[spoilers]Commodore is Darius II of the HRE, now with less excuse.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Hey! We resemble that remark....

[Bigger]

so, you "demand" 50 gold for safe passage of Dave's GM, and he accepts. Then 5(ish) turns later he asks for 191, and you give it to him? Am I the only one that finds that funny?

[spacetyrantxenu]

If it helps slow down the boogeyman while we make our way to some tasty military tech, I think it could be a good choice. It seems like a strange deal for now, but I assume we'll be seeing that money again one way or the other!

[Bigger]

oh im not criticizing the war subsidies, I just find the 2 events back to back funny.

bully: give me 5 bucks punk
harmless tyke: ok, here it is don't hurt me sir
(10 mins later)
tyke: excuse me sir, can you spare 10$?
bully: hmm, well I am feeling generous. here you go.

.

[Commodore]

I'm not the bully here at all! That's these guys:



Gulp. Well, let's just content ourselves with the statement that we live in interesting times. The purest form of interesting times, right Plato? He's going to Educate us on the subject.



Liberalism -> Gunpowder. For the win?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Free beakers are free beakers. As Mist would probably say....KILL THEM WITH FIRE!!!!

[Commodore]

Free beakers are free beakers. As Mist would probably say....KILL THEM WITH FIRE!!!!

Define "free beakers" though. Education and Liberalism aren't either one of them strictly necessary for the plan, it's all about denial. Opening the Economics option is nice, no doubt about it, and eventually we want to win Communism, but for now, it's a diversion. Looks like we're fairly safe, though, as no GSes were born this turn.



That terrifying tech rate of Gaspar's needs to be watched, of course. He's two-turning Nationalism, probably to set up for Representation, which will be brutal to compete with. Our efficient empire is getting smoked right now by his bigger one, and those are MoM-boosted Golden Age demos too.



The stratospheric power rating basically every Byzantine city finishing off a cataphract, all moving towards France. Kusari is feeling more and more vulnerable, but let's hope the metagame means that it's Total War down there.



It's been a while since I've done the traditional "city-by-city" update, and turn 100 just rolled by. I'll break it into regional chunks. Here's
The Border Cities:

Aylee:

One burned, now twice shy, Aylee frankly sucks as a city. But it's needed, both for the GPP-boosting Marble and for claiming the center of the line. In a couple more turns, Aylee ought to own its midline, for what its worth.

Kiki:

Kiki is always under threat from the looming cultural menace that is The Cathedral, the Christian and Jewish Holy City. I think I'm going to slip the Hermitage in here, if I can, but a single Caste-Artist-BOOM play would probably leave the spot razed. It's an excellent city for all that, and I'd be losing much worse if I hadn't settled it.

Torg:

Easily the second best city in the empire after Riffington, Torg is a commerce machine. Enjoy the massive population and output while we have them; Torg is about to get whipped hard to produce a big mass of knights/landsknechts/muskets which will promptly so obsolete.

I have an unpleasant feeling I'm documenting the high water mark here...

[Commodore]

We need to talk Dave...

So distractions of an impressively lush land aside, we're still tracking on the Guilds run. The elephant island is interesting, and the areas are almost too big for much conflict, but we still can royally mess up someone else's day with our cataphracts. It's time for another installment of:



Today, we discuss counters; the list of hard counters is simple: Rifles. If we had Ottomen kicking around, we'd be warry of janisaries, but as it is muskets don't hold much to fear. The usual dribs and drabs of medieval warfare, like maces, crossbows, and knights, are all respectable in large numbers but cannot come even close to matching 'phracts on anything like an equal hammer conversion ratio. The three primary worries we'll face on our cataphract quest for glory are longbows, pikes, and war elephants.



Longbows are normally what knights are made to counter, and cataphracts certainly don't do worse against them. The point is, due to the lack first strike immunity, neither do they do much better. Longbows aren't all that scary on the open field, but unfortunately, we're not really going to be facing them on the open field much. With stone at the capitals, walls are going to be dirt cheap and once the 'phract stacks show up, they'll be whipped in everywhere. Behind those walls enjoying all sorts of city-defense bonuses will be longbows, cheap and plentiful. The calculus for killing longbows is simple, throw 'phracts at them until they die...generally with combat bonuses matched against CG promotions, our 'phracts will enjoy a slightly better than even rate of exchange...which translates to a net loss in hammers.

Anti-longbow doctrine is one and the same as anti-city doctrine, use cataphract's superior mobility to fork, divide, and crush the weak points. depending on where iron is, if we can cut off the victim's supply then these little guys will be their best defenders.



Pikemen are the natural counter to knights, and do well against non-Spanish curs...so yeah, pikemen do well against cataphracts. The trouble for pikes is in the cataphracts' much higher natural base strength and how % modifiers work in Civ 4. A vanilia pike is strength 6 +100%, or 12, against the 'phract's own 12. However, bonuses are summed and then added, so a shock cataphract against a C2 pike is 12 vs. 6+(100+20-35=85%) (net 11.1). So while pikes, particularly on defensive terrain, do get odds on the 'phracts, they don't get amazing odds. So, see the previous song and verse about forking.

I know, that you know, that I am telling the truth, I know that you know, you just have to show proof...

[Commodore]

Also...



Given Gaspar's GNP, sandbagging wasn't going to happen. That GM is another Golden Age, though. This one will get us Theocracy and Steel.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Fun catafact: Cannons blow cataphracts into small pieces. More news at eleven!