[SPOILERS] Emporium For Sale. We Don't Rent Pigs.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Pi, meet Richard Parker.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

• novice - Catherine (IMP/CRE) of Greece - Hunting/Fishing, Phalanx (5/1/23 - Axeman), Odeon (Colosseum - +2 happy, 2 artists)
  
• me - Louis IX (CRE/IND) of Zulu - Hunting/Agriculture, Impi (4/2/23 - Spearman), Ikhanda (Barrack - 40h, -20% maintenance)
  
• dazed - Zara (CRE/ORG) of Sumeria - Wheel/Agriculture, Vulture (6/1/23 +25% melee), Ziggurat (courthouse available at Priesthood)
  
• Zackoti - Asoka (ORG/SPI) of Holy Roman Empire - Mysticism/Hunting, Landsknecht (6/1/ 40, +100% mounted & melee), Ratuaus (-75% maintenance)
  

Civ/Leader Restrictions: Normal snake pick (without seeing our starts). India and Inca banned. All Fin leaders banned. All Exp leaders banned.
Wonder bans: Statue of Zeus.
Spy bans: No spies.
Other bans: Nukes. War Elephants.
Map: Manually mirrored/rotated for four players.
World size: Standard. Cylindrical map with a brick layout.
Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: quick.
Huts, events, tech trading, vassal states all off
Always War
No barbarians.

From Com: brick-pattern, cylindrical, Monarch, 36x32 map

Units:

Code:

Captain Augustus McCrae—Co-owner of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, McCrae considers himself the brains of the outfit. Generous, humorous, and lazy to the point of eccentricity, he serves as a foil to the more serious, practical Call. When not working (which he does as little as possible), Gus pursues his three chief interests in life: women, alcohol, and cards. He is well known in the territory for his loud voice, superior eyesight, and accuracy with a revolver.

    Captain Woodrow F. Call—Gus's partner in the company. Less verbose and chatty than McCrae, Call works long and hard and sees no reason why others should not do the same. A former Texas Ranger who won a merit award from the Governor of Texas for "courage under fire", he served with Gus when both were young men. Though Call has utter disdain for lazy men who drink, gamble, and whore their lives away, he has his own failings, in particular his unwillingness to admit he is Newt's father. Call's ability to "break" unmanageable horses is also well known.

    Pea Eye Parker—The wrangler and blacksmith of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, Pea Eye served as a corporal in the Rangers under Gus and Call. Pea Eye (his real name long forgotten) is not especially bright, but he is reliable, brave, and kind. He follows Call's lead without question.

    Joshua Deets—An ex-slave and former Ranger, Deets is a ranch hand at the company. On the drive, he serves as scout. A remarkable tracker and morally upright man, he is one of the few men whom Call respects and trusts.

    Newt Dobbs—An orphan raised by Gus and Call. His mother was a prostitute named Maggie Tilton, who died when he was a child. He knows his mother was a prostitute, but has no idea who his father might be. Most observers, notably Gus and Clara Allen, are quite certain that Call is his father. Call apparently knows this too, but is never able to publicly admit it. Call does give Newt his horse "The Hell Bitch" which he values far more than his name. As McMurtry remarks in the interview accompanying the DVD, Newt is the "Lonesome Dove" from which the title comes.

    Jake Spoon—A former comrade-in-arms of Gus, Call, Pea Eye, and Deets. Jake is, if anything, lazier than Gus, but without the latter's redeeming virtues. A gambler and drinker, Jake prefers living in luxury and ease and shirks work with a passion, which irks Call mightily. He is, however, a man of great personal charm and is seldom unlucky in love.

    Dishwater Boggett—A cowboy of great skill, "Dish" is the top hand for Call's cattle drive. His main aspiration is to win the love of Lorena Wood. His nickname derives from having swallowed dishwater, being so thirsty that he could not wait for the water barrel.

    Lorena Wood—A kind-hearted young woman who was forced into prostitution by her lover, she was then abandoned in Lonesome Dove. Lorena is silent, strong-willed, and intimidating, refusing to submit meekly to her various admirers. Discontent with her line of work, "Lorie" hopes to leave the dead town and find her way to San Francisco.

    Blue Duck—When Gus and Call quit Rangering, Blue Duck was unfinished business. The son of a Comanche war chief and his Mexican prisoner, Blue Duck leads a band of renegade Indians and buffalo hunters. He is feared across the plains as a murderer, rapist, and slaver.

    July Johnson—The sheriff of the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas. July is a kind, long-suffering young man, recently married to a woman he knows little about and who is utterly disdainful of his attention. After his brother, Ben, is accidentally killed by Jake Spoon, July's domineering sister-in-law Peach bullies him into setting out in pursuit. July is accompanied by his young stepson, Joe, and his incompetent deputy, Roscoe. (In the 1968 film Bandolero!, the sheriff, played by George Kennedy, is named July Johnson and his deputy, played by Andrew Prine, is named Roscoe.)

    Roscoe Brown—The deputy sheriff of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Roscoe is a timid man who spends his days playing dominoes and occasionally bringing in the local drunk for an overnight stay at the jail. After July is sent off after Jake Spoon, Roscoe is coerced by July's sister-in-law, Peach, into tracking down July who left to track down Jake Spoon who killed Peach's husband in Ft. Smith. Roscoe is also afraid of wild pigs. He, Joe, and a girl named Janey are later killed by Blue Duck.

    Clara Allen—A former love of Gus, she declined his marriage proposals years ago. She lives in Nebraska, married to a Bob Allen, a horse trader who is comatose, having been kicked in the head by a horse. They have two girls, though she is afflicted deeply by the death of her sons. Though separated from Gus by many miles and years, she still holds him fondly in her heart. In contrast, she has utter contempt for Call.

    Po Campo—Cook for the Hat Creek Cattle Company on their cattle drive. Picked up on the way during a stop in Austin (San Antonio in the miniseries). He is most notable for his use of "exotic" ingredients and his refusal to ride animals. Po had a wife that, in his words, "lives in Hell, where I sent her." His sons were previously killed by the renegade half-breed outlaw, Blue Duck.

    Elmira Johnson—July's coldhearted, pregnant wife. Shortly after July departs to track Jake Spoon, Elmira flees town in search of old flame Dee Boot. She finally gets to Ogallala just before Dee is hanged for murder. Along the way she travels on a whiskey boat, enlists a couple of buffalo hunters in her quest, and gives birth at Clara Allen's ranch then abandons her baby there. She and one of the buffalo hunters, Big Zwey, are killed by the Sioux shortly after leaving Ogallala.

    Peach Johnson—July Johnson's sister-in-law. She pressures July to bring Jake Spoon back for killing her husband. A week after July and Joe leave, she pressures Roscoe to find July and tell him his wife has run off and is pregnant.

    Bolivar—The cook for the Hat Creek Cattle Company. A former Mexican bandit / rustler who, in his retirement years, became a cook, a more relaxing, less dangerous occupation. (Nevertheless, his ability to provide goat meat for dinner—an animal that the Hat Creek Cattle Company does not raise—seems to point to the fact that he keeps himself in shape by still practicing some rustling on the side). He is obsessed with loudly and unnecessarily ringing the dinner bell to call the company for dinner, much to Gus's annoyance.

    Hugh Auld—Former trapper and friend of the Blood Indians who cause Augustus' death; finds Augustus as he's trying to reach Miles City and lends his horse so that Augustus can make it. Later joins the Hat Creek outift as they winter on the ranch.

    Jimmy and Ben Rainey, Bill and Pete Spettle, Soupy Jones, Needle Nelson, Jasper Fant, Bert Borum, Lippy Jones, Sean and Allen O'Brien—Other hands hired by Call to work the cattle drive.

Turn order roll:

Novice
Boldly
Dazed
Zakalwe

Picks:
Zakalwe
Dazed
BGN
Novice
Novice
BGN
Dazed
Zakalwe.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Details of super epic victory here.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Is the map thread a reference to this Dr. Suess quote?

“When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles
and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle.”

[Commodore]

My wife and I quote it to each other in lieu of adult conversation, these days.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

DEAD TO ME:

Financial	Expansive	Protective
Darius	Bismarck	Charlemagne
Elizabeth	Isabella	Churchill
Hannibal	Joao	Gilgamesh
Huayna Capac	Mao Zedong	Mao Zedong
Mansa Musa	Mehmed	Qin Shi Huang
Pacal	Pacal	Saladin
Ragnar	Peter	Sitting Bull
Victoria	Shaka	Tokugawa
Wang Kon	Suryavarman	Wang Kon
Willem van Oranje	Washington

Clearly this map calls for Pacal of Inca Tokugawa of Celts. No other combo comes close. I may opt for something else, though, as that is just pressing the easy button. Discuss.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

My wife and I quote it too each other in lieu of adult conversation, these days.

Gotta love the kiddies. They teach more than they learn, I hear. First lesson: humility. My dogs talk back to me sometimes. I should see a doctor about that.

[Ichabod]

Tokugawa is overated. The next big thing is Charlemagne.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I don't mind losing the game, but losing the post count is unthinkable. I think Z is going to spam it up as bad as I do.

---

So, it's a bit late, but in general I think CRE is the last best trait standing after FIN and EXP have been axed. I like IND too, as kind of a dirty/stealth economic trait, if the conditions are right. I'm not very practiced with using PHI, so this probably isn't the time to try that out. That and with makoti nominally helping Z, they'll be the defacto TEAM MIDS. But, there is Ghandi. SPI is pretty awesome, but I'd really have to pull my shit together to make it work. I tend to play games quickly and remain inexperienced at MP, so I haven't ever maximized what I can get out of SPI by any means because I don't plan when I play quickly. But, with FIN/EXP banned, it is a very viable option. I can see either of Hatty (IND/CRE) or Ramses (IND/SPI) being fun and good options. SPI is going to make me plan more than I probably should, given I'll be playing most of my turns at work.

Since EXP is banned, I could try to REX with Julius (IMP/ORG). Slap down a bunch of cities, crash the economy, lay down cottages, rein in costs, ---> profit, probably bag full of WIN. There may be a problem with that plan though, I'll keep working on it.

Charlemagne may be just a little too full of suck for me to play. Even if I could make it competitive (highly, highly doubtful), I think I'd die of boredom. I'd pick a fight early on just to fight at something close to tech parity, then wither away forever after. Sorry, Chuck's going to have to sit this one out.

Basically, I'm all over the place. If you want to see a leader picked, throw some ideas at me and convince me. I'm wide open. I'll talk civs another time, maybe when the pick comes back around.

---

Other thoughts: mack talks Z into Byzantium so he can wipe someone out with knigs Phracts, novice plays a weird variant where he refuses to complete any builds that don't finish in 1t (wins anyway), and dazed totally rages against me for my bad cop routine from 29 until Z owns us both with Phracts. Finally, with Inca banned, Catwalk can't talk me into believing that CRE/Inca is wtfpwns overpowered.

[Commodore]

DuGaulle is pretty nice...