Not another elf chick? HidingKneel beats a dead horse. (Spoilers!)

[HidingKneel]

I'd finish the settler and revolt afterwards while it's on the move.

Yes, I think that's the way to go. Unfortunately, I was in a different frame of mind when I played the turn.
Oh well... the food is worth half-a-turn's growth when the capital starts growing again, so it's not a terrible loss.

I'm starting to think I misplayed the opening. The idea of delaying growth until after the Calabim worldspell was a good one. It didn't need to be done with a farmer's gambit: I could have just spent most of those turns working the silk tile at turn 1. That would have gotten my first warrior out quicker, the extra commerce would have been doubled due to the rounding of the +20% when researching calendar, and with 14 food stored I could have gone to size 2 instantly when the time was right. Altogether it'd probably have meant a two-turn lead over where I am now. C'est la vie.

So, barbarians are starting to threaten:



I'm hoping to deal with them before they can disrupt my work schedule. So I promoted my lizardmen to C1 and parked them on that hill. If the barbarians attack, I should have great odds: my unwounded lizard gets 88% against the barbarian lizardman,
and my wounded lizard probably has even better odds on the dwarf if it attacks across the river. Hopefully they attack rather than moving around me; my odds aren't nearly so good on flat ground, and my lizards are too young to die just yet.

[UnforcedError]

It's always easy to determine the optimal play after you know the opponent's move... in this case the Calabim might have fired their WS on T1 or they might have left it as late as their second city although that is less common practice. Letting the cap grow wasn't a huge mistake, it had nice tiles to work.
The two lizardmen will be a great asset, especially after they can catch a few animals... although that may be a bit further off... what are your next research plans btw?

[HidingKneel]

The RNG giveth, and the RNG taketh away...

The two lizardmen will be a great asset, especially after they can catch a few animals... although that may be a bit further off... what are your next research plans btw?

Present plan is chants -> education -> mysticism -> hunting -> WotF.

Grew to size 4 (and finished second warrior) at EOT. Mardoc reached size 5 a turn ago. GtAngel and Selrahc are still at size 2.

[flugauto]

You have mistforms?

[HidingKneel]

You have mistforms?

No, that was Selrahc's mistform. It ate a scout that was far from home (west of the Illians). A shame, but no great loss.

The real blow was losing one of my lizardmen. Risked it on a 93% odds battle with a lion and lost .

[flugauto]

That lion must have Herioc Strength 1 and Bliz now.

[HidingKneel]

Game is finally moving again!

Limited internet access, so no pictures for now.

All bad news, really:

First, I've got two skeletons encroaching on my territory. I sent two warriors out to meet them.
One of them took a combat promotion and risked a 73% battle, and lost. The second was able to clean up at 99% odds, but that only earns 2xp: not enough for another promotion. Not sure how best to deal with the second skeleton. Surviving lizardman isn't healed up enough to fight for me, so I guess I need to let the skeleton come to me, but that could cost me a bunch of worker turns. Maybe I should grow to size 5 while building another warrior? (One warrior + one lizardman isn't much a garrison for two cities, sadly.)

In other news, I made contact with the Calabim this turn. Which probably means they're my northwestern neighbor. Probably the worst neighbor to have. And it means they're far from Selrahc, so Selrahc isn't going to rush them with PoW.

Worse still, my super-scout (who encountered the Calabim) ended turn next to a bear . It's not all bad: the bear is across a river, and my scout is on a forested hill. Figuring in my first strikes, Sareln's combat calculator gives me 70-75% chance of survival if the bear attacks (depending on whether I get one first strike or two). And if I survive, I can promote him to Sentry II so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. On the other hand, the bear might not even attack: it is also adjacent to a Calabim scout, which it doesn't need to cross a river to swipe at. (There's also the possibility that Volantis survives the bear-mauling and Ellimist kills him instead.)

[HidingKneel]

Another turn!

Volantis was attacked by the bear. Fortunately, the RNG was on my side this time... survived the mauling, and earned the xp to promote to sentry II.

Noticed this turn that the Calabim scout was promoted up the wazoo: it has C2, Drill I, subdue animal, and spirit guide.
No sentry or mobility promotion, so it looks like the Calabim must have two super scouts. Also of note: Subdue Animal means Ellimist went for animal husbandry fairly early (presumably to make use of his scouts). Which means I got pretty lucky that the bear went for me: if it'd attacked Ellimist, he'd have decent odds at a pet bear right now. Still... fairly alarming. Three turns ago, there was a griffon 6 turns east of where he parked the scout. Capturing that could make him seriously annoying...

What else? Finished my silk planation, bringing me to #2 in GNP (still way, way behind Mardoc). Decided to keep building the settler. Which is a gamble, but you need to gamble when you're behind. (Didn't attack the encroaching skeleton with my remaining warrior: that would have been too much of a gamble...)

[HidingKneel]

Been a while since a proper update. Part of that was that the turn got stuck for a few days. But the game is still moving, and here's where we are.

Volantis is in trouble again:



Looked like it was safe to pop that dungeon, but it looks like I may end up as catfood. Well, I should have better than 50% odds, at least. And possibly the lion won't even attack.

Back home, the skeleton suicided on my capital, and preparations are well-underway for my second city:



Unfortunately, that bear is poised to be annoying. (And the lion behind it has two combat promotions, from killing my other lizardman.) Settler comes out at the end of next turn, so I've got two turns to get this problem solved. Hopefully one of the animals moves away so I can semi-safely kill the other one. Anyways, it could be tricky with only two military units.

I'll build more when the settler completes. Or maybe I should finish that granary? Lurker question: if I finish a granary and grow a city in the same turn, does food get stored?

[HidingKneel]

The End of a Legend

Stupid Volantis. Why must the good die young?

But hey, free monument!

What else? Mardoc's score went up, and his GNP in the demos dropped from 29 to 26. Which means the situation isn't as bad as I thought: a 20% prereq bonus is only giving him three beakers per turn, which means he's pulling in at most 19 (before the prereq bonus). I'm going to guess 18, and that the other 8 commerce is from culture (palace + creative + academy). So he's actually not very far ahead of us (16btp, second place).

What else? The bear moved off of its hill, so I moved lizardman + warrior onto it. The bear might attack next turn, but I feel pretty safe: it'll be attacking defensive terrain across a river, so it will probably get 1% odds on my C1 lizard (and will give me another promotion).

Got me one of these at EOT:



All set to plant a city on t40. Question is, what should the capital be doing in the meanwhile? I see three options:

1) Build warriors and grow. Our military consists of 1 warrior and 1 lizardman! That's ridiculous.
2) Finish the granary before hammers start to decay.
3) Get started on a worker.

I'm leaning towards 3). By my calculations, education will come in 10 turns from now (can make that 9 if I prioritize commerce a little more). That's enough time to build two more workers. Growing the capital right now isn't worth much: it's already working all tiles with yield higher than 3, and my remaining worker is busy building farms for the second city. Three workers when education in ought to let me get cottages up as fast as I can grow into them.