[spoilers]Oh Canada! Victoria has a Commodore, eh?

[spacetyrantxenu]

We got an Oh Canada! at tonight's Lightning-Senators game. Overtime, home team wins shootout, went home happy.

AMERICA.

Too bad the one fight in the game was a bit of a snoozer. Oh well, can't have everything.

[Commodore]

Commodore, when is your golden age?

Next turn!

Sorry, one of those weeks; had my 40 hours in before lunch yesterday. Here's a sad little before/after with the forbidden palace, by the way:




You know what I like? Getting 98.6% odds.


You know what I hate? Getting maul on those odds.

[Commodore]

Corollary Three: Ships Are Worth Study And Thought
(Also, units are ammo)
So, land wars are for the chumps and the champs; either tango with the wheelchair bound or prepare to have your victory chances trickle down the left pant leg. Then, as I mentioned before, sometimes you can beat a competent rival cost effectively with balls-to-the-walls naval pushing; obviously though we'd still tend to prefer hitting the weak and the green to the savvy and the mean. All this means a focus on the worst balanced element in Civ4 combat; ships.

So how do we classify ships? I'm going to slap them into two broad categories; Shipkillers and Landstrikers.

Shipkillers
A handy way to classify a shipkiller is as follows: Any empty ship. The way Civ4 naval combat works is, any empty ship will defend over a filled one; I believe even to the extent of a .1/2 empty galley defending over a loaded transport. So if your hull lacks troops, it exists to kill hostile ships. There are a number of jump points in naval tech, and generally it goes landstriker->shipkillers-->landstriker->shipkillers-->landstriker->shipkillers. Galleys start, then you have triremes which specialize in killing galleys, then caravels which kill both. And so on. More advanced shipkillers, from frigates onward, can also bombard down cultural defenses.
Shipkillers are the fighters of the sea. They exist to dogfight other shipkillers and to wreck the bombers of the sea, landstrikers. Any wargamer should be able to quickly grasp the implications of that, then...ideally, you want to get away with building as few shipkillers as you can get away with, because landstrikers are how you win the critical stuff that matters, ports and tiles.

Landstrikers
So then we have the bombers, and there is a key insight here about them: Their combat strength consists of two different numbers. What Civ4 calls their unit strength is their ship-vs-ship "turret" power.

While the strength of the units on board is their ship-to-shore "bomb" power.

Now we get to where land units (and particularly land UUs) matter. A galleon armed with two swords is much, much weaker than a galleon armed with two rifles, but promotions matter...a blank rifle is a less effective hitter off a galleon than a blank berzerker. This is why I'd rate aggressive as the best naval trait even before considering drydocks; the C1 start means under Vassalage or Theocracy barracks maces/muskets/rifles/grenadiers/infantry/mechinf can take Amphibious, a 50% power boost as landstriker bombs. This calculation makes those lovely horse UUs even worse; bombs cannot flank.

[Goreripper]

So what you are saying is that Realms Beyond Mod nerfed America?

[Commodore]

So what you are saying is that Realms Beyond Mod nerfed America?

Heheheheh no. But Marines are frreakin' sweet in the Industrialism+ era.

/SMAC voice "Golden Age, begun".


Insane Market/Grocer/Bank capital output aside, our objective this Golden Age is to wind up in Free Market, having bulbed most of Education, and get a nice chunk of the GSci for Printing Press done. The burden of this lies most heavily upon poor Montreal here; three turns for the Education Scientist, then it'll be at max-not-starving working on the Printing Press fellow. Painful not to work the golden age villages, but sacrifices must be made!


...but I care less about that, more about this; I'm discovering new lands! Epic wonder tundra city or worthless sad troll island? Seafood or deer will make that determination! Stay tuned next day!

[Thoth]

So what you are saying is that Realms Beyond Mod nerfed America?

It's pretty much impossible to nerf a UU that isn't available until the Moden Era.

[Commodore]

Carracks are the worst.

[Krill]

You should praise the RNG more so it stops shitting on you from a great height.

[Ceiliazul]

you should rename that worker robinson crusoe, sorry dude.

[Commodore]

I'm in boringland, over here. Here's my Golden Age demos; not too impressive. I'm just kind of here, First World But Not Great Power. So kind of like...Canada.


GNP is actually whilst I was saving gold; el cheapo Banks are teh win. Here's the mighty capital. Why yes, Ottawa *is* churning out a gobsmacking 320 gold per turn. And feitoria/Printing Press mean that this commerce is less ephemeral than is typical for a golden age.


Requisite Moai-inna-GA shot. Sad, sad, sad, I've gotta cry, cry, cry. Ah well, we're growing it.


The city that will sing is dearly beloved Banks here; feitoria and towns will make this a legit contributor to the public fisc. Which, actually, applies to 80% of my cities.


Silly Willie is just trolling, about to settle the plains hill. He's evidently decided he's not winning so why not have some fun and kill so stuff. Oh well, Imma gonna eat this Greenerland sooner or latter.


...but Mackoti and Finarry are in an existential conflict. Apparently? And Old Harry asks for a contribution to the "Vikings Don't Win Fund". Uh. So? Why do I care? Frankly, neither Scooter nor Pindicator have ever NAP-stabbed me. So yeah, of the two massive hyperpowers, I'm cool with the Vikings winning. Not gonna win here anyway, Mostly Nakor Harmless Kuro Retep neighbors weren't in my cards.

Weren't in Old Finarry's cards either. Sorry bub, neighbors are all that matter.