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

[Serdoa]

Can you post what you and Jowy each have in their stack?

[MindyMcCready]

I moved in.

I think that this is going to end horribly - the raid is clearly blown in a way I don't understand. I think Jowy is gonna smash my stack.

Unless he's showing a lot more troops than earlier I'm not that worried about him smashing our stack. He's been trickling in troops for several turns now, which suggests that he's not hiding much. Now that last couple of turns worth of troops is in Citadel and Noveria,...so that's good for our chances at taking Eden Prime.

So let's sail the LBs in there to start pillaging those mines. These units should be moving in a pair. LB moves, G3 LB cuts roads or pillages. Let's keep the 2 Knights, GG and galley on standby. If Jowy starts to believe that this little feint has no teeth, then we move in the 2 knights to see if we can pick up an easy win.

TT's power isn't really close to ours yet, which is the saving grace - we can't handle a 2 front war, so there's no way we can handle a 3 front one.

Now as for TT, THAT ROAD NN OF RANNOCH NEEDS TO BE CUT!!!!! Please stop inviting TT for free cities. Our army is 3T away from ALF/Horizon. TT's army is also 3T away from ALF. If he moves first, we cannot protect our entry point into this region. So long as that road remains there, TT can nearly effortlessly shut us down our entry points into the region before we can react. You are taking the most *hugest* of risks, presumably to save on a few worker turns for our culture to take that area.

For the cost of 6-8 units TT can totally shut us down. He'd be stupid not to do it.

If you remove that road, he's unlikely to take a stab at us, but instead wait the turns and the pick up Jowy's cities. Let's direct his army at Jowy instead of us.

On that tech trade. In no way shape or form should you trade away your cards for Education while we don't have Gunpowder. Just don't do it. And on that note, I sense the builder in you trying to exert itself again while our army is in foreign lands. How does Constitution or Banking help us with CF, TT and Jowy compared to pushing for Cuirassiers? We're just way too threatened right now to be pushing for builder techs that we can't leverage by building. Lets research the war techs, because we could be horribly caught offside without them, and then trade those for economic tech if we feel comfortable doing so.

And, it really doesn't matter, because cornflakes has a huge freaking army and I think they are coming for us. He's begun scouting out defenses and we don't have enough to hold him off - maybe I should close borders, I dunno.

So Azza bit the bullet without inflicting pain on Cornflakes? Disappointing, but unfortunately, not surprising for Azza. He did reasonably well in PB8 after getting caught unprepared. Not the case here?

Anyway, CF pulled out of the region. That doesn't mean that he's not coming after us, in any way. What it means is that CF recognizes that trying to take and hold our cities is useless/futile so long as SWAT exists. So long as SWAT exists, we can effectively counterattack and he's going to be in a long, drawn out, game-killing war. At best he can set us back by razing a couple of cities, but that gets him a lifelong enemy without moving himself forward. So long as its not too easy for him, he shouldn't want to do that.

So SWAT must be where we make our stand. Mindy's Moai and whatever other cities must be abandonned if it means saving SWAT. If SWAT holds, 120H later we can rebuild those cities. If SWAT doesn't hold then we've got a very difficult front to protect, having our troops on either side of Lake Blue. Essentially, if it comes to it, we have to cede control of the region until we're more prepared to exert military force into the area or some opportunity presents itself.

So start whipping now and get those troops into SWAT. Make CF recognize that he going to have to burn every last one of his catapults on a 3rd or 4th place power (let's stay at 4th place if we have any ability to do so) to take that city while letting Commodore run away with the game.

We have nationalism right? I really think that it's time to make the switch. Drafted Maces on the SWAT hill will hold against pretty much anything and I think that we have enough medium sized cities to make drafting attractive. Let's work hard on a Gunpowder deal with TT if we can swing it or else research the tech ourselves if not. Our CGI/CGII muskets will make life very difficult for CF's ambitions.

Now about that Great Person. I really don't want to burn it especially assuming that Nationalism is only a 1T revolution. We've crept into 3rd place. I'd be much happier in 4th place and a Golden age is going to hurt that. If we sat in 4th place while picking up Jowy's cities and a bunch of that land, we'd be in a really strong position to win the game. If we could get and hold these cities, then we'd run a builder-GA.

[MindyMcCready]

If Jowy doesn't attack out or move his troops then I think that we should strip his defenses before going in.

The most likely response from Jowy, and in many was the worst for us, is that Jowy abandons Eden Prime and retreats to Thessia or Citadel rather than making a stand there. If he chooses to stand up to our catapults, that would be awesome for us.

We then have to decide what to do with Eden Prime. If we keep Eden Prime, then Jowy can road and attack us from several angles and could easily have the army to do so. The hill SSEE would be an ideal place for him to stage an attack so we'd have to hold that tile.

Looking at it now, if Jowy retreats then I say that we raze Eden Prime (looks like his culture might not control the tile? reestablish) and advance on Citadel. This will be much easier to do if the LBs can hold those hills and we can approach on defensive land.

We could try to hold Eden Prime, but it could get a little messy if he gets catapults in there instead of just defensive troops. That also means that we put the war on hold until we can get cultural control of the tiles around Eden Prime or enough units to qualify as overwhelming numbers. Maybe that would be ok. We could still make a fast strike at Thessia with our incoming Knights.

[MindyMcCready]

Let me retract that last post about stripping defenses and possibly razing Eden Prime. I don't know how many Knights we're currently sitting with to make an informed decision there. Still, with TT and CF poking around, I'd like to avoid a sharp drop in power if we can avoid it and there's a fair chance that Jowy abandons Eden Prime without firing a shot. Good for WW and good for maintaining our power level.

Also reconsidering the gunpowder. TT's intentions will be betrayed by the deals that he cuts with 2metra and us. Neither of us currently have gunpowder. So it seems like he's leaving his doors open on which way to send his Muskateers.

There's a pretty good chance that, if TT doesn't sell it to 2metra, then 2metra will research it himself for his combat with Commodore. Let's watch for opportunities there. Maybe gunpowder will become a competitive market.

Rgarding the tech trade that TT is currently trying to stick you with,...if someone offers a good deal you should probably take it when you get the chance. Foreign policy can change in the course of 5T and I think that we're seeing that here. Thankfully we have Nationalism right?

Lastly, maybe Jowy saved us. If we simultaneously took Eden Prime and razed Citadel, then CF and TT would have every reason to believe that we're a game contender and want to take us down a notch. By not doing this we've probably saved ourselves a few turns to get prepared or deter a Cornflakes initiative. See, silver lining in that cloud.

[AutomatedTeller]

strip defenses, yes, probably. Jowy, btw, offered peace for just compass and guilds last turn, not asking for Paper.

Have to think about raze vs. hold. Killing Jowy is a priority - I kind of think we should have razed Rannoch now, since we have a fair amount of forces having to hold it, since losing it is bad for us. that said - I'd much prefer to keep his cities.

I'd consider straight up peace if he'd offer it, since he's a tough nut and cornflakes is very dangerous, but he's not going to do that.

[MindyMcCready]

So Jowy's not on auto-offer? He's actually changing his offer.

Well dropping Paper suggests that, although still delusional, he doesn't think that he can hold Eden Prime.

The question on stripping defenses and/or razing Eden Prime is based on the other question: "If Jowy retreats to Citadel, can we survive a counter attack."

Scenario 1: Strip defenses. Jowy retreats to Citadel [p>=70% chance in my mind]. Can we survive his counter attack?
Scenario 2: Strip defenses. Jowy doesn't retreat. [p< 30%] Destroy Jowy's army, lose our catapults + some troops. Can we hold Eden prime? Yes.
Sceanrio 3: Don't strip defenses. Destroy Jowy's army, destroy our own. Can we hold Eden Prime? If we have any troops left, I'd say yes. [up to us, and the RNG gods]
Scenario 4: Don't strip defenses. Jowy holds, well we're screwed anyway. [up to us and the RNG gods]
Scenario 5: Jowy attacks out. If he only has the cats that we can see, then we should survive and then just roll him up with our Knights.

[AutomatedTeller]

I'd say we can probably survive his counter - I mean, if he's not able to kill us in the open field, how will he kill us in a city? The offensive might get stalled at Eden Prime, though.

if I'm him, I stay in the city and hope that our army wrecks itself badly enough that we cna't take it, which is more than possible, or that we back off in fear of cornflakes.


oh - and I'll post the stacks tonight as we bombard. I dind't grab them last night, since they haven't changed much.

[MindyMcCready]

I'd say we can probably survive his counter - I mean, if he's not able to kill us in the open field, how will he kill us in a city?

Well the difference is that he buys time and comes at us with more catapults.

The offensive might get stalled at Eden Prime, though.

if I'm him, I stay in the city and hope that our army wrecks itself badly enough that we cna't take it, which is more than possible, or that we back off in fear of cornflakes.

Really? I'm thinking that its only going to take 1T to strip his defenses. (Man, I've never had to pay that much attention to how much culture gets removed with SP, so here come some newb questions,...).

Question/Assumption 1: We can strip his defenses in 1T without promoting to Accuracy? -8% culture times the 8 catapults that we're showing? Or at least close enough to stripped.

If 1 holds true, we're sitting there with 4 CRII catapults + 4 other catapults (CRI/CR2?) and near equal number of hitting troops. Those cats are hitting at 7.25 versus 10.2 + FS for a CGI fully fortified LB with no culture. I don't see how he can survive that. Sure he could survive 1 round depending, but our knights should have odds on either a full health LB (which there will be none) and even on a collateralled elephant.

So unless I'm missing something, or he's got a lot of troops in the fog (troop tracking suggests not) then this could be a pretty one-sided battle,... possibly lasting 2 turns, but still being one-sided.

Sure, we'll lose (most of?) our catapults. We need to replace them so in that sense, we're held up in Eden Prime anyway. Except some knights attack towards Thessia or (daringly) Ferros.

And I don't regret keeping Rannoch. That city is our future. That and Ferros if we can land it.

[MindyMcCready]

So the 8 catapults will do about 40 splashes of collateral damage across 17-20 units right?

And the collateral is 5-10% per hit? So the most likely scenario is that each unit is down by 15% meaning that the LBs defend at around 8.7? Except that 8 units, probably LBs, have been direct defenders against STR=7.25 catapults?

Fully fortified maces would defend at about 8.5? Hmmm, we're only showing 6 Str=8 units so I guess we could have some problems. It comes down to how many more units he has and how many Knights we have.

And you're right about him having less ability to kill us in a city. Those LBs are still top notch defenders.

[AutomatedTeller]

unless he builds walls, we can strip his defenses in 1 turn. The cats will be hitting a CG III LB, with either drill or C1, I think (his GG LB), but they'll hurt it pretty well.

That said - I think he's better off on defense than offense unless he has a stack of catapults somewhere I don't see. He can't really get good odds on stuff with 1 catapult and the LB defend better in a city than they do attacking.