[spoilers] Going Dutch: The Commodore Files

[Mardoc]

Wooo! Make love, not war!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Wooo! Make love, not war!

And then make war!

[Whosit]

Maybe that Turn Coat sign will be a turncoat? Though culture flipping cities is, as I recall, really flippin' difficult. At least it looks like you have enough of a stack to keep Plako from just burning that city down. Oh, how come Peace Talks' culture defense hasn't increased? Does that kick in next turn?

[Commodore]

Yeah, no clue about what's up with PT's defense.

[Commodore]

Wooo! Make love, not war!

And then make war!

Plako is the aggressor, yer honor! He tore up my road!

...that I stole...

Yeah, this is going to be nicely diverting, at the very least. With two spears ensconced in that walled city I wasn't about to be able to take it with three horse archers and two chariots anyway. Now, more south there was a vulture and that wasn't going to last. I sent in my first chariot at 29% win odds and...

Nerf vultures, plz, my paper should win against rock. Okay, I mean, it did this time...

Heh, so there you are, profitable already! Except not really. But at least it's a very nice city, dubbed Skin Game and already owning fish work boats. I am a little confused why it's taking us three whole turns to suppress the 5% who are rioting, though.

Well they are revolting!

[Mardoc]

I knew this day would come - but I didn't expect it to be *this* day.

So the other two cities in the area - I assume they require cats?

[Mardoc]

Oh, and a couple questions about less sexy things:
1) How's the colonization of the Pacific and the Azores looking? We going to own the majority of the seas?
1b) Ok, yeah, you've been distracted. How about the scouting of the above? Found more city sites?
2) How do we stack up against Plako in general? # of cities, production/GNP, miltech? Can I look forward to a Netherlands that owns everything north of the equator eventually, or a game-long dance?

[Commodore]

So the other two cities in the area - I assume they require cats?

Well, maybe they should have, but plako made one of his vanishingly rare mistakes...he withdrew his chariots behind Zabalam. This left him with three vultures, three spears, and an archer as the only defenders. Aw yeah. It wasn't pretty, but with a little careful promotion management, that allowed me to use my sword and the longbows to hurt his vultures, exposing his spears to the rapacious attentions of my axemen. Nice!

Man, I need more of these sword things.

So then, sweet, my horse archers and chariots can sweep in, and boom:

NO SOUP FOR YOU

I offered a white peace after all this, my objectives are largely complete. I retain ownership of the peninsula (settler coming up as you see to settle the gap), plus the other seafood spot. The inner sea as a whole remains largely Dutch. With luck, this is also a land split not utterly ruinous to plako, and he can go settle eastward. Finally, the great general settles in our Statue of Zeus city and we can pump out some formation war elephants, knights, etc. Pretty happy outcome...now plako might well decide to say "screw it" and pile everything into a duel; he's got a couple more cities and the end result would be a split with Dtay of some prime land. But I hope he can live with this limited engagement.

Still nothing happening out in the eastern front.

I'm content with our lot, in any case. Dreyote the Ninja traded silks for our new dye, so we've got some good happy coming along. I'm just growing onto good tiles; Changes needs four more population and it'll be at maximum land tiles, which is when I want to build that palace, timed to match a forbidden palace out in the west somewhere. Nastiness and death are going to come for us some day sooner or later, but in the meanwhile, let's play for the long odds and try to win.

Capital city until .5 seconds after Mackoti researches transports.

[Commodore]

Plako took the peace! About the seas...

Oh, and a couple questions about less sexy things:
1) How's the colonization of the Pacific and the Azores looking? We going to own the majority of the seas?
1b) Ok, yeah, you've been distracted. How about the scouting of the above? Found more city sites?

The Azores...are about as significant as you'd expect. Nice I guess. When I can make decent culture, I'll settle for the clams too, but...yeah, MUCH less sexy.

It's our only source of sheep, though.

The Pacific is full of sexiness (scouting workboat did, sadly, die to a barb galley). However, Dtay is getting there first. Which, yeah, sucks. Astronomy, save us!

Spoiler:

It won't.

I thought for a second that I was going to have to suffer without the Heroic Epic for a while longer, as the abortive conflict didn't yield a 10xp unit. But then I remembered the SoZ...so one cheap aggressive stables later, I'll be making 10xp horses regularly. Goooood deal, because we're going to need the HE running here post-haste.

Welcome to the Random Taoist Enclave!

[Mardoc]

So, going to name the Heroic Epic as the Hera Annex to the Zeus Statue? (or, um, I guess there could be a lot of annexes: Europa, Io, Leta...)