[spoilers] Gaspar and Commodore welcome you to the islands, mon!

[Gaspar]

Looks good, Commodore.

Hopefully he doesn't cats hiding anywhere. If that's the case, I don't see why we can't just march up to him like an AI.

Since we're unlikely to wipe him out, are we considering Pedro and C&H enough to stop the war? Or so we want to keep pushing until we have the Pyramids? Guess it depends on what he's offering.

[Commodore]

Since we're unlikely to wipe him out, are we considering Pedro and C&H enough to stop the war? Or so we want to keep pushing until we have the Pyramids? Guess it depends on what he's offering.

Hrm, yeah, it depends. The 'mids are so close to Pedro that unless we keep out of religion or convert to Confucianism Zits will always overwhelm it. That might be fine, anyway. We'd really like to have the 'mids, though, and I'm not sure if Sian would be willing to give up at this point. Numidians protected by Explorers should be able to blitz through inner Azteca without too much issue, and crossbows aren't too far off. As you said, if he's without cats, we can go for AI mode here. If we can get going on a roll, then we can fund our research with captures.

Although if he gives us a worthwhile bribe, that's of course fine.

We do have a very powerful UB coming into its own right now. Thanks to Exp, we can two-pop whip each city for a 4-to-6 commerce per turn for the rest of the game. That's...strong. Not sure if it was worth it for the starting techs, but holy crap Cothons are going to be nice. The TR economy might see us recovering faster than expected, if we can snag the 'mids we'll be golden.

[Gaspar]

No formatting here, because I'm lazy, but enjoy:

regoarrarr: DUN DUN DUN
me: o.O
regoarrarr: I still couldn't decide if it was going to be sian
or a feint to yuri
(or a feint to me)
me: Well
Still could be a feint.
regoarrarr: true
i saw no cities fall
me: Indeed

[Ichabod]

These chats with rego are very funny.

[Gaspar]

Got home and had a chance to take a look at the save but I fear this turn will require more time than I have tonight.

Sian sank a galley, I'm not sure if it was carrying anything. Sank it with a galley no less, gotta love dumb luck. He also well reinforced all 3 cities we've been looking at, so I don't know that we really have odds anywhere. This is the downside to fighting same era units without siege support. If you're around perhaps we can coordinate the turn a bit, but otherwise I'm exhausted and off to bed shortly. I'll take a bash in the AM if you haven't gotten to it first.

My gut instinct says to pull what we can onto Galleys and try and maneuver to the other side, hoping we can threaten faster than he can reinforce with our speed advantage. The only other option really is just to throw everything at Pedro and see what happens, but the odds don't look stellar.

[Commodore]

Not a ton of time this morning, but looked at turn and concur. Toss one archer back into Revantusk, pillage horses, whip Amani Cothon, and beyond that dance out of trireme range sounds good to me.

[Gaspar]

I just won't have the time required to play this and not completely screw us until tonight. I had no idea this was going to turn out to be such a hectic pair of days. If you haven't had a chance, I'll play it tonight ~11:30 EST.

[Commodore]

Meh, I played, but it certainly wasn't a fun turn.

First of all, as Gaspar said, we lost a galley at lows odds, and he reinforced heavily. The Berserker lives on in this new galley, though, about to make Sen'Jin very unhappy by picking up a Numidian.



We were short of being able to Dunkirk everything from Pedro Island thanks to that loss. A handful of troops remain to threaten, but our five Numidians and three axes weren't going to cut it.



Odds were bad, even if the bulk of the Numidians retreated the medic = healing in a city, so that was a wash.



So, now we have four units on the island, and the horses are banished. The good news is all troops are still in range if he foolishly attacks out of his walls.



Meanwhile, we're going to dance, he's on the defensive. We will be able to bulb Optics in ten turns, so for now it's dance awar, hurray for circumnavigation. His north coast, unfortunately, is a little barren for pillaging.



You want an interesting tactical map? Here you go. His triremes are in Pedro, Zits, and south of Revantusk.



Meanwhile, we will be able to research what we want very nicely. Check out what your city looks like on Cothons:



Bleh.

[Ceiliazul]

So, now we have four units on the island, and the horses are banished. The good news is all troops are still in range if he foolishly attacks out of his walls.

I'm not sure it would be all that foolish to attack out... what is stacked with the chariot?

[Commodore]

I'm not sure it would be all that foolish to attack out... what is stacked with the chariot?

An archer. Certainly, if he wants them, he can kill them, but there are four laden galleys in range that would love to swoop down and hit anything outside the walls, especially if they're damaged.