[spoilers] Commodore takes Advanced Starting

[DaveV]

Sorry, it wasn't any sort of "how are your defenses" post.

[Lewwyn]

Damnit, DaveV. After playing over a hundred turns never logging in twice, you made some sort of comment in his thread and now Cairo has logged in again...

Bump

[Commodore]

Nothing else for it.


You guys suck.

So very very much.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Damnit, DaveV. After playing over a hundred turns never logging in twice, you made some sort of comment in his thread and now Cairo has logged in again...

Sorry, it wasn't any sort of "how are your defenses" post.

It was a naming theme question, no information was revealed.

[Commodore]

Yeah, I figured it wasn't something overt. A question about naming theme that was prompted by my pictures of his territory is kind of a clue, though.

[Commodore]

Promotions and experience matter; Cairo retreated his main stack, looked to focus on defending the hilly city over the flatland. That's a very respectable stack he's got on-hand though, and knights, while powerful, are fragile. I could burn Peg, but that would cost about 4 of my glorious knights, and I don't have near enough.


Well first things first, the little island city of Black Cow. Mace was whipped and it has a castle, but fortunately, I brought a pair of Jans. First one won at 27% odds, but the backup had it if needed.


Second, let's do something risky. Taking a city doesn't only deny him a build queue...

...it also gives me a port for moving in some Jans and four siege-absorbing catapults. I promote the catapults to shock because maybe they'll defend against some pikes. This is going to be a *very* dicey next turn, what collateral does can make this a victory or crushing defeat.


I need to conquer some land, though. Scooter is flourishing with his major land and trait advantage, and he's launching his knight attacks into Cornflakes' under-defended rear flank; actually just burned the GLH/MoM city in a raze that had to be insanely painful. He isn't trying to conquer Cornflakes, just slow him down, quite reasonably. The demos say "grow":

[Commodore]

Well nuts. Cairo got some better-than-expected rolls, and my knights are now wrecked. There was an outside chance of killing Peg, but the Jan loaded here splashed, so I'm just hunkering down to weather the storm.

No, I don't know why TBS is marching a knight and half a dozen trash units down here. Boy am I glad that we decided on no unit gifting, though.

My beautiful knights are gone, but janissaries are what I need to roll over Cairo's current stuff. It's nothing but tech and having double his number of build queues that will carry the day now. That's not ideal, but if you haven't heard, Scooter decided to smash into Cornflakes who is staying embroiled with TBS; I'll have time to just crush poor Cairo if everyone else keeps up these very wasteful destruction-wars up north.

[Commodore]

You guys are going crazy there in the lurker thread. Yes, I know I got smashed, and I know a slugging match, even one that size and tech guarantees you'll eventually win, is a pretty suboptimal play. But he's a long ways from Gunpowder and this a rare case where the Ottoman Janissary works really well, I think there's a good opportunity here while everyone else fights.

[Charriu]

We are talking about Chili

[Commodore]

Okay, let's work this out.
1. Cornflakes invades TBS. He's making slow gains, but cuirs mean he's going to manage to slowly beat him.
2. Commodore invades Cairo. Initial progress stalls, going to manage to slowly beat him.

3. Scooter hits Cornflakes in the back and burns his GLH/MoM city.
4. Cornflakes makes peace with TBS, giving back all his conquered cities?
5. Cornflakes makes peace with SCOOTER???

6. Scooter comes to hit Commodore while he's bogged down in Cairo's land...