[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[Commodore]

Let us recite the Litany of Humility, in 1,010 words.

...provided that I may become as holy as I should.

Beyond that embarrassing highlight in late and small Moai, here are the three new cities I founded this turn, along with the planned chain to launch my "next continent" expedition. Two galleons loaded with a settler, two workers, a praetorian, and a crossbow. Hopefully what I'm seeing out west is another full-sized continent, or at least Australia. This one here, North America, is about to be full up.

South America is mine, thanks to Gavagai and Plako still locked in a death struggle (prediction, Gavagai peaces out soon to maximize his Pindicator murder time). My wide spacing of these cities is due to my calculation of returns; packing in a tighter dotmap is great for a bunch of slow-growing masters of the universe, but the colonies need to grow fast, so sharing food isn't ideal, and the time for slavery is drawing to an end. Cottages are Right Out; this is mines, farms, and workshops land. Bigbone is a possible Forbidden Palace location, depending on the extent of the westward continent. And maybe even then; as you see there are passes to the south that probably allow for more expansion there. The three cities I settled this turn made my net gold go up +1 here at max tax, so that's sweet.

I'm embarking on an extremely ambitious expansion path, so I'm not being a fool about my armed forces. I'm currently third in power, I believe behind TBS (slightly) and Mackoti (lots). Gavagai has tumbled a bit while Plako is back up, so that might well have stabilized. I considered using a bit of this to go on a pillaging raid against the doomed Rusten, Mackoti's victim, but I'd rather see Mackoti own good ports on the shoreline facing TBS' colony holdings. My far-flung empire needs every ounce of power I can afford.

I'm pretty sure my high-water-mark is coming very soon. Nice to be good and expansionistic, isn't it?

[Mardoc]

So, given how long Mysticism is taking, with your bankroll empty...all your income is going towards ship upgrades?  When do you restart serious research, and on what?

So I count nine marked spots, plus the four you've already founded, plus whatever might be beyond the horizon.  From a fourteen-city Old World empire...how badly is this stressing Original Flavor Rome? How fast are the new cities going to get running - is there any chance of them helping with the process, or will you have everything claimed before they have meaningful production?

Also-also, there's basically no reporting from plako or Gav. Can you tell us anything about what "Gavagai and Plako still locked in a death struggle (prediction, Gavagai peaces out soon to maximize his Pindicator murder time)" means in practice? Any units dying? Any empires? Any idea where the front lines are, or who's going to come out ahead?

[Commodore]

So, given how long Mysticism is taking, with your bankroll empty...all your income is going towards ship upgrades?  When do you restart serious research, and on what?

Mysticism is my "not researching" default. I didn't emphasize it, but last turn I spent two turns of gold for a turn of research, netting me Construction. I need to have Poly->Mono->Monarchy->Feudalism before launching my golden age in nine turns, but that's only two and a half turns of full research. Engineering is the reach goal, for castles, pikes, and most importantly 3-move roads.

Golden Age research is Guilds, Theology, and Banking. I'll probably bulb Banking. Ending civics are HR/Caste/Vassal/Merch/Theo, which is going to be pretty near to the endgame configuration.

So I count nine marked spots, plus the four you've already founded, plus whatever might be beyond the horizon.  From a fourteen-city Old World empire...how badly is this stressing Original Flavor Rome?  How fast are the new cities going to get running - is there any chance of them helping with the process, or will you have everything claimed before they have meaningful production?

Come on Mardoc. It's right there. Original flavor -> Eastern Roman Empire.

I'm not actually that stressed with the push, I fixed my MFG issues a while back with forges and I had prepped my settlers, workers, and crossbows ready to go. Three more settlers are in transit (Virgin founded next turn), and two more are being built. I'm happy with my workers and I'm pumping out catapults too. Screw buildings you guys. The colonies don't need to help too much, they're mostly focusing on granaries, courthouses, and then pikes.

Also-also, there's basically no reporting from plako or Gav.  Can you tell us anything about what "Gavagai and Plako still locked in a death struggle (prediction, Gavagai peaces out soon to maximize his Pindicator murder time)" means in practice?  Any units dying?  Any empires?  Any idea where the front lines are, or who's going to come out ahead?

I don't have great eyes on the fight right now (sentry chariots queued up to fix that), but basically while Gavagai was massing to deter Pindicator and I, Plako ran rampant on Gavagai's B4ndit-captured lands. Now Gavagai has retaken four of his lost cities and is threatening a northern core city of Plako, but Plako has longbows and elephants he's mass-whipping now, that should stop the horse archers butt cold once he has them gathered up in a proper stack. That poor war-torn front, it's like 1944 Eastern Europe down there.

[Mardoc]

Golden Age research is Guilds, Theology, and Banking. I'll probably bulb Banking. Ending civics are HR/Caste/Vassal/Merch/Theo, which is going to be pretty near to the endgame configuration.

Ah, got it.  Main focus is economic for a while, then.

Come on Mardoc. It's right there. Original flavor -> Eastern Roman Empire.

But then things get awkward when you get to cavalry and suddenly I've got to talk about the East-Eastern Roman Empire...

(I assume the Gavagai annexation won't happen at Knigs since you'd be planning it already if you were going to try for that)

(also, I guess you may be thinking Grens/Rifles if you maintain your local Galleon monopoly)?

The colonies don't need to help too much, they're mostly focusing on granaries, courthouses, and then pikes.

Pikes?  No one ever builds pikes.  What's different about this situation? They specifically meant to face down a 40-unit War Chariot/HA stack?

I don't have great eyes on the fight right now (sentry chariots queued up to fix that), but basically while Gavagai was massing to deter Pindicator and I, Plako ran rampant on Gavagai's B4ndit-captured lands. Now Gavagai has retaken four of his lost cities and is threatening a northern core city of Plako, but Plako has longbows and elephants he's mass-whipping now, that should stop the horse archers butt cold once he has them gathered up in a proper stack. That poor war-torn front, it's like 1944 Eastern Europe down there.

Thanks!  So not a lot of blood yet, just cities flipping control?

If they're both whipping a bunch of longbows then I guess nothing will be decided for another era.

[Commodore]

I default towards Grens, but who knows. Pikes are handy vs. horse archers, very very much. I also, however, need to work on my missionaries. Ergo, 10% to Meditation this turn and I'll start up a Hindu monastery here in Wankers Corner.

Hinduism is just safer; I don't want EP viewing from either Gav or Pin, plus more of my critical ports are Hindu. I know it feeds Mack, but eh.

Panama settled! Now on to this next continent. It's big. I'm going to put down some stakes, plant the flag.

I might have to delay Bigbone if that warrior messes with me. That would suck, but I'll live.

[Commodore]

The settlement of Virgin, while awesome for Panama Purposes, did tick down income slightly, from 101gpt to 96gpt (tile micro shifts this stuff, don't worry about the exact numbers too much). I'm a long long way from bankruptcy, but my break-even is taking a dive. I'm going to have to crank down the settlement a bit, building more workers and wealth instead in preperation for the golden age. With the five cities and one settler currently landed in the Americas I've grabbed some solid snowball sites. I'm focusing on land claims with the next few settlers; two cities on the north shores of Australia (Effingham and Felchville), then the two inland North American cities (Bonesteel and Climax) set the northern edges of my landgrab. I want to go nuts on the nice South American cities and fill Australia towards the south (Dtay will be going north eventually), but unfortunately I don't think I'll have the ability to afford that until I'm in Caste and Mercantilism and get the Forbidden Palace up.

The ten New World cities will be ideally the locations of the eight courthouses needed for the Forbidden Palace, but a micro task here in the next few turns is to check out how quickly that can happen. There are a lot of forests in the New World, but my dear slavery goes away with the launch of the incipient golden age, so the era of quick building goes away soon. I'm pleased with how I managed the initial colonization push, but the economic puzzle that push has left me with isn't simple. I love this crap. 
 
Mackoti's having even more fun, though. I see he's updated, which set you all to chattering. His knigs stack is going through Rusten's empire like a hot knife through butter. Knight stacks above a certain size threshold are frankly unstopable, and I can't find it in my heart to blame Rusten for employing the Ostrich Defense. It's a beautiful feeling to send dozens of knights crashing into worthless longbows, let me tell you guys. TBS has his job cut out for him here.

[CML]

When are you gonna found Cockfosters?

[Commodore]

When are you gonna found Cockfosters?

After the first fifty cities, mate, got another 31 states still to go right now...

[Commodore]

Australia is huge, everyone. I think my first city is going to be Effingham, actually. That's a capital-quality site gang.

This is thrilling.

[Mardoc]

This is thrilling.

Would be more thrilling if you didn't worry about accounting questions like affordability.

I'm going to have to crank down the settlement a bit...I don't think I'll have the ability to afford that until I'm in Caste and Mercantilism and get the Forbidden Palace up.

It's like you think this is an endurance race, not a sprint.