DaveV and Keelyn: even though you broke my heart and killed me

[DaveV]

Curiouser and curiouser.

I expected to see shoreline when I moved my scout onto the hill SW of the citadel, but no:




The citadel is perfectly positioned to block access to a little pocket here, but then how did the bear get damaged?

plako has an impossibly low GNP:



He should be getting an absolute minimum of 9 commerce from his capital tile and the palace. Multi-turn anarchy? Then all his stats should be zero, and graphs show him with top manufacturing and low but nonzero crop yield. Maybe this explains it somehow?



Aurorarcher revolted to Religion and Agrarianism.

[DaveV]

After sleeping on it, I realized that plako's depressed GNP must be due to unit maintenance and supply. A quick check of the log reveals:



Wolves and wolf packs are zero power; the power graph looks as though he's built two warriors. That means he could have seven wolves, two at strength 3 (but one of those latter would spawn in the Forbidden Zone, where he'd probably be better off deleting it). So, a big chunk of unit support and supply is definitely the answer.

Farewell, jalepeno. I need to make sure I'm not the next victim.

[DaveV]

The turn 22 save came in right after I made that post. jalepeno is already dead, the turn after plako declared war. Gotta admire that guy, he's ruthlessly efficient.

The question is, is he happy now that he has two cities and a swath of uncontested land, or does he stay on the conquest train? His army is closer to Aurorarcher than me, but he probably has some roads built that would help move his army back my way.

I don't think I can afford to turtle up at this point; I'll keep expanding and hope for the best.

In that vein (and in what may well turn out to be a mistake), I sent a warrior through the portal for a shot at pillaging jalepeno's castle.




I guess plako didn't delete his Forbidden Zone wolf. He can't attack me on the volcano, but jalepeno's castle isn't going to give much of a defensive bonus after I pillage it down to a fort. At least plako's wolf doesn't have a Winterborn promotion.

Apparently the wineries at jalepeno's capital outweigh the city costs.



plako leads in power and manufacturing. Ominous.

[DaveV]

The bear ate my scout, plako's wolf disappeared into the fog, and I moved to pillage jalepeno's castle.




Except it's only a fort, and there's a bear in the way .

My demo ranks are actually pretty decent, but plako's production is still scary. Is he cranking out some expansive settlers, or building up for his next rush? His power is steady, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got some more troops in the queue.

[DaveV]

Turn 24. The polar bear is still riding the train tracks.




plako's power is flat; I'm going to go ahead on the assumption that he's cranking out a pair of expansive settlers.

I finished my second worker and Crafting this turn. Two turns till my first winery. Not a great commerce tile, but I'll take what I can get.




I figure I'll be one foodhammer short of an 8 turn settler once I've cranked out two more warriors and grown to size 6. It should be pretty easy to get an overflow hammer on the last warrior; I'll be emphasizing hammers or commerce after I finish growing.

[DaveV]

The bear finally moved out of the way, and the results were underwhelming.

[Miguelito]

Hey,

I had said during setup that I'd like to dedlurk someone... so I liked your pick the most, and really enjoyed your reports in past games, so if you'll still have me...
Been reading silently since the start (yep, exclusively) but was lazy...

So I guess I'm supposed to ask some questions on your game plan, hmmm.... how hard are you going for that sorcery beeline (I suppose that's what Keelyn does)? Anything besides warriors before adepts? And what would be your tech towards sorcery? Necro for the skeletons (do these acutally work with SUM puppets?).

[DaveV]

I had said during setup that I'd like to dedlurk someone... so I liked your pick the most, and really enjoyed your reports in past games, so if you'll still have me...

Welcome!

how hard are you going for that sorcery beeline (I suppose that's what Keelyn does)? Anything besides warriors before adepts?

With plako looming on my borders, I'm planning to do mining, exploration, bronze working as my next three techs (I also need bronze working to grab the happy/commerce resources on my borders). I also expect to grab sailing and maybe message from the deep before starting on arcane techs.

And what would be your tech towards sorcery? Necro for the skeletons (do these acutally work with SUM puppets?).

I'll be shocked if I ever reach sorcery, and surprised if I research any of the node enablers. It's a very tight map, and I expect plako to take advantage of his leader's strengths by warring a lot. I'm not sure Bob understood what we were asking for in the map...

Necromancy is a good tech for Keelyn, but she's been hit pretty hard with the nerf bat so the old wall of bone isn't as easy to pull off as it once was. Alteration is always hard to resist, though, because Haste is such a game changer.

[DaveV]

Catching up on reports:

Turn 27 event:




Forbidden zone pillaging:

[Miguelito]

That's some nice gold how many warriors to go before the settler?