[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Turn 140: the options

BGN is keen to accept our peace offer, but we don't have 30 gold anymore, so I had to offer him 3gpt instead. Ooops.


Mardoc meanwhile doesn't seem that keen on peace .


This is how many units he has now (note the 2LB and HA that I didn't highlight have been taken into account in the sims):


We have two options then, so I figured out how many units we could have in theater and wrote some letters on the map which are referred to below:


Option 1: Attack Infrared:

t140 (this turn) we move:
A: 4 Kn, 6 Cat, Mace, 3 HA, Spear, Chariot
B: 3 Kn, Pike, 2 Cat
C: nothing
D: 1 Kn

t141 we move:
A: 8 Kn, 8 Cat, Mace, 3 HA, Pike, Spear, Chariot (6 bombards)
B:
C: 2 Kn

t142 we move:
A: 8 Kn, 8 Cat, Mace, 3 HA, Pike, , Chariot (7 bombards to take it down to 0%)
B: 2 Kn, Spear(or pike?)

t143 we attack
This means Mardoc has three turns to add further units.
- If he doesn't add any more then we lose all our Cats, but then win almost every battle after that, meaning we can take the city on t144
- If he adds two LBs then we lose all our cats and one to four Knights before taking the city t144 (four tests)
- If he adds four LBs then we lose all our cats and only take the city half the time (four tests) .

Option 2: Attack Red:

T140 (this turn) we move:
E: 7 Kn, 8 Cat, Mace, 3 HA, Pike, Spear, Chariot

T141 either we bombard or 3 cats attack, so our Knights get odds:
C: 2 Kn
E: 7 Kn, 8 Cat, Mace, 3 HA, Pike, Spear, Chariot (8 bombards to 18%)

T142:
4 bombards take the walls to 2%, then 2 cats attack to give our Knights odds and we take the city

So Infrared isn't the nice easy win that we normally like, while I still don't see the strategic gains from taking (burning?) Red. All Mardoc's cities are size two or three now, so surely he can't pump out any more Longbows, can he? If he can't then I'd move to Infrared, but I've underestimated his ability to reinforce fairly systematically so far, so odds are it'll happen again . Any thoughts?

[Old Harry]

Turn 140

So I convinced Fintourist that we should head for Infrared then I moved our sentry HA up and immediately saw two of the four Longbows that Mardoc needs to screw our plans up. So I aborted the plan, deleted the HA and we'll go for Red (to raze) instead.


I should have been taking shots of Mardoc's land each turn to see where he's been whipping . Here's the first.


Fintourist had a bit of fun burning an empty size one city - we could have kept it (it had a granary), but decided it would be hard to keep hold of. We've also done a fair bit of pillaging . The Galley will threaten Mardoc's backlines on t144, but we could sneak a couple of Knights past the Infrared Wellies to go cause some trouble next turn if you think it's worth it (they can move to the tile 3S 1E of Infrared next turn). Otherwise our knight and HA can threaten Azza instead... I'd also like a Welly-proof pillaging party to do a bit of damage to the cottages around Infrared. Perhaps then Mardoc will accept peace...


Alfie's bank kicks in . Only two more sizes to grow and all the cottages will be worked.


I thought I'd build SP in Jelly Bean as it's getting 100% more hammers from gold, while all the other wonders only get 50% from stone or marble, so it's a great fail-gold rate. Did I miss something? Should it be 50% as well?


Demos and power

[TheHumanHydra]

I do think it'd be worthwhile to threaten Ultraviolet and PURGE - though did you say there'd be more units available to do so t144?

Be careful at Red - I wouldn't want to see a whole bunch more of our units wiped out, especially by a counterattack of his.

[Old Harry]

Turn 141

This turn's news: CH should be dead next turn and dtay should liberalize something in four turns. Also BGN declared on Caledorn and took a couple of cities off him.


Back home Azza made the move you expected FT - HA and chariot N of Veggies, that should get the knights in Yam an extra promotion each:


Green Knight vs HA 96%... WIN (down to 5.5)
C2 Knight vs HA 100%... WIN (down to 8.8)


I did a bit of simming to figure what's the best way to attack Red. Presumably we wanna hit it this turn rather than waiting. If so bombarding with five cats and then hitting with three should give our Knights odds in all the battles, at which point its about RNG luck... I did a few runs through:
- 0 Knights 11111
- 1 Knight 11111111
- 2 Knights 11111
- 3 Knights 111
- 4 Knights 1
And I thought it was worth the risk.

- Cat vs CG3 LB 0.2% - hit every unit but didn't scratch the LB
- Cat vs CG3 LB 0.2% - hit every unit but again didn't scratch the LB
- Cat vs CG3 LB 0.2% - hit every unit but didn't scratch the LB


This is pretty bad - the cats had a 50% chance of scratching the LB each fight so we should have got 1-2 hits in . Now our C3 Knights get 28%, C2 get 24% and C1 gets 12%. So I sent in a C2 Knight that needed 4 XP for the next promo...
- C2 Knight vs CG3 LB 24%... WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!11!!eleven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!


Now the C3 Knight gets 83% while C2 only gets 70%, so:
- C3 Knight vs CG3 LB 83%... LOSS (down to 0.7/6)
- C3 Knight vs CG3 LB 85%... WIN (down to 6.2/10)

And the next LB isn't fortified so C2 Knights jump up to 83%:
- C2 Knight vs CG3 LB 83%... WIN (down to 4.4/10)
- Green Knight vs CG3 LB 87%... WIN (down to 1.0/10, but two promotions available, so back up to C2 7.7/10)
- C2 Knight vs Axe 99%... WIN (no hits!)
- HA vs Chariot 99%... WIN (5.0/6)
- HA vs LB 99%... WIN and we get 81 gold. The Granary survived, but I don't think we can keep the city so I burnt it. Only one Knight lost, so that was about average luck for once .


Before taking the city our Morale GG chariot checked on the stack in Mardoc's capital and pillaged another cottage.


I covered the stack with another knight, which should do the trick defensively. The tile SW of Broccoli should flip to us next turn.


Domestically I 2-pop whipped the bank in butterscotch (and turned tech on this turn to get the benefit again next turn). I also 1-pop whipped a cat in Lucky, 1-pop whipped the SA in Pickle and 2-pop whipped the forge in Quentin.


Demos and power

[Fintourist]

Wow,

I've got some good and bad news.

Bad news is that Mardoc's RNG luck continued (at first), good news is that this time it wasn't enough, we finally got some good rolls too and the unit trade definitely went our way as he attacked out and tried to kill our stack:




Here is a recap of what happened (from attacker's perspective):

Catapult vs. knight 2.3 %
LOSS, but he got a hit

HA vs Pike 3.8 %
LOSS, but we got a ridiculously bad roll and Pike was only one hit away from dying and therefore useless against incoming WEs

WE vs Mace 35.8 %
WIN, obviously..

WE vs Spear 32 %
LOSS, yay spear took only two hits, which knocks him out of fighting, but at least he did not die

WE vs 92 HP knight 67 %
WIN

HA vs 87 HP knight 18 %
LOSS, the HA won the first 5 rounds and was one hit away from killing our knight

LB vs 87 HP knight 9 %
LOSS, but LB got 5 hits and our knight is down to 2 HP...

LB vs 62 HP knight 22 %
LOSS, 0 hits! Is out luck changing....

LB vs 62 HP knight 22 %
LOSS, 0 hits! Two flawless wins in a row!

Axe vs 62 HP knight 18 %
LOSS, 0 hits! This knight deserves a medal, monument, statue, whatever..

LB vs 62 HP knight 22 %
LOSS, 3 hits! Our heroic knights gets his 4th win in a row, but goes down to 17 HP.. But also 17 XP and it can take a 4th promo next turn..

LB vs 56 HP knight 57 %
LOSS! Already the 2nd time we win a fight where we don't have odds in this war...

LB vs 92 HP HA 49 %
LOSS, 0 hits!

LB vs 92 HP HA 49 %
LOSS

And now I think Mardoc ran out of gas or he realized that next there are 5 cats as top defenders and sacking more units for killing those isn't really attractive. (I don't think he had anything but a wounded WE and 2 spears left and they don't even get odds against cats) TBH, he should have really skipped at least the last 2 fights. Well, actually the whole battle..


Summary:
Mardoc got a ridiculously good start and first 7 battles went more or less perfectly to him. This actually put him in position where he could have killed a good number of units. However, thank god our luck changed and our awesome knight simply crushed the incoming units and as an icing on the cake we also won the final 50/50 battles.

I don't think Mardoc simmed this or thought about this really carefully. In order to really hurt us he would have needed constant good RNG luck through all those 14 battles. I'm very relieved that it did not happen as the catastrophic rolls in the beginning almost cost us dearly. I obviously haven't simmed this myself, but I think the base case is that Mardoc does not have odds in any of those 14 fights (our pike should have beaten the HA handily and had odds against the WE that murdered our knight). for taking a losing fight did not get rewarded this time.

So what next, Mardoc's WEs are wounded and will be easy kills next turn. Our stack is very wounded, but 4 knight and 2 HAs can promo-heal and then we of course have our great medic in position. Now that Mardoc suicided 7 LBs I see Infrared falling in the near future as well. We probably won't have quite enough power to take it next turn, but at latest when some reinforcements arrive and we get to heal our units I think we should be able to able to march forward.

Finally some good news!

[Ceiliazul]

Finally some good news!

Fortune favors the bold! At least eventually.

Continued compliments for your positive outlook on the RNG swings you've seen here. History is on your side here, I'm sure.*





*Right? I mean the Aztecs did GREAT until about 1200AD...

[Fintourist]

Thanks!

*Right? I mean the Aztecs did GREAT until about 1200AD...

We better hurry..

[TheHumanHydra]

Well, that was quite something. After reading Harry's report, I was actually going to post and suggest Mardoc might decide to attack, but then I read Fintourist's report and saw that he had. I couldn't be more pleased at our fortunes in this battle; Mardoc should have very little left save new units in his capital; I would at least get LoS on it next turn and see if it can't be taken by coup-de-main. That knight division was epic.

Btw the Aztecs fell after the Spanish conquered their whole peninsula then sailed across to attack them from the east. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[Old Harry]

Well, that was quite something. After reading Harry's report, I was actually going to post and suggest Mardoc might decide to attack, but then I read Fintourist's report and saw that he had. I couldn't be more pleased at our fortunes in this battle; Mardoc should have very little left save new units in his capital; I would at least get LoS on it next turn and see if it can't be taken by coup-de-main. That knight division was epic.

Btw the Aztecs fell after the Spanish conquered their whole peninsula then sailed across to attack them from the east. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I didn't see him attacking out with the Longbows again - so it's a relief to see things finally rolled our way! He attacked with seven LBs but only had the seven fortified in the capital in range . He'll have planted a couple of new ones in there though so perhaps our way isn't totally clear just yet.

Also dtay isn't Spanish... Did Ethiopia do anything to the Aztecs?

Finally I just realised our cassus belli for attacking Mardoc is revenge for the real world .

Azza played but it'll be a while before I can, so if anyone wants to log in and make a plan that'd be great .

[Old Harry]

Turn 142

We meet Oxy/BaII - I offered OBs, but given that they aren't necessarily playing their turns I dunno if they'll accept. Lots of border tension over here .


Our EP spending gives us sight on dtay's core. Saying something about boots being on other feet from PB13 feels appropriate. If we had a bunch of galleons we could cause some consternation in the lightly defended coastal cities, but I'm sure he'd be thinking the same if he'd seen our lightly-defended coastal cities.


On the Mardoc front I really wanted to get a promotion on our pike (it won't speed it's healing, but it won't slow it either and a 12.6 strength unit should beat those Wellys easier than a mere strength 12 unit), but he only got 82% vs the 3.0/7 Welly, so I used a catapult to injure it a bit more:
- Cat vs 3.0/7 C1 Welly 99%... Withdraw! And a Great General is born the combat log doesn't show any hits for the cat, but the Welly is down to 1.8 . I presume we settle the GG in Hazelnut?


- 2.4/6 Pike vs 1.8/7 C1 Welly 98%... WIN (no hits)
- 5.4/6 HA vs 1.4/7 C2 Welly 99%... WIN (no hits!)
Wahay! The HA gets a view into the cap again, so the question is what do we do this turn?


- Promote and heal the stack in place
- Move the stack towards Infrared
- Retreat
I'd go for the former, then next turn we can:
- Heal the stack in place
- Move the stack towards Infrared
- Attack!
I'd go for the second option then on turn 144 we cat the defences a bit or suicide them before taking the city that turn.

Our stack can have a Knight, Mace and Cat added this turn, then another two Knights added next turn. Another question for this turn is what promotions should our Knights get? I presume going up the combat line is good for you (much as I'd love to give them amphibious)? I'll log back in in the next five hours or so to give the promotions and end turn.


Demos and power