[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Hmm.. We only have 10-12 hitters that are approaching Infrared. I can see already 11 units from Mardoc in the area. What will our odds be like after we have bombarded defenses down in Infrared and suicided couple of cats against LBs? I'm afraid that we might come a bit short unless we really get 90+ % odds in every fight and manage to leave just trash behind. Trash means something that we can easily clean up next turn along with maybe 1/2 reinforcement LBs with our lightly wounded units. Sacrificing a bunch of cats, falling short and then retreating sounds a lot worse than proposing peace, using 10 turns to finish Azza off and coming back with 30+ units in 10 turns.

Losing those extra 5 knights for constant weak rolls really really sucks. I mean it really sucks. (btw Zed, this is me ranting ) It seems that those losses might be exactly the amount of power that separates a quick nice win from long costly war. F*ck this is annoying.

[TheHumanHydra]

, Fintourist.

I'd go knights in both cities, Harry. And yeah, 10 turns of peace to build units starts to sound appealing, though of course Mardoc gets to do the same.

Watch out for HAs staging to hit Carrot on that one fogged tile.

[Old Harry]

Turn 139

First up we kill this chariot (taking one hit). Sorry BGN, we tried to warn you . We left the HA alive as it wasn't poised to threaten/scout us.


To make it up I offered him a symbolic 30 gold for peace (this isn't saying anything about NAPs or whatever, it's just how much a chariot costs in hammers). We'll have to see if he takes it, if he doesn't it's not that big a deal for us.


After moving this Cat to be safe from BGN's remaining HA I thought to check Azza's city - he's hooked some horses . We'll get a Longbow from Lucky boated over to help Veggies in case of aggression, but he'd have moved it already if he was going to...


Over on the Mardoc frontier we captured some workers that were about to chop this forest. The Knight only gets 33% against the Longbow in Communist and we can expect another unit whipped this turn, so I'd guess we'll pillage and run.


We moved up more units and did a bit of pillaging and all our surviving Knights will be full strength again next turn.


But really we're overstretched now, so we offered Mardoc white peace. I dunno if he'll take it but if he does we can actually finish Azza off then come back for Mardoc with Cuirs or Cavalry.

[TheHumanHydra]

Zucchini and Yam are of course just as vulnerable as Veggies is, so I hope you'll watch out for them too.

I'm actually surprised you offered peace so quickly; I thought you'd want to hash it out a bit more. That's okay though.

[Fintourist]

I'm actually surprised you offered peace so quickly; I thought you'd want to hash it out a bit more. That's okay though.

Yeah, might have been unnecessary. If Mardoc does not accept, it's completely fine and I think we move our stack N of THH hill next turn and then take Red (It allows us to create a bigger stack as reinforcements arrive, Infrared simply has so many bodies meaning that attacking isn't riskless and dancing around Red keeps our stack closer to our own borders --> it will be easier to react if Azza tries something). I don't think Mardoc will be able to do much against that, he has some interesting moves like threatening Carrot, but we should have counters for those.

The reason why we offered peace is that now that we were only able to take DP+Orange+kill his big stack, but not take Red+Infrared due to -reasons, Mardoc has already had enough time to whip his empire down and there is not so much to gain in pushing immediately forward. If Mardoc accepts peace we could make our life a bit more comfortable in our backlines by finishing Azza off and we could then come back in 10 turns and keep pushing forward with a new wave of units. That sounds simply like a bit easier life. However, if I would be Mardoc, I would not accept the peace though (what's there to gain for him expect making us lose as many hammers as possible?) so I don't think you need to worry. I think the plan must be to first take Red, as it is more or less already available, then gather a bit bigger stack so that we can take Infrared, which gives us the control we want from the continent. Then we take a deep breath and finish Azza off, and finally take Mardoc's remaining cities gradually one by one. This should all be realistic, but it requires us (OH ) doing correct tactical decisions so that we don't give unnecessary openings for Azza & Mardoc, and of course that our series of bad rolls eventually stops.

[Old Harry]

I'm not sure that targeting Red over Infrared is the correct strategic decision here - if we can take the capital then that splits him in two, meaning we can manage his forces in easier chunks. If we take Red then he's still got his whole empire intact and pumping units into the capital while we've got three culture-crushed cities to defend from both sides. Razing Red gives us more room to breathe, so I could go for that, but I think capturing it would be a mistake.

Tactically though Infrared is a tougher nut to crack than Red.
Next turn:
- We can move our stack to the hill next to Infrared
- We move our extra Cats, a Pike and a Knight to THHill
- He can hit our trailing Cats but I don't think he will as he needs to pack units into the city
Turn 141:
- Bombard Infrared's walls with five Cats
- Add the extra Cats to the stack
- Mardoc can make a move to threaten Broccoli and Carrot, we'll have small quantities of reinforcements in the area, essentially a mace and an axe in each with a knight for extra cover - again I think he'll keep his main forces in Infrared
- He could attack out with his Cat, we'll have our supermedic in place to heal any damage done
Turn 142:
- Find the tipping point for bombard/collateral and CHARGE! or spend another turn bombarding the 40% culture. I hope he doesn't build walls as they'll slow the bombardment down somewhat. Without walls on the first turn five Cats take the defenses down to 60/100 (24%) then second turn seven cats take it down to 4/100 (1%), with walls that is 80/100 (40%) and 52/100 (26%)
- If we don't have enough hitters to take the city this turn we'll promo heal and take it next turn. We're first in turn order so unless he turns autopromote on we'll face the same injured units...
Turn 143:
- Profit

Whereas Red should be straightforward.
Next turn:
- Move all units to SE of Red
Turn 141:
- Bombarding is less effective due to walls, so perhaps we suicide cats until we're happy with the odds, or we bombard then use a sacrificial Mace, Axe or Knight to get good odds for our main hitters
- Whatever happens we take the city
Turn 142:
- Profit

Even so I'd still rather take Infrared. Perhaps I'll get a chance to run a sim to give us a better idea of what's likely to happen at the walls of Infrared.

[Fintourist]

Quickly:
- If you believe that we can take Infrared, I'm all for it, but I think doing some simming would be highly beneficial before we move in next turn.
- I think there is something weird with your bombardment calculations, AFAIK, cats do -8 %, not -8 HP. So if Infrared is still at 40 % and no walls, our 5 cats will be enough to remove all the cultural defenses. Assuming Mardoc builds Walls, we will get it down to 30 % on the first turn with 5 cats and down to 2 % on the 2nd turn with 7 cats.

[Old Harry]

Quickly:
- If you believe that we can take Infrared, I'm all for it, but I think doing some simming would be highly beneficial before we move in next turn.
- I think there is something weird with your bombardment calculations, AFAIK, cats do -8 %, not -8 HP. So if Infrared is still at 40 % and no walls, our 5 cats will be enough to remove all the cultural defenses. Assuming Mardoc builds Walls, we will get it down to 30 % on the first turn with 5 cats and down to 2 % on the 2nd turn with 7 cats.

I was remembering attacking a castle instead of walls , so five cats will take down 40% culture . If he does build walls then 12 cat-turns gets it down to 2%. I dunno if I'll have time for simming tonight but should be able to tomorrow.

[Old Harry]

This is a fairly reasonable guess at what Mardoc can have in his cap by the time we get there (another Longbow or two and an extra Welly) and without another three Knights I don't think we can break through it.

[Fintourist]

This is a fairly reasonable guess at what Mardoc can have in his cap by the time we get there (another Longbow or two and an extra Welly) and without another three Knights I don't think we can break through it.

Yeah, that's what I thought and why I'm cursing so much about losing those 5 extra knights..

Aaanyways, do we go for:
Keep dancing, take Red, take Infrared a bit later with a stack that mardoc can't defend against?
Or
Retreat into orange and wait for reinforcements and then take Infrared
Or
Red-> azza -> rest of mardoc
Or something else?

In any case all scenarios require us to keep building units (while obviously maintaining a competitive economy). That's no problem though. As discussed, this game is always war for us until the bitter end. Somehow this game is still alive, so better have fun before it crashes and go for domination victory instead of some boring culture/space attempt with our current land + limited add-ons. I'm disappointed if we will ever be in peace again and having only one conflict ongoing is probably almost too little as well :P

On a work trip currently, probably can't respond more than very quickly before tomorrow evening.

For simming