[spoilers] Going Dutch: The Commodore Files

[Ceiliazul]

Are you guys 1-2-3-4? Crazy! I like the ABAB description of the continent, short and sweet yet brutally unyielding.

[Commodore]

Plako, your secret is thus revealed! Culture victory: Holding out hope to losing fools since 2005.

And I should know.

[AdrienIer]

Finally got to reading your thread, good job handling your jungle filled starting land, it wasn't much better than what we got.

But I'd rather be us than poor Gavagai.

This quote from ~t100 really shows how it's easy to forget that civ players aren't gods, and mackoti can lose games/misplay sometimes.

Have a hard time understanding the story behind that barbarian city, though.

If you still care : it popped super late and GJ attacked just as we sent a knight to take it. The knight was promptly recalled to the front line.


Do you think you'll be able to take cities from Plako ? Or is this going to be a stalemate until someone wins the game ?

[Commodore]

Hey, AI. Mackoti quitting sure did shake things up, didn't it?

Do you think you'll be able to take cities from Plako ? Or is this going to be a stalemate until someone wins the game ?

I think...yeah, it's *basically* going to be a stalemate. "Take" is the key part; answer to that has to be "no" alas...we can raze crap, but good luck taking and holding anything non-edge-case. I think for the Netherland Kingdom, what you see now is going to be more or less what you get until the game ends or the Dogpile Cometh.

Beautiful, tropical, doomed.

[spacetyrantxenu]

What's with those two tiny islands not being settled? I don't think food even matters with trade routes, right? 200 hammers into settlers, if they survive even just a short time the payback window is fairly brief isn't it? I don't see why they'd necessarily kick off a giant conflagration with dtay.

Then again, I can see the draw for "eh, why bother?" from this position.

[Commodore]

What's with those two tiny islands not being settled? I don't think food even matters with trade routes, right? 200 hammers into settlers, if they survive even just a short time the payback window is fairly brief isn't it? I don't see why they'd necessarily kick off a giant conflagration with dtay.

Then again, I can see the draw for "eh, why bother?" from this position.

Actually, there is a settler/rifle/worker team landing on the lower-right island next turn. I valued not pissing off 2mn while he was relevant but I think he's on the decline now. It's got seafood and a hill so it's actually not just a trade route monkey, it's also a potential 8->6 drafting camp.

[Commodore]

James VanDerbutchen and the Last Colony

Governor James VanDerbutchen, 1562

In the year 1543, the tiny legal firm of Gerberding, VanDerbutchen, and Haart closed. Modestly successful, the firm had carved a niche for itself within the bustling city of Small Favor representing mining firms and miners hailing from the hilly eastern half of North Windlass, the large island hosting the mature Dutch trade city. But such modest success was no guarantee of draft immunity; both Gerberding and Haart were drafted in April 1543 as the city raised a neigh-unheard-of fifth National Regiment. The logic of such a draft was somewhat questionable; while the populous city could certainly support the manpower requirements, a whole corps had to be maintained upon the island to suppress unrest. The single city and her island were designated as a full Duchy; the crown expected as many levies from Small Favor as from three or four cities elsewhere.

It is unclear now how James VanDerbutchen felt about his firm's closing; he was always an intensely private man and left little writing behind. What is known is that a mere week after his legal firm closed, the South Windlass Company was officially incorporated, with VanDerbutchen the CEO, CFO, and President of the board. He also already possessed numerous investors and, most essentially, a personal writ from the Duke Helound himself. Interestingly enough, none of the newspapers reported any of this; it wasn't until early 1544, after months of quiet preparation and gathering, that reporters began to notice the sudden increase in National Fleet ships in the harbor. But before any in-depth reporting really began, the fleet shipped out.

The large island of South Windlass was very much an anomaly in the world of 1544. Running hundreds of miles from a low dry northwest to greener hills in the southeast, South Windlass is a pleasant, fertile island that had nevertheless never been permanantly inhabited. It's location almost precisely equidistant between the Dutch Kingdom, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Isles, and the United States of Inca explains that, largely; no formal treaties regarding the island had ever been signed but the three powers had long had a policy of leaving sleeping dogs lie. The long and grinding war between the USI and Portugal had begun to shift the balance in the region, however.

Crews of the Portugese 5736th Ironclad Flotilla, sheltering south of South Windlass in one of its better bays were greeted on the morning of April 22nd, 1545 by a most surprising sight; the lion rampant of Netherland flew from the high Pico Areontegue, attended by the milling rifles of a full battalion of Dutch soldiers. Confused and nervous Portuguese officers, upon coming ashore, were greeted politely by VanDerbutchen himself, as he directed the efforts of hundreds of surveyors, miners, and cartographers combing the nearby hills.

What the local Portuguese captains reported, as well as soon nearby USI scouts, was that the Dutch had stolen a march rather unexpectedly. The old Duke Helound had acted out on the formal designation of his crown titles; he was the Duchy of Windlass, and formally he had authority over all operations and actions in both North Windlass and South Windlass and all the minute islets in between. Upon his own authority, he had authorized a new “village” to be founded on the northernmost headlands of South Windlass. The old Duke planned on making this “village” into a city by size and by law as soon as possible; he used the South Windlass Company to funnel many of his own funds into the colony effort.

For a colony this was, whatever legal fictions were spun at first. The largely moribund Kingdom had not expanded in centuries, but both the USI and Portugal valued the backward but vastly militarized Dutch's neutrality. So...they did nothing. And the brand new city of Cinder Spires was incorporated officially on June 5th, 1548. Quietly, coolly, the Kingdom had siezed the last remaining unclaimed fertile land in the world...all without a single shot fired.

It was also the very last territorial growth the Dutch Kingdom ever experienced.

[Whosit]

Nice writeup! Out of curiosity, why didn't you end up settling the hill? Was it to share the seafood resource?

[Commodore]

Nice writeup! Out of curiosity, why didn't you end up settling the hill? Was it to share the seafood resource?

Yeah; plains workshop 0/5/0 vs. grass hill mine 1/4/0 is a wash but I'm going to be drafting the hell out of both cities so sharing food is good.

[Whosit]

And I guess if anyone wanted that city dead, it wouldn't matter whether it was on the hill or not, huh?