Turn 1: Settle 1 tile NW because I'm a bloodyminded short-termist and the starting position doesn't have enough river tiles clear of forest, so I can't get farms.
Turn 4: 179 gold in huts. Gonna be one of those games.
Turn 6: More gold. Found desert/reagents. Did regenerating the map do that?
Turn 13: Finish Agriculture, begin research on Calendar, having identified sites for 7ish cities I retreat my scouting units back in my borders.
Turn 25: Plant Lightbringer on a hill outside my territory to prevent barbs spawning there. Its on the other side of my territory from my opponents so its the direction where they're most likely to come from.
Short-termism: Putting a farm on a gems resource for +1 commerce.
TUrn 34: Finish Calendar, switch into Agrarian, begin researching Crafting. Normally I'd do Education but there are Gems and too many trees, so I need Mining.
Turn 41: See my first scorpion and crap my pants. What version did those appear in?
Turn 47: Its coming straight for us!
Turn 52: Remember I'd meant to save every 25 turns.
Turn 54: 2nd city placed. I plan to build about 8 warriors total then build another Settler.
Turn 66: Have beaten up some barbwarriors, finish Mining and find copper in one of the only unforested tiles near me (should have guessed really), begin Education.
Turn 76: Orthus spawns beside me, switch all Worker productions back to wWarriors. Looks like I might must get my 3rd city before I lose Creative trait.
Turn 80: Remember I forgot to save on 75.
Turn 81: Orthus defeated, back to Worker production. Lots of barbarian warriors coming from where I predicted but the late Education means I don't have the Combat I necessary to be getting the XP I could.
Turn 90: I've overbuilt on Warriors and am currently paying 8 maintenance. Decide to live with it and use them aggressively on barbs to get extra XP. My economy is only surviving thanks to the Gems. My worker numbers catch up to 1.5/city so back to Settler production.
Turn 93: Finish Education, delay getting Code of Laws yet again in favour of Exploration as I've 3 happiness resources that need linking.
Turn 96: Financial trait acquired.
Turn 100: Remember to save this time.
Turn 101: First cottages finally getting built, road network began, Code of laws began.
Turn 103: Local barbarian city has produced its first 4stack, delay settling 4th city to maintain defense.
Turn 113: Rashly place 4th and 5th cities. I don't have Code of Laws yet so this was possibly a mistake.
Turn 121: I finally and gratefully limp into Code of Laws and Aristocracy. Economy goes from +15 beakers a turn to +55. Begin Bronze Working.
Turn 125: Remember to save again. Decide to take revenge on the barbarians for all their 4stacks and start warrior pumping.
Turn 131: Complete Bronze working, send off the warriors, begin Festivals.
Turn 133: Trade World Maps with Mahala.
Turn 135: My warriors move into attack Sludgehome and discover its guarded by 8 warriros and 2 archers. My cities are building Markets due to my Financial trait making them cheap.
Turn 137: The 8 warriors are in fact 2 4stacks and move off to attack what I assume are the Calabim.
138: I take Sludgehome from the 2 Weak Archers by sacrificing 4 0xp warriors into them. I raze the city as its not quite right for an Agristocracy and my excess production and near-completion of Sanitation makes Settlers cheap.
Encounter Decius of the Calabim and Sabathiel, trade maps. Start considering who to attack first.
Turn 146: City 6 has been settled, warriors have healed and are moving in on another barb city,
With the research of Sanitation
Turn 147: Barb city Ultigar captured, decide Mahala as the weakest enemy will be my first target and begin planning accordingly.
Turn 150: I remember to save. 7th city about to be settled, all cities are building Public Baths as with Construction about to be researched I'm in need of happiness. I've broken 100 beakers per turn research.
Turn 157: Still receiving incoming 4stacks. There must be more barbarian cities out there.
Turn 161: River of BLood is cast. Oh joy.
Turn 164: Get the Health Herbs event. Unusually I don't pick the option for 90% chance of +2 health in all cities because health isn't isn't ofgreat interest to me. And my short-termist instincts objected to the razing of the barbarian cities earlier and had to be pacified. Further population loss and unhappiness so soon after RoB, ugh.
Turn 165: I've been teching sideways a bunch up till now. Construction for better farms, Fishing
and Animal Husbandry for resources, Archery for Lumbermills. Time for a religion.
Turn 174: My smug buildery satisfaction is disturbed by Tebryn Arbandi declaring war. What is it? Yes, you guessed it, a stack of Pyre Zombies that goes off the screen. I'm going to lose a city. Frankly this is karma as I've been breaking my own rules and 3 cities have just finished 100 hammer buildings that were most certainly not necessary instead of building 12 warriors which I could have used. Laziness and maintenance phobia has bitten me in the ass. The game has been entirely too smooth running so far so I'd better man up and deal with it.
Turn 175: At least the PZs aren't Bronze. I upgrade my 4 lvl4 warriors into Swordsmen. Heres the plan - 1 of the PZs is trailing. I'm going to kill him to damage Tebryn's big stack. I'll then let it take the city which should leave a lot of PZs on adjacent tiles which should hopefully make them manageable.
Turn 176: THe PZs change course meaning my warrior defense is now in the wrong city.
Turn 177: The PZs change course again. Are they going for my capital?
Turn 178: The PZs retreat and consolidate their stack. Bad for me, but at least I'm able to spam warriors in my cities.
Turn 179: The PZ stack returns to their original target further engorged. I manage to kill two PZs in an adjacent tile to bring them down to 75% health. I retreat a small stack of Warriors out of Balderham as I figure anything after the 6th warrior is just going to be killed by explosion. Next turn will be ugly.
Turn 180: Its ugly. Only the first 4 city defenders won a fight. The PZs are on three tiles. Starting from the outside and working in I manage to kill all but 2.
Turn 181: Balderham is mine again. The casualties: 25 PZs for 31 warriors. Huh, thats not so bad I guess. Feels worse than it looks. Its not the hammer loss that upsets me, its that each of those 31 warriors was probably on 5-7XP but theres no way to keep them alive with PZ explosions.
Turn 184: Balderham obviously sulking at its capture, it founds Ashen Veil. As many cities as possible spamming Warriors so that I climb high enough on the power rating to make Tebryn accept peace. I'm happy to call it a draw.
Turn 187: Sabathiel comes a-demanding. Am I concerned? A little. So I build more Warriors. Tebryn still won't accept peace but I can't delay any longer. I send warriors off to claim a barbarian city that will act as a staging area for the attack on Mahala.
Turn 190: Priesthood researched, Religious Fervor cast. Here we go.
Turn 193: Barb city Domir captured. I'm at 40 unit maintenance so I decide to distract my cities for a while by building some Mage Guilds and things that give specialist slots.
Turn 194: Stigmata on the Unborn. Hopefully it'll convert some of my cities. The Entropy mana will certainly be useful.
Turn 195: Decision time again. I go Charismatic, losing 45economy per turn. You'll see why soon.
Turn 196: With my troops sitting outside the Doviello capital and RoFing away, a large Doviello stack appears on my borders of Tier 2 units. I'm going to hit them with a few RoFs and slaughter them for big XP.
Turn 198: A glorious slaughter at the Doviello capital, Hybbie enters the world, I adopt StW. Cowardly Tebryn offers me a size 8 city for peace. I'm happy to accept. It'll make a good buffer against the next PZ wave.
Turn 202: Another slaughter with 25 Doviello units killed in one turn.
Turn 210: I've been swimming through so many Wolf Packs that I didn't kill the Doviello fast enough. A lone Son of Asena stole Tongurstad. What are my cities doing? Building the Infernal Grimoire, the Form of the Titan, Veil temples, Adepts and preparing for what looks like a war with Sabathiel.
Turn 212: Lose Rosier on a 99.1% chance. Laugh merrily.
Turn 213: The Javelin THrower that killed Rosier eats 4 warriors thanks to its promotions. Galling.
Turn 214: I walk into an undefended Tongurstad. Doviello destroyed, about 10 turns slower than it should have taken.
Turn 225: Time to save and assess what I've been doing. I'm regretting taking Charismatic somewhat as with a population of 110ish I could be making easily another 80 beakers if I'd kept financial.
I complete the Infernal Grimoire and take Sorcery, though I could also have taken Iron Working. This might just be me justifying my earlier mistake, but with Sorcery, Form of the Titan, Malakim Desert Shrines, and a quick switch into Conquest I can build Malakim Lightbringers with 8xp. That makes them level 4 with Charismatic. This is important because of their upgrade path – I promote them to combat III and the option to upgrade them to a Mage appears (Lightbringer  Savant  Mage). So, a Combat III mage with Mobility from Spiritual trait, potency from Spiritual trait and Sentry. He begins with one free promotion so you need a little extra effort to get some use out of him. Hoarding Death mana works well as it’ll give high Str Spectres and free promotions to the Mages. Alternatively, send one conventional Adept along with them who can cast Scorch. He can convert plains to Desert where the Mages can cast the unique Malakim summoning spell they get for free to get a Str 6 Sand Lion. That synergises quite nicely with the Combat III they already have.
Iron Working will just have to wait. I upgraded a bunch of my lvl5 veterans of the Doviello war to Swordsmen.
Turn 234: I now have 13 lightbringers ready to be upgraded to Mages. Other than that I’ve been building Ritualists and Adepts. My unit maintenance is now 63 so its time to abandon Warriors in favour of Swordsmen. I’m kind of surprised its come so soon but my tech rate has outpaced my military in this game.
Turn 237: I’m running 30% science and still making +190 beakers. Maybe I need to work on a way of cutting costs.
Turn 238: War on Keelyn.
Turn 239: How disappointing, she has only Freaks. I take Hexam.
Turn 240: A stack of 94 Freaks moves into view. They get RoFed. They get Rusted. I send in the Sand Lions to break the Stoneskin freaks. Then the Swordsmen. Then the Ritualists. And then the Mages because they got Combat III. 70 Freaks remain. I hit the end turn button with trepidation and prepare for a whole new kind of ugly.
I wish I’d brought along the half of my army that is defending my border with Sabathiel.
Turn 241: No I don’t, Sabathiel/Basium declare war.
The 70 Freaks all die. They implode into my much smaller stack. The Swordsman with Orthus axe kills twenty of them single-handedly. The punchline? All my cities now have 7 angry citizens due to war weariness from combat on foreign soil! My economy halves.
While 70 freaks failing to kill 20 Swordsmen may seem to disprove the whole point of this demosntration game, these were Str 1.6, Rusted Freaks vs. Str 5 Swordsmen, the lowest of whom had a +80% modifier from promotions and Enchanted Blade.
I’ve never used Combat mages in such large numbers before and am pleased that despite having only been built 10 turns ago, they’ve now got a bunch of spells like Body II, Life II and Sun II.
I start attacking the Balseraph city of , losing a swordsman at 98% odds. Given the number of fights that have taken place just this turn, I do not get angry and write a civfanatics post about how the CPU cheats at fights. My merry laughter is not nearly as forced as when I lost Rosier.
Turn 245: I take the Balseraph capital. On the Western front I’ve got Adepts and Ritualists blasting the Bannor megastack with Rofs’n’Rusts. They pillage an Enchantment node and are maybe headed for Hyborem.
Turn 246: Take and raze Guell, and some small Balseraph sending Hyborem some much needed manes.
Keelyn has out-teched me to Iron Working, though with my war weariness from the megastacks causes me to be at -6 income at 0%. The faster I kill the Balseraphs the faster I’m back on track.
Turn 250: Balseraphs destroyed, my economy rallies as the war weariness due to freaks disappears. I go from -40 at 0% to making 220 beakers at 30%. My costs due to city numbers and population size are now high enough to justify courthouses.
Turn 252: The Bannor stack that passed through my lands looks to be been destroyed by Hyborem. Now for Basium’s turn I guess.
Turn 253: Donal Lugh moves incautiously into my territory alone and gets killed.
We’ve fallen below some limit – barb warriors have begun spawning again.
Turn 255: Tebryn has a stack on the outskirts of Tongurstad. Is he about to declare war? I’m not particularly in the mood to resist. That’s kind of what tongurstad was for.
Turn 256: Mmmmph. Game over I guess. I’ve researched Tier 3 and have the economy to entirely upgrade my army in 10 turns. My opponents are floundering about in Tier 2 and its difficult to prove anything more about warriors from this position.
effective in that scenario. If the archers had been in a city the axemen might have been able to break even, though. The test was made with neither warriors nor axemen having bronze or iron, so that might change things as well.
