[Spoilers] What, no fireballs?! Team FFH: we're not in Erebus anymore

[kalin]

At least someone got my reference. I'm happy!

Hannibal crossing the Alps?
Kalin

[pling]

Unfortunately my first mental image when anyone says "Hannibal" is this book I had when I was a kid:

[Rowain]

And it is even in the same orange Carthago usually has

[AutomatedTeller]

that's a pretty good sized stack, there...

[Ichabod]

Hannibal crossing the Alps?
Kalin

Yup. That was my line of thought, basically:

Unfortunately my first mental image when anyone says "Hannibal" is this book I had when I was a kid:

And it is even in the same orange Carthago usually has

Blasphemy!

that's a pretty good sized stack, there...

Thanks! I'm really inexperienced in warfare in Civ IV MP, so I'm not sure about the numbers needed to achieve my objectives. I'm still building reinforcements all across the empire, mostly catapults and Macemen (uncounterable on the field without Iron). I'm fairly sure after the last turn that I can take all of Rome mainland cities. I believe they have a number of island cities, but I don't see how I can take those, so I'll have to eat some unhapiness in his former cities.

After this war, I'll need to desperately build more workers, get some settlers for backfill and try to grow my cities after all the whipping. Good thing I have a very good happy cap, it really helped not being overcomed by the whip unhappiness.

By the way, I've captured and razed Ceasar and captured Tiberius. Pictures to come later.

[oledavy]

I must say, those are some legit smiley faces

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="4"]War, what is it good for?[/SIZE]


Gaining land, money, resources and, most importantly, having fun.

But before I talk about war, let's take a look in things that aren't as fun.

---

First, I need some help from the Civseis here. It's a granary question:

This city has had a granary for a long time. It was never starved. How come I only have 16/34 on the food box? Wouldn't the minimum be 17/34? Can someone explain this, please. If it helps, I've been whipping the city a lot.

---

This is the first barb city I've seen in the game:

Probably need to talk with Lewwyn about razing it. It is 1E of the place where he agreed that I could settle. Good to have a big army right now, it really helps with the negotiations.

---

The capital:

Since it's stagnating due to no health avaiable, I gave the corn to Acedia. It's a pretty good city, I think.

---

The new cities of Vanity and Dishonesty. Vanity has 2 spices and a cow. Dishonesty you can see better in the city. The workers are chopping a forest into a granary.

---

City Screen:

Demos are embarassing, so I won't show them. The war was probably not worth the investment. But since I started whipping units to attack Sunrise, I decided to just whip some more and get Rome. No passive play around here, no sir.

---

[SIZE="4"]WAR![/SIZE]

Yeah, let's talk about war.

I've already showed in the preview my stacks and Rome border cities stacks. The thing is that I haven't done my attack troop movements in that pictures. Here's what I did.

You can see the stacks and my attack troop movement. The galleys have 2 maces, 2 swords in them. My thought was to attack and capture Ceasar with them in the second turn of the war, while capturing Tiberius with my main stack. That would give us a big advantage, very early in the war.

The longbow in Ceasar made things more complicated. I was hoping for a very light garrisson. I couldn't defeat a longbow amphibiously and I wouldn't be able to do it after desembarking if they got reinforcements. So the plan was to use the galleys to pull reinforcements out of the cities the main stack was going for. It still looked decent.

I made the highlighted moves as close to the deadline as I could while keeping my life schedule. As much as I don't want to double move, I don't want to be double-moved myself. So the plan was to act near the end of a turn, wait for Rome moves and then make my own. It's fair this way.

---

So, after Rome made their moves, this was the situation.

Rome moved the lonbow out of Caesar, leaving only an axeman and a warrior there. That was a bad mistake. It meant I could capture the city with my naval troops. They also left their main stack in Tiberius, risking collateral attack.

So, first thing's first. Let's see our odds with our troops against Ceasar:

Not bad. Seeing that the second defender was a warrior and all my troops could get CR1, I was confident. Here's how the attacks went.

CR1 Mace vs. Axeman - 32,4% odds - LOSS
CR1 Mace vs. Axeman (81/100 strenght) - 69,7% odds - LOSS
CR1 Sword vs. Axeman (41/100) - 88% odds - WIN
CR1 Sword vs. Warrior - 95,4% odds - WIN

Leading to:

The city kept a lighthouse. In the end, I decided to raze it. I thought a lot about it, but it seemed like the less risky play. If I could keep 2 units in the city, I think i'd keep it, but I couldn't, due to my Maces doing poorly in their rolls. If Rome used the longbow to attack my 1 sword in the city and kill it, they'd get their borders back and I don't think I'd be able to retake the city with my remaining sword in the boat. Than I'd have to get some units from the main stack to the city and Rome could whip more longbows.

So, I chose the less risky play and razed the city. I fully intend to resettle it, since it's a source of horses, that we lack. Next step is whip Knights and go kill another poor soul.

---

Tiberius battle was way more onesided. The damned city decided to pop its borders on the exact turn that I was going to attack... Annoying, but not that bad:

There you go, back to zero. Next step was attacking with catapults. I promoted all my catapults to CR1. I don't expect to fing überstacks in Romes army, so it seemed like the better choice. The cats are there to take down the powerful longbows, after all. But, yeah, the big problem is that I'm not familiar with how to properly promote catapults.

I lost three units attacking. Three catapults at 1,4%, 6,8% and +60%. The lowest odds battle that I won was a catapult retreating at 43%. But my catapults dealt considerable damage to the longbows in their first attacks, which was pretty nice. I attacked with all the catapults, because they were all 3/4 xp and a second promotion would be nice. After that, all my unit attacks were +95% odds and I won them all.

City came with a granary and was kept. It's not an awesome city, but it's needed to solidify the borders with Sunrise.

---

Plans to move forward are the following.

1. I got a great general, which will be used for a medic3 unit to heal things fast.

2. I'll heal my stack. Good thing is that all units that attacked have a pomotion due to charismatic 4xp promo.

3. Move the following way:

I can fork his 2 cities this way. The spy will go first and see what I'll be up against. I have to check if Rome can build Maces, something that I constantly forgot to do. But without Iron, they can't tackle us on the field, especially without catapults (I don't think they have any and it's too late to whip them). If they have maces, I'll whip some quick Crossbows to add to the stack.

I really don't see what Rome can do to stop us. They don't have the land for it and their landscape make an attack very easy. My plan is to go for the capital first, because I don't want a opportunistic strike by Sunrise taking the GLH from us. Hopefully Sunrise understands that this is our war, not his (wow! feel the testostherone in this words!!).

This is the stack after attacking:

Notice the workers ready to road that tile and make reinforcing the front easier. There are some more catapults and maces coming and there are quite a few more units inside Tiberius. I think I'll take 2/3 turns to heal and then proceed with the healthier units.

Units in Tiberius:

Reinforcements:

From now on, the whip will start to lose its use a bit (for units, that is). We need to grow and up those demographics!! A possible naval invasion on Roman likely island cities will depend on further scouting.

---

Any questions or things you want to see?

[DaveV]

Huzzah for Stupendous Man!

[scooter]

Awesome.

[Gaspar]

Ichabod, you're my favorite. Go get em, Tiger.