RB Pitboss #1 [SPOILERS] Willem of Persia

[shadyforce]

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Lurkers, Spectators, Kibitzers, Passers By...

Having read The Carthiginian and Indian threads and seen their plans for invasion, you are no doubt curious as to what sort of defence they will find in Persia to fight off their retaliatory strike.

The Persian News Network, in conjunction with the Persian Ministry of Defence, proudly presents...

[SIZE="5"]THE TURN 104 THEATRE OF WAR!!![/SIZE]

Big-ass picture (1430 x 761)

The picture above is from T104, after ZPV has moved but before Rego and myself have done so. The Castle and The Factory will both be whipped to get 2 more elephants out next turn and I will have 'War the Immortal' out of Central Command this turn to help deal with that Axe. [Edit: And Grog the Axe (Combat 1) is in the city.] Clearly The Lighthouse is doomed should he go for it. But as a size 1 city with a Skirmisher on a hill, surely they will see that as too much work for too little gain. Surely the aptly named The Castle is their primary target.

So the big question is... Will I hold onto The Castle?

[Mortius]

So the big question is... Will I hold onto The Castle?

My two cents

If you attack Numids from the Castle with two of your elephants, you will surelly survive. Jumbos have so advantage over Numidians it's not even funny killing them. This way you would avoid Numids chance to retreat, and you will reduce the ZPVC... forces to 1 full health, 2 wonded and 1 knocked down Numids, and you give your jumbos chance to heal until reggo's jumbos come to the city.

Here you have some numbers Jumbo vs Numidians:
Chance to win vs 1 unit 0.9962598614481551
Chance to win vs 2 units 0.8853326426858014
Chance to win vs 3 units 0.5863687555061632
Chance to win vs 4 units 0.29495000960563794
Chance to win vs 5 units 0.12209890638790881

As you see, it is needed 4 Numidians to kill a single Jumbo. On the other hand you have more then 50% chances to kill 3 Numidians in a row, and 30% to kill 4 in a row.

Good luck

[shadyforce]

I already attacked with both Jumbos (after the screenshot was taken - I couldn't move right away because waiting to hear from Rego as to who was moving first). You're absolutely right, it has to be the right move. I left them unpromoted so I could use the promos for healing, if necessary.

A fresh Numid and his 4.5 health combat 3 are now dead and my two Jumbos now in the city, both are combat 2, up to 8xp and one of whom is down to 7.7 health.

In other news, Rego's fast workers roaded that jungle tile 2NW of The Castle allowing all 3 Jumbos and the Spear onto that jungle/hill tile outside the city. That means my city is in immediate danger for next turn. Thankfully, I have 2 Jumbos in the city already practically full health and I have better promotions than he does. My city has just been whipped so another 3xp Jumbo will be there to deal with ZPV's attack. Also both my rookie Jumbos and the rookie Spear that came from the Bank will be in the city after ZPV attacked but before Rego.

ZPV can suicide the Numids if he wants, but he will surely move the Numids away from the city tile and towards either The Lighthouse or The Factory. So next turn I'll pretty much have to decide how many dudes I can move away to kill some Numids without risking The Castle to Rego's stack. Btw, I have a fresh 5xp Jumbo coming from The Factory to deal with stray Numids as well.

At this point, I'm starting to think that the worst case scenario is for ZPV to rush and raze The Lighthouse and for Rego to retreat back home. I'd rather him burn those units trying to take the city because that's units that won't be used to defend when Imhotep comes calling with his monster stack.

Btw, here is a scary picture:

Zulu Praetorians!!!

[Swiss Pauli]

Awesome pic

I would think ZPV will try to head into your core whilst rego ties down your units in The Castle. Assuming his other Nums have multiple promos, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to some mobility-pillaging. How long before Immy enters the fray?

[Jabah]

As written before (and as your latest attacks have proved), ZPC numids are just appetizer for your elephants. As long as they are not on the same tile as rego elephants they should be under control as long as your elephant are not needed somewhere else.

On the other hand, your elephants don't have any fortification bonus in the castle, so you really should try to have some stronger defender vs rego elephant in there. Since it is on a hill, fortified CG skimirchers will defend very well (even spears and CG archer could have same or better odds defending than elephant). Whipping a wall could also help in that case.

As a general rule, you should do almost anything (without risking to lose the Castle) to remove the numids ASAP before they go deeper in your territory.

[shadyforce]

This all happened earlier this morning, I'm just writing it up now.

T104:

Rego's moves:
- Two fast workers road the jungle tile 2NE of The Castle and all his units move to the jungle/hill 1NW of the city.
- A sword emerges from the fog and is 1 move away from the attack tile also.
- His Axe moves towards The Lighthouse and is now 2 tiles away from the city.
- His warrior hiding up near The Grocer is fortifying in position. He is no threat where he is but Tell the Archer is keeping a close eye on him.
- No sign of any more Jumbos or any Cats yet. Also, Krill's Woody 2 Quecha is near Rego's borders north of the Castle and can be an extra pair of eyes for me.

T105:

ZPV's moves:
- 3 of ZPV's Numids (all mobility) march 2 south-west out of range of all of my Elephants except the new one in the Factory.
- 1 of his Numids marches to the tile 1N1NW of The Lighthouse where Rego's Axe is.
- His 5th numid has disappeared. Also, both his workers have wandered into Indian lands.



My moves:
- My catapult in The Factory promotes to Collateral 1, attacks the stack of Numids @ 63% and loses - I only knocked the top defender down to 4/5 health.
- Jumbalicious (just built in The Factory) kills the top Numid defender and promotes to C1 and C2 to heal. (Now at 7.8/8 health)

- War the Immortal promotes to C1 and attacks the next Numid @ 55% and wins!! (Now at 1.6/4 health and 6/5 xp)
- Or a cat I saw? the Skirmisher in The Lighthouse promotes to CG1 and stays put. The worker nearby retreats into the city.
- Dsp's boat is near The Lighthouse and will have another Skirmisher in the city by T106, hopefully before Rego moves.
- All my other units move into The Castle except one Jumbo waiting on the forest on top of 2 workers who are chopping a forest.



Dangerous enemy units:
- 3 Jumbos and a Spear beside The Castle, Sword just behind them
- Mobility+Sentry Numid (~3/5 health) in range of the Lighthouse, The Factory and The Castle
- Sentry Numid north of The Lighthouse but 2 moves away
- Axe 2 moves away from The Lighthouse (has not yet moved this turn)
- Warrior (fortified near The Grocer)

My military:

The Castle garrison: (+20% hill defence, +20% culture defence)
- C2 Jumbo
- C2 Jumbo (7.7/8 health)
- C1 Jumbo
- Jumbo
- C1 Axe
- Axe
- Spear

The Factory garrison: (+40% culture defence)
- Archer

The Lighthouse garrison: (+20% hill defence, +20% culture defence)
- CG1 Skirmisher

The Grocer garrison: (+20% culture defence)
- Archer (3/2 xp)

In the field:
- Jumbo (just outside The Castle, guarding two workers)
- C2 Jumbo (7.8/8 health - 2 roaded tiles away from The Factory, 4 roaded tiles away from The Lighthouse)
- C1 Immortal (~2/4 health, 5/5 xp - same tile as C2 Jumbo)


Email from Rego later in the evening:

Hey Brian,

So I hear that you did not attack my stack on the jungle hill. I have not been in the game myself this turn to see, nor how you might have done against ZPV's Num Cavs.

But it seems that any momentum there ever was for an attack on you is at least petering out, if not gone completely.

As you probably know, I never really wanted to get into a war with you in the first place. I killed that one spear because ZPV asked me to, and then that kind of mushroomed into where we have ourselves now. You have proven yourself very well by taking good advantage of the natural advantage defenders have.

So, now what? This is one benefit of playing with humans and not the AI. An AI would still be refusing to talk! :-)

I thought that it at least seemed like a good idea to drop you a note again, if only to find out your thoughts on where we are, and how we can use this to our mutual benefits.

Talk to you soon

dan.
regoarrarr
India

[shadyforce]

Ok thoughs:

The Lighthouse and The Castle are likely to be safe. Worst case scenario, ZPV moves his Mobility Numid further into my territory (3SE) and I have to attack with War an mop up with Archer.

I don't particularly want to make peace with Rego. An AI 'refuses to talk' for a reason. The main reason is that I want to take out some of his units first. The problem is that if I continue this war, he will keep churning units and keep them for defence rather than attack which will only be used to defend when Imhotep's stack comes knocking.

My best play, it seems, is to sign a minimum peace deal for just the 10 turns and leave it at that. Thankfully I have refused to sign a NAP for the whole game because I think they sre stupid creations. So my refusal to sign anything longer than 10 turns will hopefully arouse less suspicion. He may still expect me to attack in 10 turns, and he is also aware that Imhotep's NAP expires in just over 10 turns. But will he see the large assault coming? Hard to know.

As for ZPV, well I'll wait and see what he has to say when he checks the game later. He may want peace now too. I wonder how he will react if he sees Rego sign peace. I would have much preferred to kill a bunch of Rego units than do more damage to ZPV (who has already had 2 cities razed.) In fact, maybe I'll tell him that.

[Mortius]

Ok thoughs:

The Lighthouse and The Castle are likely to be safe. Worst case scenario, ZPV moves his Mobility Numid further into my territory (3SE) and I have to attack with War an mop up with Archer.

Mobility means -1 terrain movement cost, not +1 move, so he can move the Numid only 2 tiles in your territory. This means he can't go anywhere further without exposing himself to the phant attack.

I don't particularly want to make peace with Rego. An AI 'refuses to talk' for a reason. The main reason is that I want to take out some of his units first.

You can kill the stack outside of the Castle. Remember that Phants don't get the defence bonus, and it's no difference if they are on the jungle hill or on the open field.

The plan:
1. You attack with the spearman - rego's spearman defend - you loose but the spearman strenght is 2,72 (68 health). The spearman is so much wounded (7,48 Str vs Phant), the next defenders against your phants would be rego's phants.

2. You attack with your healthy combat 2 elephant - rego's combat 2 elephant defend. The odds are 50:50. If you loose, rego's elephant will have 3,9 Str and 49 HP.

3. You attack with your 7,7 combat 2 elephant - rego's combat 1 elephant defend - you have 69% to win.

4. You attack with your combat 1 elephant - rego's combat 1 elephant defend. The odd are 50:50. If you loose, rego's elephant will have 3,9 Str and 49 HP. But taking into account the probability, you should win one of the 50:50 odds fight.

You already killed 2 rego's phants loosing one spearman and one phant, but now you can mop up the wonded elephant and the wonded spearman without casaulties, so on average you can trade 1 spearman and 1 phant for the entire rego's stack.

The problem it's only on average, and I don't know if I would attack, but the decision is yours

[shadyforce]

I thought the Shock Elephant would defend against the Spear. I also didn't realise it would do so much damage on average. It's technically not too late because Rego hasn't played his turn, but I've already finished my turn so I think I'll leave it. Had I known this earlier, I might well have attacked. But still, a bad dice roll or two...

Thanks for the info Mortius! Much appreciated.

[Mortius]

BTW I saw on the screenshot the Bank is undefended
How far is from it to the rego borders?