading of the explore lair results is that it can only ever spawn a single Spider unless it's a "BidBad" result, but then wouldn't it give a "Champion has risen to defend" message instead of the generic Spider one? Two other possibilities are: 1) there was already a Spider spawned from this Lair, hence lack of Lizard guard unit, 2) some of this is rename shenanigans from Auror who has captured HN units in the area. High likelihood to be a combination of the above.

Sadly, that's a significant part of my Power just evaporated, and which I'm going to need to replenish in short order. Bagpuss finishes a Settler this turn and will start on some more Moroi, and Magic Roundabout will build a Training Yard once the GM finishes.

Actually, I should prioritise building and stationing a Scout into this area to guard against captured Spider abuse.

Cartography finished last turn and so I offered Map Trades & Open Borders to both Ventessel and Jalepeno. I think it's clear that Jale and I will need to work together to bring Auror down a peg...

[Dreylin]

t95 -

Map trades came through and we're now getting foreign trade routes. Here's Jalepeno, who is both North and South of us:


A good-looking empire, but no durplicate happies for trade unfortunately.

Here's Ventessel:


Still not sure what happened to him although I suspect it's a combination of Barbs, Aurorarcher, and inexperience. He has not built Deruptus yet (Jale has) so I offered him the spare Ale for free. He's so behind that it's not going to hurt me to build goodwill ... at least up until the point I take his land....

Also, I really do hope that he's popped LF already to deny that to Jalepeno!

There's a hint of DaveV's borders poking out of the fog to the West of Jalepeno; I need to plan for how to get a unit down there ASAP to meet him.

Beaker overflow was directed into Hunting (I think) this turn, then next I'll switch to my dump tech - which has to be WotE since I don't have WotF unlocked yet. I think I will grab Hunting next to Camp the Ivory for the additional Happy. Which means that the current round of Settlers needs to be followed by a couple of rounds of Workers and a whole pile of troops.

This turn I also declared myself OO since Noggin had grown into unhappiness. Sailing revealed Pearls offshore Postman Pat, so I'm preparing a WB for that and a Galley to go exploring / Griffon hunting. Next turn I'll do the civics revolt; still thinking Religion/Slavery, but can be convinced otherwise.

Thoughts / Questions? If you want I can send the save for you to take a look at the geopolitics...