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

[AutomatedTeller]

The withdrawal should work eveyrwhere, yes, like the WII 1st strikes apply everywhere. Of course, it doesn't apply on defense, which is a pain.

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, Jowy didn't whip or take a city.

[MindyMcCready]

Ok, so now to try to figure out what Jowy will be doing.

Assumption #1: Jowy's got another 6 units incoming from Ferros. Something scared TT out of the war. So I'm pencilling in 6 units, hopefully not cats, probably elephants.

That would put the units that we can see at about 21. 5 elephants, 2 axes, 1 mace, 4 LB, 1 archer 1 spear, 1 cat + 6 others.

In Rannoch we're showing 5 maces, + 3LB + 2CB + 2 Pikes + 4 cats for 16 units.
We also have 3 LBs, 1 cat, 1 chariot in the area + 2 HA inbound soon.
We also have incoming 2 maces + 1 pike + 2 cats incoming.
We also have the 4 units in BJ? I'm not sure if I'm double counting those troops or not.

So that's a pretty substantial number of units in place or inbound. We're better off relatively than I had anticipated or feared.

Jowy's going to be seeing 16 units in Rannoch and some of them hurt versus his 21 units (not all of which he can deploy into a battle). I think that he's going to take a stab at us, specifically at Rannoch. In fact I'll be somewhat surprised if he doesn't.

Right now we look pretty even from what Jowy can see of us and what we've pencilled in for Jowy. He probably can't commit more than 18 units to an attack, and the majority of his attackers would be elephants. He'd take the forest SE of Rannoch. IF we attack out with our 4 cats or if we defend with our 2 pikes and 3 LB and promoted maces, I think that we should stand up assuming that those 6 surprise units aren't catapults.

So we should start hiding our strenght to get Jowy to make an ill advised attack. He's thrown away 3 cats, so he doesn't appear to be simming his battles. If that happens we roll him up real quick with HA/Knights supported by W2 maces for protection. Speed will be the key if this scenario happens.

So let's hide our incoming troops in ER or behind ALF if we can.

We don't want to deter Jowy at this point. He's probably high on his success with TT and thinking that he has a decent chance at retaking Rannoch (which he sort of does).

[MindyMcCready]

Oh Jowy's got to cross the river if he take the forest 1SW of Rannoch. We've definately got 1 turn then.

If he's occupied that tile, our best move might be to take the jungle 1W of Rannoch.

EDIT: And Jowy's got cultural control behind Rannoch, so those roads will need to be cut.

Yeah, let jowy have the tile 1SW of Rannoch. That 25% penalty + of CG LB will make that a painful proposition. We should try to hold the other 2 forest/jungle tiles.

If we get those things done, than Rannoch is a reasonably defendable city, from Jowy at least.

[MindyMcCready]

By the way, I think that finishing off Jowy is a good path. Not just because we want him dead and we want to own his cities.

Continuing the war will keep our power high and that should deter TT and Cornflakes. They won't know (suspect sure) how out of position our troops might be. Their primary concern is that our fairly substantial power could be projected their way.

So metagame I think that this is a good call.

Also, we're in a fairly decent position in terms of cities and tech. Hopefully 10T we'll have closed some of the mfg gap. And we're in 4th place on the scoreboard which is perfectly placed. We might not need to burn the GP on a GA until we're ready to go into builder mode. Keeps our score low but our potential high.

[AutomatedTeller]

TT might have not have gotten scared off - he might have gotten 'oh, I can tech to gunpowder and draft a huge army of musketeers' off. or, he might have decided to expand into Azza's old space or knock on 2metra. I kind of thought that Azza's foray here was a little odd, anyway. Heck, he might have just gotten a huge amount of maintenance and said "eh... no thanks" He's not financial, like we are, and may not be able to handle that sort of thing.

OR... he just wanted to build Taj...

[AutomatedTeller]

Ok, so now to try to figure out what Jowy will be doing.

Assumption #1: Jowy's got another 6 units incoming from Ferros. Something scared TT out of the war. So I'm pencilling in 6 units, hopefully not cats, probably elephants.

That would put the units that we can see at about 21. 5 elephants, 2 axes, 1 mace, 4 LB, 1 archer 1 spear, 1 cat + 6 others.

In Rannoch we're showing 5 maces, + 3LB + 2CB + 2 Pikes + 4 cats for 16 units.
We also have 3 LBs, 1 cat, 1 chariot in the area + 2 HA inbound soon.
We also have incoming 2 maces + 1 pike + 2 cats incoming.
We also have the 4 units in BJ? I'm not sure if I'm double counting those troops or not.

I have no idea why TT left - it's hard to believe he had a big army at Ferros when we were threatening his core and he was abandonin cities.


yes, those are double counted - that's the 2 maces and 1 pike. Plus a GIII LB that couldn't unload.


So that's a pretty substantial number of units in place or inbound. We're better off relatively than I had anticipated or feared.

Jowy's going to be seeing 16 units in Rannoch and some of them hurt versus his 21 units (not all of which he can deploy into a battle). I think that he's going to take a stab at us, specifically at Rannoch. In fact I'll be somewhat surprised if he doesn't.

Right now we look pretty even from what Jowy can see of us and what we've pencilled in for Jowy. He probably can't commit more than 18 units to an attack, and the majority of his attackers would be elephants. He'd take the forest SE of Rannoch. IF we attack out with our 4 cats or if we defend with our 2 pikes and 3 LB and promoted maces, I think that we should stand up assuming that those 6 surprise units aren't catapults.

So we should start hiding our strenght to get Jowy to make an ill advised attack. He's thrown away 3 cats, so he doesn't appear to be simming his battles. If that happens we roll him up real quick with HA/Knights supported by W2 maces for protection. Speed will be the key if this scenario happens.

So let's hide our incoming troops in ER or behind ALF if we can.
We don't want to deter Jowy at this point. He's probably high on his success with TT and thinking that he has a decent chance at retaking Rannoch (which he sort of does).

Agree, except that he can't take rannoch without cat support, and a fair amount of it. Every attack is at low odds... and in so doing, he'll leave his entire civ open to being conquered.

If we can get him to commit at one of those places with his elephants (that don't get defensive bonuses, except across rivers), then we can smash his stack and roll into eden prime.

I think our next move is (unless Jowy did something unexpected) to pull into Rannoch and build up forces behind ALF.

[AutomatedTeller]

I think 2metra gave cornflakes a city. Why? i don't know.

[MindyMcCready]

I have no idea why TT left - it's hard to believe he had a big army at Ferros when we were threatening his core and he was abandonin cities.

Well we'll know soon enough unless he's hiding his power. Jowy's power has jumped up a fair bit and its not coming from population. Although I've never done the CD to know how much power might come from pop in this case. He also seemed comfortable with the defense of Eden Prime since he wasn't whipping so that suggests that he could have sent 'spare' units elsewhere once he realized that we weren't going to pay him for peace and that he's just giving his own cities away.

yes, those are double counted - that's the 2 maces and 1 pike. Plus a GIII LB that couldn't unload.

Thanks, I've broken out the spreadsheet here.

Agree, except that he can't take rannoch without cat support, and a fair amount of it. Every attack is at low odds... and in so doing, he'll leave his entire civ open to being conquered.

Here's hoping.

If we can get him to commit at one of those places with his elephants (that don't get defensive bonuses, except across rivers), then we can smash his stack and roll into eden prime.

I think our next move is (unless Jowy did something unexpected) to pull into Rannoch and build up forces behind ALF.

Agreed. Exciting! And while pillaging Citadel into the ground.

[MindyMcCready]

I checked back. On T152 (post 760) he was showing 2 more elephants than we can currently see. Other than those 2 elephants and the 3 cats he lost, its pretty much the same army as back then.
Since T152: -2 elephants + 1 Mace + 1 LB -3 cats + 1 cat.

So we can probably reduce the pencilled in amount to 2 elephants since the new mace, new LB and new cat are his reinforcements. But he has been whipping Thessia which is now size 7 I think.

So unless TT showed up with only Horse archers, we'd have to guess that he had other motivations for ending the war and giving away Rannoch.

So that doesn't change our estimate substantially. But, it does mean that he's less likely to take a stab at Rannoch.

Doesn't change anything for us in the near term.