[SPOILER] Yell0w - Rhoanna, Hippus

[Yell0w]

HK casted Tollerance as expected, wished for, though it would be childs play to overrun him with his non bronze warriors.

I hope I'm right, that Molach won't see our stack on the rice tile north of Fort Mafro. I'll then ride into his lands, though we won't be able to attack right away.

[Mafro]

So, interesting stuff going on.

First off, looks like HK completed the Bone Palace, extending his current Golden Age.

Second, Mardoc is trading Rice to Suttree in exchange for Ale. So, they are working together.

Third, with the road completed, we now have the ability to trade resources with both of them.

Mardoc has Sugar, which we want, but only one of them. I was going to suggest we offer him Ale, but according to the Relations screen it appears he's already getting Ale from Suttree (though I don't see it in the trade window). Maybe we could offer him Cotton and Sheep, of which we have two of each, in exchange for his only Sugar.

Suttree has Dye, which we want, but again only one of them. Maybe we could offer him Cotton (we have two and we're about to bring a third one online) and Clam. We only have one Clam, but we have plenty of health so it's not a big deal to lose it.

One other thing to notice...Suttree has added Water and Earth Mana to the Fire Mana that he started with. Looks like he's already going for the Tower of Elements. We have Air Mana, and I wouldn't be surprised if he asks us for it. But heck no.

Regarding the Calabim invasion, he's got a forested hill two tiles away from the Rice tile you mentioned. I'm not sure if that gives him visibility to it or not, as there are forested tiles between them. However, I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to attack further south, where we can see flat land. That is also further from Acaia (now renamed Gelidia), which his main force is presumably garrisoning.

We could emerge just south of the lake, just west of the western Rice. As it stands, I don't see any open land where you're headed, which means our greatest asset, mobility, is going to be limited. In looking at the foggy borders I see nothing but hills. I think we're going to get hit by his main force before we can do any serious damage, though if we can cut his roads we might get a turn or two in before that pitched battle. Redirecting further south would mean an extra turn, but it might be worth it...up to you.

Incidentally, it appears Molach has taken a theme of The Bard's Tale for his city names. I loved that game back in the day...played all three releases. I actually installed a version on my laptop not too long ago, just to kick it around for old time's sake. That and Ultima III. It's not the same as on the old Apple IIe, and Ultima III isn't like it was on my Commodore64, but still good memories. Much love Molach!

[Mafro]

You know, I just realized that Molach pillaged our citadel.

And I didn't even notice....

Looks like his other warrior survived the spider that was left to the south. Let's be sure to kill it next turn.

[Yell0w]

You know, I just realized that Molach pillaged our citadel.

And I didn't even notice....

Looks like his other warrior survived the spider that was left to the south. Let's be sure to kill it next turn.

Indeed he did, I didn't notice as well. I'd have done the same. Though I should have noticed it and pillaged in advance, thats about 100 gold right there -.-

I forgot to mention that I offered a peace treaty to HK. If I had offered a cease fire, there wouldn't be a 10 turn cool down I guess, I'm not sure though. Not that it matters.

We can reach both suspected city locations in the same number of turns. Since I already positioned workers and MM's there I'll take the hill route. The attack will begin on turn 109, which is 1 turn later than planed. He should be very close to Vampires now. I hope we can damage him a lot before he has a chance to field them.

Good points on resource trades, though I doubt Mardoc will take the deal I'll certainly offer it. I'm more weary of offering a deal to Suttree

[Yell0w]

Ugh, I played the turn late last night and didn't take pictures. We took a city without losses, pillaged a couple tiles and will take another city next turn. I'll also sever the road connection next turn, still assuming he has forces on the move from his north east corner city. The next city will be a bit tougher to crack but not too hard either. He doesn't seem to have Vampires.

I could continue to tech and still hire two more MM's who will be able to enter the war quickly due to the road connection that will finish next turn.

If the turn comes in today I promise screen shots etc.

[Mafro]

Just looked at the latest save...very nice

* We've nearly doubled our trade due to foreign trade routes with Mardoc - an extra 7 commerce per turn.
* We have a source of Pearls next to Conrond Mor. Looks like we can get a work boat out and working the tile in 2 turns, which will allow 4 or 5 cities to add another population.
* We still have 18 MMs, despite losing three due to Calabim counterattacks.
* All of our MMs in theater are at full health.
* Tenebrosia looks likely to fall. It has 5 bloodpet defenders and we have 11 MM that can attack it. However, I hate the fact we don't have any collateral - we are likely to lose at least a couple MMs.
* Assuming Tenebrosia falls, our western borders should be fairly secure, with Molach's only attack route through Maurosbane. With Maurosbane having popped its borders last turn it now has a defense bonus of 55%, in addition to an awesome anti-Calabim name.

That said, we are starting to take losses and we haven't done much against Molach's forces. We've only killed 4 Bloodpets and a Catapult. I've got to believe his stack of Moroi are just beyond our view and are waiting for our own stack to be vulnerable. If we don't keep the stack together and on fortified ground, he will pick us off in small batches, as he's already begun to do. I suggest you end turn with all units on the same fortified tile whenever possible, even if that means missing out on a pillage or worker. Otherwise, we are going to open some future save to a very nasty surprise.

And we're going to need our force intact after this war. HidingKneel completed Form of the Titan, so I expect we'll see him adding units with promotions for the next 10 turns or so. He might even be looking to go on the offensive, assuming he has Monks and our own military is worn down from this war. If he does go on the offensive, chances are he'll be attacking through Fort Mafro...so you may want to start giving it the Maurosbane treatment in the not-too-distant future.

I'm also not loving that Molach has no cottages. Pillaging mines and farms isn't worth losing a MM over. All our pillaging of the Calabim to date has yielded 65 gold, which is half of a MM. My hopes of replacing losses with pillage gold don't seem to be bearing fruit.

Speaking of which, our gold is pretty meager. Am I being paranoid to suggest that we keep enough gold in the vault for 2 or 3 MMs, just so we have the ability to counter an assault from one of our neighbors? Or suggesting we forward deploy one or two warriors along our eastern border, as we've done in the past, in order to give us time to counter an Amurite invasion?

I don't see any resource trades with either Mardoc or Suttree. Is that because they weren't offered or because they weren't accepted? We could benefit from more right now.

When do you think is the right time to pop our golden age? If we've already offered resource trades and those offers have been declined, then I see no reason not to pop it now. Or maybe we want until Trade so we can put the hammers towards Inns? If we can use the increased commerce and hammers to further accelerate our growth, then we probably don't want to wait.

[Yell0w]

Puh we lost a lot of units in the inter turn and this turn...
I don't think we can meet Molachs army in the field right now. I'm again in awe of Moroi, I'm going to have to play Calabim soonish.

We lost 3 MM's attacking the city and 4 in the inter turn, Molachs forces were closer than expected. I'm almost thinking that our MM force is done for and should continue to raze city as long as it can.

I also plan to start an attack in the north with 1-2 catapults and our warriors, he withdrew almost all his forces from this area.

Took some screen shots they'll follow:

Got kinda unlucky. The first two battles were nice our C2 S1 MM won at ~78% odds and our C1 S1 MM won at ~75% odds, then our F2 MM withdrew as planed, but then a C1 MM and two unpromoted MM's lost 3 40% battles, then we got another withdraw and took down the 3 remaining redlined Blood Pets down.
Leaving us with 13 MM's Including the reinforcements I sent in, a good third of them are wounded and will pillage and head home.

and Molachs northern defences

And one of our scouts will die by Molachs hand. I surounded the world with my scouts, so I thought I'd get circumnavigation, the +1 movement speed on ships thingy, but I guess that only applies to map with actual sea or something.

[Mafro]

Puh we lost a lot of units in the inter turn and this turn...
I don't think we can meet Molachs army in the field right now. I'm again in awe of Moroi, I'm going to have to play Calabim soonish.

We lost 3 MM's attacking the city and 4 in the inter turn, Molachs forces were closer than expected. I'm almost thinking that our MM force is done for and should continue to raze city as long as it can.

I also plan to start an attack in the north with 1-2 catapults and our warriors, he withdrew almost all his forces from this area.

Took some screen shots they'll follow.

Wow.

What kind of losses did we inflict on him? Did we raze the city?

Regarding tactics, did we have our forces in a single stack on fortified ground? If so, we should've inflicted quite a few losses as he pounded through our fortified defenders and, while that's not good, it's not a disaster. However, if our forces were spread out and he picked off wounded units without much loss on his part, then Sun Tzu is rolling over in his grave and we're going to have a real problem once HidingKneel gets into the mix.

I'm not sure what our remaining force looks like, but we shouldn't let it go lightly. We have to make him pay dearly for every unit he kills, and kill as many of his victorious units as possible. If he kills off our army, then he's going to end the war with a ton of promotions and we'll be back to a green force of whatever we can recruit.

Sounds like we need to kill research and raise another force of MMs right away.

[Yell0w]

We have a Situation here I need advice on:

These borders were red last turn, there was some city gifting going on.
So I took a closer look and found a blood pet escorting a worker and another worker, I killed the blood pet from the screen shot as well.

Hmm, so there are two options, either we move all MM's to the hill tile and then move them NE NE NW NW next turn reaching the forest, most likely being out of reach to most of his forces and then continue, using our speed to outrun his forces.
Or we declare war on Suttree and take this city, I must say I almost like this option more, city gifting is a little cheesy here I think.

Thing is I must decide soon, can't hold the turn forever.

[Mafro]

Sorry for the delay, just seeing this now.

I would say we do our best to avoid confronting Molach's main force. At their heart MMs are skirmishers, even if they prove themselves well against early game units. A cut road here and there might slow Molach down as well.

While I agree that gifting cities seems rather odd, I don't see attacking Suttree at this time as being strategic. We could raze that city of course, and perhaps that is opportunistic, but if we're at war with two players, I wouldn't be surprised if others decide to join in on what could become a dog pile.

Given our losses, I think we should probably look to sue for peace in the not-too-distant future, unless you're serious about invading Molach's north with warriors and catapults. Personally, I think we should retire from the field of battle with as much of our force as we can keep, knowing that we've dealt a major enemy a serious blow. Those who have survived should have a fair number of promotions and can be the backbone of the next force we raise.