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

[DaveV]

Turn 92: I won a couple defensive battles. The warrior attack gave me the 1XP needed for FotT one turn early. Thanks, barbs!



The battle for Kabhalg went well; my unpromoted bloodpet and C1 bloodpet lost against the archers at 9% and 22% respectively, then I won the rest of the battles and:



A comment on city placement: at first I was ready to call out the AI for another miserable city placement, but the city I built is actually terrible until it pops its second ring. Since the barbs never pop their borders, the city they built is better for them than the one I built.



In the east, my scouts went looking for another bear, and found more than they expected:



I should have decent odds on both attacks (2.5 vs. 4.2 and 2.5 vs. 3.6), but it wouldn't be shocking if I lost one, especially since the spider has a first strike. It probably depends on which order they choose to attack.

On another zoom-out screen composition, I can now clearly see the previously mysterious unique feature to my northwest.



Meh. I'm not planning on researching Hunting for a very long time.

In the west, Thoth now has bronze weapons. I'll have to keep an eye on his power.



Speaking of which:



This may just be a case of everyone trying to keep up with my power spike.

Demographics:



Number of cities: Thoth, Serdoa: 6; Kyan plako, Ichabod, DaveV: 7.

[DaveV]

Turn 93: the bear attacked and was captured; the spider ran away.



I sent the wolf out exploring. It's a wolf-eat-wolf world out there, people.



While my injured scout was healing, my uninjured scout did the step-out, step-back hokey pokey. The spider is sitting on the tile marked with the red X.

In the west, I now have a spare griffon to do some exploration in Ichabod's land. He's built a new city which snugs him right up against Thoth; hurray for "our close borders spark tensions".

[DaveV]

Turn 94 has some information in the event log:



The barb wolf ate my scouting wolf, as expected. plako finally took out that barb city right on his border. He's now up to 8 cities.

My griffons are exploring. In Thoth's territory, I wanted to gain vision on a few more tiles before moving on to the next lake (next move was back onto the lake).



In Ichabod's territory, I discover a Disciple of Leaves and a captured lion. There's a good chance Ichabod has his own air force, so my griffon will have to be careful. It looks like Ichabod researched FoL some 5 turns ago, which I would have known if I'd been paying attention to the event log . FoL dwarves: interesting.



The power graph shows a big dip for Ichabod. He's not at war with anyone, so I'm guessing he captured a barb city or lost a griffon. His city count is up to 7 now, so I'm going with the barb city guess.



I forgot to grab a demographics screenshot until after EoT. The guy with the massive GNP is Ichabod - going after a double-boosted tech, maybe?

[DaveV]

Turn 95. I built my port city and moved my scouts next to the spider. There's a barb warrior who's keeping me from improving the sheep tile, mainly due to a lack of planning on my part.




I have a scout pair exploring by the Dragon Bones; maybe I can find another bear.



The griffons are still exploring.



He'll move northwest and back onto the lake next turn; next turn he'll go southwest two tiles onto the mountain.



The power graph now shows what it cost plako to take the barb city: about the same as me (2 bloodpets). At least his barbs built the city in a good spot so he didn't have to raze it, grumble grumble.



Thoth's slope looks like about one pyre zombie per turn.

[DaveV]

Turn 96. The spider attacked and (barely) lost. Now his polar bear and goblin friend showed up to join the party. Since I have one uninjured scout guarding two badly injured units, I retreated to the southwest.



I also killed the invading barb warrior, at 99.6% odds.

A wolf attacked my scouts near the Dragon Bones, doing no damage. I just deleted him, since I don't have much use for him and don't want to pay maintenance on him. Now there's a lion ready to join the team.



I found Thoth's capital, with a pyre zombie in residence.



I also found Ichabod's capital.



Demos are still looking good.

[DaveV]

Turn 97:

My scout team captured a lion during the barb turn. The victorious scout will heal, while the other scout does some exploring.



Well, hello, Mr. Bear! Wouldn't you like to join our team?

Griffons are exploring in the west.





The third griffon will sneak a look at plako's newly captured city.



I settled my ninth city to firm up the border with plako.




Yuck, an internal trade route! plako is not doing his job properly!

City list:




Power:



Demos:



This is somewhat concerning. I don't want to provoke a dogpile. As the Japanese proverb says, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

[DaveV]

Turn 98. It looks like the exploring griffons will be joining forces soon.





Power:



Demos:



I finish Form of the Titan next turn if no one snatches it away before then.

[Mardoc]

Looking good!

[DaveV]

Thanks, Mardoc.

Turn 99 starts with a great bard for plako.



He could be obnoxious with a culture bomb on our border, but I think he's more likely to go for a golden age. Or the Drama bard, if it's still available (which I think it may be).

I sneaked a peek at the city formerly known as Kalocly.



plako's not much for city naming themes.

In the west, the griffons are sharing the same lake.



Power watch:



One category left before I'm #1 across the board:



After ending turn, I finish my big metal man.



Which gives a substantial boost to my score.

[DaveV]

Turn 100. Yay.

In the northeast, some barbs are moving in. My scouts went scooting past them to go bear hunting.



In the north, a wounded bear was sitting right next to my scouts by the Dragon Bones. Apparently he killed an enemy unit. Heh.



I captured him and declared nationality. You'll have to declare war to poach my bear!

In the west, the lead griffon did an out-and-back exploration jig, which let the trailing griffon catch up.



In the south, a barb warrior wants to pillage my gold, but he'll end up being XP for my Moroi.



Turn 100 map stitch:




Cities:




Current research status:



Upcoming techs:





In a single-player game, I'd go for Philosophy (for Slavery to whip infrastructure into my new high-food, low-production cities) and Military Strategy (for Command Posts and the free Great Commander), and maybe Message from the Deep and Priesthood, before Feudalism. But I think I need Vampires as quickly as I can get them.

Expenses:



Slider at 0%, 50% (which I've been running for the last several turns), 100%:







Progress toward victory:



Religions:



Demographics:



Graphs:

Foreign relations:





Rival info:









A message from our leader:

I'm pleased with the way the game has gone so far, but nervous about the near future. Although Thoth and Ichabod have the makings of some high border tensions, I think they'll probably try to team up against me. There's nothing scarier than a runaway vampire. The fact that plako and Ichabod have open borders makes me nervous that plako has traded away my map (that map trade was probably my dumbest move of the game). I'm hoping that plako will not turn it into a 3-way dogpile; he's been giving me a free 8 commerce/turn with the open borders for a while now; I'm hoping that's to get an "I like you; I kill you last" reaction.

I built the Form of the Titan as much for denial as for my own use, although it will be nice to get a starting mobility promotion on my units even after I switch away from Apprenticeship. But the guys who are building adepts or firebows really need as much starting XP as they can stack onto their units.

To speed up that painfully slow 14 turns to Feudalism, I'm going to start running some specialists in my capital as soon as I can build the enabling buildings. A golden age will let me swap to Military State and save a net 8 gold per turn (currently +2 on civic cost, -10 military unit support). The ability to draft 3 Moroi per turn might give some pause to the dogpilers, too. Ideally, I can use the golden age to generate some more great people, and pop the 2-person golden age in quick succession.

Current handicapping:

DaveV: 3:2. In a good position, but will probably find some way to mess this up.
Thoth and plako: 2:1. Just because they're the best players in this game.
Ichabod: 4:1. The longer the game goes, the more the Dwarves' lack of magic will hurt them.
Serdoa: 5:1. His GNP, manufacturing, and power are pretty sad, but he might just be trying to sneak past the rest of us with his bad-mouthing of his position.