[spoilers] Commodore is strategic in Pitboss 74

[Commodore]

Noisy turn last turn, with Gingelito wiping out two civilizations in one turn...but very quiet in the Viking War, just a little skirmishing.


...once again, though, Plemo tried to make something sneaky happen. This boat is horribly dangerous, need a drydock frigate or two to actually sink it. I might be projecting, but seems like he's frustrated.


I got frustrated too. Pindicator beat me to the AMAZING SEAFOOD spot, sadly. Have a cuir in the galleon with my settler, but not worth burning my game over. I'll just be moving on to the next island with a fish.


There's a war though. Arrhus just has two muskets and a pike inside it, behind a castle but cuirs ignore that...

Won the 39%, won the 43%, won the 79%...finally RNG paying back for all the 75% losses in the initial naval clashes.


Scouting what Plemo has in the Inner Inner sea, his Moai is well defended...

...his privateer stack is big...

...but my own 4 frigates/4 privateers make me confident enough to move forward. Plemo declined to fight the massive Tarkac stack, so he's got a big amount somewhere, but unless he goes ALL in on Arrhus, my catapults aboard ship will be able to land and shred anything trying to counter.

Always thrilling. Landing forces on the main will be waiting for either Tarkac cracking the stack or a critical mass of cannon ferried up north. Fun little sideshow.

None of this matters if I can't bang out Steam Power/Railroad/Combustion in the same timescale as Gav swinging Railroad/Combustion/SciMeth. To that end, I'm going to saving FIVE TURNS of gold, getting up to 5k gold, and then all that gets run through the most efficient science possible in the form of Oxford here:

This little border town is feeling very Ottawa. Imagine the levee here.

[Commodore]

Quiet turns make me nervous, not calm.
   
That is Pindicator declaring on Plemo. He's just vluturing island cities, I think, although there's a chance he gets caught out. Dangerous to play with Vikings.
   
My patrols caught this sneak nightmare, took it out and isolated the nasty berzerker load.
   
Plemo landed Chemistry, so we're at naval parity again. This is a very dangerous fleet, only have a dozen frigates following up while I make drydocks too, ow.
   
Here's the world...
   
   
Any questions?

[Mjmd]

How many knights did you end up gold upgrading to cuirs?

[Commodore]

How many knights did you end up gold upgrading to cuirs?

Just eighteen, didn't want to spend more than a single turn's worth of gold.

[Commodore]

Another turn, another wait.


Tarkac about to SLAUGHTER the Viking Land Army.

[Krill]

You are a tease.

[Commodore]

You are a tease.

So is Plemo. 

Although maybe for the sake of "nephews" I should say "Plemo is definitely going to slaughter Tarkac's 70-unit army".

[Commodore]

Something moving. Plemo is pressuring Tarkac just by being unwilling to fight, which makes sense, let's hope for some fireworks but also survivable ones.

I'm up to second place in power, still light years behind Gavagai. He's two turns to Railroad.


FOUND YOU. Knew this was coming, so I had the patrols out because he's clearly going to be trying a surprise gank.

[Commodore]

I owe you guys a tactical update, and it's coming, but check it out, have a Creative Constructions exec:

Levee incoming in Afrika Korps. This city is actually starting to register on the Ottawa Scale:


Thanks goodness for Bing he didn't survive to Steam Power. Notice something missing?

[Commodore]

Interesting turns during the last weekend of the soccer season. A lot of playing goalie:

...and scoring goals...





Sometimes you have to sucker the other team's defenders out of position...

...so that you get your goal when they're out of position:



Of course, this is a team sport, so at times it's about setting up with a cross...



...and trust your striker to be ready to score himself (he just did):


Lovely field. I hope to be able to get a little more gain from it, but I'll be perfectly content if we leave this so that our suffering turnpace has a chance to actually hit 7t/week again.