[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[Mardoc]

I meant that visible ring around their territory. That's from a Wonder, right?

Oh! Yeah, that's the Great Wall. 150h, doubled by stone, +100% Great General points inside owner's territory, and +2 Great Spy GPP/turn. And culture. Fairly cheap, modest but real benefits.

In other news, I have a turn sitting, waiting and taunting me. But at least TT relieved some of my curiosity:

Twinkleto​es89: it appears the showdown is upon us...
Sent at 10:48 AM on Monday
me: was wondering - did you hit my stack again?
Twinkleto​es89: 2 cats
1 withdrew
me: yeah, time for exciting turns
well - in 6-8 hours. Gotta do work first
Twinkleto​es89: enjoy!

If I'm lucky, the collateral from these new attacks mostly hit undamaged units and will also heal IBT. But I think it's probably time to go in, regardless.

The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny! Or something like that, anyway. If I win, then the war is probably into mop up, if I don't then...pain ensues.

[Mardoc]

Moment of truth. IBT, Twinkle did hit us with two catapults. Surprisingly, each only did collateral to 3 units? Collateral is random?


Here's what we're up against:


And here's the army that'll hopefully crack that nut. It's surprisingly healthy, really - I thought the extra catapults would have done more.

[Krill]

I think you lose 6 cats, 4HA and an axe.

[Krill]

Also, care to mail me the save? You should have my email address.

[Mardoc]

First up, the catapults need to go in. Definitely promoting City Raider first - the main trick is going to be shifting those Gallic Warriors.

0.7% without...2.7% with

And the result is excellent First shot and we've already got a quarter of a marquee unit's health removed. Plus an awful lot of collateral.




Same odds with #2, but this one fails to scratch the top defender . Still a lot of damage to the rest of the stack, at least.



Third also fails to scratch the top defender, but at least one of the collateral ticks goes on the wounded Gallic Swordsman.

The fourth one finally manages to scratch him:


It'll hopefully be all downhill from here. Looking at what Twinkle's got left, I'm glad I waited for the second wave of cats, though - this would have been a massacre otherwise.

@Krill - should be in your inbox. Be interesting to see if you can do better than me.

[Mardoc]

However, the Gallic Sword continues his heroic stand, eating the fifth catapult without a scratch. The sixth, last of my cats with XP, finally manages to knock him down another couple pegs...just in time for the last of them to have some semi-decent odds.



At this point, none of Twinkle's stack is undamaged, but the best non-cat odds I can get are still only ~20%. Glad I've got some more cats

Seventh and eighth go in, neither surviving. At this point Twinkle gets his first profit - and remember, we haven't actually killed anything yet.



On the other hand, that wounded archer is now the top defender. Last cat also dies, although not before knocking that archer down a few more steps. Not a single cat survived, despite Krill's prediction. Although, to be fair, the last one had retreat odds well into the 40's, and if he'd had a City Raider promo like Krill assumed, those odds would probably have been more like 70%.

So, we're left with a wounded stack, and a bunch of Horse Archers and Axes to start collecting repayment for those lost catapults:



Here, we get our first bit of noticeable luck: the first two HA both win 40% odds fights, and the third withdraws safely, birthing our own Great General:



Doubly lucky because - um...why are the HA going in first, Mardoc? There's only four axes and two Gallic warriors protecting those spears, while you have 8 axes. Wouldn't you rather take out top spears with axemen, not HA? I think it's time to swap lead regiments.

[DaveV]

Moment of truth. IBT, Twinkle did hit us with two catapults. Surprisingly, each only did collateral to 3 units? Collateral is random?

As I understand it, the game randomly picks 6 units from the stack for collateral. If they're immune to collateral (e.g. catapults), then there's no collateral damage for that roll. So if half your stack is catapults, you'd expect collateral to three units.

[Mardoc]

Ok, so after the RNG rescued me from a bit of , let's see how the axes do, shall we?

First one dies to an axe, while the second kills..an archer? Right, right, those also will defend ahead of spears. Maybe I wasn't quite as stupid as I look, maybe the HA were destined to fight spears regardless. Odds are already up into the 60% range for the axemen .

Ok, too early to celebrate. Lose four more of them by the time the axes are all done fighting. Enemy stack looks like this:



after throwing in the rest.

The rest of the battle is fairly dull, really, with one bit of excitement: Zhuge Liang is also born to us:



A lot more dying on both sides, and I come up a few units short



I *think* I can finish those off next turn. I've got a lot of survivors myself, and even if those promo-heal, mine can too. I wish I'd managed to scrape up a few more units, though.



After debating for a bit, I pull Durkon's garrison to help cover the stack. I don't want to lose these veterans if I can possibly save them, and Twinkle has no two-movers who could possibly reach. Wish I'd thought to bring the archers along - they'd have 95% odds if they attacked now, but of course by the time they can attack, Twinkle will have healed up. Still, rather lose some 0XP archers IBT than 10 XP HA.

And, with an inconclusive battle complete, it's time to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of the empire. Especially these two Great Generals. I lean toward settling one in Elan and one in Roy, to allow 5 XP non-mounted units (like, oh, city raider II catapults). Along with 7 XP HA, but that's not terribly different from 5 XP HA.

[Mardoc]

Mundanities:
The tundra pillaging party is still on its way. I hope I don't fail to take Gergovia next turn for want of a HA, but some backlines action does seem important too. That said, I just noticed that I won't be able to deprive TT of iron that easily after all:



Decided to only settle one GG for the moment.

And, built 2 more HA and 2 more catapults at EOT. Looks like I'll be needing them .

[Commodore]

Hardcore.


Could have been cleaner, but that's a lot of dead Celts.