Aurorarcher is making the world disappear

[Aurorarcher]

T90 Dave proposed new Wolrd Map trade which I accepted. And it showed that Jale got an island, damn.




I also noticed that Jale is still not in Apprenticeship (never been), what the heck... maybe he's waiting for GA then switch to war traits now that he has FoT he doesn't really need Apprenticeship. I'd expect him to beeline Military Strategy for free GC + Military State civic.




Though, it seems possible that Mardoc could really get there first, that is his 2nd GA.




Now that my Libs are ready my GNP is looking pretty good.




Next GPP will come out in 3 turns once I run 2 GS + 1 Pro, then I'll know better where I should be heading next. KoTe is now 1t away. I'll probably need Sailing soon, there's some possible island(s) NE of me. It's also tempting to grab Warfare first for National Epic (+100% GPP) and maybe give a run for Military Strategy if somehow Jale/Mardoc haven't researched it yet at that point. I really doubt that will be the case though.

Once I have KotE I will start building adepts slowly. I have one city that will focus on them as it has CoA already to get more xp on my adepts. I'm keeping an eye on Jale but he's still keeping our border pretty empty so no fear really. If Dave wanted to backstab me he could very well do it, but I'm relaying on the fact that Dave knows that'd only hurt both of us more and help Jale to runaway even faster.

[Aurorarcher]

Possible settling this looks-like-an-island-to-me in the future. Also, look at that Fish. I hate it when there are resources that can only be worked if you settle on other resoruce (here Rice)...




Jale's borders popped.




. This sucks. Now he gets a vision of my city, and the worst is that I popped the borders of that city 1t later ..

Likely site for my 8th city. I dobut I'll expand much more in this direction. Mardoc might not like it if I did because he might think that land belongs to him... Though he has a lot of lush land south of his cap so I'd expect him to settle there more (like he has done already).




This offer came on T93 from Dave.




Dave is probably just trying to help me, or otherwise this doesn't make any sense. So I accepted. He knows I have more dyes to be connected soonish (ready on T95 actually).

GC falls to Jale.




And he wisely used it for a GA.




I'm little worried of Cultists now. Jale could well research Priestood now and start pumping out C1 + M1 cultists. He must be heading that way, why would he otherwise grab OO at this point with a huge commerce input? Also, I noticed that all of my 7 cities are coastal ...

.

Good thing my GP turned out to be sage. Now that should help get to mages faster but I need to start spamming adepts faster. Fire II mages can deal with cultists pretty well. I am considering doing double bulb on Sorcery and time it with my next GP. But that'd be risky if it turns out to be something else than a GS.




And I got Pearls in a decent location, yay!

[Aurorarcher]

Not a whole lot going on. Jale is still spamming cities a lot, now up to 18 or 17, can't even remember... well it doesn't matter, that's as many as Me + Marodc + Dave have together.

He's also getting his power up pretty quickly. I'm getting my first adept out soon (T98) and I'm researching Necromancery for now. I'm turning one mana (only one currently ) inside my borders to Entropy, rust will be nice as I've seen Jale build a lot of Swords recently. I'm still probably dead if his power keeps rising like that and I won't get to Mages by the time he attacks. Demos from T97.




It has been rising by about 22k/turn which equals about 3 swords per turn, not taking into account growing cities, but you get the point. I'm little afraid he'll use boats to land units near my capital in the future but that doesn't seem too likely unless he get Body mana first, I'm also not 100% certain Jale knows how to use those tricks.

Next turn (T98) my 2nd city is going to run 4 sage specialist to get my next GS in 13 turns. That means that on T111 I could finish Sorcery with two bulbs. Depending on the situation on Jale front I might consider saving the 2nd GS for something else, for GA later or to bulb big piece of Arcane Lore for my hero. Yeah, I know seems unlikely to get there, but you know... one can at least dream?

On T99 I will settle my 8th city, actually 1N of the spot I considered earlier. Popping its borders with zealot.

[Aurorarcher]

T98 opened with a demand from Dave.




I'm not quite certain what this means. Okay his adepts now start with fire I for free but I don't see that being so necessary for him. Maybe for his Witches if he wants to get to Fire II faster, I guess? I'd really like to use it to get +1 xp to my adepts. So I declined. He also brought some units to my city...




... maybe trying to get his message through? I mean surely if he wanted to declare right away he could've taken the city ease with his turn. So I re-offered fire mana for free to him. I can take it back before mages or ask for his fire mana earlier if I for some reason need it before mages. And no, I don't really need it before Sorcery except for xp to adepts.

Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid but I don't really like that demand, esepcially if it was only under peaceful assumption. Demand sounds like it can't be 100% peaceful. Dave has more power than me, and he knows most of my force is sitting on Jale's front. I can reinforce Udenarat next turn if Dave wants to ruin both of our games, but I don't think that's going to happen. We both benefit by being peaceful against each other. I guess we'll find next turn what's going on.

Anyway, I managed to micro enough to get Necromancy one turn faster. Demos T98.




First time I'm not last in power for a loooong time .

[Aurorarcher]

Hmm, now that I think of it Dave might be heading towards Jalepeno's cities already? I hope that's the case at least. I'm not certain that stack will do that much but any help would be most appreciated.

[Aurorarcher]

Sorry for lack of reports.

So yeah, I was being paranoiac for nothing, Dave moved his units through my terriory towards Jale. I can't remember if there was much of interesting happening between T99-T101, except Jale building tons of units + building the Bone Palace, and Dave getting A LOT of witches from his Gates. With low AC that has been very fortunate for him.

T102 Mardoc gave be OB offer, which I accepted.




It gave me +6c/t for now, as some of Dave's routes were replaced by better routes (bigger cities) to Mardoc's. But this also made me switch to Trade as my next tech, as I get +1 TRs with 8 cities I should be getting close to 16c from it. Add to that Libraries almost in every city, the cost will be paid back very quickly when I'm not saving gold. I'm thinking to researching 900b of Sorcery on my own and bulbing the rest, that should be doable in the time frame when I want to be able to upgrade to Mages.

Dave decided to reveal some of his troops to Jale. I'm not certain that was a good idea quite yet, but I guess he'll try to attack as soon as we can, while he has advantage regarding units: Mages at this point are just deadly. He has a lot more witches/adepts on their way here as well. Maybe he's also trying to tell me to help him right now.




I can help some, but not a whole lot untill I get to mages. I can however move my warriorstack and two adepts on the forest inside Jale's border next turn if I want to, according to the following picture with all the deatils in it. I'd assume if Dave wanted to declare next turn or soonish he would move on that tile too.




Of course I don't know what Jale has in his city right now (couldn't use floating eye this turn because of Haste). Jale saw Dave's units last turn, and will see my warriors + adept next turn (and the worker, though I stopped it's work). I assume he has already brought some units to the city and will bring more later. It's great that one of Dave's Witches has Air II, it might cause Dave to declare war on me at some point by accident but it's great source of collateral. I've just improved my Entropy mana and I can use Rust now, which should also help some.

Anyway, the next turn will be interesting to see. For now I won't be the one making the move first though. And it seems unlikely that Dave would declare war before he has more Witches here (won't be long with 3 movers). So why he then showed those units to Jale? He must've used floating eyes for scouting on his turn... maybe he knows better what Jale has there, hmm. So next turn it's either:

1) Dave declares on Jale => I will do the same and move units on the forested tile to defend his Witches. This seems unlikely though as I mentioned earlier, and there's no way Dave can be sure that I would declare as well. Though he should be able to get a message from the worker and the position of my stack... maybe.

2) Dave doesn't declare just yet but is either waiting for me to make the move OR/AND waiting for rest of his army.

I think there's 90% chance for #2 and 10% for #1. Interesting times for sure, dogpile here we come!

EDIT: Note to self, I should definitely road that forest tile where Dave's stack is ASAP. Should've done that a lot earlier too, oh well...

[Aurorarcher]

So I guess that 10% was the way to go... Though Dave was able to reinforce pretty well.







So I followed.




I'm not feeling too happy about the situation, but with Rust, Maelstrom, Fireballs, Spectres... things could turn very well in 1-2 turn. And I feel like we have to hit now or it might be too late... I assume Dave will move his troops under my stack next turn. The issue is that he can't use Air II if I have units within 2 tiles... Now that I recall I positioned my worker very badly to forest which I should definitely move away next turn... (bolded for myself so that I would remember this next turn).

Jale has bunch of units near Treasons Harbor.




He has 12 units in the city and 3-4 units that can reinforce the city on T104. Me and Dave have a total of 18+ (+ due to reinforcements of Dave coming soonish and I can summon some skeltons too). Dave has one Spectre mage, one Maelstrom Mage and two Fireball mage. That's awesome. That collateral should be handy, also, those skeletons are great because they can be replaced eventually. I'd assume dave to take the 10% defense bonus away from the city next turn, then turn after that is the decision time.

Wait, Dave is summoner, so he can jump on the forest next turn, summon two fireballs&spectre, wait a turn, summon another two fireballs&spectre and hit the city with 4 fireballs and 2 sepctres on T105. Maybe even with skeletons if odds seem good. That could do a lot of damage. Now here I would really like Dave to be before me in turn order because once Dave has done all that Jale gets to play his turn. He won't be able to heal a lot but some unfortunately. What I am doing here is basicially acting as a shield for his mages which is fine for me.

This is annoying.




That's Jale's Griffon. Jade torch? He must've gotten treasure chest event or something, otherwise without lairs I don't know how to get it. I hope hidden nationality units show flashes if they have promotion(s) pending? Can anyone lurking confirm me?

In the west Dave is looking for a new city. It'll probably grab Corn/Rice but I'm not quite certain where he'll settle it. I hope he doesn't mind my popped borders that might've stolen some of his tiles. The settling party is well-guarded, usual Dave.




This is getting interesting. Can't wait for next turn! I wonder if we could make Molach join as well ...

[Aurorarcher]

So Dave moved under my stack as predicted. He also took the defensive bonus of Treasons Harbor to 0%. I rusted a lot of Jale's units. Gotta love those 3 str warriors!




Notice that Jale was able to reinforce the city a lot, he also has a lot more coming. In fact about 25 in Treasons Harbor and in total over 30 that can reach the city. Yup, that's not great. Hopefully with Dave's Fireballs, Maelstrom (yes, I moved that worker away so he can use it next turn!) and Spectres can do something next turn... Using Maelstorm is something that should be definitely done next turn; at least it one doesn't give Jale any xp!




Jale has his starting adept nearby, giving that Chaos I spell that I happened to forgot. Notice metamagic.




That galley is annoying, it could theoretically transport 4 units near my capital, and I have only one warrior there at the moment. Jale doesn't know that though (unless he uses floating eye from Treasons Harbor).




Here's power situation, Dave is bringing bunch of Witches + PZs to Jale's front. Actually Dave's power is very respectable, though 12k witches explain most of it. I'm still bringing up the rear!




Jale's Griffon is next to Ciriail. I doubt it'll attack, 6.4 vs 7 would give 32% chance for him to win. If he does attack I'll just pump out 1t warrior.




Finished Trade eot, that's good. I'm getting a lot of free commerce from it, and now I can take a look at techs...




Notice that Mardoc now has Priestood so we're about to see Cultists anytime from now. That's scary if Mardoc wants to eat me... I hope that won't happen because I can't stop him untill Mages. Also intrestingly enough Mardoc doesn't have Writing!?! (not shown in the pic) even though you'd think that being PHI those libraries would be pretty cheap beakers. I think Mardoc is going to play in peace, afterall he proposed OBs with me in the first place. He might even share borders with Jale in west, who knows how far has the pirates of Jale spreaded (20+ cities IIRC)?

Jale has now Trade too, but no KotE. That's good because I don't want Jale to get too mobile.

[Aurorarcher]

Of course Mardoc could be giving OBs simply to scout my cities. He doesn't have metamagic so he needs to do it 'manually'... He has one worker roading inside my territory so he knows I don't very many units defending the border city...

[Aurorarcher]

No update for a while due to Christmas.

We're on T108 and things are going okay-dokey, thought Jale was able to raze one of my cities, the most western one, Glorairine. I was lazy with floating eyes on T105 or 106 (forgot which one) and he took advantage of it. My city being next to coast certainly made me pay for it. I'll re-settle the spot within 10 turns and this time I'll put it 1S of the older location.

Thanks to Dave for clearing up Jale's Cultist + some swords and warriors! I lost the pictures somehow...

Anyway, looks like Mardoc is ready to join the war, yay!




Hopefully he uses those invisible Cultists well!

Me&Dave are standing outside of Jale's borders. I don't want to move in just yet, for two reasons. First this:

Jale's units in and outside of Treasons Harbor.







And secondly because I'm 2 turns away from Sorcery (pic after ending the turn).




Jale's Griffon is annoying.




It's standing on land but it's still able to blockade all the water tiles from Ciriail (I'd like to work the Fish and Clam....). Had no idea you could blockade from the land as as well.

I got trade contact with Molach recently. I'm trying to borrow his Air or/and Mind mana for a while. I offered him Meta for Air and Chaos for Mind. He might already have one of those on his starting adept but I'm still hoping for him to accept at least the Air one. I'd like to get Air II on my mages, Mind II would be useful too making Jale unable to attack.

Power situation is not looking pretty.