[SPOILERS] PB7: Winning The Hard Way - Mao Plays Craps

[Commodore]

What is the composition of the attacking/defending forces?
Kalin

We have two spears, three dogs (two CR2, one CR1) next door, five chariots in range (one might die, and even if it lives it'll be hitting over a river), and another chariot in the pipeline in two turns (plus the whipped one if we go that route). Also, a 3xp pro archer on the hill two tiles away, which can take shock or cover to help clean remaining trash. If we feel risky we can shove forward the two CG2 archers from Blackfeet in one turn to target.

Against this behind walls M7 owns one axe, three archers (two CG2), one spear (C1, Morale), and one chariot (C1, medic).

Also, we're extremely close to spawning a GG, although anywhere west of Mohegan he'll be useless for this fight. This is a dicy proposition, but we can send in two or three chariots without much issue, if they don't hurt the spear enough we can cheaply just divert south to the stone/FP Grim Monolith.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Well, I just got home from work. That was a quick 14 hour day. Thanks for taking the turn. I see the sim work, nice job there. I think it's worth taking. We're going to fall behind if we don't press the attack anyway. I probably should have moved in when I played last night but we couldn't have defended without a double move, so maybe I played it right in spite of the unpleasant side show. Civstats doesn't show a city trading hands, but do we have a standing army? Or have we nearly broken the defenses?

[Commodore]

...or turn has yet to roll, waiting on Azza still.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Ha, that would be the other possibility.

[Commodore]

The war front was largely quiet this turn, skirmishing back and forth a bit. Our forces are a bit depleted, but we should be able to swing some damage soon with the reinforcements.

Domestically...let me put the news in Pitboss 5 terms:

[Commodore]

So here's the situation:



How'd it come to be?




As we're being conquered by Germans, it's appropos the people are learning a new song:



You hate me?

[Thoth]

You hate me?

Tune.

Chin up mate.

It's possible they have a fear of the dark:

http://youtu.be/Nba3Tr_GLZU

Failing that, you could invite them for a ride on your crazy train:

http://youtu.be/aOg_qF9GQUM

[Commodore]

So this, this was a good turn, although a double move by SMack could undo half the good news. The first was something that actually happened earlier. Popped another one! +1 happy empire-wide, and +8 commerce per turn, all at the cost of one capital hammer. We'll take it.



Checking down at the stone city of Grim Monolith our shock chariot found a fresh archer. Hum...37.4% shot of surviving, with the potential upside of capturing a very generic but still decent city. Yeah, worth trying.



And thanks to the gold from the capture and the gold in the mine, we're now looking a Maths in a much more reasonable time frame. The city came without anything but a floodplains farm, but beggars sure can't be choosers.



This good combat result made me a little high, I must admit, so I took a coinflip shot at the barbarian spear with the Drill 2/Shock archer from Poarch Creek. Success, and another HE unit unlocked! We have the marble for it too. Now we just need Literature...



Har. Anyway, here's le tactical map. Objectives are as follows: Pillage wheat farm and cottages around Mind's Desire. Keep Blackfeet secure as the strong point in the unit pipeline. Cut off or capture the southern copper city. Draw out the MD garrison and reduce it with an eventual goal of taking the city. We'll have to see how well it goes...if the current campaign is successful and we control Azza's Corpse, build up with cats to assault the German core.



Not ambitious at all, eh?

[Commodore]

And thus far, they still look to be massing up, although it's going to be scary once that stack rolls out. The good news is that they seem to be very forked right now which is nice. I love our long pipeline full of archers right now, we need 'em.



Here's hoping for another raze enabling us to finish off Maths!

[Commodore]

Well darn. Ought to be able to take Frantic next turn barring any double moves, but I'm pretty sure keeping the place would be a fool's errand. Raze and retreat, I think. I was really hoping to seduce the main stack out.



Meh. At least Blackfeet is well secure.