Over to @lalunaverde for actions of the Presidency of Bombay. Also @COMaestro as commander of the Army of Bombay.
Normally this would first mean choosing the order of actions among Commander, Governor(s) and President, but the Commander has no army and there are no Governors, so the choice is basically how much the President wants to spend on trade. Even here though, the initial decision of order of actions may be relevant: a commander even without an army can request funds to hire allies from the president. If the president has no intent to grant such funds though, it’s safe to skip the commander (commanders, get your requests in early to avoid being ignored). Remember that allies are only for the turn in which they are paid for, whether used to deploy or kept in reserve for possible defence.
Rajasthan is 5 pounds for 3 strength and the Sikhs are 3 pounds for 2 strength (it’s visible from the full-size image if you squint: I’ll post bigger images in future).
@COMaestro say old chap, you keen on some incursion over at Punjab? It is under control by the Delhi Sultanate (total 1 Strength) so every region’s strength counts. You have a young chappie commanding our army in Bombay (until they were stolen away). Perhaps we can hire the Sikhs and your boy can bash some heads? 50-50 on the loot if you succeed, eh?
While waiting for response, we might as well continue with the trade mission. There’s no need to cross borders due to the Shipping Manager’s deceit! So it’ll be £5 for the trade roll.
You cannot deploy in Punjab until after you have control of Bombay. Also note as I pointed out here John Company PBF - #55 by Benkyo Maratha is also part of the Delhi empire, so the defence strength of Punjab would be 3.
£5 spent from treasury. Trade is successful. Both orders in Bombay filled by writers. £7 for the company. £2 to the president of Bombay. £2 to the Walsh family from writer graft.
Waiting on commander decision. Reminder that a deploy in Bombay using the Sikhs would be a roll of a single die, for 1/3 success, 1/3 catastrophic failure.
Success: £8 loot, split between commander and ally, 1 power trophy, closed order opened, company control of Bombay, position of governor of Bombay opens. 0 defence in the India phase if someone decides to kick the company out (which would close all orders in the region and kill the writers; I’ll also note writers can die from turmoil even without military action).
Failure: no result, just £3 wasted from the treasury.
Catastrophic failure: commander disgraced, position lost and family token returned to supply. Half of trophies lost (no effect here).
Clarification: I am aware that the Sikh mercenaries will get half and the Commander gets the other half. The 50-50 proposal was based on the Commander’s portion of the loot
Noted. I’m just being verbose for the benefit of new players and anyone reading who has never played the game.
Question to all: the bigger 4000x3300 image in my latest post is better for reading small text than 2400x2000, but scrolling the full-size image left to right is extremely awkward in my desktop browser (works fine on mobile). Is the bigger size better or worse for you, or makes no real difference to you?
Also, I just want to share this amazing image from the reverse side of the prime minister wheel.
No trading is possible, so the only questions are, will the commander of the newly-bolstered Army of Madras ask for £3 from the treasury to bribe The Nizam (2 strength), will the president consent to such an ask if made, and will the commander deploy in Madras. @RossM
