I was off to a decent start with a good berry spot, two gold piles relatively close to a forest but also hugging the shore and a good dock spot. I found the long shallows leading to Andy’s area and dock-blocked it. Because it was Narrows, I didn’t trust that the shallow leading towards my allies would be safe, I’ve seen some very unorthodox land mass twisting and turning with fingers of enemy land separating allies, so I walled that off. I made a few scoutships and sent them forth to check Andy’s shore for villagers. No luck but I did find his fishing boats and attacked. That stirred up a hornets nest with cheap Minoan scoutships/war galleys returning the favor. We had a heated sea war going with Phlsphr joining in from time to time and denying me my gold piles for a while. I was working from 3 docks at times and put most of my villagers on wood to sustain the war. I chatted over that I needed help at sea and continued. I was keeping a close eye on the shallow cross as I expected a Minoan compie horde to come knocking at my door. Fortunately Andy had given himself over to the sea war as well because none came.
Soon Dae_Han (Yellow) came with a very large fleet and swept the seas of the menace. I had been preparing a land force to hit Andy with as soon as the seas were clear enough for me to cross the shallows. I deleted my dock and sent over a decent force of CA s and camels with villagers following. I swept around and attacked his village find few villagers at first. I started attacking houses and the TC. My villagers built a siege workshop and moved forward to claim some of Andy’s berries near a forest. Out of the fog came the compies running them off with the TC about half complete. He attacked my force with compies and ST s and soon killed them off. I made a few more stables and another siege workshop in Andy’s land and wait for the ST s and additional camels while I trained more CA s at home.
We had some good battles once my stone throwers started emerging with me slowly gaining ground and pushing him back. I sent villagers deep to 6 and built a dock. I then moved toward the forest and found more of Andy’s villagers with anew TC. We had a little vill battle which I soon abandoned. I trained a war galley and that ended that. I finally ironed and upgraded to cats with HA support when suddenly Phoenician war elephants came at me in mass. I was fortunate to have adequate numbers of cats and horse archers to handle two waves of ten WE s and survive. Just before the first wave of WE s hit I looked over the map and saw my allies all over the map, pinning the enemy further back into a pocket towards 9. The battles were immense in size and truly a glorious sight to behold. Dae_Han was the star of our team but General was doing very nicely as well. Minoan compies and camels followed by Helops and Cats were wining the day against tough resistance. I finally cleared Andy’s land and was ready to join my allies on the mainland when the second wave of WE s hit me. My HA s were dancing and my cats would retreating and firing---retreat and fire until most of the WE s were killed. I started heading over to help when “good games” were exchanged and the game was over.
I'd like to read a report about the battles going on at the same time since I was only able to peek over occasionally. I played a second game with some of the same players a little later after losing my connection while waiting for the start of Calvin_Cooledge’s game. That game was 4v4 with Laelius, Dae_Han, HGS_DesertRider, and me against Andyhre, Carl(phlsphr), APC_eug1, and VVV_KertieBird. Again a gig Narrows, no shang, pop 100, standard vic. I’ll give someone else the opportunity to start this game report if desired. It was a blast even if I did commit a potentially fatal blunder early. See you all on the Zone Jehu