in brief - Jowy suicided his troops, plundered roads and deleted everything left. He then asked for a cease fire, which I declined (to be precise, civ crashed)
We need workers, so I have dialed some up. We need healing, so we are. Jowy switched back to slavery.
I'd like to kick Jowy's butt, but I am not sure we have the force to do so. Caught sight of a stack of cornflakes heading up to do battle with azza - maces, cats, axes. Presumably, azza is heavy on crossbows.
So, pics:
I had forgotten that Balista elephants attack horse units if they are around, so instead of impaling himself on the pike, he kileld a chariot. I could have moved them out of the way if I had thought about it
Accepting a ceasefire means that this blockade is no longer valid, so screw it.
I'd be willing to take peace, if he'll offer HBR and Horizon. Which he won't, of course.
Not that my stack is going to go anyway - pretty pathetic, huh?
It'll heal up and just be kind of pathetic... I'm going to build workers. I do have a settler coming - I don't know where it goes, though.
Cornflakes assault force on Azza - good luck, Azza!!
debating sending him some help - whip in an xbow or so...
No, but the charts are a turn behind the actual game, remember.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I guess that we got the expected outcome, I was hoping for more of a one-sided victory. Too bad the RNG gods didn't favour us more. We might have to make a sacrifice in the future before such large battles.
I'm going to continue to advocate a military solution against Jowy. We're not in the same boat as Jowy. Jowy lost on this invasion despite having the element of surprise because:
1. He had lesser military tech. We do not.
2. He had to go through fortress LALaw.
3. He had to wander his army on flat grasslands.
Continuing on with that. We need Horizon either through settlement or through military action. If we move soon, and we can take it by turning that GG into a Medic III (not a Chariot, we've seen them get targetted).
Regarding Jowy's vunerablity.
1. In a sense Jowy's not vunerable in that he can produce units to match us
2. Tactically he's extremely vunerable. See below for forking opportunities
3. He's lost a lot of unit and he doesn't have good defensive replacements. Even if we just feint, every whip he does right now are not LBs, (still no maces or Crossbows either?). Elephants can't defend against CR maces. We should investigate his funds to determine if he can cash upgrade like we did.
And SSWW LALaw. That opens up alot of tactics for us either now or in the future.
1. Fork Eden Prime and Rannoch. Get some Woody II/ Woody III maces up here. A Woody III mace with 50% bonus on attack will eat alive any carelessly wandering ballistaphants. That plus another 2 units (Pikes can also take Woody II promotion I belive) and we can keep those forests from being chopped. We lost a fair number of cats on flatland, imagine how many cats he'd need to put it to us on forest. And he just doesn't have them right now.
2. From SSWW LALaw we build a fort 1 W. From there we can 1 turn Eden prime or Citadel.
2.1 The Eden Prime Landing Point means that Jowy can only reinforce from Thessia (which is really unlikely he's got troops there) The other likely reinforcement point would be a stack in the area of our point #1 woody units or SSS of Eden Prime. If there aren't sufficient defenders we get a green light for the attack, collateral and raze. Now if Jowy loses Eden Prime, how on earth would he defend Rannoch? He couldn't, we get to keep that city.
2.2 Citadel landing point is forestted. So we're good there. Again, a Thessia stack can't make it in time to defend. Only SSS Eden Prime can get there in time.
2.3 If we don't like what we see, we go for the 2nd move, yellow landing point. Take his border city.
Overall, this is an undefendable front that Jowy has with us. Those unchopped forest won't be there forever and his culture will take SSWW of LALaw in time. So this window of opportunity will close.
The CIV consolidation period is beginning soon. Cornflakes will eat Azza at some point. Commodore will leverage his 15 cities in the future to gain further land; probably Jowy's. TT has ridiculous mfg (is that a Golden Age I hope?). Going back to builder mode won't cut it against those 2 or 3 long-term.
Question: What do you mean by helping Azza and whip in a Crossbow? You're not thinking of gifting a unit are you?
I think that you were right earlier in trying to see Cornflakes as an ally. Let's not undermine that with actions towards a civ that won't be around much longer. Azza is probably past the point of providing a reasonable defense against Cornflakes at this point.
Once Cornflakes takes out Azza, he'll be huge enough that his main worry will be shutting down his main Commodore competition. Let's play nice with Cornflakes and hope that the Cornflakes-Commodore rivalry takes its natural course.
If Jowy doesn't accept a Horizon for peace deal, then we need to tech HBR and Guilds.
Those initial, undefendable forks can capture follow up cities if there are Knights in the stack.
Lastly, if you're worried about going up against Jowy on his own land, don't be. He just doesn't have the army right now. Worse, he hasn't displayed the tactical mindset necessary to defend the front that he's got. Really good players probably couldn't defend that front,....they'd make sure that they weren't in that position to begin with. Jowy's lack of city plants on Lake Erie suggest that he's not aware of the extent of his vunerability and can likely be taken by surprise even in a hot war.
Just to reiterate how difficult it will be for Jowy to defend, I was playing once in SP and the AI showed up with a naval stack invasion. Luckily the AI dithered around (much like Jowy did ) and didn't strike fast enough, but it was brutal trying to protecting 3-5 cities against forking. You just can't do it. You have to abandon some cities. And that game was me on an island,...Jowy's also got Commodore and TT to worry about.
We poke at the weak spots and then hold with protective LBs. Attack now (when healed by GG Medic III), and he's whipping his cities to the ground but getting crap units.
yes, I'm thinking of gifitng azza a unit. Cornflakes will never know - Azza can make xbows and, presumably, has a lot.
I'd like Cornflakes to not be an enemy, but we've been feeding azza tech for sometime now , so more help is fine...
Actually, if azza goes, my guess is that Cornflakes will attempt to expand peacefully into that territory - there's a lot up there.
I should be clear - I want to kill jowy I'm more worried about being able to do it.
We can take Horizon - we'll have 5 maces and a stack of LB/xbow. We'll can make 5-10 cats in the next set of turns.
We can hold Horizon - we'll have CG III LB.
We'll get a ton of war weariness from all this, btw - taking a city gives lots of weariness and we'll be fighting in territory that Jowy has cultural dominance over for many, many turns.
We need workshops, and lots of them, to raise our manfactuing base.
My thoughts are:
Next turn, offer peace for Horizon and HBR. if he takes it, good. If he counters with HBR, we should consider it. If he counters with Horizon, take it. if he counters with straight up peace - I don't see why we should take that.
Have LA Law and NYPD Blue make catapults - ATeam makes a worker, then cats/maces. Settle the other GG in A-Team.
Make a couple of workboats for whales - trade the extra to Azza for Gold going forward. We'll run into happy issues without it.
I don't know where to settle - I think we should add another city over by SWAT, to bolster the defense against cornflakes. All those are fairly mediocre sites, however.
I want knights, too, but Jowy is the worst guy to attack with knights. Ballista elephants will shred those guys - remember, no hiding behind pikes against Baliista Elephants.
My main worries with your ideas are:
Size of forces needed.
Timeframes
Building a fort in what I think is a tile that Jowy currently owns.
Any way that we can warn azza? Within ethical bounds of course; not sure what those bounds are.
Can we provide him unit count intel and composition?
Copper + Zombie for Iron + 16 gold. Probably not worth it since he'll see the stack next turn if he hasn't already.
What's up with those unchopped forests? Just asking for trouble. Does Azza have Feudialism? Whew, tough call on whether we'd want to gift it to him or not. Cornflakes tied up is good; Cornflakes hating us more than he hates Commodore winning is BAD.
I think we sold him feudalism for money, gpt and gold - I'm not sure.
I think we decided that we didn't want to play those kinds of game - just AI diplo + ability to declare war and stop trading. besides - I think we are going to find that Azza is tougher than he seems - I don't really know what that stack will accomplish against 5 or 6 crossbows - in fact, I think that many crossbows will kill all the catapults, though i'm not sure. Plus, of course, Praets.
My guess is that those forests around Zombie aren't there, btw - I can't actually see them, remember.
Actually, Azza can see them now - he owns that peak.
![[Image: t144interturn.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68908721/Pitboss9/t144interturn.JPG)
![[Image: t144blockade.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68908721/Pitboss9/t144blockade.JPG)
![[Image: t144thestack.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68908721/Pitboss9/t144thestack.JPG)
![[Image: t144cornflakess.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68908721/Pitboss9/t144cornflakess.JPG)
![[Image: t144power.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68908721/Pitboss9/t144power.JPG)
) and didn't strike fast enough, but it was brutal trying to protecting 3-5 cities against forking. You just can't do it. You have to abandon some cities. And that game was me on an island,...Jowy's also got Commodore and TT to worry about. 
, so more help is fine...