Interesting developments: Dark Savant evacuated a lot of his units and moved them to Lakeside. Our island cities will need a better defense, it seems. I`m seriously considering hitting what`s left of his stack on the Iron tile.
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[SPOILERS] JR4 tries his luck in PB 37
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TURN 193
Do the lurkers want blood? Let`s give em what they want. As Dark Savant for some reason decided to retreat we suddenly had a chance of basically wiping the stack that was left. Our 5 Catapults dealt collateral, and then the carnage began. C3 Knight - Pike - 49 % - Loss C4 Knight - Knight - 67 % - Loss C2 S Knight - Pike - 52 % - Win C2 Knight - Pike - 49 % - Loss C3 Knight - Pike - 67 % - Win C3 Knight - Pike - 70 % - Win C3 Knight - Oromo - 71 % - Win C3 Knight - Oromo - 71 % - Win C3 Amphibious Knight - Pike - 74 % - Win C3 Shock Knight - Oromo - 74 % - Win C3 Pinch Knight - Pike - 84 % - Win C1 Grenadier - Oromo - 51 % - WIN C1 Grenadier - Oromo - 61 % - WIN!!! That`s 9 wins in a row. So far so good! Our Knights did a good job there (we were very lucky). Now it was time for the Muskets to enter combat.. CG2 Musket - Oromo - 15 % - Loss CG2 Musket - Oromo - 15 % - Loss CG2 Musket - Oromo - 44 % - Loss CG2 Musket - Knight - 39 % - Loss CG2 Musket - Oromo - 78 % - Win CG2 Musket - Maceman . 83 % - Win and a Great General was born in Nambui! DS also got a GG somewhere in the fighting. CG2 Musket - Maceman - 86 % - Win CG2 Musket - Knight - 89 % - Win CG2 Musket - Longbow - 95 % - Win G2 Musket - Knight - 90 % - Win G2 Musket - Oromo - 98 % - Win CG Longbow - X-bow - 82 % - Loss CG2 Longbow - X-bow - 96 % - Loss again. Sigh, that x-bow should have been dead. C2 Pike - Pike - 96 % - Win C1 Medic Keshik - Pike - 99 % - Win Okay, the x-bow did actually survive the battle (it`s at 0.8 health iirc). All other units were killed off so this is the current situation. That was a lot of battles. The demographics show that 100 k worth of our soldiers and 150 k worth of Ethiopian troops died. Brutal indeed. Naturally, all those Galleons are a huge threat to our island cities so they were reinforced. Radnashiri and Vulcania will have 8 units each before DS can attack. Kokejin and Bayan Khutugh have 7 apiece. So, let`s hope the defenses hold. Mist has 4 strong Musket defenders at more than 7 health. In other news, we`re preparing to launch the Golden Age. It should help us out a lot in getting vital infrastructure and/ or units built. Borte had to work a Priest in order to get 50 hammers exactly. We did indeed have 63 hammers invested in the Knight there.
Graphs and demos: At the beginning of the turn we had a military of 1.86 million soldiers, while the average military was 1.37 million. The average went down with about 25 k. Dark Savant`s losses should translate to about 150 k. The power graph will definitely show some losses in two turns time!
November 16th, 2017, 16:34
(This post was last modified: November 16th, 2017, 22:39 by RefSteel.)
Oh, wow - what a battle! After half the Ethiopian force left the island, that one bloodbath killed just about one fortieth of the soldiers in the entire world, even when you include all the noncombatant "soldiers" working in places like forges, barracks, stables, drydocks, and gunpowder labs! That feels like it could be a decisive move in the war, though the threat from Dark Savant certainly hasn't passed. I'm actually worried about Radnashiri, but I don't think he'll be willing to sacrifice enough to pull off an amphibious attack there (and he might not have the units to do it loaded on those Galleons yet anyway).
Also, Borte is again better at building things than I thought! I forgot it had that one plains town in addition to all the grassland! So given 63h already in the Knight, we have two options: [EDIT: Corrected plan in spoilers here. The two options show up on T196.]
Update: I fixed another silly mistake in my Oxford plan above (now edited into the preceding post). It should now be accurate.
Looking over the Battle of Mist Island again, great job wiping out that stack - I think that was clearly the right move under the circumstances, even without taking Lurker Bloodlust™ into account, and you made it decisively. The luck was streaky (the way luck is) but it basically evened out in the end (we were maybe very slightly unlucky overall with those results, but only barely.) In terms of hammer exchange, by my count we lost 960h of Muskets, Knights, Cats, and Longbows to kill 1,350h of Oromos, Pikes, Knights, Macemen, and (one) Longbow. Unless he has a reply ready, that would be a great exchange for us ... if this were a duel. Given that neither of us had a chance to win the game anyway and there's no clear way out of this war, I'm still going to call it a win! Over 2,300 hammers of units dying in a single turn though ... that's pretty epic for an early renaissance war over a three-tile island! This entire war has been pretty thrilling, honestly - checking civstats every day to see if we've lost a city, waiting with bated breath for your reports to learn about developments in the theater ... I've been loving it. Thanks very much for the great reporting, and for keeping the fight for Mist going after I would have evacuated the city! (And Dark Savant, whenever you get around to reading this thread, which I hope you will: Thanks for your part in these exciting turns too! I'm pretty sure the prolonged war hurt each of our civs more than they helped, and I could offer a few suggestions for stronger tactical moves - I think your Oromos could have done a lot more for you - but your tenacious defense and recapture attempts, against us and especially against Gav a little earlier, were a big part of what made these recent turns so compelling. Now I hope you don't mind that I'm hoping - between your northern neighbor and your new southern neighbor-to-be - that you'll have an opportunity of reading this relatively soon!) Also: We've generated three(!) Great Generals so far. I assume the first was settled in Bulugan, but have we done anything with the other two? There might be some interesting possibiliies there.... Other questions: What was the diplo offer mentioned in the tech thread at the start of the turn? Just a map trade from somebody? And may we see a shot of the victory screen? I think I know who's leading for Domination, still quite a ways away, and Krill obviously isn't close to culture at this point, but it would be neat to see the details. And last but not least: Much as I want more Cats, if Dark Savant hasn't brought another big stack to Mist Island (leaving the Crossbow there doesn't count, partly because we'd probably just clean it up immediately, and partly because he won't leave it there for exactly that reason) I'd whip the Granary and save the Cat for later. It's starting to look like we're going to hold onto that city for a while!
Here are a few random screenshots. Dtay sure has a lot of Frigates there. I can understand why the big powers are not interested in a situation where one mistake could lead to huge losses (and therefore are at enforced peace). Also, Gavagai has a lot of Galleons positioned for... something!?
TURN 194
After all the action last turn, this turn didn`t bring any fighting. Nor any peace offer from Dark Savant. He`ll get Military Science in just 2 more turns. Not looking forward to that.. Our second Golden Age was started! We make a lot of money at 100 % tax. Steel is now a 4 turn tech for us (we`re making over 1400 beakers at full speed). All Universities will complete in time for our very quick Oxford build. Muqa got a couple of Windmills for the Golden Age that were a turn from completion. I agree that Radnashiri is vulnerable, so it got both our Grenadiers that were ferried out to the islands this turn. Sugabala could be targeted by a couple of 8-movers (it only has 3 defenders). It will get 2 more defenders on t195. DS now has SIX Galleons in Lakeside. If he`d moved his Galleons there before we might have been forced to retreat from Mist. As it is we`re clinging on to our conquests. The hope is that dtay or Gavagai is moving in on DS, especially after they see the losses of last turn. Mist`s Granary completed to the exact hammer, so no need to whip it out. The Iron Mine is still there, as DS evacuated his X-bow. Bulugan is making a lot of hammers for us after the HE was finished. It`s pretty much going to crank out units (mostly Knights in the foreseeable future) for the rest of the game. Borte does indeed make 117 hammers so we`re on course to finish Oxford on schedule. The Victory Screen shows that Krill has some culture in his two most important cities but nothing too surprising, really.
Graphs and demos:
One thing I didn`t mention was that after I took the screenshot of Gavagai`s Galleon stack, a 20 unit stack on the Ethiopian border (out of sight for DS) was spotted. Lots of Knights and a few Grenadiers. So we just have to hope that he`s finally attacking DS. The diplo offer I mentioned last turn was a map swap with Carthage. I somehow forgot to unpause the game before offering the trade. It`s good to have a little bit of information on the battlefield before chumchu is out. Well done in keeping up with the turn pace with a declining Empire! EDIT: The Sugar deal with Carthage was cancelled so Kokejin is unhappy this turn unfortunately. Looking around what the others had to offer for our Silk it was only Joey that had more than one luxury that we don`t have ourselves (Spice), so a Silk for Spice deal was offered. Dtay had 2 Dye resources but also Silks. Maybe we can get some good-will from Joey? We have 2 Great Generals that could be settled in Bulugan or perhaps we should ferry one of them over to Mist, in order to get a Medic 3 unit. They do give us a certain bit of flexibility. If Joey or dtay comes for us, sprinkling XP on some units could also be an option... Also, the war turns are definitely fun to play. They do take a lot of time as I really like thinking over the moves. Last turn I actually spent two whole hours in game. I can`t do that every turn, obviously, but every now and then is fine.
November 18th, 2017, 05:32
(This post was last modified: November 18th, 2017, 05:36 by RefSteel.)
Still lots of exciting stuff going on, even during quieter turns. (And quieter turns than a quarter of a million soldiers dying in a single battle ... are going to happen, after all.)
Our tactical problem here is that unless we have truly overwhelming local naval superiority, Dark Savant's fast Galleons can move his units to threaten several of our cities. Our strategic problems are that we have nothing meaningful to gain from this war and that Dark Savant doesn't feel he has anything to play for right now except to fight back against us. Dark Savant's tactical problems are that he has to simultaneously protect at least three coastal cities from us and his border cities with Gav and (soon) dtay, and that until he can get another combat fleet into play, he can't really land units anywhere in our territory except hyper-defended Mist without exposing his Galleons to counter-attack and sinking. Meanwhile, his strategic problems look bad at first glance: We have more soldiers to spend, more hammers with which to build more even outsde of our new Golden Age, more crops with which to whip more, and the potential to end up with war allies who can actually take and hold his territory. Gav probably won't make any headway if he tries again with this timing on his own, but dtay's Carthaginian Expeditionary Force is about to be on Dark Savant's soutern border, and I don't think Dark Savant has anything resembling an answer to Cannons. Taking Dark Savant's land would leave dtay with a reallllllly long, narrow empire though, so it's hard to know if he'll go that way. And of course there are many things for which we'd rather use our hammers and food than troops! (November 17th, 2017, 09:15)JR4 Wrote: We have 2 Great Generals that could be settled in Bulugan or perhaps we should ferry one of them over to Mist, in order to get a Medic 3 unit. They do give us a certain bit of flexibility. If Joey or dtay comes for us, sprinkling XP on some units could also be an option... GGs are pretty interesting toys. For example: We have a 17-xp C3 Knight (which you may have promoted to C4 by now; not sure, but it works either way). If we have eyes on an interesting city say three tiles in from the coast that's being defended by a Warrior, we could put that Knight alone on a tile, attach the GG to him, and stick him on a boat. If the city is still unprotected, we can drop the Knight off on an appropriate road, promote it to Commando, promote it to Morale (critically, after being dropped off on shore) and make a three road-length move to raze the interesting city. Of course, everyone may be defending their interesting cities adequately by now. We could also do some things with ships, though they'd have to be newly-produced ships I think, since the ones we have are all promoted up the combat line. Right now, I'm not sure what would be the most fun - but there are certainly interesting options there. Oh, and we also have Military Science now, so I believe we can spend one of them to put a Military Academy someplace (Nambui?) for +50% to military unit builds if we want. Or of course just settle both GGs in Bulugan. That would make a total of 3, right? So when we're in Theo, we'd be able to build (e.g.) Amphibious or CG3 Grens if we wanted? That's kind of neat too. And if we can dream of someday somehow picking up a couple more GGs, we'd even be able to build Commando Cavs someday. I ... don't think that day is coming, but you know. Of course, that city will have to be crammed with good units constantly unless we can be sure it's not vulnerable to an alpha strike from the sea. That's true whether or not we add more GGs there though. |