AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy sat in place. He asked for:



TT got gunpowder. The situation around Rannoch has gotten.. complicated



As a result, I've decided to not hide - we need to ensure survival. It's not a good sign that TT sent those musketeers this way - they are draftees, but they are tough. I was hoping he would go bug 2metra. He cannot attack jowy, so I assume we are it, though I honestly don't understand the calculation that leads him to that idea. Hopefully, he's just scouting and those other 2 musketeers go away.

Cornflakes built Taj - very freaking quickly, in fact - took him 3 or 4 turns. TT picked up liberalism and took... gunpowder?? that's an odd choice, to be honest



My plan with the galleys. The black is ocean (no galleys). Wonder how many lurkers looked at my plans and said "man, that's just not going to work"

Tech:



Power



I'll get demos later.

We'll have enough to upgrade 1 more HA to a knight next turn.

questions:

Trade for Nationalism? I think so.
Trade guilds/compass for education/gunpowder? DUnno if TT would do it or not.

[AutomatedTeller]

Missed demos, ah well. We were 2nd in power, I know that.



Over on the other side of the world (actually, just the other side of Jowy), commodore and 2metra are going at it...wait, that's it? I get hit by 30 units and these guys are going a couple of maces and cats?

geez - this is the bloodthirsty commodore, scourge of the earth?

barb axe coming to visit - we'll kill him and send the LB off to go fight Jowy - another 2 promo LB, on it's way!!

Offer to TT: standard "we want to be friends" or, at least, that's what I assume cornflakes is saying when he gives that. maybe he's saying "I like your gold pieces better than mine", I dunno.



Trade off to cornflakes



Didn't make a guilds offer to TT - not sure if I should.

[MindyMcCready]

Over on the other side of the world (actually, just the other side of Jowy), commodore and 2metra are going at it...wait, that's it? I get hit by 30 units and these guys are going a couple of maces and cats?

geez - this is the bloodthirsty commodore, scourge of the earth?

This is Commodore-lite. He's banking on his reputation (well deserved too I will add) that he can take cities and nobody's going to want to get into a knock-down, drag-out type of war with him. He sniped Cornflakes city, despite Cornflakes having a lot of power, with no consequence. Why not keep going? Good to see that 2metra is giving it to him. I can't imagine why Commodore wanted to take a swipe at 2metra over Jowy. Maybe he just didn't want Jowy collapsing?

This is really a feather in our cap. Things have really broken in our favour so far:
1. Azza tying up CF for so long.
2. Jowy deciding to take a little walk-about around LALaw
3. Jowy not chopping his forests.
4. TT, for some reason, abandoning Rannoch just before we were going to create an international incident.
5. Commodore missing out on some easy pickings from Jowy.

Which brings me to TT's latest actions. Things to consider.
1. Its not a stack. Its 3 units all of them recently drafted + a spear.
2. He's got 8 workers in the area. Six of them are sitting on that jungle tile, probably chopping. I think that 3-4 units would be an appropriate amount to protect those 8 workers.
3. We've got Knights and LBs, both of which can defend against muskateers.
4. TT, for whatever reason, pulled out of the area. Either because of other geopolitical concerns or because he showed up with HA against Jowy's elephants. Regardless, its hard to imagine that TT's ready to redeploy down into this area so soon after abandoning it.
5. TT's generally not an aggressive player.
6. We've got a 15 units stack 2 turns from his border. He probably doesn't like that.

The one thing that would make the least sense to me is that TT does want this land, but gave up that city so easily. I mean, if I were TT, I would definately have ambitions on this land,....but then I wouldn't have given up Rannoch so easily. Surely, I could have held on for a few turns if I knew I had draftable muskateers on the way?

So, I think that you were right in saying that Jowy didn't scare TT, something else did. Or some other opportunity is presenting itself. I think that we should stick to our plan, because we really want to draw Jowy into a fight and it just makes no sense for TT to take a stab at us after abandoning Rannoch. Maybe if this was a diplo on game they could have coordinated some intricate trap where we take Rannoch,...but in this game, no way.

Anyway, I think that we just pillage those roads and leave the Chariot there for sentry. Maybe even put the chariot into his lands. As long as it looks like a sentry rather than an 'investigation' he should be less threatened by that.

Does pillaging those roads affect trade routes in any way? I'd assume no, and I'd still pillage those roads regardless to prevent opportunism.

[MindyMcCready]

So what's in the galley or galleys?

We went around a little bit from taking a stab at Noveria, a feint to tie up troops, to reinforcing the north, to pillaging Citadel. The path you're taking looks to be taking a stab at Noveria. I have no problem with this. Why not, its empty?

However, if you're doing anything other than taking a stab at Noveria, I think that we should alter course. Coming from the North of the lake:
1. Diverts more troops to Citadel. Not important as Jowy hasn't displayed enough force to take Rannoch yet.
2. Pillaging Citadel is faster from the north.

[AutomatedTeller]

yeah - I was sort of assuming TT was going to either fill in around Azza's old land or go screw over 2metra.

The problem is, of course, the musketeers can beat anything except knights straight up, even LB's, and their mobility makes them serious threats to grab and hold - if they want. I think a CG I LB with a 20% defense makes odds less than 50/50, so becomes unlikely to be a target of opportunism.

The galley will have 2 LB and will threaten Noveria/fork Noveria and Citadel. If we get a shot at Noveria, we take it, of course. Dunno if there will be 2 galleys or just one, right yet - might make sense to send both.

[MindyMcCready]

Are we trying to bait Jowy this early? We sortof wanted to, but not on a forest and not quite yet I thought?

His best move would be to take a stab at ALF where we only have 2 cats. We couldn't counter attack and we'd have to abandon the city other than the 2 LBs and his culture would reassert making LALaw vunerable as well as ER and rannoch of course.

If we're not intending to bait him, and I think that you weren't with your concerns about TT, then we need to hold the forest SE of Rannoch (most important) and also the forest 1W of Rannoch (less important).

It takes 4T to move from Rannoch to ER, so we're pretty screwed there. Still we have 11 units in the ER/ALF region.

Not sure who moves next, but if Jowy takes this opportunity, then I'd say that we have to abandon ER to protect ALF and Rannoch since we don't want his culture reasserting. Or let him make the first move and then put all defenders in the threatened city. Our LB lose their fortify but it might hold.

[AutomatedTeller]

that was after our turn, before Jowy's. I don't get the concern, though.

If he goes to any of those tiles with the red arrows, his stack is toast. Elephants don't get the bonus from forests, so we hit them with 2 cats and go in and clean up. We may not kill the stack right off, but it won't be able to take whatever city it's threatening.

I doubt Jowy will even try it, and once we show up with galleys, he certainly won't. If he does - well, I welcome it.

yeah, sure, it could blow up horribly in our faces, but it's low risk.


near ALF, we have:

3 LB
3 cats
2 maces
1 pike
1 knight
1 HA (which will become a knight)
1 chariot

plus
1 cat in LA Law (you can kind of it on the screen, though I didn't call it out) and a chariot on it's way.

Plus, we can always move the WIII mace back, too.

[MindyMcCready]

And Jowy can 1 move Rannoch with no river penalty. Those forests have been the Jowy-bane. Now they're our problem. We have to be careful about them.

[AutomatedTeller]

true, but, unless he shows up with a lot more catapults, all he'll be doing is suiciding troops. his elephants die on pikes - he will probably kill a LB or two, but the maces and axes are dying on xbows, maces and LB's. you can't really kill a combined arms stack without 1) a lot of catapuls, 2) a lot of units or C) technological advantages, none of which he has.

My guess is that he does nothing (except ask for Rannoch for peace, of course)

[MindyMcCready]

that was after our turn, before Jowy's. I don't get the concern, though.

If he goes to any of those tiles with the red arrows, his stack is toast. Elephants don't get the bonus from forests, so we hit them with 2 cats and go in and clean up. We may not kill the stack right off, but it won't be able to take whatever city it's threatening.

I doubt Jowy will even try it, and once we show up with galleys, he certainly won't. If he does - well, I welcome it.

yeah, sure, it could blow up horribly in our faces, but it's low risk.

Sorry, I updated the graph and changed the colours.

So if he moves in with the visible 5 elephants, 1 mace, 2 axes + 1 cat we can hurt him enough with 2 cats? Oh sorry, you're showing 3 cats. That helps. 3 cats for collateral + 2 maces + 2 knights might get wins

3 cats - lost
Mace vs Mace - loss
mace vs Ele - win
Knight vs ele - ?
Knight vs ele - ?
LB vs Axe/ele - ?
PIke vs Axe? - ?

I'm not seeing a landslide victory here. But you're right, with the 3LB + Mace + Pike we should be ok on the defense as long as we can maneouvre between cities. A horse archer or two would complicate our defense.

Ok, so if he makes this move, let him and then if he moves on ER or ALF maybe block him in with our WIII maces? That way another couple of units or anther cat and we can go to town on him at our initiative?