433 There is a power graph. It says, "you suck, Thessa. You suck the marrow, plasma, and soul clear out of this chart, and your excuse for an army is a pitiful assembly of Keebler elves, garden gnomes, Smurfs, and Will Ferrell."
I agree that we should go military, but it will take a while to prepare, since we're building things like Courthouses and Lighthouses. Ahem.
We can probably go to war against Rhoanna just by amassing units with our current techs, but I think we should be researching military too.
Sorcery (25) gives us Maelstrom and Poisoned Blade, and with Elementalism (9) Fireballs. We are Arcane.
Smelting (15) hopefully would give +1 Melee from Iron, then IW (20) for Champions and Lumbermills.
Animal Handling (11) Rangers and Satyrs. Good for fast movement from the northern cities, and works with Poisoned Blade. Einon and Cardith both know it but won't trade it yet. Then Feral Bond (22), but I think that's expensive for 1 hero and maybe another hero much later.
Bowyers (25) Longbows with +1 attack from Dexterous, but then Horsmene are +40% Archery.
Priesthood (9) Priests with Medic II and disposable Tiger pets, and we do already have a lot of temples.
Smelting is tempting. I think we're probably big enough to find Iron, and +1 to Swordsmen and to cheap Warriors would be great. But I think if we attack with just those, we'll still lose a lot of units. So I decide to head straight for Maelstrom.
I leave the builds alone, except for the Lighthouse in Hyll, since there are only 43/240 hammers in it, and the city already has a large food surplus. I build the National Epic and units there instead.
I take the Fawn in our new city and start exploring west. Open borders with Cardith so we can snoop around there, too. It unexpectedly gives us a large commerce boost, 22 GPT.
I don't get too much explored, but when I pass through Einon's nearby city Oriel, I see that it's defended by two strength 5 Disciples.
435 Great Serpent constellation event, Ashen Veil only.
Sandalphon makes peace with Cardith.
437 A dialog box says "Hear me, mortals, and heed me well. Whispers of forgotten lore have found my ears, the currents of time flows through my veins with every beat of my heart and bear visions of death and despair... ... As the wickedness of man takes hold of him, darkness will start to engluf his world. Af first he will see nothing, only a few of the most gifted will even sense the change. The world will go on as it has, for a time, but the seed of its downfall has been sown..."
A two-headed cow is born in Eaca. I decided it's a bad omen for +2 armageddon, just because most of the civs we know are good.
A barb galley appears in the northwest, so I have to build a couple Triremes, then replace our work boats.
441 Settle two production cities in the forested area in the middle and put them immediately on Warrior loops. I'm building a lot of Warriors because they're so much cheaper than Swordsmen, and I'm trying to pull an attack stack together, and we do have some Swordsmen. I started one more Settler to grab the mana resource to our west before Einon gets there. I accidentally am producing one more Settler on top of that. Oops. Maybe that one could go on top of the east coast Bananas. I queued a Trireme in Hyll to defend a city there.
Finish the Heroic Epic in Bruti and put it in a Swordsman loop.
442 Einon cancels the Rice for Fish, but I renegotiate for Rice for 5 GPT. Even better!
449 Finish the Forbidden Palace. Catacomb Libralus is built by someone, thankfully not Einon.
450 Sorcery
I don't see any good tech trades available. The great sage from Arcane Lore is available, but I suggest Smelting to see if we can get the Iron promotion before attacking. Meanwhile we have one Adept that can upgrade now, plus two new ones, and the capital on an Adept loop. I'm not sure how long they'll take to mature.
Great person in 4 turns. I tried to get us either a sage or a prophet.
I do find it ironic that Einon is still in first place, given all of our discussions. Makes me wonder how bad the last place civ is doing. The GL and FP are good ideas. Wonders add 16 points IIRC.
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