[SPOILERS] Zanth's thread

[zanth]

Impresdsive, heh

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

[spacetyrantxenu]

Mmmmm... bloody! I approve!!!

Can you show a map of the area? What has the combat done to the battlefield and your plans?

[zanth]

Well, that happen while I was absent, so maybe Gav' could help

[Gavagai]

After the combat SC's army got almost entirely destroyed and he has no pop to whip a new one. On the other hand, Krill DOWed and burned 2 cities but I don't think it will matter much in the big picture. What will matter is that we now should be able to consume SC's territory pretty quickly.

[Gavagai]

Map is coming later...

[zanth]

From chat:

I looked in the military. We see: [last turn we put esp. in Krill (ex-Nakor) to gain visibility
1 archer,
21 Longbow
2 immortals
20 knights
4 warrior
13 axes
5 Mace
16 spears
4 pikes
10 Cats
7 muskets
1 galley
total 671k soldiers
average 821k soldiers, he obviously has above average, let's say 1kk
but then also pop and techs and garrisons in the cities that we do not see
In general, I think in the worst case stack missed a dozen knights and a couple of cat
more realistic heels knights somewhere hidden

Sergei: in general, it's like a little
I'm thinking - can we turn in this direction after Amsterdam?
bang his main stack, take a couple of cities?
Ialthough, well, no, I'm about average said. more realistic dozen knights yes.
alternatively incidentally
Sergei: is there any reasonable limits?
I: think yes
Sergei: Yes, think
and then he gave us a bunch of forces still binds
Amster and after we can leave to the north a small barrier
I: the more force is already on its fronet
Sergei: rotate troops taking Utrecht, and then at once - the territory nakora
I: Well, as
in fact, there are literally five cavalry enough to overcome a couple of cities
and the border will just be reasonable
Well, look. 671k soldiers 100k in techs somewhere
But how many people will? Well put 50-70k
still say 50-70 - on buildings and perhaps more
Well actually hike except garrisons in the cities there is nothing
and the army of outdated, a little ammount of cats

[Gavagai]

Pictures!



Western front. Ruins of cities which Krill burnt are marked, our stack on the copper hill is selected, Krill's stack on a hill 3 SE from Schroedinger is pinned.



North-eastern front. Our stack 1SE from Utrecht is selected, Krill's stack in Seven is pinned.



Northern front. Our stack NW from Amsterdam is selected and pinned.



West. All is quiet - for now.



South-west.



Southern sea.

Notable cities and cities screen:

[Gavagai]

So, let's talk about this game a little bit. I will start by stating a sad and obvious truth: we are no longer leaders. Mardoc is a leader now and we are only a runner-up.

How did it happen? Well, our story starts very long ago, when Catwalk won the Taj race. Taj and MoM combo was perceived by us as extremely dangerous and we were convinced that Catwalk will soon become a runaway. To prevent this we decided to alter our plans. Initial strategy was to start wars after Rifling as we had enough land to develope peacefully until that point. However, expecting Catwalk to start expanding soon, we decided to speed up our schedule. SC was chosen as the target. He had large and rich landmass, long border with us and was very backward: he didn't have Metal Casting when we had Steel.

Of course, SC had a lot of units but they were completely outdated. We planned an easy war which as we expected wouldn't require a lot of investments. Even when it became clear that Catwalk somehow managed to completely fuck up absolutely everything and that our initial incentive to start a pre-mature war has been removed, we didn't even consider to cancel the attack - though this would be the most prudent decision.

That was a grave mistake which brought the intrigue back into the game. Slowcheetah was able to surprise us: just before our invasion he started a golden age and was able to research not only Metal Casting but also Guilds AND Engineering. Taken together, these two techs were enough to make the forthcoming war dramatically different from what we have planned and to what we prepared. Attack should have been cancelled at this point but we were too invested in our plan to even consider aborting it.

SC made some tactical mistakes at the start of the war which helped us out but on the strategic level he did everything right. He whipped his cities mercylessly, was able to re-master his army every time after being repeatedly beaten and by this measures was able to stabilize front and bring the situation to a stalemate. He gathered a mega-stack of something like 50 (at its peak) knights with appropriate catapult support. We simply didn't have enough units to advance against that.

We offered him peace several times but he refused to take it. Our only remaining option was to fight this war to complete victory and to do this we had to take SC seriously and fight him to utter attrition: kill his units until he runs out of pop to whip. So we did. We researched Rifling, revolted to Nationhood and started to draft Rifles while upgrading our Cuirs into Cavalry. By doing this we were able to assemble a stack powerful enough to move inside SC's territory and shrug off his counter-attack. Happily, SC made a crucial mistake here by suiciding almost everything he had into our army. If he evaded battle and saved his units, our situation would have become much more precarious as on this very turn Krill declared on us and burned two cities on our border.

(to be cont.)

[GermanJoey]

Even when it became clear that Catwalk somehow managed to completely fuck up absolutely everything

very interesting thoughts, keep them coming!