[spoilers] Pax Commodorica: Pharaoh of Rome

[retep]

As I see it. The only thing that hold gaspar to attack anyone is his border with TBS. Nevertheless if he still want to win he needs to attack Oxy, is just make sense. When/iff that happen oportunistics attack by you make senses too.
Does Gaspar even have guilds? or maybe he is going for Taj too, does he has Nat? Why don't you have alpha

[Commodore]

As I see it. The only thing that hold gaspar to attack anyone is his border with TBS. Nevertheless if he still want to win he needs to attack Oxy, is just make sense. When/iff that happen oportunistics attack by you make senses too.
Does Gaspar even have guilds? or maybe he is going for Taj too, does he has Nat? Why don't you have alpha

Gaspar does have Alphabet, so...yeah, he's got Guilds, but not really going for Nat. Bummer.

Turn 148: Wherein Commodore Arranges Deck Chairs Upon the Titanic
The Romans are revolting! In an orderly and reasonable fashion. Civil Service came in, so I'm now Bureaucratic and Slavish, rather than vassal-holding the untouchables. Bureaucracy is worth a solid ~50gpt in the capital, so about double the losses in free unit support. It's still going to be clearly better to swap to Nationhood when I can, so I guess Legio needs to enjoy the boost for the next half a dozen turns. The capital is growing on me, I'll admit grudgingly.


Slavery made me depress my score some fifty points...but before I depressed it, I grew it! Fid. Constans isn't very good now, but in twenty turns...it still won't be very good. But in forty? It'll be barely almost kind of sort of adequate. So sue me, it's still worth the settler + missionary.


All's quiet on the Eastern Front. Thoth did a whipping wave last turn, so I am hopeful that the Zulu will be sending countless fodder once more screaming into the breach. Besides tying down a lot of troops that I would mostly have to keep in the area anyway because Gaspar is a paranoiac, the war isn't harming me any. I'm cheerfully just focusing on development and growth here in the New Conquest; I'll move when I want to but right now that would unfortunately be roughly equivalent to shoving my jimmies in a woodchipper. Carry on, dodged defender! Also seen: my galley checking out more cold fisheries.


I guess there is a chance that Mr. Thoth opts to slam himself into me out west. I doubt it, but I am a touch more vulnerable than I'd prefer; gimmie nationhood and I'll be feeling a lot happier about the risk levels. The caste dismissal stopped me from artist-pushing over here but Hinduism works fine and it's not like the free engineers are causing me fits.


I'm feeling a little sad for how I've scourged my empire with whips this turn; and even now I realize I missed Augusta's bank whip! My core is going to feel just a leeetle touch more of the lash for the next half dozen turns, then I'm wheeling back to caste for the duration I think.

I have a bad tendency to focus a little too hard on the GNP figure; I need more population working workshops and mines ASAP, I think, because it needs to be with natural production that I build wealth and infrastructure from here on out. Slavery is a nasty addiction, one that I really need to kick soon. When the sad day comes that I do obsolete my beautiful Colossus, the fisheries are going to be draft camps/Rep specialist beaker labs. It's sustainable, but needs to be wedded to a solid inland MFG base yesterday.

[Commodore]

I can't put my finger on it, but something about this image shows Gaspar's problem...

[Commodore]

Turn 150: Where Commodore Reflects Upon His Status
Status, in a word? Screwed. I'm up to a good solid third place now in the demographics; the MFG is nice but that's the effect of my mercantile specialists mostly being engineers right now. I'll start weaving in workshops, though...I'm damn tired of losing to dumb empires with five times my hammers. As you can clearly see, then, I'm well on my way to losing to a smart empire with about 1.07 times my hammers!


Retep, I'm sorry I haven't researched Alphabet for you, but my only two rivals-with-tech have, so here you go. Gaspar with his MoM has apparently decided the Taj is lame, deciding instead to get Jannisaries. His spiking power tells me he's going to be using them, probably on Maya, to make up his behindness via land. TBS is making his sedate way towards Communism, currently researching Engineering en route to Chemistry, SciMeth. This screen might as well read “YOU ARE ALL SO SCREWED” in big flashing neon letters.


Oh! Although I did get one tech nobody else wanted! Christianity founded...in a tiny snowball in the middle of the butt end of nowhere. Heh, cool. I teched the tech because it is high time I started on the monk wonders, and going this route saves beakers on Paper next (University of Sankore, if I can). Plus, Theocracy makes sense for occasional dips into unit building time. It might not be a grrrrreat investment, but I've never not enjoyed the monk wonders and Rammer is basically made for them as Spi/Ind.


The Hindu shrine is making me gangbusters right now; I'd certainly not mind giving some of my neighbors incentives to spread my faith a bit more.


Legio is my highest-hammer location by virtue of Bureaucracy, so I'm going to knock out the Apostolic Palace here quickly. Actually, AP hammers in my ubiquitous temples should go a long way to making up for the forge engineer unemployment when I swap back to Caste in a few turns. With OR/forge, a Spiritual temple is 32 base hammers and so makes up for itself in a silly sixteen turns, not even considering the real benefit of culture and happy also received. Worth taking the capital out of the MFG race just a while!


Here is the Turn 150 empire of Rome. It's a good 50% larger now than it was before the Mali War, and its got plenty of room to grow those new cities. The three biggest hammer cities are all about to be occupied constructing wonders; Legio the AP, Gemina Notre Dame, and finally Flavia Felix using its Moai muscle on Sankore. I'm more or less focused on building; a scratch force of some eight galleys loaded with troops will try and vulture a little north, and I might move into Mali if Thoth helps clear the eight catapults in the way, but by and large this is a cheerful, peaceful little empire praying for a miracle to strike Mongolia down. Another convincing second-best performance here in 800AD.


Ox is aware of my designs, I suspect; he's begun to reinforce his border cities with maces. I'm not upset, just going to build a couple crossbows and grinning. Gaspar gets to start off the party in the north, guy.

[Commodore]

I meditated a while upon my path; I'm going to go all-in on my Mercantilism focus, because TBS has Communism locked down. Not needing Communism (for a while) means I can avoid Scientific Method for long enough for the Parthenon to be worthwhile, as well as some AP monasteries. So I'm banging out Aesthetics->Literature real quick, for Parthenon and the epics. I'll hit Philo-Nationalism-Constitution, then Music-Military Tradition for military.

[Commodore]

The only question on that path is Drama; it's a beaker-saver for both Music and Philosophy, and with dye theaters are reasonably cheap happiness buildings that also help push borders. I'll have to see.

Great Person plans; I want a Chemistry bulb and a golden age, maybe not in that order.

[Gawdzak]

Christianity founded in Turn 150?

I can't put my finger on it, but something about this image shows Gaspar's problem...

What is Gaspar's problem, I can't figure it out.

[Commodore]

Christianity founded in Turn 150?

I can't put my finger on it, but something about this image shows Gaspar's problem...

What is Gaspar's problem, I can't figure it out.

Basically? A lack of trust. Or more uncharitably, paranoia. He's got some pretty heavy military just sitting around guarding workers; not enough to stop a push but enough to stop something silly. The thing is, though, where we are in the metagame it would be utterly insane for me to snipe workers from Gaspar; it would even be a very very stupid thing, tantamount to concession, for me to attack him for actual gains. But to just snipe workers?

He knows I feel this way about him; I'm leaving exposed workers right now trusting that Gaspar is actually a sharp metagamer and won't dick around with #3 when #1 is running rampant. You gotta take some risks to win; now sometimes you neighbor a cretin who will just attack whenever the blood rushes into his head...that sucks, you're screwed. And early game, higher variance risk play for a couple workers is a much bigger benefit. But at this point, he's got no hope of winning unless I'm a rational actor. Nor do I, unless he is one.

To win the game at this point, you gotta be less "oh, do be careful!"


...and a lot more "YOLO!"

[spacetyrantxenu]

Uh...[screenshot] tag!

[Commodore]

Random prediction: PB19 will end before this game.

Yeah lessee. Ox and Thoth are piddling around with turn order crap, TBS is lounging around three turns from Rifling, some 30k beakers up.

Yah think?