[spoilers] Commodore is absolutely confident this will end well.

[Commodore]

Need your favorite cryptids.

Going to have at least one, possibly two new cities next turn, so I'm going to need names please.

[Lewwyn]

Naga and Kraken? Though they might be island cities.

Skunk Ape, Owlman, Unicorn?

[klops]

Smaug for next gems or gold?

Gargoyles are also cool.

[chumchu]

Järv
Storsjöodjuret

[Commodore]

Nice. I actually didn't know about this one.

The Owlman of Cornwall is kind of like a Limey Mothman; spooky big eyes, wings, lot of staring without much hazard. It's probably "just" an owl for whatever that's worth. The scare quotes are because owls are very occult/UFO related, in addition to having drug culture referents (but I repeat myself). Most owls are merely silent hunters of the night, of course, but there are a staggering number of abduction stories that involve owls communicating with the abductees before and after. Freaky stuff.

Just interesting enough, looks like TBS just managed to reinforce his island city just in time. Heartbreaking.

I landed my extra little warrior on TBS' worker, then. Debated putting down my axe as well, but that gives his chariot a nice 6 vs. 5 shot. This may tempt him to strike out, not likely, but possible. Galley picked up my chariot, so there's some fun options there, y'know?

I'm going to predict that TBS sits tight here this time. Next turn:
-Tanjin should grow unless he hit stop-growth. 
-Tanjin's borders pop.
-His galley goes south to Shanghai to pick up the garrison (suspect a warrior).
-He lacked archery at least last turn, and his research is decidedly inferior, so Tanjin either has invested a turn into a chariot->whip, or else it's not invested enough into an axe/spear yet. I do assume he's hooked his copper.

Thus, if he sits tight, I probably need to try to kill the garrison now, which will be painful, unless I'd really rather contend with "random Shanghai garrison" then "random whipped crap" then "actual defense plans" with my own scratch offense. With archers I'll be whipping next turn my own interior should be pretty decent, but it's going to feel very dicey up ahead these next few turns. No worries though, this duel is going to be until the game is done for one of us, so any scrambling TBS does is fine by me.

Now just have to figure out how to actually hook iron...

[Commodore]

Worth a quarter shot, I think...


Disappointing. Ah well, just going to keep pouring resources into this flashpoint, and try best to hurry up the iron.

[DaveV]

Need your favorite cryptids.

Does the Jackalope count?

[Commodore]

Need your favorite cryptids.

Does the Jackalope count?

Absolutely.

I will update with pictures whenever my ISP decides to actually send a tech out so I am no longer playing turns on my hotspot, but the long and short of it is TBS won a 32% shot at my loaded galley so he felt comfortable killing off the last couple things there at his island. He offered peace but I really don't see any value in not pretending that this is a duel to the death and at the very least there's a small chance that van or Joshy realizes they can join a dogpile.

[Commodore]

My biggest sorrow: Not picking Creative.

It's ridiculously bad for a cultureless dude out here, bros, these islands are built for creative. I have an empty galley menacing Macau for now while I start to amass horse archers, coupled with a few Praetorians should be able to crack a target or two. The real next question is to go Math or MC next; I think I'm leaning Math but having triremes would be really nice. Plus it'd be happy-helpful for my two actually-cultured cities...

Actually have too many workers now; three of my remaining six city sites are culture-overtaken by China.

[Commodore]

On the plus side, should finally have iron in a few turns.