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Commodore moved up his fleet.
6 frigates, 1 privateer, and 11 galleons, with a smaller stack of 3 frigates, 1 privateer, & 1 galleon trailing a turn behind.
I noted Commodore's main army stack here because there wasn't room to include it on other screenshots.
I promoted my privateers to Combat-2 and went in:
I had very good luck against the frigates, getting 3 wins at low odds and only losing 4 privateers (one lost badly and barely scratched the defending frigate). We won the 50/50 against the privateer and then didn't lose a single fight against his galleons. We even picked up a Great General who spawned at Dobermann, allowing me to attach it to the privateer which finished out of Portie, giving me a Combat-5 GG privateer to lead my fleet (if he survives the turn I'm renaming him to Barbarossa). Only losing 4 ships to kill 18 is nothing short of devastating, and I have plenty of healthy privateers left to cover my wounded from the 3 frigates behind: Comm should retreat that small stack or risk it being lost too.
Also, notice that Thoth's galleon has returned off the coast of Basset island. His fleet stack on his coast north of Doberman continues to grow and I imagine the hammer is going to drop here soon. I was thinking about hitting it with the privateers fresh out of Basset Hound & Lagatto Romagno, but ultimately decided against it. My main goal here needs to be pullign as big of a fleet out of the islands at Basset island before somebody eventually conquers it. It stands to reason that I should also do my best to keep my fleet intact once I have it. So as much as I'd love to tell Thoth to keep away, my priority is to keep my fleet healthy.
Oh, and Commodore has finally started snooping around the Beak Islands:
But ran right into my scouting Caravel. We won that coin flip, flawlessly. (My naval luck has really been insane: awful luck against barbarians but I've more than made up for that in winning low-odds battles against players.)
You can also see how I need to take Yuri's island cities to keep my safety. Sarmatian has 3 rifles & 2 maces and I've been churning out trebuchets to get ready to assault it. We probably don't go in until after I start shuttling units from the mainland - I plan to use those to make the attack. Although I might try to take Pisa first if he continues to leave it weak.
And finally, the mainland fight against Yuri:
The knights moved as expected and I've stuffed some units into Poodle. He could take the city if he threw it all in, but if he does I should be able to wipe out his stack on the counter. Really a big mistake by Yuri is that he's kept his units off the roads, so if he does take Poodle then his units are still stuck in the mountains. With that in mind, I have a shot to eliminate all his siege units or his knight stack - but probably not both. Sigh, my own knights would be handy right about now. (You can see the remnants in the southwest; i had hoped Comm might let them go out of a strategic move, but he seems intent on completely wiping me out instead.)
If he sits back I think I just start evacuating to the northeast. Commodore's units are going to be shortly behind, and I really have to think he's going to take the shot if Yuri leaves his stack exposed to the cavalry & cannons.
