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

[Bigger]

why are you even asking, let's see it! :P

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Never not post

[Commodore]

I am tempted to spend him on a trick rifle to wipe out this irritating little filler. But I think with a couple 5xp rifles I can wipe it out anyway barring reinforcements. I'll road the corn to enable s Gorillas into the Mist, eh?

[Commodore]

Well, decided to poke an eyeball in anyway. What I'd really love to burn is Bravery, but he's pouring more reinforcements into the city. I could draft and whip myself into the ground...to kill that one city. No thanks, I'm not Mist.



Capturing cities is lovely, but only if you can hold them. For instance! The Cathedral just became even more of a prize, with a massive shrine also boosting its depressingly high cultural output. But I'm pretty sure I could never in a million years take it.



Just to make doubly sure, I did squeeze out a spy. I'll be examining the local environs for an invasion, as I'm sure Gaspar has been doing as well. It's not like Aylee had much else to build me.



Ah yes, Aylee. Exhibit A in the filler sweepstakes. I'll probably draft a couple of those painfully acquired pop points if anything wicked my way come but mostly, it's going to be sitting around on its windmills and towns forever.



Speaking of painfully slow growers; Riffington is going a bit hungry for five more turns. It won't slow the growth to 17 at all, and only one more turn to size 18, which will be both health and happy cap, and the minimum required to both work all tiles for commerce and for hammers in the next golden age...which, with the swap to Bureau, will garner me a critical Kremlin build.



Assuming Gaspar don't just rush it or something...:rolleyes:

[Merovech]

Good book, nice subtle reference.

[Bigger]

right. So how soon until you invade Cathedral?

[Commodore]

right. So how soon until you invade Cathedral?

You tell me. I'm pretty sure, by the way, there's a nodal force of CKN in between the Cathedral, Hidden Camp, and their capital, not nearly all their power is showing up in that army in Turkey.



Although that army in Turkey sure isn't losing anything. Another one bites the dust, boys.



Where's Davy when you need him? I'm looking for Notre Dame in his cities, but it's hard to find. He's going to be the only place to extract cities from, alas and alack.



Screen did not take: Mist with a million catapults and a fresh rifle in Bravery. I turned back...does he not realize I have city visibility?

[Commodore]

I ought not have conceded this hill to Mist, but it is done now. I might toss a solid line of rifles at them to dislodge the force, but only if I have good odds of killing them all.



Found the nodal reaction force of CKNs in the Dry Border region. A quickly assembled stack of ~20 knights ought to be able to raze The Catherdral but anything I stick into the pink lands I can just plain write off. Stupid broken UU, ought to have just slogged it out with Gaspar early and trusted Yuri/Mist/Davy to screw themselves.



I'm not up many beakers, anymore. Gaspar's been saving gold too, so I can probably expect a race to various different key techs once again. An odd thing...both Yuri and Mist teched optics, and so can now build caravels as well. I think I have a head start on Magellan's, though.



Circumnavigation is going to be important, I think. I have the beginnings of a plan to topple France fast. Dave has most of his forces strung out in nodal penny-packets, leaving warrior and archer garrisons in the rear. I now have a morale knight able to take Tuchanka in one turn. The plan if to have a mixed rilfe/LK force inside Dave's borders, evidently heading toward the Byzantine front. I will then declare war, having them teleport north into my borders. Then the morale knight steal Tuchanka, and the reinforcements walk in on what are now my roads. Meanwhile, three 3-move galleys loaded with rifles head down to raze Thessia and capture the Citadel, with knight support overland.



Palaven will fall the next turn with luck. I'll declare war and have my stack teleport into the Byzantine tile 1S of those cows. Then it's march, boom...no catapults are in range for one turn. Hopefully, this means only a 1-turn interruption of stone.



Thus, I can assault in three more turns, when Oxford comes online. Riffington will power me through to Communism and Steel while growing, then begin the Kremlin. Slavery might be a long-term civic, and US rushing will be actually affordable.



One last wonder to make, I'm not sure why I waited this long to put the Hermitage in Kiki. Annoying little grass-worker got drafted, naturally, looking much better now holding a rifle. Theocracy, alas, is our endgame civic here.



Interesting times. Now I pass on the turn to Gaspar, and you can all listen to him worry and whine about how hard he has it losing a CKN a turn while winning the game in the most effortless conquest ever.

[Merovech]

And people only pick China for the starting techs...

[Commodore]

And people only pick China for the starting techs...

Well, let me back up there a little bit. This has been a very odd game, which is what is making the CKN spam so powerful. For one thing, the never to be sufficiently damned moronic cataphract strike forced me to spam out large number of landsknechts, which while nice in many ways (hi Dave, nice pike and mace spam you've got there!), do terribly against crossbows of any flavor.

The other thing is that we've got a long border dominated by massive culture-pumping cities, meaning slow one-movers are our bias. Knights rip CKNs quiet well, and now that I have enough muskets and rifles, those CKNs would be rather ineffective at waddling up against me an enduring me hitting first. However, that much collateral is just murder on anything I send in against China. Thus, the extremely hostile border is also very stable at the moment.