Well, it's not that bad, probably could be worse, but not much. After all, our troops are actually literate. And they don't crash their planes during takeoff.
me and Alpharius have been fiddling around the upper Taus to try and cause as much trouble as two fighters can, we learned a few things about the enemy, but as usual, we got greedy. All in due time -
We took off from Hades and proceeded to monitor the situation in T23, reaching as far as the old BMM site. Not sure if it's the Royals' doing, but seems like running slaves and cardamine died down completely. All civilian traffic we met were unaffiliated, legit trades, which reminds me of a VERY inportant issue:
We need orders on how to handle trade ships carrying prisoners into gallia, we managed to eyeball one just today, making a quick passage from T31, straight to Languedoc. Now, you don't have to be a genius to realize who will be hosting those people. And I think I have every right to suspect, that some of those people carried are Bretonian POWs, maybe even our own. I didn't even open comms with that ship, lacking orders on the matter, but the troops, particularly those working at the enemy's doorstep will need clear instructions on how to handle various merchant marine encounters, depending on the carried cargo.
Following that, we got word, that the Royal garrison was mobilzing, took them aout 10 minutes since me and alpharius appeared in 23. Compared to the Maltese, that's quite sloppy. They dispateched 4 smalls, so we went ghost to see how much they can muster and in what time. apparently, after a few minutes they departed southward and seemingly left one figher behind in 44 - I decided to attempt fishing it out and dealing him some damage before he could get help and by the way try and teach our man how to double-play... Well, it was going about as I expected til one more fighter arrived and we couldn't keep damage stability anymore. The broader implication though - only one reinforcing fighter appeared. Either their entire garrison in the upper Taus amounts about half a dozen smalls plus the reg-mandatory support ships and fortifications...
sure, we got shot down, It's kinda inevitable given the employed quality and quantity of troops. Might not be this week or even month, but the whole situation is improving for us. Not for them.