[spoilers] Pax Commodorica: Pharaoh of Rome

[Commodore]

Dear Dtay,
It's not you, it's me. Well, okay, actually, it is you. Meta Knight is an absurd pink dot, a middle finger, shoved up my butt; I cannot let it remain forking my everything like this.


That said, I have some pity for you; but for the Munificent Grace of Vishnu, there go I. Longbows huddled behind walls, staring balefully at swarms of knights. You took two with you, at least.


Alas, longbows, even on hills behind walls, aren't pikes. And the golden age of Rome has turned out two dozen knights already, with more behind. There isn't much you can do.


I assure you, I mean no insult in using horse archers at the end; I can't have all knights in all places, so I sweep behind with horse archers. I do question your road network, I must admit...


I sincerely appreciate the welcome gesture with those workers underneath a mere longbow; the experience was quite nice and my legionaries need the help making a fort here.


Valeria Victrix could not have been more welcoming; the poor place had been badly ensmallened by whips, but they gave us a granary and a forge to rebuild so no harm done at all!


My dear fellow, knocking down the door took a little effort but your hospitality upon entry could not be bettered. I understand the boorish Zulu are making quite a fuss over at the other end, but please dear sir, don't worry about it. We'll happily help ourselves to the hors d'oeuvres. I've sent a missive on the matter, offering a peaceful resolution for merely all your cities on my side of the halfway line.


All of Rome thanks you. Next time, I hope you can avoid pink dotting me and we can actually be allies. As I crack open your bones to suck the marrow out, please know it's nothing personal.

Sincerely,
Commodore
(Soon To Be Last Place in Pitboss Nineteen)

[Dp101]

Look at the Qotm.

[Commodore]

Hah! Xenu or Brick?

That one might have a bit of an "old Commodore" feel to it were it attributed.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Hah! Xenu or Brick?

That one might have a bit of an "old Commodore" feel to it were it attributed.

*Raises hand* You had my attention at cracking bones. Sucking human marrow was the clincher. Anyway, I thought you were Rome, not the barbarians. But I know you Alabama boys do your barbeque differently, so....

KIDDING! *Hastily exits thread*

[Commodore]

So as we all saw, last turn was a very successful one, losing only two knights to crash forward into Dtay's front city and open up a nice ripe conquest. Great Wall plus fighting in Mali territory did give him a great general out of it all...then this turn, he slammed back into Thoth and birthed a second, so that's some pretty bloody intense fighting over there. I saw no major signs of reinforcement on this sector, so looks like Dtay is wisely prioritizing fighting horse archers for the Pyramids rather than contesting my hinterland raid with knights.


Nothing better than to charge forward, tallyho! Luigi, this time death stares at you!


I won, of course, but trashed my health to do it. That's sadly kind of the theme these last few fights. Luigi offered an excellent pile of cash upon capture, but I'm even more delighted to see how the culture along the roadways worked out. The blitz with engineering is just brutal, man, just nasty. More and more of my knights are piling behind, too, so this is great.


The newly christened Minervia is an awesome prize; granary and lighthouse intact, plenty of lakes and food, decent population, and canal access to another sea if I fort a tile 2SW. Two healthy axes are already inside the city; additionally, I piled some six trashed knigths and horse archers in there to heal; might as well be there as additional security while they recover HP. I need to bite the bullet and promote a medic, but I'm loath to use my valuable knights to do it. Good city, 8/10, would definitely capture again.


Poor Dtay has had some hilariously awful luck with his great general pops. The Zelda general might be able to flee on the fleet you can see on the lower right, but both he and the goober sitting in Mario (with a spear and three catapults) are out of the main fight against the eastern theater Zulu. I am reasonably certain to get both Zelda and R.O.B. (highlighted) next turn; the only question is “how much will this cost?” I really want to get Mario in the north as well on this offensive, but it is a much less accessible position, thanks to those guardian hills. The city in the north (Ness, I'm assuming from settle order) can die on the vine for me. This road system! Holy crap, man!


I've built about twenty-five knights so far; they're all moving swiftly east to support this blitz. I think that even in the best case scenario, Mario and the hypothetical city south of it on the lake are probably the most I can take before I have gassed my knight force. I've yet to see any pikes so far, but I'm reasonably certain to see them popping up here shortly and a handful of axes won't really cut it then. So, my next phase is being prepared even as distant parts of my empire are returning to peaceful builds; I am going to get a mixed cat/praet/musket force to hold the middle, while I move my big galley fleet to the southern tundra sea and crash a dozen CRII Praetorians into his GLH-bait fisheries down there.

Dtay is dying, but given the incredible size of the average PB19 empire there is considerable ruin left in his nation. This is going to be an interesting fight to be sure, folks. Maybe, just maybe, I can carve enough off here to claw back into contention; that is always the net goal here. Banking next for Mercantilism; I feel a Caste sabbatical incoming before long too.

Anyone have any questions?

[mackoti]

i hope you got at leat 6 workers to 'repair' dtay roads.Ha ha

[Commodore]

i hope you got at leat 6 workers to 'repair' dtay roads.Ha ha

I need more than that! I need to make an actual road network, continue efforts on a canal network...as well as keep up with backline expansion work and start spamming the nine thousand workshops I need...Caste is about to become the main civic in the column for me, and will remain so for most of the game.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Cut him some slack on Zelda, eh? He has obviously been using an ocarina to transport units around on the fluttering wings of a duck. Who needs roads when you have such incredible air power awaiting the call of a few piercing notes?

[GermanJoey]

Zelda could teleport short distances in Smash Bros Melee with her up-B... but maybe he shoulda checked the tier lists, you don't want to use garbage-tier as your front-line fighers.

[Commodore]

Intense and bloody battles are raging in eastern Mali now, as the Pyramids get traded back and forth. Here in West Mali, it's practically peaceful; the catapult out of Zelda scratched at my knight/knight/praetorian stack, while R.O.B was whipped for a longbow. I grumbled a bit, and sent in a shock knight to clear the riffraff out...

...no problem. Spear then axe down without losses; nothing earlier than a longbow really bothers a knight. With Zelda's borders gone, I can begin roading at last around here.

The captured city is renamed Traiana and holy crap will you look at that infra haul. Well then. Working a pair of lighthouse lakes and the fish this sucker ought to be up and running in no time flat; it also provides me with my own source of ivory once I get a road on that sucker. I guess I can't complain about the lack of roads too much; made this capture darned cheap.


It was very sad, but the fresh longbow in R.O.B. meant only 27% odds even for a CII knight, so I took my third loss of the war there. The skirmisher had full fortification but lower base strength, and so was far less of a mouthful. I imagine these suckers have been giving Thoth fits, though. Actually, it's a bit sad for Dtay that he has Machinery and thus can no longer build them; I suspect he'd rather have two skirmishers than less than one crossbow out east.

The redlined longbow remaining went down like a cheap [insert filthy mother joke here]. I probably could have afforded to have a few more horse archers running around like this, they're good sweepers for these kinds of clean-up fights. Although the tableau greeting me here was kind of surprising; that great general/worker pairing is obviously about to escape...but I worry about something gnarly already inside of the galley. I put the other full-healthy CII horse archer also into the city and just cross my fingers. I can retake it even if he has a couple spears in there...

I hope it doesn't come to that, because I'm continuing my awesome infrastructure retention streak with a granary and lighthouse in the city. Pity its only size one, but the wooded plains deer camp is a workable growth tile. Arabia Patraea isn't a great city, but it'll do fine. Nice to have a hilly point to defend against incoming galleys across the gulf, at least.


All the fighting has finally yielded a great general. Ivan the Terrible will probably defy his martial cognomen to become a super-medic. Cursed bad luck spawned him a long way from the fighting, but engineering helps. I'm going to risk my C1 chariot against a barbarian axe next turn; ideally I can get up to 6 XP to allow for the dreamy CI, Medic III, Morale combination. Beast like that, I might be able to push in a for real knight stack even to the gates of Dtay's capital. Tempo, momentum, speed...gotta keep 'em.


Above all, I prize keeping my target locked in a defensive mindset. My ridiculously shotgun offensive approach should definitely prove that. Thus, the spray of various knights and supports strung out all hell-for-leather everywhere you want to be. Pit and Mario can both come under threat next turn, although I don't want to spread myself too thin so I think Mario gets the brunt of my attention. Pit's ugly hill there defends it nicely but thanks to Dtay's “roads are for pussies” policy it can't project much; the hill slows him down just as much. For collateral I'll probably split the knights 1S and 2S of Mario; the hill set will be joined by the slightly ridiculous axe pair.

I can't stop with the pain train even for a turn, though. Unless Ness in the north has a huge garrison or pops borders on the roll I'll take it at a run. Canal work begins next turn as well; we'll make things as naval as possible. Throw crap at wall, note were sticking occurs.

The keen eyed among you will note that I've turned on tech; I'm going to blast a rapid 1t CoL and the 2t Banking on the ill-gotten capture gains and flip to both Caste and Mercantilism. Future tech path after that might be muskets and cannon, or might be up the top to CS, Philosophy, Nationalism. The result of my next GP pool will determine it somewhat...if I get an engineer then the Taj Mahal is obvious; otherwise, an academy might still make sense even though I'm never going to spend much time in Bureaucracy. Legio is a good city, competitive with the other World Cites now as you can see, but I'll cap out at size 18 and the gains of bureau don't pay for the costs in civic expense or unit support. Vassalage's XP has been huge.


I need the time in Caste to get some culture; not only in my new captures (although that's a big one), but my northern borders are definitely feeling the pain of Pericles of Maya. Missionary in Victrix will help, but artists are the big deal. I paid good money for this place, I'd rather not have it easily one-turned!


Land area stat is kind of silly right now; Thoth's long-term room to grow is pretty clear this way. Although being in a six-player game and having almost a full quarter of the world's citizens is darned impressive in and of itself. Well done Mr. TBS, bravo! We kinda screwed if he and Thoth don't start sinking hammers into each other before long.


It's been a while; I figure I should show a few relevant graphs before someone gets hyped about my chances following the stunning success of this attack so far. Demographics show nothing too surprising; I've got the best research outside of a golden age (Gaspar's is still ongoing, remember...stupid MoM), but the rest not power is kind of sad.


Power is actually pretty fun right now; Thoth's graphs don't show his recent setbacks, we're very close together here. Dtay is diving despite his whips, while Gaspar and TBS keep slow and steady. Ox is the funny one; he is running a hardcore farmer's gambit right now, but I don't have the power to snap at him as well as eat Dtay, nor do his other neighbors. Plus even more importantly, he sold me the city...I believe in rewarding cooperation. GNP and CY also shown...as I like the call them, sizzle and steak.



I'm all sizzle, no steak.