[SPOILERS] Commodore, Mist and the Weed. A Farce in three acts.

[Krill]

4.1/6

[Ilios]

4.1/6

Ah, no I see it now, it's 5.0/6

[Krill]

Ah yeah I looked at an earlier screenshot form the turn earlier.

[Commodore]

Actually, Ilios, good catch, if he has more units behind the spear, that opens up more tactical possibilities. But actually, Lewwyn's best move is forward. If he threatens the Colossus-building Dostoyevsky, I have to respond defensively and kill the chariot by going south.

[Ilios]

But actually, Lewwyn's best move is forward. If he threatens the Colossus-building Dostoyevsky, I have to respond defensively and kill the chariot by going south.

He can't possibly know Dostoyevsky is empty, so I doubt he'll move the Chariot south.

[Commodore]

Not a ton of turns happened over the weekend, with Lewwyn and Brian both missing. I'm going to split the update in twain. First, the annoying back-and-forth with Lewwyn. I killed the chariot, spawning a GG.



The victory against his chariot cost way too much, however, stripping the hitpoints down to 1.0/6. This enabled Lewwyn to hit back with his spear, gaining an easy promotion. As this point, I start to get a bit nervous. Yup, that's a galley in Brown Salamanda.



Unshockingly, Lewwyn advanced, so I opted to take a risk for security. If that galley owns an axe, then Lewwyn has a slightly lower than coinflip shot of razing Dostoyevsky next turn. However, if it owns a chariot or even better, nothing, then not only are we safe, but we should manage to keep Dostoyevsky very secure. The axe 1N beat the spear handily, although it didn't have to. The spear rolls in at EoT, meaning the hill city is pretty darned secure against the chariot (>99%).



Obviously, the objective is to land Colossus in Dostoyevsky and keep the place secure. The overflow will go into the Colossus, then a trireme will be 2-pop whipped for overflow, both locking down the sealanes and also dumping enough hammers to finish the big guy with a chop.

[Commodore]

In the main reportage, the Brian chariot was swept up without much issue, although we did lose the axe at an annoying 70% odds of winning. In any case, distant green borders aside, Brian has been quiet near Carroll/Trollope, which is appreciated.



Letting sleeping massive ancient armies lie, I retreated the archer investigating the Brianic part of the three corners region. This ought to be a flashpoint sooner or later, but the later might be a moot point.



Serdoa's chariot is still nosing around the edges, which would be more worrisome to me if we were planning on settling Twain next. Fortunately, the next settle on the list is actually Wilde down south for gems, deer, and fish, so Serdoa is less of a worry out west.



The settler for Wilde is coming from Verne, after it finishes banging out the empire's first library. Feudalism and possibly Guilds will need some real research, so let's hear it for multipliers! Also, let's hear it once more for this awesome awesome capital.



That research is getting funding from the hapless inhabitants of Southeastown Island. Little do they know, they are very close to getting pillaged and then have Byzantines settle on their ruins, poor saps.



Looking to cataphracts very soon, the priority settling sites are the ones that get up and running fast. How about a lovely grass sheep/wet wheat spot? It's utter crap in the long term, but in the short turn with sharing it gets a granary, barracks, and lots of whippable innocents very quickly.



Now as for where those 'phracts go...we've got a fairly big choice facing us. I'm going to break that post off for the very last.

[Commodore]

So this is where we are, circa 320BC. Extensive empire, still running around 30% break-even when commerce-configured, and with plenty of peaceful avenues for growth in addition to the more violent possibilities provided by cataphracts. The razings of Kipling and Melville were painful but not crippling, and in normal circumstances I'd still be feeling good about our position.



Unfortunately, this is not all in a vacuum. Lewwyn got something razed and he's around our level, ripe for 'phracting, and Brian is playing with his many, many axes and spears and chariots, so neither one of them worry me much. Scooter is in the first flower of his Joao II economy coming online, which means he's a bit backward but has keshiks, gers, and soon war elephants. Killable, but not easily. If this were the four-man race, I'd feel incredible about Plan: Phractageddon. But there is Serdoa.

Serdoa has played a blinder and after this game fully deserves to be inducted in the upper 10% alongside Mackoti, Sulla, Seven, Novice, Krill, Kyan, and Regoarrarr (probably alongside Pindicator in the graduation ceremony). His early Pyramids play was 100% the right play on this SE dreamland, and he's currently probably no more than twenty turns out from rifles, with a strong empire already able to whip down for a tremendous WE/longbow/pike defense force if needed. The razing gold he snagged just was icing on his cake.

So, we got here honestly, but we're still here. Unfortunately, I have a congenital defect that leaves me unable to play Civilization IV as well as some other people (see above list, note that it is non-exhaustive). So I'm feeling desperate. So let's make it a Commodore Award game three outta four (debatable, 26 had a desperate victory attempt but it wasn't very convincing).

Inertia, anger, and conventional wisdom point to me that Serdoa is the most attractive target once the cataphract comes online. The general plan there is to whip self into the ground for N cataphracts (where N=highest number possible), slam into Serdoa with some measure of tactical sense, and hopefully win the life-and-death struggle while Scooter's good sense keeps him out, Brian's greenness keeps him from being a threat, and Lewwyn's...um...and magic happens and Lewwyn doesn't hit me. Lewwyn is always prone to help the runaway in his Angry Bird fashion, so that's a big weakness of the plan. However, I notice another potential way here.



Serdoa's dominance is shown here in population, obviously. But he's only looking at what, 28% of the world's citizens? And less than 13% of the land area. Notice something? This is the victory conditions screen, and under the Domination section I do not see anywhere "Serdoa must die". What I do see is a need for just over half the world's population and just over two thirds of the world's land. Phew. That's a tall order too, isn't it?

Welllll...sort of. Lewwyn has done his usual "great micro in pursuit of moronic goals" thing. His best units are spears, chariots, and axes, although he's soon going to get longbows I'm sure. Uh. So...actually, we should be able to conquer him. He's a decent tactician, but fragile. Brian is likewise going to be a fair cakewalk. Hum. That would get us 3/5 wedges, which with some growth hits us at the population for the Dom limit.

Land area, though, requires taking from either Scooter or Serdoa. Now Serdoa is going to be brutally hard to take anything from in ten turns, in thirty-forty turns he'll be well on his way to railroad networks and airships. That ain't happening. Scooter, however...it's a question of how fast he'll recover his economy, and how much building vs. fighting he'll be doing. If we can snip off just the outer half of his empire, with Imp settlers filling in the cracks we will make Domination.

So how likely are we to get there. Well, Serdoa is smart, and good, but also cautious and probably defensively-minded. He'll start grinding forward at some point with unstoppable SoDs once he realizes we're near the limit, and Scooter won't go quietly into that great night, and with keshiks he could be a real pain. The thing is, I need to not have the world declare on us until at least most of Lewwyn and Brian's industrial bases are ours as well.

This might be a daft idea, but I'm entertaining it. What is certain is that anything short of an all-in attack, upon Serdoa or the rest of the world, is going to end in the completely normal concession to the runaway very shortly.

[yuris125]

[like]

The plan looks solid! Good luck

[Mardoc]

Blood for the Blood God!

I've no idea if it's a wise plan, but I'm confident it'll be fun to watch, so it gets my vote!