Talks about music. The famous talk show feat. yuris125 & Nicolae Carpathia

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Okay, it may be time to whip out a stack of Trebs to roll up and take out the capital. If so, we'll need to cut roads and screen our siege stack from Sian's knights. For now, just pillage the food and the hills, and threaten other cities.

And yeah, we're going to need to obsolete the colossus . A damn shame we couldn't easily capture Sian's cottages to compensate for the loss of coast income. But we need Galleons, and we need to use them to threaten NS7's cities so they don't threaten ours.

[yuris125]

Sian offered peace for returning Code Geass. Lol

Started building Trebuchets, also started moving 'phracts to threaten the city to the north of Love Hina, whatever it's called. It's currently defended by a Warrior, although I'm certain Sian will whip something there

Sian actually now has 9 Pikes + a Catapult in Love Hina, so he could attack almost every single one of our 'phracts. They're now in 2 stacks, so even with damage from Catapult, he probably won't kill all of them. Will be interesting to see battle result next turn

Meanwhile, a revolt happened in Air Gear. As a captured city, it can't flip, but it's annoying

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I dunno, try not to give him an opportunity to trade units. Pikes are cheaper than Phracts, and his lines of reinforcement are shorter.

[yuris125]

Yeah, but he's producing units from 3 cities, we're building in 6. In this situation it's more important to keep pressure on than to trade effectively. And to keep pressure on, I have to have units within 2 tiles of the city

With the current map situation, he can't attack, because I pillaged the roads. But he had 2 Workers in the city last turn, so he can rebuild a road on 1 tile, and if he does, it will enable him to attack. Nothing I can do about that

Oh and I forgot to mention, NS7 completed the Kremlin last turn. F*cking Kremlin in f*cking 1040AD, yeah

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Good points. Hmm, it's probably still better to not split our stacks though, as that let him pick off one stack and still retreat troops to heal. If split, the best trade he could make is losing one Pike for every Phract he kills. If the stacks are joined, then our highest health Phracts can cover any of our injured ones. As long as the tiles we are on lack roads, Sian can't retreat injured pikes back into his city and into safety.

What are the sizes of our split stacks?

[yuris125]

T113

As I suspected, Sian attacked one of the 2 'phract stacks, and fully killed it at a price of just 1 Catapult. He even managed to win 2 of the battles without damage to his Pikes, even though odds were not heavily in his favour (around 70%)

But to do it, he moved 8 Pikes out of the city



As you can guess from the empty tile with the sign "6 Pikes", those 6 Pikes are dead. Admittedly, there was a fair amount of luck involved. I spent a long time thinking about this attack, there were just enough units in range to deal with this stack. In the end, I decided that killing it was important enough to take the risk. As is widely known, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good - but all battles were at >50% odds, most at >70%. As a result, 6 of his Pikes are dead, 2 can't get back into the city next turn, and 5 our healthy 'phracts + 6 wounded are in range

Pity it probably won't be enough to take the city. But that's what I meant when I was talking about maintaining pressure on Sian. 5 'phracts for us are 1 round of production, 6 Pikes for him are almost half his army

Sian teched to Gunpowder and can build Janissaries now, but I'm not sure they will be better than Longbows and Pikes against 'phracts, so not too worried

In other news, Luddicator offered to borrow all our gold at outrageous interest: borrow 227g, repay at 40gpt, so at least 400g. However, I decided to decline. First, this would delay Economics by at least a turn. Second, they are not poor, they have 442g; if they're asking for our gold, they're planning something that requires a lot of money, and I'm not sure we want to be a part of it

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm inclined to help Luddicator, as we're the junior powers in the world. Are we still shooting for Economics?

[yuris125]

Most definitely. It's 3 turns away, and noone has Banking yet, so we probably will get that GM

I'm not agianst helping Luddicator, but the request smells wrong. I mean, if you're broke and ask for a loan, I know why you need this money, and am happy to help if I can afford it. When you have 440g and ask for a loan of half that amount, it feels cheesy

[yuris125]

Opportunistic moves continue. NS7 declared war on Sian, and captured one of his island cities. Expect the 2nd one to fall shortly

Sian moved 3 Pikes into Love Hina, it now has 8 defenders: 5 Pikes, 2 Longbows, 1 Mace. We won't take it this turn, or at any time before our Trebs get to the battlefield

A 'phract and a Chariot landed near Sian's iron and wll take another attempt to pillage it in 2 turns, although I think the chance of it happening is 50/50 at best

[yuris125]

T114

Here is what I came up with. Next turn, after 2 or 3 more 'phracts will be healed by our Great Medic, I want to start moving the healthy ones like this



At the moment all Sian's defences are concentrated in Love Hina. Forking Dragonball Z should be the breakthrough we need. With new 'phracts trickling onto the hill where the stack currently is, Code Geass will remain protected

A stack of 4 Trebuchets is going to assemble in 2 turns, then it will need 3 turns to reach Love Hina. I want it to be 4 Trebs to be able to eliminate 60% cultural defences in 1 turn. The question: do we want to assemble them in Mai Hime (where Sian can see them) or 1S (where he can't)? One one hand, if he sees them, he will be able to build Knights to counter. On the other hand, our 'phracts can screen the Trebs, and if he is building Knights, he's not building Pikes. Thoughts?

By the way, we want to start building Settlers soonish. Sian's city placement is far from perfect, note the huge area NE of Love Hina with no cities, and unimproved deer

In other news, Economics is due in 2 turns. Assuming we get the GM, what do we want to do with him? My plan is to start a GA and finally switch civics, to HR - Bureau - Slavery - Free Market - OR. But I'm open to sending him for a trade mission, or choosing different civics



Finally, the worry of this turn: NS7 have Cannons now