[spoilers] Commodore Milks Nostalsia as Pete of Mede

[Commodore]

How bad is the WW? Galleys can wait because shortly you will have to deal with Caramels. All tech is slow but your MFG lead covers it. Just kill more people. SoD style.

Police State means I have one unproductive hippy in the whole empire; without it I'd be looking at 2 in almost every major city. So I'm loathe to kick something off with yet another enemy. My circumnav, vassalage galleys can handle caravels well enough when they do crop up, the big nasty thing is that Ruff and his archer-stuffed isles is three turns from Feudalism and longbow upgrades. Tech is crummy until I fire a MoM golden age; that age is going to be timed to end with the Beaurocap using a hefty cascade to slam out the Taj quickly while I draft muskets and work on research of MilTrad for cuirs. Or else the somewhat longer road to Steel and cannon. Killing Greenline is probably the next step.

[Dreylin]

How bad is the WW? Galleys can wait because shortly you will have to deal with Caramels. All tech is slow but your MFG lead covers it. Just kill more people. SoD style.

Mmmmmm, Caramels!

[Commodore]

The story of this game in a single screen:
   

[Commodore]

Who's retarded idea was the blockade, anyway? I don't actually mind this one, but the mechanic is abomination.
   
Also seen? An unbelievably amazing island. Everywhere else is just 1-tile trading posts, but Ruff's got so *nice* oversea real estate.

[Commodore]

First, a bleg; can anyone sub for Ruff for three days? He's apparently traveling. His empire, with just three remaining cities, isn't much of a difficult task too manage. Biggest choice was using his mercenary pikemen. He sniped all my best knights, sadly, but with the cats here I don't think Brooke is much longer for the world.

I'm not going to want to mess around anymore than I have to. The isle of Yum had a single archer, but with a whip/upgrade that could easily have gone to two longbows next turn, a complete nightmare to take. Using the new great general, I magiked a little morale surprise. Pity about El Cid, but I think Bobby Lee will give us some nice performance too.

The biggest problem now is the trireme/galley pair out here in the west; they're avoidable thanks to circumnavigation, but if Ruff's super-island has been getting the same reinforcement as Brooke then they're going to be annoyingly obstructive in the quest to end Ruff quickly.

...and let there be no mistake, I need to end this quickly. Ipecac is building knights, and they're disappearing as he builds them. Going to be a hammer that falls somewhere nasty, mark my words.

[Commodore]

At last! Our long national nightmare is over; Brooke is dead. After sending in four catapults the garrison ranged from "soft" to "downright squishy". I lost a single knight in the early stage; by the end I was actually able to start juggling units to try and maximize experience; I got some decent GG points on my horse archers/immortal. Rest of the knights to the west!

And may I just comment about the west: Yeesh. On the plus side, Yum's been entirely Ruff-garrisoned, no Ipecac reinforcements. On the downside...

Turn 156 ends with us finally owning the entire north-to-south section. Looking at the broad map, it makes sense why Ruff and I would be where the conflict hinged; the Anarchy Road-Cricklewood-Formic V is pretty skewed. Still, not like Greenline didn't have at least some decent Ruff territory to target; he could have easily carved that 3-city wedge out for himself along with the nice isles west. Ipecac would have actually had the most difficult time piling on; East Ruffistan had a fantastic border.

I'm going to point to Dalek as a pretty key pickup in the early game; that strongpoint has been key to how all of this has shaken out.

[Commodore]

I've been pretty lucky this game with infrastructural hauls; this turn the southern frostball of Paris yielded this:
   
It's a pity it'll lose a population point to starvation before the artists pop borders, but I'm once again very jealous of Ruff's islands. Not a bad place at all, not bad at all. 

I'd confidently proclaim that next turn is France's last, but that galley does have a victorious Great General spearman aboard, plus this huge super-city can definitely dry-whip a longbow. It'll be soon, though.
   
The second that the war is over, I'm pushing the big golden button and we're going to sprint for the Final Configuration: Nationalism, Representation, Caste, Mercantilism, and Theocracy. Some elements of that are going to be trickier than others, but if I can chain three MoM golden ages...who'll care?

[Commodore]

Okay, good news and bad news. Good, if entirely expected, news:

With the fall of this entirely ridiculous city, Ruff and his French are gone from the world. This is awesome! A+, would definitely conquer again. My demographic lead with his territories now well incorporated if pretty definitive.

But that screen also showed the bad news:

Ipecac's horse archer stack has disappeared just as the first muskets sprouted in his castled front cities. He's friends with Greenline and in American borders. Woohoo, folks, we're about to have an epic showdown.

[Commodore]

[shallow_thought]

That's game, isn't it? Even if he performs a quick, complete conquest, you'll simply be many turns ahead in integrating your new lands.