[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[RefSteel]

Oooh! It's been years since I had a really good burrito, and I'm a vegetarian, but I used to spread the inside of a tortilla with guacamole and dice in mushroom, onion, red bell pepper, and lots of cheese, wrap it, bake it, make a small, simple salad on the side, and call it a meal. Sometimes I'd chop in tomato too, as I recall. Super simple, but I like good, simple food.

Also, I love hearing about really good food even if it's something I'd never eat myself. Got any favorites of your own?

[Charriu]

We here love our bread casserole. It's an Italian recipe containing courgette and bread in in a tomato sauce with lot's of thyme topped with cheese. 
But we improved the dish by using German bread, which makes absolutely delicious.

[Ginger()]

Before I moved up to Oregon for college, there was a Mexican place in my hometown in California that had just an absolutely incredible value burrito. $11, absolutely massive, dinner for two. Pretty simple, just beans, rice, cheese, meat of choice, guac and sour cream, but it was really well done. I miss that place

[El Grillo]

When I was in Berkeley for university, I had two favorite burrito places: one made a mole burrito with chicken and pumpkin seeds and cascabel chile salsa; the other had great value overall and a delicious garlic lime fish burrito on the menu. I should see if they're still up and running next time I'm in town

[Ginger()]

AHHHHH I WANT IT BACK
Like missing out on my hometown burrito, Golden Age withdrawal hurts a lot. I've lost 300 GNP and 200 MFG, so both of those figures are now "only" 50% ahead of rival top, rather than the double they previously were. Unfortunately, relative power is still unimpressive. 

   
Here you can see SD has sent some Caravels forward seeking either to disrupt my efforts to seafood choke or to return the favor. I'm also preparing my Great Merchant for a Trade Mission to Dead Horse. I need the cash injection now, and I can roll the dice with GPP later. And truth be told, I should've started moving him last turn, I need the money ASAP as you'll see in the picture below. Besides, I don't think I will launch my 3-man GA until the push for Assembly Line.

   


here you can see me playing chicken with SD's stack of 23 catapults and assorted medieval garbage, I sent two Cuirs forwards to cut the roads. I expect to lose them, but they should trade at least 1:1 as they are highly promoted. This stack is a bit of a problem, only thing I can think of is to stall for time while I upgrade. Upgrading is a bit more expensive than I anticipated, and 0% slide rate gives me maybe 6 Cuir upgrades a turn, even fewer if I want to level up less advanced units. 
Laz or GKC, if you have any ideas on how to slide out of this pickle, they're very welcome. 

Mjmd has made the interesting decision of not returning my fish-fish offer. Does he no longer want to be friends? He is the closest to Rifling, but he isn't there yet, so I'm a bit puzzled. Maybe he wants me to keep troops on his border, trying to do his part to split my forces or tie me down? Idk, doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, maybe he's just being honorable and telling me "no you're the runaway, I'm not giving fish". I'll give this a closer look when my merchant has finished his trade mission.

Edit:
Since none of the players after me have played yet, I logged back in to cover the 2 saboteur Cuirassiers with a musket to eat any pikes. I should've brought along a couple more Macemen in the stack for pike-defense duty.
On another note, I'm a little annoyed by SD's timer camping, he's at peace with everyone else, it's a bit annoying that he maintains this turn split. Feels like we might as well be sequential at this point.

[Ginger()]

           
Well this is a partial disaster. 
How tf was he able to hit? I don't get it. 
Explanation would be appreciated. 
Maybe Cornflakes cancel OB then reoffer them to SD to bounce his stack out, but I find that an unlikely requirement of coordination.

At least his stack is even more shattered than mine, but it's clearer now than ever that who I need to beat is Mjmd not SD. He's only 300k behind me on the power graph, and I'm simply not producing Cav fast enough. I could start whipping but my economy is starting to crack a little at the seams. Out of GA, Mjmd is outproducing me in gpt, although he heavily invested in banks whereas I only built two.  
I also made a mistake last round, if I had loaded the Cav onto boats preemptively, I would've been able to offload them in Giza and they could've helped clean up SD's remnants. Instead, 3 redlined infantry and 1 knight escape, which stresses me out. I was hoping to create a second stack in the homeland then bring it up so I'm not doing this stupid trickling, but it's clear that the main force holding Thebes was so decimated it needs immediate reinforcements. 

I'm simply not producing enough to sustain a full dogpile, with Superdeath giving Mjmd a free pass (I don't have enough units to take on both!), he'll soon have tech parity. 

I'm starting to run out of old muskets to upgrade and the loss of my one-mover junk stacks to SD's first strike is beginning to show itself. 

I guess we're going to friggin infantry this game. Argh.

I produced my 11th GP this game (12 if you count Economics), and as a results PHI specialists have hit the late game wall as each costs 200GPP more. I'm rapidly running out of tricks up my sleeve.

Mjmd did not return fish-fish, I'm pulling the trigger on Sistine this turn, need the cultural defense to survive. GNP inflation will be unfortunate.

[RefSteel]

Ouch; that must have been a really rough one to take. How many did you kill on the counter-attack?

Also though: I loved the way you transitioned from burritos to your post-GA report! What was the name of the hometown place with the excellent burritos? (That goes for El Grillo too - I actually live pretty close to Berkeley myself, and though I don't eat out much, being able to recommend places to friends is always great!)

(Charriu, that doesn't sound like a burrito, but it does sound delicious to me!)

[Charriu]

You asked about good food and I delivered

[Ginger()]

ARGHH I CANT BELIEVE IT, I didn’t see the opening. We’ll see if the opportunity is still open next round but I doubt it it. I could’ve taken Hieriaconpolis with a Guerilla 2 rifleman last round of I had cleared out three more redlined infantry instead of the knights.

Yeah Ref Steel it was a bit of a nasty shock, although the rifles preformed pretty will and if you count the catapults the exchange was fairly even. However I lost *a lot* of Cuirassiers and probably close to 110k power total counting the losses I took in the counter attack.
I’m running into an interesting problem where I simply do not have enough production or enough units. Slavery could frontload some production for me but wouldn’t pay out in the end.

The taqueria in question is Los Coporales.

[El Grillo]

I checked and it seems Cancun is no longer serving the pipian mole burrito and they seem to have overhauled the whole menu, but The Burrito Shop in Rockridge is still running the menu I remember.