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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2244 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 8, 2025

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Well, that was fast.

I got a second game of Hands in the Sea in last night! We switched sides with me playing Carthage. I came out the gate swinging, cut off Roman supply out of Italy using my starting fleet of warships, recruited some cavalry to raze their colonies while I had them bottled up, and just generally kept the pressure on while I leisurely expanded. Won in 4 turns with an automatic victory based on being more than 25 VPs ahead during the scoring phase of a turn.

Rome's biggest problem was with supply being cut off, they could start a battle with Syracuse (which is a vital supply point in Sicily), but they couldn't reinforce the battle to win it which requires supply lines, until they disrupted my naval blockade. They wouldn't need to destroy my fleet, they'd only need to build at least one warship, and then contest control of the blockade. That's enough to re-establish supply for reinforcing a land battle. After they take Syracuse, they'd have a local supply point on Sicily and could have ground me down with their legions. Unfortunately, Rome was caught flat footed by the dire consequences of being out of supply, and instead of building a fleet and contesting control of the waters, spent time recruiting legions they couldn't send, and pursuing deck optimizations that lacked actual bite in the conflict. There was an attempt to finally break my blockade, and it bought Rome a single turn of supply in Sicily. But it was insufficient, and I sank their fleet in short order. By the end of the game Rome was drawing their entire deck into their hand every turn... without having valid or meaningful actions they could use all those cards on. Alas.

We're already planning another rematch, where I will probably take Rome again and need to resist the strategy I just absolutely dominated with. Wish me luck.

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