[spoilers] Commodore rolls it lolrandom.

[Commodore]

Bingo. I've been lurking around Nubian a bit, waiting for it to hit size 2, but I wondered if I'd want to go in now for capture gold anyway. It's not perfect for the dotmap, but it works close enough.

Amusingly enough, the only unit that gets odds by default? My cover Quecha. Both these die, leaving the archers at the awkward 1.9 and 1.8 strength respectively...

...so of course I lost another high-sixties fight too before taking Nubian. Renamed to Craps, because obviously, and I have a missionary and a roading squad coming to hook it into the empire by EoT.


Hittite, the next target, is even better-defended, going to be unpleasant to try without more of those delicious cover Quecha in my back pocket. The good news is, half that score bump was me landing Currency so I'm not blocked completely from expansion anymore. I really, really need Metal Casing though...not just for IND forges, but also for WORKSHOPS. This forest land is a chopper's dream but I need workshops and/or lumbermills to be able to raise any MFG at all.


The other half of the score bump, of course, is the Temple of Artemis landing. Its not a lot of benefit now, but I can see the GPP being helpful for multiple rounds of great people. Want a shrine, but a GM or two would also be just ducky.

[Commodore]

New border, Yuri's stabilized after some brutal barbariazation. Now I need my shock chariots down here...I want Hittie, and my silver city safe.


Meanwhile, I'm also filling in some low-cost fillers. Pig city will just work riverside cottages.

[greenline]

That's a lot of bare grassland tiles. Where are the cottages?

[Commodore]

That's a lot of bare grassland tiles. Where are the cottages?

Working on it. I don't think my demographics are that bad, but I do want to fix MFG by turning at least some of those bare tiles into workshops, too.

Ignore the population statistic, that's all due to Poker being the first megapolis in the world. Nobody else has a city flourishing in HR.

I have been investing in cottaging the area around Poker, it's got Ottawa Potential.


Another nice city incoming, I was willing to sustain some heavy losses...

...but I actually lost nothing.

The capture gold allowed me to wrap up Metal Casing ASAP, there's a quest this game for it:


Yuri went heavy on axes and he's pushing down here. Don't like this settle, it tries to steal my silver with Creative Culture.

Yeah, this was going to have to get resolved.

Yuri also pushed my new city, but Shock Chariots don't care.

Guerilla II archer pushes in to split his defenses, I suspect all his power is down here but if it's pure axe...


So that was my setup for the turn before last, last turn I was greeted with Yuri abandoning his new city and Even More Axes.

Burnt. Offered peace for what its worth, I'm content with this border if he is.

I like this quest as an IND leader. Tiny reward, but I'm building forges everywhere anywhere, so...

[Commodore]

Yuri took peace, so we're back to the real name of the game, fighting barbarians. This jerk delayed the Great Lighthouse by a turn and killed a chariot, hyper-effective.

My main rival to win the game is Thoth, I have him marked down as beating me on the trireme quest and the forge quest. I took the GLH because I suspect he was going for it, not that it does much for me. Wish I had some islands, but that's rrrrrrandom for you.

Having quecha really helps a ton in a raging barbarians game, the rock-paper-scissors of ancient era combat means barbarian axes and spears are easily dealt with:

But archers are more trouble for non-mes.

I've killed a lot of archers thus far. Here's the statistics screen, which also shows how forgified we're getting and how many cottages are down. I need about quintupple those numbers in riverside cottages as soon as I can, which is actually a health cap issue in addition to being garrison intensive.


My path is actually going to be the middle of the tech tree for a bit to get a bureaucap going. That means maces are going to be the maintstay broad defense and offense unit, so that in turn means for security and siege (trebs) Machinery is on the docket too. Which in turn will require me having iron, not a guarantee in a random map. Rolled for it...

...and phew, I will have one. Very few else nearby.

[xist10]

Is Macemen and Iron a mod change ?
And about 25 barbs 60 turns in game ?

[Commodore]

Is Macemen and Iron a mod change ?
And about 25 barbs 60 turns in game ?

Sorry, should have flowed this more logically. Machinery means crossbows, which need iron. Actually, with the C1 bow unit event crossbows are an even better deal than I was thinking, might go for them faster.

There's about 50 barbs thus far, killed a lot of animals too.

[naufragar]

I'm catching up on lurking. These reports have been delightful.

Love to see Quechas doing HR things.

[Commodore]

I'm catching up on lurking. These reports have been delightful.

Love to see Quechas doing HR things.

Thanks. I realize I'm fast-tracking obsoleting them with maces, but they've been awesome. 

If anyone has any questions, please, ask away.

[Commodore]

One more turn of peace...

...should I do it?