DaveV explores the dark [elf] side

[DaveV]

I finally herded the barb warrior by my capital onto flat land, and killed him at 75% (barely, see his .3 HP on the curseover). I guess I'm due for another low-odds loss (but don't tell the RNG).

In the north, the barb goblin keeps dancing around outside my city (2N of Dirt, just off the screen). Next turn my super scout will finally be healed and maybe I can pick off the goblin or explore the Mirror. My other subdue animal scout and my unpromoted scout are both standing E of Dirt.

Cairo pushed a scout into the forest W of bat. Is he being unnecessarily provocative, since he presumably could have moved to the unforested tile S of where he's standing? I don't need trouble from that direction, so I'm ignoring him for now.

   

[DaveV]

The cursor is hovering over Dirt; now that he was healed, I sent my super scout against the barb goblin at 76% and won. Now he's poisoned again and looking at three turns of healing.

That freed up my unpromoted scout to move onto the Mirror. Looks like I have a shot at the Grand Menagerie I can capture those units.

Cairo's scout was still moving aggressively (barely visible S-SW of Dirt, S of the cow); I decided to make some threats in the diplo thread.

   

[DaveV]

No screenshot, but a griffon appeared at the edge of the Mirror's vision; my scout went scampering back inside my borders.

Also, Cairo's scout withdrew.

[DaveV]

I found the goblin fort that's been spawning the goblins in the north (2N of the mana node), and a new barb warrior appeared in the south (SW of horses).

My captured polar bear is healed, and moving to where he can play zone defense (currently W of Crow).

I'm thinking my next city should go by the Mirror of Heaven and its wheat tile, or by the eastern corn. Sun mana can do some cool stuff, but all my expansion has been northward so far. On the third hand, though, I still suspect that I have a neighbor to the north and I want to grab the good city sites.

   

[DaveV]

The barb warrior advanced onto the horse tile, as expected; I attacked with my own CI, 4xp warrior. 75% odds of winning, lost. As I said above, I was due to lose a combat but it's hard not to grumble when the odds are in my favor and I have so few good units. I cleaned up the redlined warrior with a 7xp scout, advanced all the way to 8 xp. Woot.

[Qgqqqqq]

Why did you build the pagan temple?

[DaveV]

So I could run a priest specialist. I'd rather have a great prophet than a sage, although the sage is going to be substantially more likely because of the head start. Current odds: 6 turns to great person, 90% sage, 10% prophet. Prophet odds will improve but probably cap at 30-35% (just a seat of the pants guess, no maths were harmed).

[DaveV]

I just finished the settler in the capital, and am going to send it to the Mirror.

A barb warrior and non-poison goblin are approaching from the south; my polar bear, C2 warrior, and C1 scout should be able to handle them.

I'm still last place in score; I guess my strategy is flawed.

   

[Cornflakes]

Could you please insert the images into the body of your post, rather than leaving them just as an attachment? Those of us viewing from with lower resolution devices can only see the left side of the images because the right side overflows out of the forum view (with no scroll bar). For example in your most recent image I can’t see anything to the right of the polar bear that is selected when viewing from my phone … and I get only 4 or 5 more tiles to the right my my PC (no mini-map or score).

[DaveV]

Done. I hadn't even noticed the little "insert into post" button, but that looks a lot better. I'd assumed that most people had screens at least as big as mine but hadn't considered those browsing on phones.

Edit: I checked on my phone after changing all the images, and the images don't show up at all now; I think that's not an improvement. Can those browsing on PCs see the images now?

Second edit: maybe it's a Safari thing? Awaiting feedback...