[spoilers] Pax Commodorica: Pharaoh of Rome

[Commodore]

Not to bury the lede but oh, and also in five turns:
   
20% odds on making a play to swipe SoL or Kremlin; otherwise, golden age time.

[Commodore]

Turn 168: Looking At The Edges
Nothing particularly interesting happened here in sleepy Pitboss Nineteen since last we met; I'm soundly rejected at Supreme Pontiff but Thoth still has yet to post. I'd be more urgent about concession but we're all having fun and TBS deserves a good running rampant. Thoth managed to pop a Great Engineer; I'm pretty curious to see what he opts to rush with him. Something TBS would land, not my Sankore, please.


Gurton isn't falling or attacking out or doing anything at all still; I used to be mad about this but now I just think it's Ox checked out more than anything else.


I'm mostly just twiddling my thumbs and building away here, quite cheerfully. I'm a little short on workers, actually, nowhere more evidently than here on Icy Isle. Libby is really looking forward to getting something actually strong chopped in, while Virtty just weeps for the neglect right now. The slowly building granary with all these forests is kind of embarrassing.


It's very interesting to see the demos right now, we're all amazingly close to one another, with TBS' lead shown less in those top three numbers more in the soldier count; his land area is about to bloom due it. Thoth is actually the top food right now, while Gaspar edges out MFG...we're all very very close, though. Snowballs, alas, exist, and this screen does not show the reality of TBS being some 30k beakers up and poised to sweep a fresh batch of first-to bonuses.


At least very soon, I think this should be a four man race...Dtay needs to try using:
-21 horse archers
-14 catapults
-7 longbows
-4 pikes
To destroy me. It's a handful more horse archers than I thought, but unless his withdraws get crazy, my:
-24 knights
-20 catapults
-18 praetorians
-5 muskets
-1 pike
-1 medic chariot
Ought to be able to weather his attack with severe but easily-medic III-healed damage.

Tune in next turn for the exciting conclusion!

[Commodore]

Tune in next turn for the exciting conclusion!

Or not!

[GermanJoey]

You don't have enough to hit him anymore?

[Commodore]

You don't have enough to hit him anymore?

Nope, more like he won't stand and fight me! Come back you coward! Actually, this a massive screw up on my part; I ought to have brought a pair of workers, could have wiped out that whole stack, including catapults. Instead, like a fool I must wadded yet further through culture nasty. Stupid of me.


Still, I got myself a nice sexy size one capital! Yeah. At least it came with a granary/forge, amirite?


So, annoyingly, here's where we are. I can waddle directly to Donkey Kong, but that invites an ugly dash back to recap his cap, then I'm really up a shit creek sans paddle. Good play by Dtay! Makes this practically a forced-raze situation.


Should have razed/resettled. It's often the best idea. For instance? 17 here. Now with actual real food, should be profitable quickly.


I'm debating where to go techwise. I could definitely make a determined play for the SoL, but TBS is still two techs from Communism...ignore that (2), I'm getting Chemistry this turn. Hrm...

[Commodore]

Hark! A wild turn appears!

Um. Yeah, I'm pretty over this one. "Neighbors take good stuff under my nose" is going to get old fast.


Now, let's wait a million years for Ox to play! Can some lurker kindly broach the subject of concession to Thoth?

[GermanJoey]

He hasn't responded to any questions in his lurker thread for weeks. I guess he's been busy with his move.

[Commodore]

Dtay did the deed! I am so incredibly happy, he could have flanked me, retaken his capital, and just ruined my day. As it is, I'm hurt but lost very little.


So, don't mind if I do...


Awesome. Note the +110gpt from the Great Lighthouse, as well; very nice. The stripped culture allowed for a brutal elimination of his last horse archers. I only lost two knights wiping that stack, both at 98% odds. Still, he died nicely and Samus ain't very well defended either. I positioned my knight stack to burn Game and Watch. I'll be keeping the GLH but this is the extent of my ambitions in the east.


Thoth makes me a little nervous, I must confess. He's got me strung out here; I can wheel around and hammer that force into the ground but not without a lot of burned cities and troops. Although...I just checked, looks like Thoth withdrew his knight stack so that's rather encouraging, vis-a-vis the whole MAD thingy. Don't pressure Thoth I guess...if he thinks there is hope, then, ironically, there is hope for us all. Lots of game left.


Here's the End of Mali drawing neigh. Dtay's given a noble fight, but in the end, quantity does have a quality all it's own. Hail Praetorian!


Next turn, we're coming out of our shell and going to go full blast SciMeth-Communism. I'm not sure if I'll make it, but let's make a run at stealing TBS' Kremlin glory. Bulb incoming, then boom goes the tech. I think it'll come down to a coinflip on Communism, alack a day.

Interesting times!

Now observe the stupid dance, as TBS and Gaspar play turn order chicken.

[Ceiliazul]

Nice to hear you haven't given up. I know you'd like to win some of these games, but you sure do make a good underdog.

[Commodore]

Listen now to my story, my sons, my daughters. Listen and weep for these are the last days under the banners of The Taye, the last days of our people walking free in sunshine, the last days of your mothers' tongue, the last days of your fathers' stories. Listen to the last of the Rememberers, this one, this old one.
   
Less than two decades now, since The Taye's Great Lighthouse fell, since our land and our nation were made two small cities and a valley's small towns, a lost and forgotten kingdom left behind by the world. Forgotten, but for the vast host of the Iron Men still coming forward. They are war weary and sick of us, and will end us all soon.
   
In The Taye's lands only here did we live lives of peace and hope for all the long centuries of decline. War and wrath marred the south as the Iron Men and the Assegai Folk looked with greed upon the wonders of our nation's last bastions. We slept easy, married and welped and danced the rhythms of harvest and commerce and trade. When I was a little boy, even the greatest citadel of Master Hand was unfallen and the tombs of the ancients in Cannot were troubled by nothing but winds. But it was ever best to be Mali here, in the northern green garden lands.

I was a young man still by my counting, my Rememberer's forelock fresh shorn, when both those old cities fell and The Taye's mighty army withdrew. We spoke in hope of treachery and jealousy between our enemies, that perhaps the yellow and the red would fight over the burnt husks of our greatest cities. I am old now, and still they may, for the Assegai People must not love the Iron Men's great conquests. But there is no hope from this.
   
Iron Men march now like they did half a thousand years before, with discipline and fearless resolve. Our own army is but a husk, men with longbows and old pikes and older axes facing the legions' shields and steel swords and iron bombs. The Iron Men would be sneered at by a Mongol with his rifle, but they fight us, not him.

I foretell this now, my sons, my daughters, this Taye is weak and fears. He will depart from our midst as the Iron Men come, and old women and Turks will weep to see the burning of this city. They will come and burn and plunder, and then leave not for fear of us but for respect of the Mongol and the Zulu. No man of our nation shall trouble them that day.
   
The Taye will seek to preserve the last city, and may yet keep it for five years, or ten years, or twenty. His hilly ramparts shall be the death of many Iron Men yet, and the Last Mali will go out like men, not Maya.
   
And yet. And yet. His sons will be lowborn and cling with bitterness to our memory, but their sons will be less bitter, and their sons' sons will call themselves "West Zulu" or "East Roman". And so we will pass. Night falls now and the legions tramp toward our homes. Flee now, my sons, my daughters, and dwell among the Turks or Mongols or Romans or Zulu. I am the Last Rememberer. And now my last story is done.