Out on the Rim [Mr. Cairo spoilers]

[Mr. Cairo]

As suspected, here's Gav's attack. The amount of units he landed/lost attacking/known to still be on boats (ie: attacked the city but didn't capture it) equals his total carrying capacity of his Galleons. So I don't think he plans to mostly hop from coastal city to coastal city with his boats. Or if he does, he's going to have to load up his galleons next turn.

I moved my stack back because although I was pretty sure how the culture would shake out after Kisaki fell, I know that sometimes it does weird stuff, and I really don't want my stack hit by lots of Cavs.

Ideally, at some point he advances a stack forward and I get to hit with all of my stuff. He's smarter than that though, so it'll be difficult. I do hope to make it harder than his conquest of Superjm. He'll probably regroup after taking Kisaki, fortunately I have a lot of EP invested in Gavagai so I'll still be able to see some of what is going on up there.

Made peace with SD this turn as well, which makes playing my turns a lot easier now that I don't have that turn-split to worry about.

[Mr. Cairo]

Last turn:



This turn:



And in between OH declared war on Gavagai, civstats says he took one city that turn. He hasn't played yet this turn but Gav didn't take anything back this turn so hopefully he's been taken by surprise. Maybe it might even encourage Krill to do something

Gav offered a peace treaty this turn. I rejected it, I want my cities back. Gav appears to be gathering his forces in Remy, unfortunately I don't actually outnumber him in hitters, and my 40 Catapults aren't the most effective against Cavs and Rifles with Drill 1 and 3. I did a test and found that the Cavs only get injured by the collateral down to 10.5 health or something close, which means that my Muskets can't even kill them reliably after the Cats, so I need enough Grens to kill them. The Rifles, which actually fight the Cats, get injured more but with my Grens needed to fight the Cavs my Muskets will need to do against the Rifles, which isn't a sure thing either.

My plan for attacking is to move my stack to a point where it could hit Remy, and use Archers to destroy the roads that would let his Cavalry hit my stack from Remy. Then the next turn I rebuild the road with my workers and attack. I only have a few turns to do this of course, as once it comes out of resistance I wont be able to attack Remy without parking my stack next to it and that would be suicide.

A lot depends on how effective OH's attack is and what how Gav responds.

[Mr. Cairo]

Gav withdrew some Cavs but landed some Cannons and Rifles and Knights. So numbers are still similar, but it was the Cavs that were causing the most problems. With less Cavs that means more of my Grens get to fight Rifles, which is very good for me. So. Next turn I use my Archers to cut off the roads to Remy and move my stack behind the mountain. The turn after that, I re-road up to Remy and attack. I haven't counted my reinforcements but I think I'll have ~45 Cats, 28 Muskets, and 20 Grens.

I'll stage my stack 1NW of the mountain. Gav has a Sentry unit there (I think), and I want to position my army such that it is least likely to be seen. Gav will probably suspect me of hiding behind the mountain and move his sentry SW (of Remy) to look there. He's less likely to move it W, since that doesn't see behind the mountain, and he's also less likely to move it NW, since that puts it on the hill where it can't go back to the safety of the city.

Hopefully my Cats are enough to weaken his stack such that I get odds with all my units afterwards. It should, especially since I can give most of them City Raider 2. Barrage isn't useful when I have so many Cats that I'll be hitting the max collateral damage anyway, and CR2 will lead to more retreats and more non-collateral damage. Ideally I lose most of my Cats in that stack (still got more on the way) but most of my other units survive and Gav loses most of his invasion force.

In the meantime OH is causing some major damage to Gav according to civstats. He just burned a city worth 60 points to Gav, and at least as far as Civstats is telling me Gav hasn't been able to strike back. Although I'm sure there's some serious naval battles going on out of sight.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here's the situation. I'm ready to attack next turn. I have 47 Catapults and 50 decent hitters plus a few random medieval units (an those archers if they live I guess). Against 7 Cavs, 30 Rifles, some other stuff, and 5 cannons, which will be a massive pain, but hopefully they'll end up as top defenders after the first 20 Catapults or so and I can knock them down that way. I'm pretty sure I can win this fight.

I'm not sure that OH can beat that stack of Gavs heading up to My Sweet Lord. In a perfect world Gav will take those cities from OH and I'll take them from Gav. Finally realising my dream of completely controlling my own continent

[Mardoc]

Good luck!

And thanks for the excellent situation report!

[thestick]

I'm not sure that OH can beat that stack of Gavs heading up to My Sweet Lord. In a perfect world Gav will take those cities from OH and I'll take them from Gav. Finally realising my dream of completely controlling my own continent  

Stack of Gav(agai's), or stack of cav(alry)?

[Mr. Cairo]

I'm not sure that OH can beat that stack of Gavs heading up to My Sweet Lord. In a perfect world Gav will take those cities from OH and I'll take them from Gav. Finally realising my dream of completely controlling my own continent  

Stack of Gav(agai's), or stack of cav(alry)?

Gav's. It's mostly Rifles after all

[Mr. Cairo]

So Gav played it correctly, seeing my stack by putting a pair of G2 Rifles on that hill, then pulling all by 2 Rifles out of Remy. I took it, losing 2 Cats in the process. I needed to even knowing I couldn't keep it because otherwise it would come out of resistance and I wouldn't be able to attack it from 3 tiles away. As it turns out, it's all moot anyway since in taking Remy I saw Gav's reinforcements:


27 more Cavs. I can't beat that. If he just marches his stack into my territory I'd end up doing plenty of damage to it, but not enough to stop it. IDK if he's willing to take those kind of losses while still suffering at the hands of OH, but there's only one way to find out. I pulled back and I'll continue to gather my troops and whip out units until the hammer falls. I did get a GG out of the fighting, went and built a military academy; probably could have done something better with him, but whatever.

But there might be a chance to strike back down here:

I killed that Frigate with Privateers and moved up 3 Nav1 Caravels, as well as a bunch of Privateers. Hopefully he wont move a Sentry boat up to see my Caravels. He also might end up seeing my Privateers and killing them all with his Nav1 Frigates. It's not like they'd be able to do much anyway, but it would be unfortunate.

[Mr. Cairo]

Good news first:


I was able to burn this city of Gavs. My first real victory this war.


Now the bad news, and it's really bad:


Gav has broken through here, and if OH can't stop this fleet, we're both screwed. I'll probably lose a couple more cities next turn, including Semi which has been very useful whipping out units. But more than that, if OH can't stop this fleet moving West it'll be in danger of burning a lot more, including my cap, my Moai+HE city, and a bunch of OH's cities. This could win Gavagai the game. It seems OH wasn't quite prepared for a threat to him from this direction.

[Mr. Cairo]

Strong words from Gav in the tech thread, but he's right. This entire situation arose because Krill gave up and decided, apparently on behalf of all of us, that Gav had won. OH wasn't having any of that, but it was only because Krill gave up that OH was able to get to the position he's now in.

If Krill had just actually committed to a war with OH way back when I was ready to attack OH as well, Krill might be in a winning position right now. He's managed to keep up with OH and gav for the most part despite not conquering anyone.

It kind of annoys me that after having that whole discussion regarding concessions and all that stuff at the end of PB41, which Krill was very much involved with, this stuff is happening all over again.