[spoilers] Pax Commodorica: Pharaoh of Rome

[Commodore]

Turn 159: In The Echoing Chamber
The Apostolic Palace: Asking "Who loves me?" since 2008. I also am weirdly near a backdoor religious victory it looks like.


Ah well, Thoth loves me at least. I'm looking around at the underbelly of Thoth's empire here, I expect it'll never matter...but you never know, some apocalyptic deathrace might see hardcore naval actions ripping through his underbelly in a sharkish feeding frenzy. Yeah now.


I'm not, alas, seeing many signs of powerful Zulu strike forces assembling. It might have to be up to me; I'm going to need to run a quick-and dirty sim to see how thoroughly chewed up twenty knights, twenty praetorians, and twenty cats get pushing in to Mali. I suspect the answer is "brutally mauled, massacred, game lost immediately", but I really ought to approach it in a scientific manner.


I'm cranking out Heroic Epic units at an awesome pace now. I'm building knights now in Theocracy; next turn as I swap I'll make half a dozen praetorian for simple guard duties...or I guess maybe I'll just bite the bullet and endure the cost of making stables. Knights, cuirs, cavalry...there is a long future in banging out horses. Pinch makes a world of difference, and I'm not going to be in Vassalage or Theocracy a lot going forward.


When Pacifism and Parthenon come online, I'm going to bang out a golden age. One of my great people is going to be bled from Flavia Felix, even.

Twiddling thumbs here, waiting for TBS' insane power to go boom.

[retep]

Spiral is happening?

[Commodore]

Spiral is happening?

Eventually! But events, dear man, are still threatening us. I expect/hope the newly Hindu Gurton Buster clears out next turn...because TBS went boom.


I decided to be less self-disparaging than I had been; actually, this little sector is the only crappy one, and I suspect that Gaspar, Thoth, and TBS all own similar tracts of actually not awful tundra. My city count does matter, I think I'm in second place legitimately! Distant second, though, and taking Mayan scraps won't change that.


Guess I'll have my Mali borders back under control very shortly; all of these cities? Third ring pop in four turns. Yeah, sorry man, I want to keep my Mali gains.

[Commodore]

Turn 161: Relativism
Mr. Deets moved forward his workers today; I am being discouraging. If it makes him move forward to trade iron blows without cat support, I'll be okay with it.


Gaspar is looking very passive on the southern front, which is of course good. He'll be keeping it DMZ'd, I suspect, until either TBS is no longer global hegemon or the Remaining Powers roll their dice and I'm the weakest link. We're going to be down to four before too too long...let's hope Gaspar agrees with me that this is a lovely border where peace should reign. After all, he's got the upper 60%...


Crop yield is very competitive between us Big Four. Actually, the story of this game is written right here very clearly. TBS's drops are drops of planning and peace, though.


Also, my city is the best but the game won't admit it. When Gus dies I'll bet my moai shows up.

[Commodore]

Turn 162: Whereupon Ox is An Ass
The steady drumbeat of TBS' murderization of Ox is accompanied by...no movement at all out of Gurton Buster. Bah! Perhaps, charitably, Ox would rather defend where he can get good odds? I dunno, this stack mixed with a good hard catapulting should put a dent in even rifle/cav stacks. Ah well. I offered half my extensive treasury for the city, for what it's worth. Gaspar, as you see, is now in his second MoM golden age...


...which, yeah, I need to get a golden age going myself soon. But check it out! Thoth/Gaspar are in their golden ages, so I'd expect my fourth place standing in GNP/MFG, but Crop Yield kind of shocked me...top! Yeah! Now I know TBS has whipped/drafted hard, but even so I'm pretty happy about this one. If only TBS wasn't getting Maya for free, we'd have a game on.


I boosted my crop yield an impressive six this turn, with Liberatrix here! Yeah no. But it isn't a bad little iceball fishery. The intense Christianity pressure means I need to hurry a missionary down here; once I'm out of Theocracy and into Pacifism I won't be protected. As you can see, I'm delaying that revolt for Representation, due in three turns unless Ox sells me his city. Parthenon and Pacifism plus Representation...this is going to be a productive specialist spree.

Oh, and heh...forums too!

Echo chamber is echoing. Anyone have questions or rude opinions?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Are you still having fun with this game? I'm enjoying following it. There haven't been any "Roman citizen, this is your life!" posts though, which surely are the hallmark of a game you're still having fun with.

Do you have any unrevealed intermediate to long term plans here?

[Commodore]

Are you still having fun with this game? I'm enjoying following it. There haven't been any "Roman citizen, this is your life!" posts though, which surely are the hallmark of a game you're still having fun with.

Oh, I'm still enjoying this game well enough; those posts are a hallmark of a game I'm having fun with that also captures my imagination, which isn't all of them. The bleeding-edge competitiveness has begun to fade a bit; second place is still tightly contested, but nobody gets riled up about second place. As TBS romps through Ox, hope is asymptotically approaching zero...very freeing.

Do you have any unrevealed intermediate to long term plans here?

I dunno, what are my revealed plans?
-Finish Constitution, revolt to Representation/Nationhood/Caste System/Mercantilism/Pacifism
-Push out great people for a second golden age.
-Use second golden age to make a third.
-Try to reach Communism/Democracy, if not before TBS, then at least close enough to him to compete for Kremlin/Statue of Liberty
-Off chance of a Great Engineer makes the above goal more likely.
-Music -> Military Tradition for cuirs whenever I feel like actually having modernish military.
-After above tech goals, beeline Combustion; never obsolete your Colossi!
After all this...
-See where we are in a geopolitical sense. TBS not neighboring me is pretty huge.

[Commodore]

[Commodore]

Working on flipping back this tile at 62cpt. Should be back momentarily.

Then, I'm invading Dtay. Goal: Great Lighthouse.

[Ceiliazul]

'Diplomatic victory' goes both ways: Gaspar and thoth are nice quiet borders, right?