[spoilers] Commodore and Dtay are Sitting Bull of Inca, somehow.

[Commodore]

Sirian fleets loaded with rifles then infantry.

[Commodore]

TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, ladies and gentlemen. Corporation, funded...

Vulnerability window: narrow.

...as well as a ton of frigates. Needed, because HAK is going to be making his own very soon and ironclads take forever.

Caravel are the roughage, but still menace galleons acceptably.

Yeeouch but Astronomy was painful. A ton of commerce just got flushed away; HAK is going to be able to pull ahead in tech, not just research rate, Real Soon Now ™. What can we do? Welp, beat him to Assembly Line, make factories faster, and Snowball More ™. Grand vision, hard practice.

Donovan in third is actually closing on all metrics thanks to the near-free acquisition of all Zuludom.

Donovan risked a crapton this turn. I was merciful. Will we regret this?

Biggest question in the game right now. Donovan, which direction shall you jump?

Tense as this is, we're still adding some levity; levees in two of the best captured cities. Dragon Pax is wonderful for hammers, while Pawn's Gambit is going more for commerce, but both will toss out some good production. Mostly in wealth.


Pawn's Gambit is probably destined to be the second best city in the empire, actually.

We've been busy, which not only translates to crummy tactics at times (we're pulling out from Sore, thwarted), but it really means the empire's cities have been kind of mismanaged. Careful city and tile micro is the biggest area where our team can exceed HAK and Donovan consistently...if we can go do that. It's fun too. I guess once this narrows down to just three of us playing, we'll have a bit less time pressure to play in the mornings before work, and I can take proper time. All that to say, finally have a Heroic Epic city, and it's pretty sweet. It'll probably spend the next few epochs just churning cannon.

Our heroic epic is about one of our many, many stupidly lost medic 3 generals.

[Mardoc]

Our heroic epic is about one of our many, many stupidly lost medic 3 generals.

What can you do? Tragedy and hardship makes for good stories.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

How does T217 compare to other egregiously late Heroic Epic builds? Yeow.

[Commodore]

How does T217 compare to other egregiously late Heroic Epic builds? Yeow.

Well, I'm sure "never" has happened before. And hey, it was actually T215!

The ole' military ain't looking amazing at the moment, actually. I've been needlessly spendthrift in tying down HAK at Sore; no sims, just plug away at him, etc, etc. The lackadaisical tactics at least were still serving a sound strategy, however...kept him on the defensive long enough to get ironclads and frigates firmly in control of the coastal barriers. So, uh...let's pretend those cannon were just put on boats.

Oh it's bad, yes that is just two remaining Ruffian cities you see.

The war-torn Isle of Contention is at long last safe from the dark ravages of Holy Rome. Unfortunately, now we gotta worry about the fleets of India; rifles are pretty much stuck thanks to those nasty galleons. Hopefully Donovan is keeping his options open and just sailing down to kill the last island of Zuluia. Otherwise, it'll be ugly.

Dearest Banana Island, I knew you'd be mine someday.

The new navy focus is going to be useful to keep HAK on the defensive and worried...he's nervous here about the Isle of Grumpy Belligerence...

...but what he evidently missed was the sudden threat to Tacape. Get thee away from my Quiet Riot buddy!

I could but reach out my hand and pluck the tiny remains of Gavagai for Greater Inca, but he is far, far more valuable now as war weariness in Holy Rome.

Finally, because I haven't posted it recently, tech screens:

Men o' War would suck were it not for ironclads...and yes we do need cavalry, we are researching Military Tradition at 160EPPT.

[Zed-F]

Is the busy period expected to continue? Be kind of a shame to risk handing HAK and/or Donovan better chances at victory than they earn just because you can't find time to put in your best effort.

[GermanJoey]

What's the ETA to AL?

[Commodore]

Is the busy period expected to continue? Be kind of a shame to risk handing HAK and/or Donovan better chances at victory than they earn just because you can't find time to put in your best effort.

Well, they already have better chances at victory because I couldn't find time. But they've been putting in hours of effort each, I wouldn't say their continued viability is unearned.

What's the ETA to AL?

Break even? 17 turns. Yeah, it's rough. Ten more turns gets a Golden Age so ideally I could hit it more in that timeframe.

HAK is extremely loss-adverse. He just...ran away out of Tacape. Okay. So I liberated it and once the city pops out of revolt Carthaginian culture will make Thespus untenable too. Gotta be demoralizing to poor HAK, man. But if you command the waves, you gotta use it while you've got it; the ironclad advantage is going to be evaporated extremely soon.

OB with Gavagai means we get benefit of the trade route immediately for more value, too.

I really really hope Gavagai isn't going to be grumpy about my prolonging his existence, because if he objects with ten knights into our backlines...

Ironclads need to be upgradable-to, that's all I'll say.

Only one turn has passed since the last update, so not much more going on really. Donovan still makes me mega-nervous.

I wish there was an EP mission called "suppress apparent score".

[Zed-F]

Is the busy period expected to continue? Be kind of a shame to risk handing HAK and/or Donovan better chances at victory than they earn just because you can't find time to put in your best effort.

Well, they already have better chances at victory because I couldn't find time. But they've been putting in hours of effort each, I wouldn't say their continued viability is unearned.

They've earned second place, no question. Don't think they've earned first yet. Just saying that if they did, would be a shame if it were because you didn't have time to sim out important battles and they did, for instance. If they were to out-think you when you actually had time and had put in the necessary thought yourself, 1st place would seem more earned.

[Commodore]

Well, sim-scale conflict will hopefully be kept to a minimum. Interesting tactical map here; several competing fronts all mushed together here. We have Sore, largely quiescent at the moment; he's drawn down the garrison but we'd need another twenty plus cannon to break it. We have the Isle of Grumpy Belligerence; galleons and galley are going to slam rifles and cannon down there, if the frigates succeed in cutting off reinforcements then we're sitting pretty with that territory as our own. Finally, there is Tacape-Thespus; in the upper right corner there you can see Gavagai landed his knight stack, so HAK has until the borders pop...and I'm cutting roads now to ensure even that is unattractive. Fun little battleground, here.

Also rebuilt the city the HAK burnt, as you see, yay that.

HAK has spread his mighty military out rather thinly; he's got a gathering and nasty-huge cavalry stack in the outer darkness, but despite the nominal disparity we're actually fairly secure. DZ and HAK aren't buddy-buddy yet either, so that's nice. Nine turns to (hopefully) our next golden age, here's the demo stack:

Realistically about a dozen turns to Assembly Line.

Ottawa Cascade Point Porn:

Soon with three mines->windmills to counteract the factory nastiness.