[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[mackoti]

I think its posible if he whip without nothing into production box(in first turn of production),not sure about that.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh yeah, good point, but it's probably not a good idea with the whipping malus.

[Commodore]

Ah, darn it, thanks anyway. I'd done it before, but it was a riverside commerce resource. Good catch about the lighthouse, need to be pumping those out.

In other news, new plan. Bureaucracy is definitely the next stop, with Meditation a 1-turn tech has I save gold. I'll be swapping as soon as it hits, too.



Holy cow. Academy+Bureau will make this a monster beyond all imagining. Ophir is about to get stole from, too. Need to fill that ridiculous happy-cap in time for a little caste. The other massively-below happy cap city is unhealthy next growth, but also has the surplus to deal with it.



Grow dem cities, yo. Nemedia is about to become a donor for the GA's Caste System too, as the new city steals sugar for a rapid start-up and Zingara grows like a weed.



Yeah, that's going to be a nice location very quickly.

The hub cities need renaming, but here's the current pictures of Avignon:



And Grenoble:



Really MNG? No granaries in either one? Sigh. Much as I'd like to spare the citizenry, it'll be whips and more whips for a while to get both these cities up to snuff.

[Commodore]

Hopefully final dotmap now. I'm still willing to dicker with MNG over the island location (fogreading has the yellow dot a tundra or snow hill), but unless I hear otherwise these are the two other hub locations. I need to not actually crash the economy over these sites, but sooner would be better for settlement. I suspect the reactions of Yuri and GES would not be overwhelmingly positive, but they can't really quibble with either location being in my sphere of influence.



Green dot is where Yuri's Rerro FM has already been founded. Bright yellow is next up for settling, the fur-hill giving much-needed defense and with two clams and tundra hill deer, while not an amazing site, it will at least be decent. Darker yellow has nothing but pure fishing village written on it, but the IC-TR will make it insta-profitable. Honestly, though, neither location is nearly as important as sustaining good vertical growth in my core.

[Commodore]

Sigh. I need to do more turns at 100% gold to remind myself that I'm out of this game.



We'll need to see how much the GA helps, but right now it's lookin' a bit grim. Long-term potential is still there, it's just a question of how long it will take to achieve that potential versus, well, GES getting Liberalism in a nowish time-frame. Workers are preping the area for the Golden Age, and chopping out the Sistine, which is going to be pretty dang vital to winning culturally, which is a long-shot, but maybe the only shot anymore.



The newly-captured hub is the tourist capital of the world, apparently. I ain't over-fussed about it, but I'll be counter-scouting RL7 and MNG.



It's a pity GES and RL7 have started to run away from the game. It's a personal-best for my own games here, a very pretty empire for 440AD.



GA ETA, 4 or 5 turns.

[Commodore]

That's a little better.



Civil Service is a two-turn tech, which is nice, but I'll still be waiting three turns for the Golden Age +swap. Three more cities will grow then for nice GA yields. Meanwhile, the hub improvement continues apace.



Yes. That is a cottage being built. So sue me, it's also the only 2-food tile available until a lighthouse comes in. Maybe with this huge +5 food surplus, I can make a settler for the islands.



Very nice little fishing village or two. I'm probably just going to concede those clams and the GES-ward island to, well, GES (or MNG!).

[Ceiliazul]

I've been busy at work, but still following along. I see the lagging demographics, but you're def not out of this yet. You're completely right that Fin/Org is going to start asserting itself... keep growing vertical, and keep your dukes up...

Have you had much interaction with MNG since the peace deal? He seemed to have graciously accepted defeat, so I hope you're rebuilding the pre-war good feelings.

[Commodore]

Have you had much interaction with MNG since the peace deal? He seemed to have graciously accepted defeat, so I hope you're rebuilding the pre-war good feelings.

Actually, not as much, but we've exchanged a few personal notes of complaints about business and work. He's been swamped lately, which is why we're at a mere ~1 turn per day lately. I won't begrudge it, things are picking up at my job too. I have a reassuring graph regarding MNG:



Now, if I was Yuri or GES, I'd be worried. RL7 is neck-and-neck with me, not sure how they're planning on using the army but they're still a while away from Astronomy so I'm not personally worried. I suspect the uber-polluted GPP pool at their capital has yielded the newest Great Person, but I'm not sure.



If RL7 use him for the Sistine I'll be bummed. That huge cultural output is accounting for a lot of their GNP but GES has Liberalism locked:



Ouch. Yeah. I'll be moving on the island area between us soon to try and tamp his potential at least a little bit. The Iceland site is actually pretty strong, with two coastal fish and a tundra hill deer in addition to the ubiquitous fur.



Need to start turning out a few more workers and settlers. Aquilonia will actually be providing some of those after the Sistine is done/lost. Workers are about to chop the NE forest into a cottage, and the east grassland and SW grassland will also be getting cottages. Sistine is due in 3 turns. The NW grass will be irrigated into farms for faster growth/more flexibility, which is also why the lower plains were farmed.



On the other hand, the newest city of Zingara is also getting some more worker love. The sugar is getting a plantation now, and the river will be irrigated towards the lovely corn location for a strong surplus. I'm actually thinking, if this will be my GP farm (and really, it should be as there isn't anywhere better right now), then that other hill ought to be food-neutral, a 2/1/3 windmill tile is nice enough. Chopping out the National Epic will be fast once I spread Hinduism here.



On the gripping hand, the whole central-east region needs more labor as well
as this is silly-fertile land. Irrigation towards the rice and the wheat will also add more growth potential for the three cities shown, and they can use it. Once Khoraja picks up those two other hills as mines it can provide the bulk of the missionary/navy builds for the empire.



Overall, it's going along at a decent clip. I'd almost like to spend a little time in serfdom to help out with all my development needs, but I doubt it's worth a turn of anarchy.

[Commodore]

So about that Ranamar power spike...

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey RL7,

Congrats on hooking up those whales, must be an awesome happy cap you guys are nursing over there. Optics also lets you research Astronomy, which I understand turns the world upside down on this crazy map. I'm assuming that the potential for beastly maintenance and hard long-distance fighting would generally dissuade you from looking towards Hyboria for using those brand-new Vassalage military toys in my area, but I will need some reassurance or I'll have to bounce your units out of my lands. I hope not to come across as hostile, by all means wage war wherever you'd like and I'll keep my observations to myself.

Hoping things are going well in Middle-Earth,
-Commodore [/COLOR]

But before I sent that query, I sent along to MNG:

[COLOR="yellow"]Hey MNG,

I realize you're working a lot and probably haven't had a lot of time for the game, but I thought I might drop you a line to see how things are going. I saw the GLH merchant was born, if you'd like to run him to Aquilonia we could discuss some sort of profit-sharing scheme. I hope things in France are developing along nicely, my compliments on the beastly MFG especially.

One thing I did notice that I'm not sure if you've been seeing is that RL7's power graphs have been spiking heavily, almost surpassing mine this last turn...and they now have whales on their trade screen. Meaning Astronomy is researchable. How close did you say your west coast was to them? You two might actually be the closest to one-another of anyone in-game, with the corresponding maintenance costs making it worthwhile to pursue war in that direction. If you do catch wind of anything I might be willing to sell you some catapults/landsknechts, for assurances they won't get used to fight me of course.

Hoping everything starts to calm down over there,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

Yeah, never a dull moment here in merry Hyboria.

[Commodore]

Diplomatic dump! Been an interesting time. First off, Yuri's a little nervous.

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi Commodore,

I just realised we don't have a formal NAP in place. I don't think
either of us is planning to attack any time soon (I know we don't),
but having it written on a virtual piece of paper and stored in our
archive would make me feel more confident

How does a NAP up to and including T128 sound to you?

All the best
yuris125, Music Director of Radioland[/COLOR]

As he's neither in the lead nor close, yeah, I can take that deal.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey Yuri,

Ah, yes, the old NAP question. I wouldn't remember T128, how about T130 inclusive? Glad to reassure you guys.

Speaking of reassurance...I note RL7's power spike, they're almost as high as me now, and they also can now trade whales, which means Optics, which means Astronomy is just around the corner. You guys heard anything from them about who they're targeting? Best bet would be MNG, but I get a little worried as they aren't that many ocean tiles away from my backlines either.

Cheers,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

Nothing back. I wonder if they've been sworn to silence?



MNG isn't dumb, the warning was in vain.

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Hi Commodore,

I'm happy about the GLH merchant, I only had to work a merchant myself for a few turns to get it Unfortunately, I'm only going to get a few hundred gold from sending him your way, so I'm going to settle him locally. Adding in a market, grocer, and bank shortly and he'll have plenty of time to pay back - plus my empire could use all the food it can get.

One thing I learned from our skirmish is to be prepared for these battles. And I really am RL7s closest neighbor, he's only 5 or 6 tiles from me. Add in his circumnavigation bonus and I'm sure I'm just a few turns away from another war. The problem is, I don't think I'm strong enough now to slow them down any.

But I will be ready. I'm about 4 turns from fielding maces, and the rest of the medieval units are on their way. That said, I'll keep your unit offer in mind in the coming days.

Now... time for bed. It's been an incredibly fun stretch at work, but very busy and I'm ready for a calmer period!
Until later,
MNG[/COLOR]

I'll stir the pot/buck up the victim if I can here.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey MNG,

Glad the calmer period is in sight, hope things continue in that direction. I really appreciate the turns you've still be moving through despite the busy period.

One thing that might slow RL7 down, in the "giving pause" sense, would be this...I could sell you two of the war chariots that GES sold me. The truly ideal sequence here is for the two runaways to smash into each other, and anything that sours eastern friendships would be a good thing for us out west. Tell me, do you know what their force composition is? I'd imagine your longbows behind walls could stop anything trying for amphibious assaults, and if you have enough cats in a central position mobile Mace/Catapult stacks could be hell to fight. See: Why I was willing to sign a peace treaty. It's a brutal slog for any attacker.

I know you know all this, I suppose I just am trying to be encouraging. My own borders are being reinforced on the outside chance that they go looking south-east rather than east.

Good luck,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

So he's unable to slow them, but he will be prepared? I dunno. The GM for a golden age -> Gunpowder beeline might have been a better usage, 2-mover Musketeers would stop RL7 butt cold.



Meanwhile, Seven Spirits wrote back,

[COLOR="Orange"]Hi Commodore, I'd love to talk but I need to know you'll keep things secret.

For now I can assure you that we have no plans to attack you.

By the way: how did your war with MNG end up? I saw you signed peace, were you forced to make any concessions or was it pure win?

Seven[/COLOR]

I let him know what was up.

[COLOR="yellow"]Hey Seven,

Well, first of all, that's a sigh of relief. I'll put it in writing, nothing you tell me here will be spread to anyone but my lurkers.

The war with MNG went pretty well. My engineering-boosted forces cowed him into a surrender with a few concessions. I got no fighting in the hub cities, thus both Avignon and Grenoble wearing the nice yellow color you see now. In return I agreed to not bomb anything on our borders. I also signed OB in return for a permanent gifting of spices, plus, well, the assurance that with only one OB my next-door neighbor needed me to be on his side, which lets me breathe easier. No other agreements were made outside of the 10-turn enforced peace and another 10-turn enforced peace when I "demand" his spices.

Tit for tat, what was up with the RL7/Yuri spat?

Hope things go well in Middle Earth,
-Commodore

P.S. Was that your GE? It must be an exciting crapshoot every time you get a great person up there. We need to set up a betting game for "next Barad-Dur GP" predictions. [/COLOR]

I should probably be less talkative with Seven, who is a canny and wisely taciturn diplomat, but darn it, I'm playing this for fun.