[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[pindicator]

Turn 214 is in the bag. We're at peace for now, but as you can see, we are under the gun when it comes to war declarations:



This turn I ended up whipping a few more places than I mentioned: Taco Bell got a 1-pop whip, whipping off one of it's coastal tiles. It has another 2 coastal tiles that we can convert into 67h each with 1-pop whips. I also whipped Dominos, figuring that the 62h that 2 pop delivered now was worth more than the 7.5hpt that two workshops would give over 10 turns. That and it was going to grow into unhealthiness next turn.

We ended up looking like this for our cities:



The four knights that ended at end of turn brought us up to 12 overall. We have 8 more turns to produce 50 more. Okay, that is not likely to happen, but we'll get what we can in.



I decided not to settle the horse city by Slowcheetah. We may find a tactical use for that settler so I'm going to leave him unused and hide him in our island. I'm also sending the longbow to Rheims - I want SC to have to earn it if he decides to boat that city in 5 turns. He has a TON of knights in Paris, but I don't see his boats yet. I'm hoping he doesn't boat the city immediately when the peace deal is up, because I'd like to offer him Rheims for peace. Perhaps we should just offer him Rheims right now?

I'm also wondering if we should offer the silk city back to Xenu for a luxury resource. It's not really doing much for us right now and we're not going to get that fish out from his culture unless we capture his capital.

I promised Scooter a few bad plans for invading Commodore, and here are the two I've thought up so far. Since we likely won't have enough units to fill all of our boats, I'm thinking we will use some empty galleons in the south as a feint. Act like we're sneaking along the bottom of the ice flows like he did. Or maybe act like we're going to recapture one of the cities he took. But the galleons will be largely empty. Instead we'll move our main force along one of these paths:



This is the safest path, but it also takes the longest. And by putting our forces on land it really puts them in a bottleneck and will mean Commodore will have an easier time defending them. The benefit is that he shouldn't see them coming until we're in the neutral land between Serdoa and Commodore. The downside is it takes forever.



Here we race across the narrow sea and unload by Swallowsdale. We'll only spend one turn in the middle of the ocean, so I would like to have at least half a dozen empty galleons to take up frigate hits for that turn. Again, we have 22 galleons right now, so finding empty boats may not be a problem. If we do this plan, again I'd like to feint to the south first.

Note I'm also going to plant a warrior on the island in the sea to get more visibility in the area. A sentry unit was tempting, but the only thing we can make are knights.

Also note that Commodore is forting the tile NE of Amazon Circle.

I think with both plans we need to make Commodore commit his troops first. Whether that's on boat or even leaving a city weak for him to take. Jamba Juice, perhaps? (Who needs iron?)

I think we also need to get some muskets on our west coast, and I'll be fitting those in next turn.

Finally, this is a longshot but I figured why not try to get some help on board?





I'll laugh if either of them join in, or even understand what we're asking.

[NobleHelium]

Hey man, it's the Book of Job. Lewwyn will save us clearly.

[pindicator]

Hey man, it's the Book of Job. Lewwyn will save us clearly.

If we ever get whales at rheims hooked up i have a trade in mind

[Sisu]

Leviathan for Behemoth? Does Lewwyn have elephants?

[TheHumanHydra]

You might be thinking of Jonah ... though what Sisu said works too.

[pindicator]

You might be thinking of Jonah ... though what Sisu said works too.

Doh, I am! I mean, I was thinking what Sisu was thinking

[Sisu]

Sigh, just when I thought my knowledge of the Old Testament was coming in handy for Civ...

Maybe I'll find someone else who knows it and we can use the trade screen to pass messages via references to specific chapters and verses. It'll probably be as successful as your "trade strategic resources + cities + gold" strat

[NobleHelium]

There's probably been a thousand stories where some criminal communicates with code that references biblical verses.

[scooter]

Cutting straight across and giving him 1T to slam into 8-9 empty Galleons is pretty appealing. However, it all comes crashing down if he pushes forward with Frigates and is able to hit the staging tile. If he gets 2 turns to take shots at us, the plan is a lot less attractive. Unless we manage to stage there when we're still at peace and move first on the following turn, but with Commodore's seeming ability to login instantaneously upon turns rolling, I'm not crazy about staking our plan on a login race (or even playing like that to begin with).

Anyone wanna lay odds on Slowcheetah being willing to stay at peace with us in exchange for the return of Rheims?

[NobleHelium]

We just need someone to declare war on Commodore the turn before and lock him into the second half of the turn, amirite?

Oh wait...