[spoilers] Commodore's 69 Techniques

[Commodore]

I'll grant Superdeath this...he's badly mishandled his production situation, but he's keeping near to tech parity here. His current stack isn't enough to splash Bing's invasion force yet, but he's going to have a couple more turns of consolidation before the Carthaginians hit the Great Lighthouse. Going to be properly apocalyptic when it happens.


I've rebounded despite the ugly Gavagai game-throw thing. Need more siege, once I can strip Cumae's defenses this many knights will shred through, at long last.

Not much more to build before it's all-in on Risengarde.

[Commodore]

Superdeath is frantically messaging me with "War with Bing" messages...

Gee, Superdeath, maybe you should have thought about this when you GAVE GAVAGAI HORSES FOR FREE EARLIER.

[Tarkeel]

I assume that's the Superstack under your chariot?

[Commodore]

I assume that's the Superstack under your chariot?

Yup. I think he might just straight-up lose this in a raw stack-vs-stack, his cities are so very very tiny and whipped down now.

[Commodore]

Two more turns.

[Commodore]

In the year 1070 AD the brilliant trader Giovanni Medici was born in the Bierzenempiragartenur city of Raddler, destined for the Great Trade Mission.

Although the two nations had the oldest and most intimate trade relationships of the entire world of Nice, the Great Trade Mission was something unique; the Great Medici clan of the powerful southern trade city used the windfalls of their favored son’s mission to invest in new castle designs but even more importantly they took control of the sulfur trade. Over the next century the Medici took a novelty just used for fireworks and began to mass produce gunpowder weaponry. Although the new muskets were a game-changer, it wouldn’t be until a great scientist’s brilliant invention of gun cotton that the advanced Bierzenempiragartenurweaponzgaurdensmashurs would sweep the world stage…

[Commodore]

woosh-CRACK
The young legionary flinches as a stone crashes into another of the outlying villa’s walls. He looks nervously at the scarred face of his centurion; the twenty-year veteran standing with him atop the roof stares implacably at the vast host encamped outside of Cumae.

“Steady boy, they’re not going to charge us today.”
The young legionnaire gulps. “What happens when they do, sir?”
“We kill thousands of them, and then we die.”
“But sir…” the younger man glances behind him, to the once-vast city now abandoned and smoking. Whip cracks and screams sound among the ruins, as the few remaining citizens sweat over a hastily-assembled defensive catapult.
“Why sir? Why are we here?” There are tears in the young man’s eyes. “Rome is to the north, with hills and walls. Why Cumae?”

“Because we were told to die here, boy.” The centurion gives a dark chuckle. “The Mad Caesar wants us to die here, we die here.”
“Why? Why the Bierzenempiragartenurs, over the Mali, or the Carthaginians?” The young legionnaire adjusts his helm, this time ignoring it as another catapult stone cracks nearby.

A single, bitter, bark of a laugh escapes the centurion. “No one knows. Not me, not the legate, not Caesar’s own mother-wife. I don’t know if even he knows himself. But he hates these people, and has decreed our every last drop of blood will be spilled fighting them.”
“He really is mad, isn’t he?” The young legionnaire shakes his head, disgust creeping over his features. “All the people in the city he kills, all of us, we just…”
WOOSH-SPLAT
Another catapult stone hurtles through the young legionnaire’s skull. The headless body slumps forward, fountaining blood.
“Happens, boy.” The centurion looks calmly at the dead legionary, and steps slightly to one side. He looks up again at the assembled host and adjusts his cape once more. “Just another day in the Spite War.”

[Commodore]

Okay, dude catted me, did next to nothing.

…there’s an argument for waiting one more turn of bombarding, but I’m actually war weary, and he’s pulled a Praetorian out this turn. I’ll cat myself…

…and it’s not enough to make it easy, but it means I only(!) will lose five knights from this damned thing. Worth it.

Good. Riddance. I still have no idea why Gavagai decided to hand Pindicator and Bing his spoils on a silver platter and focus with monomaniacal hatred on me, but it’s over. And “Holy food, Batman” is at last in the biergarten. Eesh. Only kept the granary, natch.

This does remarkably shift Goldschlager from “poor whipped outpost” to “incredible super-city” now. Pigs and a lighthouse lake will allow +9fpt even while working the gold, so it’s going to be able to take over a ton of good tiles here in a bit. The era of cottages is over (plus this is a border city, y’know), so those nice green tiles are going to be a farm and two workshops, with Chemistry the beeline and spending half or more my time in Caste those are much better than mines now. 16hpt? It’ll even meet the minimum for having a forge, sweet. Castle comes first here those.

Castles going to be popping up everywhere, actually, I’m protective with stone, so let’s make knights and maces completely useless…

Bing and Superdeath are about to have a cataclysmic encounter. I think Bing has what he needs to withstand this, and SD is gassed after this last throw.

[Commodore]

No love for the return of story posts?

[aetryn]

No love for the return of story posts?

It's great to see your story posts again. Your reporting on PB8 was what first drew me to this community. Glad to see it peek out again at a particularly momentous set of turns for your civ.