[SPOILERS] DaveV: The vampire bites! Goodbye level 9.

[DaveV]

Turn 74: the bear attacked and was captured on his turn (I don't really need a border pop in Magic Lamp, so I may save the bear for a Ygg/Gold city); so was another griffon by Yggsdrasil. Big news of the turn, though, was that my world is a very small place .







Thoth's city looks like he may have settled it on my side of the mountain chain, on top of another sign that I can see partially. Pink dots must be punished!

Here's the captured griffon in the south (the stack scampered NE-NE, looking for friendly territory):




Demos are still poor. Fear my soldier count (which just went up by another 12K). Governor's Manors start completing next turn, which will help with the manufacturing number. Bronze Working is looking like a very appropriate choice for next tech.

[DaveV]

In the west, my wolf maneuvers to scout Thoth's unique feature. The fact that the wolf isn't healing is probably a dead giveaway that it's under player control, but I'm hoping there will be enough doubt that Thoth won't pile in reinforcements. If Dog Sled Racing is as pink as I think it is, I'm going to send in some units to take it.




Griffon #1 is still cruising along the mountains. He spotted a barb warrior mid-move; there's a good chance this guy will walk over to reinforce Kalocly.




My newly captured griffon is still making tracks toward my borders. The lion that I saw earlier was standing in the way, so the uninjured scout took him out.




In the east, the bear attacked and lost, so Unicorn Horn will have a source of culture in two turns.




I took my demo shot after ending turn, so it shows the influence of a Governor's Manor in the capital.

[DaveV]

Turn 76. The wolf moves back to Thoth's border, revealing the unique feature: Tomb of Sucellus. I can see why he wouldn't want me to have Life mana, although it will be a long time before I'll be able to use it.



The griffon is still exploring, and still finding barb warriors.



My super bloodpet killed another barb warrior, for 22/26 XP.



I put together one of those nifty stitch files that all the cool people post in their threads.




I turned on research for Bronze Working, 4 turns ETA. I finished another Governor's Manor in Magic Whistle at EoT, which put it into unhappiness.

[DaveV]

As my scouts and griffon #2 hustled back towards safety, another griffon appeared. I had pretty good odds on him:



But lost. The more experienced and more injured scout had 93% odds, and won:



The wolf revealed that Dog Sled Racing is contiguous with Thoth's borders, so attack there looks a lot less practical. I deleted the wolf after taking this screenshot, rather than let the lion kill him and prove that he was under player control. Nice work, wolf - you were well worth your maintenance cost.



In the east, I'm moving out some scouts to do some, well, scouting.



Meanwhile, griffon #1 found Ichabod's borders. I decided to make contact so I could get graphs and other intelligence. Note that the barbs have built a Yggsdrasil city, which I'll have to clear away before I can build my desired city 2E of there.



Contact with another player means it's massive screen dump time:

Relations screen. Thoth and Ichabod have met; neither of them knows Kyan.



Civics.



Cities:






Graphs:








Demographics:



The more I think about it, the less likely I think it is that Kyan is going to be eager to open borders and establish a road connection to his raiders neighbor who has 4x his power. I think my best play may just be to conquer Kyan after I build my two western border cities (horse and gold/Ygg).

[DaveV]

Turn 78: I moved the two scouts up to the northern hill, to see if there was anything interesting up there in the ice.



There wasn't.

In the south, Ichabod flashed a Subdue Animal scout.



I kept my griffon on the ridgeline, safe from capture by nasty dwarfses.



My other two griffons arrived safely in my borders, and began healing.



My southeastern scouts did a good job of mapping out Kyan's borders, and revealed a decent city site between us.



Second place in most of the demos, still way out front in power. I'm actually neck-and-neck with Thoth if you subtract out the three griffons, but the other guys don't have to know that .

[DaveV]

Turn 79. My griffon detoured to get a view into Ichabod's city, then hopped back onto the mountains. The city has a monument for culture.



When my borders popped at the end of last turn, they revealed some tiles in Kyan's territory.



Yeah, I think I'm going to have to attack him just so I can pillage those cottages. But first, I'll try to get open borders for a few turns of trade and road building.

Here are the demographics, before I finished Bronze Working at EoT. Next turn starts another spate of gold collection in the demographic basement.

[DaveV]

I played turn 80 in a hurry, and didn't take any screenies. The only news of the turn was that I offered open borders to Kyan. Turn 81 started with an offer from Kyan to me:



After thinking about it, I took the offer, although I expected that it would be heavily in his favor, since I thought I'd done more exploration. He did show me where the Pirates live, in the far east. A new map stitch:

[DaveV]

This is a critical point in my game. Either I attack Kyan, or buddy up to him and try to build up my economy.

Kyan:

Economy. Grabbing sailing would let me claim the gems and gain intercontinental trade routes. Kyan has, or will soon have, extra gold for which I could probably trade cotton. Foreign trade routes would be a bit of a boost to the economy. Taking his cities might make me a dogpile target.

Kyan:

His world spell is a vampire's worst nightmare. Without the ability to feast, feed, gift vampirism, or cast other spells, a vampire is just a more expensive but weaker champion. The only magic I might use against him with an attack in ~10-15 turns would be Burning Blood. Cottage pillaging and city conquest gold would let me do a lot of teching without having to save gold. His power and production are much lower than mine; if he lets me build roads for a trade connection, I can blitz through his territory before he has a chance to respond.

Conclusion: next tech is horseback riding. I settle my horse and Ygg cities while building up an army (which will have to clear out the barbarian Ygg city), then wheel around and go after Kyan.

[DaveV]

Turn 82 came in, and I had to blow the dust off this game. As the delay dragged on, I was leaning more and more toward peaceful expansion instead of an Amurite war. Now that plako has taken over, war sounds even more like a bad idea. For those unfamiliar with plako's history (mostly in BtS, but he's played in a few FfH games too), war on him is a Very Bad Idea. Several times, he's fought off seemingly insurmountable odds, and come back to make his attacker Very Sorry. I'm hoping I can maintain détente with plako; maybe he'll build an army and take out Serdoa (although Serdoa has gone Kamikaze against an attacker in several games, so attacking him may not be a great idea either).

As for the actual game: my griffon is coming to the end of the mountain ridge.



Nice workers you have there, Thoth. It would be a shame if something happened to them.

In the north, a wolf attacked my scouts and was persuaded to join the team. I'm going to send him off exploring while the scouts move to support my upcoming settlers.



In the east, I had to clean up a barb warrior. I've moved a scout into position to move east to gain contact with Serdoa for bonus beakers on Sailing. I'm hoping plako won't get too upset if I use his roads.



I decided to turn on research at a 50% slider (-2 gpt). Three turns to fishing. I'd gain a couple extra beakers from Serdoa (he's too good a player not to have researched Fishing yet), but I expect to get more commerce from sailing and trade routes with plako.

Demos look pretty decent:



... and even better after ending turn, finishing the Brew House, and mollifying a couple unhappy citizens:

[HidingKneel]

Mollifying unhappy citizens is what the Calabim do best.