[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[Mardoc]

Could have been cleaner, but that's a lot of dead Celts.

If I'd played smarter, or if I was luckier? I welcome critique on fighting battles .

Looks like I've lost so far 5 axes, 3 HA, and 9 catapults. Which is actually not as far from Krill's prediction as I thought. Course, I may lose some more on Twinkle's turn.

Edit: The most obvious mistake I made was in letting myself get distracted. The galley trick might be fun - but if it was another HA, and Durkon had built another axe instead of most of a Forge, and I whipped somewhere a little bit harder - then I might have taken Gergovia outright.

Edit2: Huh, on analysis, this isn't as bad as I thought. Lost 17 units to kill 16 - plus four cats in the last two turns, which really ought to count. Nearly even hammer exchange - can't say exactly without doing more arithmetic, but he mostly lost 35 hammer units. As long as next turn works decently, I might even come out ahead. Could have been better, sure, but this isn't horrible.

[Commodore]

Yeah, even hammer exchange, ability (I think) to take the city and thus move the front, twice his Great Generals...pretty good for an even-tech offense.

I forgot the free G1, made those Gaels nasty on the hill city defense.

[Krill]

Did you just leave Durkon empty with TT having an injured chariot in his city?

[Mardoc]

Did you just leave Durkon empty with TT having an injured chariot in his city?

No, I killed the chariot. If he has any two-movers left on the front, they're behind the city.

[Mardoc]

All right! No reinforcements, and not even all that much healing. Gergovia shall be mine - I just need to figure out the optimal way to take it.



Edit: oops, I meant to post this one:



On the other front...yeah, I'd definitely have done better to keep everything together. Three more units at Gergovia would have mattered a lot more than this:

[Mardoc]

Looking good Only lost one axe - this makes the hammer exchange swing a fair bit more in my favor.



With resources on, you can see this is a beautiful city - fish and horse and grassland and coast - and even Hinduism. No buildings survived, though.


Renamed the city Xykon after taking the shot.

Ended up deciding to use my Great General remaining like thus:


In 1-2 turns, the stack should be basically healed, and we can advance - some units require 3 turns but I think those will be just barely below full. I think the first goal is to get here, fork, and see what we see.


Maybe we can take Camulo, maybe TT's capital is vulnerable, maybe we have to wait for the cats to catch up. Speaking of which - 2 finish this turn, 3 more next turn, and I've got 2 already en route, so we can break another fortified position if we have to, once the cats wheel their way forward. We'll advance without them in case of opportunities - or at least hopefully to get TT to spend his hammers on Duns rather than units. After counting up his Power, I have his unknown stuff worth about 80K - including four cities' worth of population. So likely on the order of 12-15 units left, plus the two I see.

Next building priority is axes - I have to assume TT goes full-on spears from here, with perhaps some catapults mixed in. But I figure cats first, they can handle spears too

[Mardoc]

Played the turn last night, not enough energy to report. But it was a fairly dull turn anyway.

Twinkle decided to trade an axe for a spear:


He did manage to make me evacuate, but I'm pleased to be going 1:1 in hammers regardless. He really should have just used the spear, I'd have had to evacuate anyway. For the moment the HA/galley will simply keep an eye on Camel-town, while I wait for my stack.

I had four units at full health in my main stack, but I ended up deciding to wait for the rest of the stack. Next turn we'll invade Celtia again, I think, so that in two turns we'll be at the fork tile. If Camel-town doesn't get significant reinforcements, I think we'll sacrifice a couple HA to simply blitz the place. Better to lose some hammers than to let it continue being a nice producer for Twinkle. If it does get reinforcements, then maybe that's at the expense of TT's capital, and we'll blitz it instead. If he manages to reinforce both...then we'll keep our stack in place, hopefully pinning him there while the cats rumble forward.

Speaking of producers, Xykon (ex-Gergovia) should come out of resistance next turn. For the moment I'm going to focus on infra here, I think it'll produce a heck of a lot better once I've got a Granary and the Fish being worked. Mostly this is just because I think the core cities plus my current stack will be able to make significant progress against TT before Xykon has any significant hammers anyway.

@Durkon, I'm debating with myself. Now that I have stone and a Forge, the Mids are easily within my grasp. And I have five workers in the area. But maybe those ~200 hammers would be better spent as, say, 2 cats and 3 axes? Durkon's right up at the front, and ending this war will be worth a lot to me. But worth as much as an expanded happy cap and plentiful beakers on the specialists I work? My core is very unhappy, so I could really use some bonus happy. And it would also be swell to have a profitable place to dump food surpluses other than growth and the whip, to let the whip unhappy die down. I'll probably go ahead and grab the mids, and let hindsight be the judge as to whether it was wise or folly to build a wonder mid-war.

I started Calendar research. I think I've got the tech I need to finish TT off, I just need to keep pouring on the units. I might even have all the units I need, although I'm not going to bet on it just yet. Still, I feel like I'm in Grant's position right now - just keep hammering away. But that means I should focus on growth techs, not military ones. Code of Laws is probably next.

[Krill]

You get Mids. Everything else is a misplay.

[Mardoc]

You get Mids. Everything else is a misplay.

I can't argue with that . Also, Commodore pointed out to me that it's not just about getting Rep myself - it's also about denying it to Phi Ruff and farmer's gambit Sian. So as long as neither of them has it due in the next 4 turns, I ought to be able to claim it. It'll take that long to get the forests chopped, I think. Although I'll double check, with a Forge (due to complete next turn), I only need 167 base hammers, it may be possible to do this with only four forests and three turns. Especially if I whip again to bring a lot of overflow into the wonder.

Meanwhile, the rest of my empire will continue to work on TT. I think it's likely that Camel-town falls in three turns, I just don't think he has the units and production to hold both it and the northern city I've been assuming is his cap. Then I'll likely need the cats to take the next city, but they're en route, so my pace ought to be pretty good.

[Mardoc]

Camulodunum is still only guarded by what I previously saw. 2 turns until we can take it if TT doesn't do anything.



Here's the stack I'm advancing. Nowhere near as powerful as it was, but I think speed will let us make progress. Four units are in the 5.5/6 health range, I decided to bring them along anyway. Probably there will be a pause somewhere, but also probably there'll be a situation where I'd be just a couple units short, if I didn't.

Next turn we move to the fork spot, along with a straggler to the tile 1W of it



Meanwhile, it's not just my demos and Twinkle's investment in the game that are flagging, my people are unhappy too . How do I know TT's starting to check out? Well...despite my inattention in leaving his iron mine intact at Camel-town, he's still working a plain grassland tile per governor's orders.


You can see wave 2 of catapults each advancing at best speed; I think I'm going to have to pause them at Xykon to collect them into a stack. Not much point in bringing along just one.


And, at EOT we overflowed quite a bit into the Mids. Should get them in three turns with four chopped forests, unless I figure out a further optimization of some sort. Or they're stolen at the last second, of course.