[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[Commodore]

So...what are you going to do?

So...we have a new situation. Gavagai is enraged (I'm sure) and has a higher power than me. His military was pretty shifted south to fight Plako, and consists of some decently high ratio of war chariots. Unless Plako gives him open borders (CHECK THIS EACH TURN), I have an extremely narrow front with Eygpt, heavily forested. If I plunk down a city on the ridgeline (Spread Eagle, natch) then I have a strong chokepoint that should be enough to hold Gav's current army off. I need to know three things:[
1. How mad is Gavagai? How much of his empire is he willing to whip into real units like horse archers or catapults?
2. How long is it going to take for Pindicator to hit machinery? As long as that shrine is there he's got the inscentives to join on my side, not on Gavagai's. So you better believe I'm not moving against the Confucian shrine. But how long to chucklenaughts?
3. Is Plako willing to declare again in ten turns if we're still at war? This is a thought I think Gavagai will have too.
We can still do the profitable thing here, have a 3v1 dogpile. All factors can dogpile me too. That's dangerous, and why I offered peace to Gavagai. But we're going to have to see. [
 
The ironic thing is I've just dropped time to Astronomy down another turn. Raze gold woo. TBS is going gangbusters over there with his golden age, so we're going to be seeing several hundred billion galleons in the oceans shortly. As frankly stupid as my life choices have been here, I do know what's important, and that's control of the new worlds. TBS and I are going to be meeting one another soon.
   

[ipecac]

Gimmie feedback, this show deserves it.

[SadGit]

Sad Git, happy now?

Blod shed, gamelong feud rekindled with foaming mad killer. Well Im not complaining.

Best of luck riding the tiger, remember pinpricks will blead out the beast given time.

[Commodore]

Sad Git, happy now?

Blod shed, gamelong feud rekindled with foaming mad killer. Well Im not complaining.

Best of luck riding the tiger, remember pinpricks will blead out the beast given time.

Another term for a pinprick is "a small injury". Do unto...bad. Unfortunately for you viewers at home, but very very fortunately for me:


I know, I know. I'm sure every one of you blood-soaked jackals were giggling when you saw this section of the map. But frankly, this many veterans makes for caution. Fundamentally? Not a single one of us wants to fight another one of us. Too much guaranteed stress and pain unless you can lock down a good solid dogpile. And as you can see, it's hard to get a dogpile going. I dunno, man.

I just hit the accelerator on ye olde tech path. Compass, naturally, lands this turn. I'm going to make 4-5 explorers for some good barb fighters that can be delivered via caravel to clear out landing zones. The capital GP lands in 4t (8% odds of GM), then the Wanker's Corner GP lands 10t after (4% odds of GM). I'm not happy with that adulteration but Optics is down to a 4t tech at full burn, so I'm going to be waiting around if I slip even a single turn on that schedule. Ambition is to have 4 galleys for upgrade (110g each) and 4 whipped galleons completing in queue when Astronomy lands. Then a 9th gets whipped next turn, and 4 more the turn after (have the chops needed). These 13 galleons are going to be throughout the coast.
-3 southernmost go southwest with 3 workers, 3 settlers, and 3 crossbows.
-1 plus a caravel goes due west for fish site. 1 explorer, 1 settler, 1 crossbow, 1 worker.
-9 swing northwest with 15 praetorians, 3 trebuchets, and 3 crossbows to conquer virgin TBS New World colonies and fight his own fleet. I'm gambling he's not mass upgrading, but rather using his ports (mapped) to produce the fleet while he still pushes heavy units in ex-Superdeath land. He's got access to the eastern ocean as well, ideally he'll cede this one to me.

Tech needs to push hard (after upgrade) to Construction->Engineering, I need a fast pike/cat force to defend against Gavagai's soon knights; TBS will be popping Guilds ASAP after Astronomy I'm sure. My own Vassalage/Theocracy GA is going to be late, but I need to slave out a good dozen settlers and 10-15 workers anyway assuming I get away with this plan.

[Commodore]

I want to announce that I am looking for the sub. I have an extremely bad taste from this game because of the way one of my neighbors behaves and do not want to keep playing. This is the first time I have such experience on RB, sorry. And I have reasons to believe that swapping me out would be, ultimately, in everyone's best interest.

Crap. Why the llama of drama now? I just want you tied up and passive dude, my life, my love, my lady is the sea.

This is mebe his issue? I'm happy with it as a forward base even if he resettles; hill and wall with spears, praetorians, and crossbows won't shift for much.

Some pyschonewbie may destabilize everything. I wanna be on a boat, it's a big blue watery road.

[Commodore]

Wish me luck.

First of the two die rolls. All goes well, we have Astronomy in 8 turns. Might be able to sneak in two more galleons to the plan.

[Commodore]

Success! The first roll was a Great Scientist. That's about two fifths of Astronomy right there. We've got a lot of preparation to do still. A lot more praetorians, four settlers, and a few more crossbows. 14 Galleons.

Disturbing trends as far as power goes, Plako seems to have given up on building more troops in this golden age. On the other side, Pindicator is finally spiking to chuck up someone's grill. I don't look forward to OT4E being Egyptian, please just all muck around with one another and let me colonize half the world. And also defeat TBS at sea.

[Commodore]

And with a pair of massive score bumps, TBS just landed Civil Service and Optics. He bore I believe two more GScis, so he's 2t from Astronomy. Sucks, but this is why he's a great player. Maces and galleons incoming.

[Commodore]

My other hobby talk time! We finished the first short campaign in 1452, we'll be doing another set in the Azores soon. The biggest battle was so awesome:

I love my players' roleplay, but we also love a good set-piece.

I'm currently using Starfinder as a system base for a campaign set in the Koprulu Sector. They're a mixed Protoss/Terran team pushing deep into a dusty nebula known as Hell's Sack, where a slumbering AI is slowly awakening among the Mounds of Benedict.

[Commodore]

Welp. More than just a single tile out there.

TBS is building galleons, but he's still in Caste, so it'll be slightly slower than the wanton murder I'm about to commit.