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

[Commodore]

Hum. Well then, in foreign news, Mist offered open borders, combined with doing this. No clue, honestly:



Also seen above is 1/3 of the next nine turns of Chinese golden age. It looks like they'll finally shed the war weariness, at the price of so remaining medieval trash. Yeah.



I'm not going to be doing it, but I really want to go Free Speech against these jerks. Note the awesome clam tile...a wave farewell to it. Darned Sistine.



Uh, good news? Well, a lot of this.



Once the Kremlin comes online, oh the places we shall go, oh the blood that will flow!

[Commodore]

Randomly meandering about the map for the win! Actually, what I'm doing is leeching the best and the brightest from this big stack to head for transports. I need to get a rail network online (soon!) and then I can stop playing so risky here, a sudden offense against Kusari might be viable. Although...I wouldn't hate that, right now the cannon densities mean that whoever strikes first overland gets wrecked.



I think the next little while is pretty clearly planned out: Teching to Combustion then towards Assembly Line. Golden Age next turn. Trying to push out either a Great Spy, Great Engineer, or Great Artist, for EP bomb, Mining Inc, or culture bomb respectively.

[Commodore]

Well, then. As tail end Charlie, all the news of my turn we've all seen already, I'm sure, but here it is for posterity, along with the REAL news of the turn:



Nope, not even Gaspar completing the SoL (Shit outta Luck), although it's related. It's the 3-turn time on Assembly Line. Yeah. So, I fired my own little golden age, and although I'm still behind the Juggernaught, I'll have Machine Guns online before the infantry draft.



The big B has some sweet effects on Riffington, although I had to shuffle units a bit to keep the city happy with the barrack going away. No matter, we're always going to be in HR/Theo/Slavery here...the Kremlin in three turns will solidify that tendency even further.



Feeling very soviet, the next step in my asymmetric campaign is going to involve stealing stuff, I think. How about an intelligence agency? Amusingly, my national epic city is finally able to actually run specialists thanks to Biology. Love that tech!



Wish we luck, I think this is more or less the endgame. My objectives are to hold territory all along the watchtowers, and do the properly German thing by invading France, this time with transports and cannon.



This can only end badly...

[Commodore]

So, if the banter thread is to be believed, we've got a feud. Looks like the blue and the grey are out of this thing officially. Mist apparently took out a lot of the stack that hit Bravery, I doubt he'll be able to take Palaven but if he does I'll take custody.



Amusingly, I am slightly menaced by a trireme, of all things, working cheerfully to round the horn of Holy Rome. Yikes that's a lot way from home. I'll need an ironclad or destroyer to see it off if it starts acting all pesky.



If it weren't already hopeless enough what with the above spy-or-artist option that Gaspar has, I can forget about any, say, Byzantine cavalry making it interesting for China. I accepted some donations in ex-Bravery land, at least.



The Callix mentioned above is classical filler type A. With three grassland biofarms and a grass hill mine to claim as its own, Callix is a place to grow slaves, nothing more, nothing less. It'll at least also help solidify the border a bit, for what that's worth (hint: very little).



I shudder to imagine what is due for us next from Gaspar. A great artist bomb would be nasty, a physics bulb just mean, but I'm betting on the spy being the great person used. My kingdom for a transport and a morale knight, by the way...New Tristam is so close to being burnable, and yet so very far away.



Steam Power came in, and the coal that appears cropped up in two lovely places. Kiki will get the culture-pumping Angkor Wat out a turn earlier:



And Riffington just became even better, with that coal funneling into a Bureaucracy. Weird as it sounds, I might just toss the Ironworks in there. It's not like I'm ever going to be putting anything else in the maw there.



The expedient now over the long-term later, alas. This won't be ending in a space race.

[Commodore]

Hah. Now don't get me wrong, I still think Gaspar's going to win this in a landslide, but unless he's got some engineer points of his own cooking, guess what I've got?



Now to beg, borrow, and steal every scrap of copper and iron from my neighbors...

[Commodore]

...and that concludes the good news section of this report. The bummer news is that Dave is now drafting himself into the ground, and I fully expect him to outright conquer Byzantium unless they really get a move on. I've been planning to strike France with transports, but maybe Byzantium would be better?



Anyway, I'm not ignoring Dave's proclivities. He might get a wild hair and hit me, although I kind of doubt it. The speed bump spots need to get a little better garrisoned, here. Sam Da Man is totally Da Man, by the way...I think I'm going to pave over a cottage for another biofarm, though.



I'm not exactly rich in Levee-bait here, but there is one city that needs one badly. Welcome to the new, improved, less-squished Kusari. Ironically, it finally managed to capture that little plains tile to the west too now...it'll be size 18 before this is all over.



Unless this is all over sooner than expected...

[Ceiliazul]

Is Kremlin better than Mining Inc.? I guess it is if the game would otherwise end before Combustion...

[Commodore]

Is Kremlin better than Mining Inc.? I guess it is if the game would otherwise end before Combustion...

It's not either/or! In the screen above, just finished the Kremlin. And just birthed the GE for Mining Inc, although I'll need Economics/Corp too before I can found it.

I guess that's as good a segue as any into my thoughts here. It looks like Mist and Dave are descending into a grudge match here, so no help from that quarter. If there was a clear leader, might be worth it to pile on, but it's doubtful that this will be anything other than a river of blood for all parties involved. Might snipe something, will probably beg for resources, but basically...they're in a duel, leave 'em to it.

So, it's down to China and the HRE, and trust me when I say I am very aware of how skewed that contest is. I'm up Scientific Method, Communism, and Biology, and as of this turn down Music, Constitution, Democracy, Economics, Corporation, Assembly Line, Astronomy. They are about to enter their third 9-turn golden age, and they have roughly twice the land. I'm not sure how legitimate any comparisons are as they rock another golden age soon, but I'm within a shout of their tech pace in normal mode, Colossus Fin coast and Org/rathaus efficiency leveraging the snot out of my land.

I'm planning on pushing hell-for-leather towards the tech goals of Railroad (two turns) for defensive mobility and machine guns, Combustion (~3t) for Destroyers and Transports, then the Economics-Constitution-Corporation (~5t) line for Mining Inc, which also opens up Assembly Line (~5) for Org factories (ole!) and Infantry. Then other tech goals are all past the Astronomy point, unless a wild hair for Sid's Sushi at Medicine strikes. In this time, I can expect Gaspar to match techs 100% and also bull through Physics and then play in one of the lines that follows it (Radio/Flight for CR and bombers, Artillery for, um, Arty, or Electric Industrialism for tanks).

This is my window, then, to change things up. I have a few advantages in this era. Organized factories are huge, although Gaspar will have been playing with them for a while I think I can Kremlin-whip a ton in ASAP. Rathausi mean that corporate costs are a good deal less crippling for us then for many, and I think we have the inside track on Mining Incorporated, which is a nice hammer boost for even the crappiest little biofarm filler. Finally, I think Gaspar is a little ways from Refrigeration still, meaning circumnavigation transports and destroyers from Holy Rome have reach for a while there.

So, then, we have maybe twenty turns before the tech disadvantage is simply overwhelming. Infantry do well for a long while, even against marines and other infantry, in enough numbers. I plan on spamming out a lot of transports and destroyers, and filling them with infantry. Forking mobility-advantaged naval strikes have a better shot than nasty slogging through thick Sistine culture. It's just a matter of how fast I can scrape things together. Once factories are online, it's a case of all-out mobilization. Whipping nothing but infantry, cannon, and modern fleet units. Gaspar has a much better MFG edge, so it's all about whipping myself to the bone. This will be the final war.

Now, it's a matter of faith. Gaspar and particularly Noble are cautious, careful players. If they strike soon, it's all going to be much more nasty with infantry and galleons against rifles and ironclads. On the other hand, they defend well (which is most likely), you can call it then and there because I cannot afford to leave any gas in the tank at all. So. That's the plan. Mock away.

[regoarrarr]

Don't destroyers and transports need Astronomy?

[Commodore]

Don't destroyers and transports need Astronomy?

Actually, I used to think so...

I got all excited this turn when I confirmed that Mackoti, due to his Colossus, still hadn't researched Astronomy. I queued up a merry round of galleons!

Yeah, that's a no. It's actually why it's something of a choice right now...I can either go Combustion next, or beeline Corps. Short-term scariness, or longer-term?