[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[Commodore]

Also, Gavagai is roading on the border hills. I'm reasonably willing to bet that he's going to declare on me next turn.

Asshole.

[Hollybombay]

More bloodshed!

[Mardoc]

Also, Gavagai is roading on the border hills. I'm reasonably willing to bet that he's going to declare on me next turn.

Well, that sucks.

[Commodore]

[Commodore]

...for however long. This could have been an awesome thing, but in the end:
Won:
-160 gold in capture/pillage
-4XP to great general
Lost:
-Galley, two chariots, and a praetorian (130h)
-Plako's goodwill
I'm going to call the extra built praetorians a net neutral and the wiser view towards Gavagai's realpolitik unreliability edging positive. On the whole, I rate this war 2 of 5 stars, would not fight again.

In horrible news Naufragar hooked up his own gems source, so over half of my cities are unhappy now. I'm giving the whole situation a disgusted spit and sprinting to Calendar. I've got just 7 gold in the bank, so it's going to take some finesse to manage a two turn sprint; I'm going to be scraping literally every coin and beaker I have to complete the tech with a 40% turn plus a 90% turn. Might fail, only TBS is giving me a known tech bonus. Spice, silks, and incense ought to help things a little bit. Unfortunately, after that we're pretty much at cap.

[Commodore]

I hate being forced to build wealth in all but two of my cities, but it does make for a pretty GNP. Pindicator is boosting me too, further delaying his chucklenaughts.

Barring another crisis, this was the last wealth push. Too many things to build and galleons only ~25 turns away.

[Commodore]

The Arcadian Idyll: Welcome to 1AD

I cannot escape the feeling that Rome in turn 115 is at its high-water mark. We'll advance further, we'll fight wars and experience triumphs and manage clever plans. But the fresh and untroubled potential of the empire isn't ever going to look this good again. I'm the first to Machinery in the local area, so I'm building up a "screw you" stack of praetorians and trebuchets. With a few spears and crossbows salted in, this stack can murder any city it waddles up to this side of rifles. Rome in this game is small, but it's unappetizing.

As you can see above, I only have the one city on wealth right now at 80% research to finish up Alphabet. Open borders with Naufragar are attractive, and the checked-out Pindicator might be up for some trade too. GNP is thus realistic, zero KTB on this tech. I'm content with crop vs. territory, but the delta between forges and not forges is starting to be a cause for concern. Demos are pretty okay for a tiny nubbin of land.

I'm going to assume that Plako and Gavagai aren't going to dogpile me. I've diverted just enough EPs to be able to watch Naufragar along with the neighbors. Now I have to max towards Gavagai as his courthouses(!) come online. He was the one who won Confucianism, actually; the shrine is already up and running. If Plako hits him I'm going holy city hunting, I think it's on the northern border given the culture explosion up there. Graphs give us a picture of the locale's locals:

---Plako is crippled but by no means gassed. GLH keeps him in the tech game for a bit but he's lagging his two (?) remaining neighbors. Given I'm one of those, that's pretty sad. I suspect given his power/mfg ratios he's going to throw his game at the one of us he dislikes the most.
---Gavagai has actual virgin territory to settle and expand into. His shrine is growing fast, his power is good...I think he's going to be still for a while. Pindicator has to look attractive as a victim right now, pity for him that there's no way I'll join him in a profitable dogpile there.
---Pindicator is big, balanced, and doesn't care. I don't see anything fundamentally flawed with his game and he did a hell of a lot better than me on the landgrab. But his play tempo and development, plus delaying Machinery, tells me he's in Pin Standard Checkout Mode.
---TBS waxes mighty. He's going in against somebody. Either checked-out Pin or Total War Mode Superdeath (fighting Rustern currently). I'm a little surprised he's spiking power now, means he thinks cats/horsies/swords are enough for Victim. So Victim isn't me. That unfortunately also means he thinks he can conquer without knights...so he's going to beeline Astronomy, as the only other logical beeline target on this map. That's going to be nasty, as he lands galleons before me.

[Commodore]

And we got OBs. Although for some reason the game isn't giving me my rightful Naufragarian routes. Swallow Hill isn't a great place by world standards but with a forum now it's speeding on to Astronomy. It'll do.

I'm friendly to Pindicator here, appreciate the commerce and all (BY THE WAY PINDICATOR NEEDS A SUB). He's a good target for jumping right now but he's not Gav, so...

[Commodore]

[Zed-F]

Blood for the blood god!