[SPOILERS] Bismark of Sumeria (luddite + Atlas1998)

[luddite]

How come I still don't city visibility from espionage on Hagi? This is really annoying.

[luddite]

So... first of all, Trireme round 2 is done. I positioned him outside the range of that galley. Hopefully this one will have better luck than the last.


Christianity spread here. Geez, I'm just having no luck at all with Hinduism spreading. And Parkin is already in Bureaucracy.


I moved up my army, and finally I can see what mackoti's been building. Not bad... but not as much as I was afraid of. He's only got 8 axemen and 2 catapults, so he really can't fight me in the field at all right now. Unfortunately the archers will be enough to stop me from razing Dobrin with just chariots.


And I'm also sending another group of units. They can reinforce the main stack if necessary, but the main goal is to pillage Hagi. I call them "The Pillage People".

[MWIN]

Are those axes and spearman positioned at 2 South of Hagi? If so, how does your plan work? It seems, he can defend both Hagi and Dorbin with those units?

[luddite]

Are those axes and spearman positioned at 2 South of Hagi? If so, how does your plan work? It seems, he can defend both Hagi and Dorbin with those units?

Yeah they're at 2 south of Hagi. And I'm rethinking my plan, because you're right, they can move towards whichever city is threatened.

On the other hand... If I move west toward Dorbin, and they move into Dorbin, then he's pretty much given up Hagi. I could then move NW onto the hill they're on now, and then either.

1) he moves on to the hill N NW of Dorbin, where I'll crush his army with my superior numbers despite the hill, or
2) he moves NW NW from Dorbin, and I can move onto the plains forest deer hill to block him from entering Hagi.

Overall I think it's a mistake for him to put his units there. Either he gives up Hagi, or he allows me to take Dorbin one turn sooner than I expected.

[luddite]

Locke refused my offer. Maybe I'll just keep it for myself.

[COLOR="Silver"]OK well our valuations of Great Generals are very very very far off. I would not pay even 700g for GG right now. That would be like 15-20 turns of running 0% science. 700g plus Great Person is crazy. No way. I think we are to far away to have a deal. Thanks very much for ansking though. We would like GG but cannot pay that price.

Locke[/COLOR]

Haha I see. I was thinking that 700g is less than half of what a Great Merchant can produce, so it wasn't too outrageous. Just bear in mind, if you settle the Great General, then with a barracks, stable, theocracy, and vassalage, you could build a unit with 11 XP and unlock the heroic epic. But if you don't want it that's fine.

[luddite]

Goddamit, he somehow built a massive wave of new units


I don't know what to do now.
In Hagi there's an axe, spear, and Nakor's scout, and in Dobrin there's two axes and 2 archers. 17 axes in total grr.

[luddite]

On the plus side, I finally got city vision. Without that, I wouldn't be able to see those units.

[luddite]

Here's my thoughts on the subject. I haven't decided what to do yet, I'm just thinking through the possibilities.

There's 4 options that I can think of. I can go south, to attack the bottom city. I can go west, to try and take out his western cities. I can fortify on the forest hill deer tile next to Hagi. I can pull back, and either wait for catapults or make peace.

Let's say I go southwest onto the cows. It looks like he's only got 3 workers in the area, so he can't quite build the two roads necessary to attack me with his main stack. He woudln't want to do that anyway, he'd just move into Dobrin and wait. I can't beat that big stack by attacking across the river into a 40% culture hill city, so I'd have to keep moving south. I don't think he has enough units to beat me on an open battle there, so I could take out the bottom city. But then I'd be stuck in a very vulnerable position, with him quickly building enough units to take out my army. I could maybe evacuate some via galley, but I'd lose most of them. It's not worth trading 20+ units for that small city, even if it is giving him gold.

I can maneuver around so that I'm on the forest deer hill. That would be funny. After fortifying there I'd get a massive +100% defense bonus, so he'd need something like 14 catapults to clear out my army. I could sit there and wait for catapults and reinforcements. He'd be forced to keep most of his units in Hagi to defend it, so maybe I could threaten other cities with small forces. This is an all-or-nothing move. Once I fortify on that tile, the only way my army can leave is if I take Hagi.

If I go west- I need to check the micro on this, but I'm prety sure that as long as I keep pillaging roads behind me, he can't catch me. At least, not in an open battle. I could then raze his western copper city. Cutting off his copper supply could be huge. I doubt I'd be able to get both of his western cities though. And this is another all-or-nothing move, because bringing my army back will be very difficult.

meanwhile I've got my pillaging force, and reinforcements coming. I wonder if I can do damage to them, or if sending in a small stack would just be suicide against his catapults.

If I pull back, I think I'd have to make peace. This was about the best opportunity I could get for going in. by the time I've got catapults, he'll have even more units, and then I'll need more units, and so on. cats vs. cats just isn't good for offensive wars- I'd need to wait for knights.

[luddite]

If I go west and he attacks me on the hill- he'd have 5 extra turns of production, enough to hit me with, say, 5 cats and 20 axemen. In that case, the axes would have about even odds, and we'd both lose about half our army. I don't particularly like the idea of losing half my army while I'm in his territory, even with the medic 3 GG.

[luddite]

For what it's worth, here's what I can see of the western land