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

[pindicator]

So if you go back to my overview from the last update, you'll notice there's a boat group that I didn't manage to label. It's 2 West of Callum's, and I found that it had 2 badly wounded frigates and a full health galleon. Also, if you'll look at the roster in Callum's, that city now only has 3 Ballista Elephants. There were 6 Ballista Elephants there 2 turns ago when we last had sight on it.

Seemed pretty clear where 3 Elephants went. We only had one frigate left that wasn't used to bombard, but there were a number of unhurt galleons. In fact, with a C1 Galleon we got a 50% chance to sink his boat.

Naturally, it lost.

But we had more galleons, and his frigates were badly wounded.



Our next 3 galleons all won and sunk the mini-stack, along with whatever was on board.



I also mentioned we moved the knights north. We did do some pillaging once we got to that tile:



Perhaps it would have been better to load hte survivors on our galleons and send them home. We would have been able to run, and then cover the galleons with frigates next turn. But mentally, we always figured on this being a one-way mission. Still, I didn't expect to see what I saw when this new turn rolled!

Noble and I debated about sending the 9 healthy knights up to threaten Swallowsdale. But Noble's sims showed that we likely would not win just based on what we witnessed in Swallowsdale. So we kept the stack together and moved 1N. I'm not sure if we'll get another city, but that's because of what happened on the next turn.

Longterm, the best news may be that we are winning the battle of the seas. Here is the south:



3 galleons will retreat to safety. If Commodore chased them (he didn't) we would be able to cover them with a pair of frigates next turn. Commodore's naval strength now is a few galleons and 4 known frigates, only 2 of which are at full strength. We likely will lose some of our wounded frigates (we did, and more than I expected), but I don't care so much about giving him experience; I care more about taking control of the seas.

Joining the fight are reinforcements from the north:



That's 10 fresh frigates inbound, and 2 more in the south. Commodore may win back the ocean later, but for now it is looking good.

We'll have to do an overview of the situation around Domino's later. If we can hold the seas long enough, then I think we can recapture.

I forgot to mention this when I did it, but about 5 turns ago I gifted Slowcheetah our spy in New Orleans. I figure if we're going to play nice, then that may go as a sign of good faith.

[pindicator]

When I opened the game, I was greeted with this:



And this:






Commodore triggered a golden age and revolted to some nasty civics:



He also renamed all his cities. I think we may have upset him a little

He drafted rifles and came after our knights; we lost 4 knights, 4 galleons, and 4 frigates.

If we look at losses so far from this little excursion, I think it's something like 18 knights, 1 mace, 1 chariot, 7 frigates, and 7 galleons. But we killed 8 rifles, 1 longbow, 6 galleons, 11 frigates, and 3 ballistaphants. AND ONE CITY!

That's just this excursion. The war is a bit bloodier.

[scooter]

at Slowcheetah joining. It worked!!

[scooter]

If you think you've seen true beauty before, you haven't. It actually looks like this.



Naval domination achieved. Also, Commodore really did rename 80% of his cities. My favorite name was this one:

[NobleHelium]

He's pillaging the captured tiles.

What's our espionage spending on? If we're still on cheetah we should swap back to Commodore. I see we have research visibility on cheetah.

[pindicator]

He's pillaging the captured tiles.

What's our espionage spending on? If we're still on cheetah we should swap back to Commodore. I see we have research visibility on cheetah.

We've been spnding on Comm. He just has a lot of espionage infra. I was telling scooter I think we should put a turn of EP slider into Commodore this turn, so we can get sight on our old capital again

[NobleHelium]

So who's been keeping count? Are we up to wave 15 or so?

[scooter]

Yeah we should definitely dump the EPs into Commodore this turn - just enough to get the visibility for next turn.

[pindicator]

Knights v Rifles! I love it

[pindicator]

You know what these last two turns have been for me? Vindication. This has made the whole Run-From-Commodore-And-Invade-India choice worth it in my eyes. I don't mind what happens here out. Sure, it'd be great to nail that 6-mover and it'd be great to recapture Domino's, but we got to sock Comm good this last turn. We have less than half his score and probably a quarter of his demos. And that feels pretty damn good.