Dude, where's my civ? [spoilers]

[Ellimist]

I didn't take any pictures from last night's turn, but I've been considering what Mardoc's most likely defense will be.

The best thing for him will be if he can kill my troops before they land, or prevent them from landing, or prevent them from landing in ideal locations. To do this, he'll need ships of his own, and galleys are cheap and reasonably fast. His capital of Ringmaster can produce at least 26 hammers per turn while in golden age, and galleys require 33. His second coastal city can produce about about half as much as Ringmaster can, so I'm expecting to face perhaps 6-8 galleys with fair winds(from air mana) and the +1 strength crew promotion. His galleys will have a higher base strength and combat related promotions while mine took promotions for cargo space. I will attempt to avoid his naval units as much as possible, as it will simply be impossible for me to remove a stack of any reasonable size without putting land units at risk.

The only chokepoints on the path to his land will all require him to block at least two tiles. So far, I've moved my HN griffon ahead as planned and haven't encountered any additional ships with it. If Mardoc doesn't block off the strait that my griffon will reach next turn, then I'll assume he's planning to block off my best landing sites. I would actually be okay with this, because the moroi that compose the majority of my forces are pretty flexible and can reach their targets even if they don't land in ideal positions. I also have a plan prepared that can provide additional flexibility, just in case something unexpected happens and I end up needing it.

My cities are still building infrastructure, but soon I'll know if they need to produce a second wave. There are a lot of unknowns for now, because the earliest it could arrive would be turn 126, ten turns after my initial attack. There are also at least 3-4 priority cities I need to settle, as well as workers to support them. HK is pulling ahead of me on expansion, but fortunately his GNP is still weak.

[Ellimist]

Okay, so here's where things stand:




The main "twist" in my plan is that I am planning for a sort of feint around whatever navy Mardoc might have assembled.

Looking at what I know of his terrain, the most obvious place for me to strike is going to be my original plan of moving to the fish tile and landing onto the banana tile and attacking his capital. I expect him to stack a majority of his ships on the two yellow circles(especially the fish) because they're obviously the best places for my units to land and strike at Ringmaster and Trapeze. Mardoc is smart enough to figure that out, and he'll also be able to see that my galleys can barely reach the fish tile with 4 moves and the triremes can't reach it at all.




Of my three proposed landing sites, the most important one by far is going to be the attack on Ringmaster. If he does stack most of his naval units on the fish, I can promote one adept to Air 1, bypass his navy entirely, and land adjacent to Ringmaster instead. This also moves his other coastal city into range of the moroi, and eliminating his naval infrastructure is a very worthwhile goal.

[Ellimist]

I played turn 115 earlier in the evening, and had planned to write a post about it later on tonight. I wasn't expecting to see turn 116 three hours later...

Turn 116 is going to be huge, and I need time to sim out the division of forces, so I'm planning to do all that tomorrow. There is a chance I can raze five cities if I make the right decisions and the RNG is favorable in a few key battles.

Here's turn 115. It started out with my wildcard play to give my galleys some extra reach:




My recently built Adept out of Prespur used haste to put two turns into constructing an air node. He'll most likely finish it on turn 116.

My veteran griffon had an opportunity to raze a city and kill two workers at good odds:




Scratch one griffon. Let's hope that's not a sign of things to come.

As planned, my spider made landfall a turn early to scout:




Hmmm







It looks like Mardoc is trying to use skeletons to prevent my forces from landing, but that's probably not the best strategy for this situation. If I land troops on his mana node, Trapeze is still only two movement points away, and Lion Tamer is one. It's fortunate for me that those skeletons are not in his cities, nor on any path that I'm obliged to take.

I put my second griffon out as galley bait, while peeking into his island city:

[Ellimist]

Okay, I've done the preliminary parts of turn 116.

Mardoc did indeed focus his defense on the same tile he'd stacked his skeletons on.




The full tally of units there is 11 skeletons, 8 puppets, and one swordsman.

Time to get vision on the units I'll actually be attacking:







It looks like fair winds is definitely the right call here. I'll be able to completely bypass the Balseraph navy and attack all four of the mainland targets from two landing sites.




One galley cannot reach the Ringmaster landing zone, so I used it to gain vision on Lion Tamer:




The next big question is how to divide my forces, because I'll have to fully commit units to each zone before casting haste. I don't think there's a good way to determine that without running simulations.

This is the plan of attack:

[Merovech]

How did it go? (Well, actually, I know how went because Mardoc updated, but shhh)

[Ellimist]

I have a lot of screenshots, and I was writing a report earlier when a storm knocked out my power. I'm planning to have a detailed report up later tonight.

[Merovech]

I have a lot of screenshots, and I was writing a report earlier when a storm knocked out my power. I'm planning to have a detailed report up later tonight.

Awesome!

[Ellimist]

Okay, so my goal when I started planning was to determine how to split my forces between two locations:

East: Lion Tamer and Trapeze
West: Seals, Ringmaster, and High Dive(exact garrison unknown)

The first step was whether my available units were even capable of taking all of the cities, and unfortunately, they probably would not be. With the existing limitations of distance and positioning, I would have to spend an unreasonable amount of units to take Trapeze, and the margin for risk would be lower than I was comfortable with. One of the biggest difficulties at Trapeze was that victorious Moroi would not have any movement points left to finish off additional units.

The best option that I could see was to send a minimum amount of units toward Lion Tamer and the rest to the western targets. Any units that weren't needed to capture the cities could do some pillaging instead.

Here's what I sent west:




Despite Ringmaster being the priority target, I had to attack Seals while the units were on their way. I redlined the defender with bloodpets and then killed him with my fair winds adept.




(Of the three bloodpets shown in the log, the first one was actually used against Lion Tamer but failed to do any damage.)

I had to sacrifice a total of eight moroi and two bloodpets to take care of Ringmaster. Four of the doomed Moroi were able to take advantage of having two moves to pillage 3 tile improvements and gain vision on High Dive.




Eventually, all the defenders were heavily damaged and I was able take advantage of burning blood's "blitz" effect. The last guy was weak enough that my adept could handle him:













Mission accomplished, with a lot of extra cash as well.

After Ringmaster, I took High Dive in a hurry, and nearly lost an extra guy through carelessness. It worked out fine though, only one Moroi lost killing two warriors.







And after that, it was time for Lion Tamer. Thankfully, the second sacrificial bloodpet actually accomplished something and taking this city didn't cost me any Moroi at all.







Event log from the turn:

Every Moroi ended up using burning blood, and the vast majority of them that were able to take promotions took city raider just prior to attacking. Once the cities were all taken, the remaining units took mobility to accomplish more pillaging. I didn't disband any of them, since war weariness is not likely to be a problem, and may even give me some free hammers due to governor's manors.

Mardoc's GNP was reduced from the rival best of 148 to the rival worst of 60. His MFG was cut in half from 72 to 36, as well as his crop yield from 165 to 81. His power rating dropped from 456 to 335, and his land area dropped from 149 to 112.

Overall, I gained 1267 gold from plunder and pillaging, razed three cities and captured one with 35 combined population. My 100% gold rate also increased by 28 gpt due to reduced unit costs, and this should improve more as my surviving Moroi are killed off. I expect to keep very few of the land units I sent, and I'll try to eliminate the rest of Mardoc's ships over the next two or three turns, so I may not have much of the navy left either. For now, most of my galleys are open to attack and my triremes are in port at Seals, ready to counter-attack Mardoc's ships next turn with buccaneer crews.

[Ellimist]

Turn 117 came in late last night, and I was able to finish off Mardoc's navy. He killed four of my eight galleys, and I didn't lose any more units killing his damaged ships.

Mardoc has sorcery and used maelstrom and puppets/skeletons to kill off most of my remaining units. Two of his mages were exposed, so I sent up a Moroi who killed them both. My other surviving Moroi pillaged even more tile improvements, mostly mature cottages that provided a lot of gold. I'm not even doing the pillaging to slow him down at this point, the cash is justification enough thanks to my raiders trait.

The only units I expect to survive Mardoc's next turn are my spider(I haven't seen any recon units), and one Moroi who I put on a forested hill. I converted the rest into barbarians by disbanding them.

I have a lot of gold on hand now, and my expenses are low enough that I can stay on 100% science for a long time. I'm planning to go straight to Feudalism, then probably Priesthood, Optics, or Animal Handling. I'd also like to settle several more cities, including the mana island between Mardoc and myself. EOT gave me my first prophet, who I'll probably use for the OO shrine.

[The Black Sword]

Congrats on the attack, lots of really nice play there.