RBPBEM FfH #1 [SPOILERS] Sareln of the Svartalfar

[Sareln]

Turn 63:

Worker build finishes in the capital, starts on a warrior, micro to not grow, then start in on a settler next turn (1 turn warrior).

Used scout to take out the incoming skeleton, finished roading the pre-roaded tile and also finished roading the pigs. Next turn will move both workers onto the forested hill that's not in range of the lizardman (who moved towards my new city on the interturn) to complete the road link between my cities.



Southern scout moves north, towards the homeland. Skeleton moves onto desert in the interturn, I may swing back and kill the skeleton to pick up the free XP, can claim that I'm doing Bob a favor .



In the north, try and peek around the peninsula, but the lizardman is there so I withdraw. I really want this scout to be useful, but I don't want to accidentally promote a lizardman. So he'll sit tight for now.



Also sent off a pair of diplomacy messages. I saw that PB had finished Cartography, so I started a line on a map exchange idea.

Congratulations on your discovery of Cartography.

If you are interested in trading maps, let me know. As a starting
point, I think mine are probably more valuable than yours right now,
due to my use of additional scouting units.

I can also now confirm the location of the Calabim, if you have been
unable to meet them so far.

We are 13 tiles north/south border to border (non-exclusive) so a
little closer than the eyeball estimate I tried to make over the fog
of war.

To compare, you are 10 tiles east of the Hippus Borders.

Measurements made on only one axis - eg. diagonal movement and lateral
movement count the same.

[Sareln]

Dearest Queen Sareln,

Thank you for your congratulations regarding Cartography.

Lord Pocketbeetle would have loved to reply to your message, but his schedule has very little latitude currently and as usual he’s off the grid.

Between you and me, most of his time atm is being spent iso bars and women with great contours (datelines suck, and not in that good way).

Once Lord Pb is back and has got his bearings, I’ll map out your proposal to him.

Hopefully it’ll be before next isthmus.

Regards,
M. Keown, Hand to the Kuriotates

Can't say that I'm a huge fan of PB's diplo style, but that might just be residual anger speaking .

[Sareln]

Turn 64:

Moved scouts around. Skeleton near the vampires moved onto the desert, so I decided to take the 77% odds, win, gain 4xp and am at half health. At the end of turn, more enemies emerge from the fog. I'll see what sort of odds I get on the gobbo - if they're good enough I'll go for it, else flee to the forested hills for safety.





The lizardman steps onto the forest to pursue the scout in the north, so I can end-run around him towards the forested hill. I should be able to bring the scout without incident now.



Another Lizardman continues to menace my northern city. The road net is connected, next turn the workers will connect the rice. Hopefully the lizard will suicide on the city, but if now, I think the scout is powerful enough to kill the lizard once it heals.

[Sareln]

I snuck in a turn this morning.

Turn 65:

Southern Scout after promotion doesn't have good odds on the goblin, so I move north. I sight another Lizardman, so the scout is probably done. The Northern Scout moves south, towards the dwarf borders.



Fortunately, the lizard decides I don't look *that* tasty and wanders away, so the south-scout lives another day!



Empire management is fairly pedestrian, I road the rice - the threatening lizardman moves out of my empire.

[Sareln]

Another failed blitz session... oh wells.

Forgot to check to see if others have settled, let me go open the old save there...

Oh hey, look at that PB settled a city (Caledor)...

[Sareln]

Turn 66:

My southern scout's adventures come to an end as fleeing lizards he is devoured by a giant spider. Since hunting is so close, I'll probably run out new scouts once I can build hunters and hawks.



My Northern Scout fares better, and is now moving parallel to dwarf lands. I need to decide whether to bring him home, or to send him into the south area between the dwarves and the vampires. I'm learning towards bringing him home right now, since he can later be upgraded into a hunter.



The empire is secure, and I start more roading projects to take up time while I wait for hunting to come in to hook up the ivory. The Elder Council finished in Gareth Minar on the turn roll, and I'll probably put it straight on a scientist specialist and slow building a monument.

[Sareln]

Great, we've got a replacement for theArchduke in reasonably short order. When you get here Archduke, thanks for playing! Feel free to ask questions as well with the rest of the lurkers.

The new guy Ikender seems to have relatively good response. His contact info puts him in Poland, so he's a little further afield than the rest of us, but it shouldn't be too big of an issue.

I sent him a test e-mail to make sure that the contact was working correctly, and got this in response:

It worked!

Let me begin the diplo by saying that my horses find no pleasure in wading through forests.

Cheers, Iskender

Looking at the map, I'm not particularly concerned with the Hippus trekking halfway across the world to cause trouble for the Svartalfar, causing trouble for the Calabim or Illians however...

[Sareln]

Turn 67:

I've moved my scout back towards my capital. Scouting will be on hiatus until I get hunter/ravens out.

Hired the scientist in Gareth Minar to take my research to 26. I will be teching education after hunting, I need cottages very badly. After I settle my 3rd city, I'll start pumping workers and military to get those cottages in place ASAP.

There is a lizardman in my lands, but I don't have odds on him (68% with C2 warrior or scout) so I'll need to wait a bit. I don't think he'll be too big of a disruption to me though.

[Sareln]

Turn 68:

Huh, I was just thinking of the game as the turn pops into my inbox courtesy of Bob. Funny that.

Anyways, I get hit by the pop-loss event that the Archduke caught earlier. I swap production from settler --> warrior to grow it back in a turn. Looking at the board state, I decide to sac an unexperienced warrior to weaken the lizardman (or get super lucky) and then finish it off with a 1/2 XP warrior, netting 2 XP and a promotion. This is mostly because I'm at my unit limit right now, and the gold is expensive - so I'll steady state warriors.





Everyone except Cull/Athlete have placed 2nd cities by now, which makes sense. I'm getting ready to pop my 3rd, so I expect Selrahc to be in a similar place / ahead vis-a-vis me.

I should go talk to the Cathlete about the north-east split, but before I do that, I should think about it myself... maybe later today.

[Sareln]

Turn 69:

This was another quiet turn. The lizardman is not particularly menacing, and I move to road the flood plain. I notice that by twiddling the slider to 90% I lose 1 RP and gain 2 GP (making me dead even for the turn) so I do so. On the warrior build I go back to -1 GP/turn, but I can put off any other methods for a few more turns. The one thing I want to make sure of is that I don't negatively impact the time it takes me to get hunting, getting the next tech a little later (education) is not as big of a deal - the extra luxury (Ivory) and the improved tile yield, beginning hunter's lodges, and getting hunters out are much more important.



I want to talk with folks, but there really isn't all that much to talk about... so instead there is silence.