[SPOILER] And now for something completely different: DaveV is Hannah

[DaveV]

I'll settle my third city next turn. Aurorarcher is already in City States (-80% city distance maintenance, -25% number of cities maintenance), which is probably enough for him to keep his economy at least break-even while he abuses his EXP trait.



The new city's first task will be to crank out a couple workboats, for the capital's third cove and its own cove.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the update and overview.

[DaveV]

I built my newest city, Cheese Shop, a well-known sketch which has been frequently parodied, as in the Order of the Stick webcomic. Here's the original:



And here's an overview of my modest little empire:



As I said before, Cheese Shop's mission is to produce two workboats ASAP. A chop has already been added to the first boat.

Two barb goblins are incoming. They should present no problem for my bronze warriors.

Aurorarcher dropped his fourth city; he is staying one city ahead of me but I expect him to widen that gap as the game goes on and exponential growth kicks in.

[DaveV]

With bronze weapons and combat 1, I had excellent odds against the invading goblin:



And survived by the merest whisker.



Yet another reminder that 99% is not 100%. Fortunately, no one else is in line, so he should have time to heal.

[haphazard1]

A win is a win. At least, it is if you have time to heal afterward.

It is not always easy to remember that the estimated winning odds include the whole spectrum from flawless victory to barely surviving -- it is tempting to look at 90+% odds and assume you will not take much damage. I think there is a mod or setting that shows a distribution of likely outcomes when you select an attack, rather than summing up the estimate as a single number; it is a lot more informative.

[DaveV]

I agree, a complete spread of the odds would give the player a more realistic expectation of combat outcomes. It might just confuse the casual player, though; I suspect that the single number is much more digestible.

And, as you said, any combat you can walk away from is, to at least some degree, a success.

[DaveV]

Another turn, another high-odds attack against the barbs:



This guy won with with 3.5/4 health, and gained 2 XP to qualify for another promotion. I'll have even better odds on the next invader.

Cheese Shop finished its first workboat at EoT.

[haphazard1]

I think you are correct that the full spread of possible results would be confusing to the casual player; the mod/setting I recall for displaying it opened a big planel when you selected the combat, with a whole list of possibilities. For a more experienced player it was quite informative, but probably overwhelming for someone new to the game. The single number is a useful way to express the total odds of surviving the combat, and the simplicity has value.

Always nice to win and get a promotion. Do you have any specific plans in mind for the unit, or just general combat strength?

[DaveV]

Do you have any specific plans in mind for the unit, or just general combat strength?

The latter. I want to keep my strong units at home to discourage trespassers. If I accumulate some spare units, I might send them out exploring, but there's no great hurry. For now, I still have visibility on 3-4 more city sites.

[DaveV]

Another turn, another event:



If it had chosen Cheese Shop instead of the capital, I would have gone for this one in a heartbeat: I could have done the old "use a bard to bulb drama, receive a free bard" trick. But I can't afford to lose most of my commerce and production.

More barbs are coming from the north:



The mouseover shows the warrior/elephant stack. They're standing on one of my future city sites, which will provide the other half of a canal with Bruces. You can also see the new Pirate Cove west of the capital. I'm working that tile at the expense of a slower settler, but commerce is king at this stage of the game. Someone doesn't agree with that:



I think Mr. Cairo is the guy with 10 GNP, superjm is the guy with 36 (which includes at least +6 culture from his creative trait), and Aurorarcher is the one with ~23. We'll see if Cairo can dig his way out of that hole.