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

[AutomatedTeller]

So, the situation after I hit end turn:



I was wrong about NYPD Blue, btw - it's not going to do 1 cat a turn - this is exactly 50 hammers including the overflow, so the next one 1 2 tuns. My thoughts are to let it build 1 turn and whip and then the overflow should do 1 a turn for a long while yet.

That will give us 8 catapults in the area (assuming we don't lose any in an assault), which isn't enough to kill his stack (unless he attacks, in which case who knows?) ATeam is buiding a mace (will take 2 turns), which I may whip in to get overflow.

The worker in Magnum PI seems odd, but it has some extra 22 hammers from a whip in it, so getting it will actually get us a unit about as fast as just building that unit and whipping. Plus, you know - extra worker. One of the workers will go up to finish up the ivory and iron for V, since we need that done.

Cornflakes border:



if cornflakes wants to come at us, we'll upgrade the dog. Honestly, I don't see Cornflakes attacking us - he's got a war with azza and he's been attacked by commodore (and lost a city). And we are upgrading defenders now, too...

Jowy';s land:



And his border with TT:



I have BJ and hte bear on a galley - I'm not actually sure it makes sense, but we have some forces we can use there.

North:



there is still room for expansion up there. Note the redline of lake/mountain which block easy access to those elephants.

Next turn, I'll grab a screen shot of cornflakes northern border, which is explaining why he is trying to expand the way he is - basically, he's blocked by a long, narrow sea.

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy did something interesting:



This could end up being a problem - we kind of need him to attack the city to kill off his stack, and he's not doing it dammit - you must do what we want!!

My thoughts are to move the workers to LA Law, move everything else back 1 and see what happens. If he's just cutting us off and comes after LA Law, we let him.

We whip a cat in NCIS and overflow into a cat in Magnum PI, giving us either 8 or 9 that can be used. We whip the mace in A-Team, which gives a lot of overflow to the next mace. I upgrade the archer in NCIS to an xbow (better on offense with axes around) We can either overflow LA Law into a chariot (finish now), catapult, LB or crossbow (can whip the next turn) or mace (will take a while)

Alternately, build a chariot in NYPDBlue and LA Law and a crossbow in Magnum PI - three more hitters are good, and it gives overflow to NYPD Blue for more cats later.

alternately, more - we hit them now. This allows the people who survive to stay in the city, on the hill, making them much, much tougher on defense.

If he goes to the tile with a triangle, we'll have only 9 cats that can hit him, but that's ok - we can wait. If he goes to any of the others, we can hit him with 10 cats.

Thoughts?

Other things:


That's a barb city down there, right where I want a city. Boy, I'd like to be able to take that right now...

[AutomatedTeller]

k - my current plan is:

Build chariot in NYPD Blue and LA Law
Upgrade archer in NCIS -> LB.
Build LB in Magnum PI
3 workers to LA Law

If they attack, all is well and good and we just kill 'em. if they do not attack, we go out and kill 'em.

A-Team whips in the mace for the overflow.

(changed the build/upgrade to xbow to LB)

[AutomatedTeller]

I also offered the Feudalism for Drama/Music deal that Cornflakes offered before - a theater would be useful in SWAT, for instance.


We'll have:

4 maces
10-12 LB
2 xbow
3 pikes
9 catapults
5 chariots

to hit his stack. The number of LB depends partly on where his chariots end up - if they can take a city, we won't use the last LB...

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy offered peace if we gave him feudalism.

We declined, deciding to destroy his stack, instead.

I'll post detail pics later, but we lost 9 catapults, a mace and 3 chariots. he lost 10 elephants, 7 catapults, an axe and a chariot. (our chariots accounted for 2 elephants, btw) We also gained not 1, but 2 GG. he can kill some of our units - none of his units were promoted, so they will heal, and he has 2 elephants, 5 axes and 2 chariots left. 2 of the pikes didn't attack at all - one killed a chariot he sent out on it's own - it's dead next turn - he'll hit it with an axe and it will fall over, so that is a for sure loss.


From my rough calculations, our expected losses were what we got - 32 attacks, 19 successes, 13 losses. The catapults were unlucky - we should have had 2 survive, I think, but none did, but then, the LB attacks on his cats were lucky - we should have lost 1 or 2 and we did not. Hammer wise, that's an even trade (50->50) - overall, I'm just as happy to face no collateral. Also, many of those LB were upgrades, which leverages our strength (money and tech).

Anyway - the invasion is basically over, except for the cleanup. Like I said - pics later.

oh - I settled one GG in NYPD Blue - need to think about what to do with the other. Also, need to think about whether we want to kill Jowy or continue to expand peacefully.

[AutomatedTeller]

Jowy's peace offer:



I declined

I thought I took pics of the situation before the attack, including the forces, etc. I did not, however.

This is the situation after 9 catapults attacks (6 of which had barrage):



We've lost all 9 catapults... but it doesn't really matter. At this point, his elephants are beat to hell and are easy targets for the maces, though I did lose one mace, the crossbows (3 of them) and the LB's (10 of them) Chariots go in to clean up and manage to kill 2. Somewhere along the line, I killed an axe, as well. And I knock off that extra chariot with a pike, so it can't go kill Magnum, PI.

his stack:



A far cry from the rather intimidating stack that showed up a week ago.

late note: I didn't notice that one of his chariots managed to take NO damage at all. Musta been hiding behind the elephants or something. the other one is beat up pretty good.

My stack:



My predictions as to his respose:

Kill the 4 isolated units. Pillage a farm and road. Delete the rest of the units.

Alternately, kill the pike and LB and move closer to NCIS or Magnum, PI, forcing me to come after his stack, allowing him more time to build defenses.

I am not sure which I would prefer - we are out of catapults and he'll double heal his elephants. that said, more xp and GG points is always good - as a charismatic civ, I like war

btw, Commodore - this is why i didn't need to pay you to go to war Of course, I'm kind of surprised you haven't declared anyway... my guess is that you will in the next 2 turns, though...

[AutomatedTeller]

And, the event log (post catapults, which is just 9 catapults dying and doing collateral damage)




This is a list of the attacks, the odds on those attacks, and the results:



My expected losses with those odds is 13, and I had 13 losses. My luck was in where those losses occured, really - not having to face collateral in his response is nice.

I'll post more about other things in the civ later.

[Fintourist]

Now what?

[AutomatedTeller]

Now what?

That's a good question.

Part of me thinks we should continue peaceful expansion - there are a couple of good spots still, and a lot of marginal ones. And while we just laid a serious blow to Jowy, attacking him, we will run into similar issues he ran into - which is that he can whip out catapults. and an attacking army can run into serious issues if it hits enough catapults, plus he still has SoZ.

Part of me thinks it's time to punish Jowy, of course - we have a solid tech lead, so why not? We should be able to take Horizon pretty easily in 5 or 6 turns - holding it might be harder, of course. And we could set up a raid to get Noveria (which now has an elephant in it, btw).

I think what we'll do for the next few turns is finish off Jowy's force, finish off some improvements and interrupted builds (a settler, for one) and figure out what to do with the other GG, heal the army and rebuild some catapult forces and scout out that barb city on the SE coast. And figure out what we expect the next 50 turns or so to do.

My guess is that we should try to see cornflakes as an ally or at least a neutral, while isolating commodore, who isn't on the top of the charts in any way except # of cities, which makes him very dangerous. I'd like to see Cornflakes go back after commodore (which I'm sure he's itching to do, anyway). Part of what will happen will depend on what scouts see in cornflakes land, too.

[AutomatedTeller]

A few leftover things:



Jowy has reinforced Noveria - though, now that I think of it, I think he built that there. He doens't have engineering, so he couldn't have moved that from Citadel. So, the raid idea is still quite possible - he's building units, not reinforcing.

I took the opportunity to finish of NE, since it really had to be done at some time and things were less crazy:



Yay Academy!!

Or a bulb - not sure.

My builds:



I had whipped in the lighthouse in V.
CHiPS, btw, is actually building a forge, I changed it after I took this pic.
SWAT is builidng a theater, because you have to entertain the troops!! seriously, I'm trying to get the pigs back.

The settler in NCIS was interrupted, rudely, by Jowy - time to finish it off, as is the Misisonary in Magnum.

M*A*S*H is building a trireme for defense against the commodore.