[SPOILER] Close to Win

[Charriu]

No it does not.

[Charriu]

T165-T166:

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The stage once again is being set for a showdown vs Jowy in 2 turns. He moved some of his ballista elephants up to the north and I'm pretty sure that there are maceman loaded on those galleys. Unfortunately I still need more cash to finish Optics after Compass, so 2 more turns of cashing in money are necessary. Good thing I already build 1 trireme and another is in production. Hopefully I can divert or delay any landing attempts in the north with it.

Now in the south HillstormGiants got its 3rd border pop, which will secure all its first border tiles. I do expect Jowy to declare war again after our peace, but this time I'm willing to fight him. My hope is that he abandons the hill and moves towards JuvenileWizards most likely the corn tile. I don't expect that he will move all his units down there. He may keep some forces in HillstormGiants and maybe move some towards my iron resource. That might give me an opening. I would move enough troops into JuvenileWizards to defend it. I doubt he will attack the city outright, because of the castle. In case he moves his main army to the corn, I will position some of my crossbowman and Gallic Warriors on the tile 1S of the iron, destroying any forces there. With Guerilla 2 on both of those unit types I might be able to take HillstormGiants back. Now I doubt I will be able to keep the city, but hopefully that attack might destroy the Walls inside the city, making my life easier on the future conquest.

EDIT: There's also the question of who Mr. Cairo will hit. Another row of whips from him. I highly doubt that AT might join me against Jowy, but you never know if Mr. Cairo looks the other way.

[Old Harry]

Probably not a culture bomb then - just castles?

[Charriu]

Yeah not a culture bomb. Just should have watched the culture more closely

[Charriu]

T167:

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All is prepared for the upcoming invasion of or attack by Jowy. Meanwhile pindicator is conquering more and more cities from Superdeath, but as you can see hit took quite a hit there. To bad I lost graphs on SD and never had the time to regain them.

[Charriu]

T168:

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Jowy did not declare, which is interesting. Now I am almost ready to start the attack, just waiting for the last trebuchet from CommandoPygmies and then it's go time. Plan right now is to move the CommandoPygmies trebuchet to my staging tile 1SE of the city next turn. Then in T170 I will move everything I have including the kitchen sink on the hill 1NW of StormhillGiants. I know this is an almost suicidal attack as I'm running against a player who is stronger in almost everything

• He's teching like crazy and just this turn he teched Printing Press, which will just excelerate everything else. This is my main reason to attack now.
  
• He has better units (macemen and knights), my best is crossbowman and pikeman, at least I have the counters
  
• I'm running against a walled hill city
  
• I will most likely fighting alone against him. Maybe AT will accept my war against Jowy offer, which I send him this turn, but I don't believe in it.
  
• He has 15 cities, I only 11.
  
• The only small advantage is that I will soon have caravals.
  

Now the big question of course is why am I doing this. Why am I running against one of the top two players? Well simple. Me and AT are the only players neighboring him, who else will attack him in the future and if I don't attack him now he will soon have even better units against me. It's either taking the very small chance I have now or just waiting until he comes rolling over me with his advanced army.

[Charriu]

T169: Calm before the storm

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Interesting, but I rejected the offer because of the following:

• I actually have enough trade income from my three OBs with AT, Mr. Cairo and pindicator
  
• This offer would mean I loose 2-3 happiness in my cities, which is not what I want for the upcoming turns.
  
• I don't necessarily need the health from the cows and I think Mjmd needs the health more than I do right now. After all I am EXP and have the Hanging Gardens. Health is not a problem.
  
• I actually like the situation in the west. Mjmd did increase his lead, but pindicator now is gaining momentum against Superdeath. More tension in the west guarantees a calm western border for me.
  

Now I did offer pig for cows to AT after this, because why not.





Very interesting offer, but I am building the Temple of Artemis in JuvenileWizards (I know I am crazy doing this, but the culture and extra GPP is best in that city). I come back to this offer after the Temple is completed.




As the title suggest next turn it's time for war. Jowy did not declare this turn and AT did not take my offer, which is understandable, at least I tried. Everything is in position and I even brought some more troops from the capital, because with 2 triremes in the inner sea I'm feeling rather safe against a naval attack. As you can see Optics will also finish and I may have enough gold left to upgrade the triremes directly. Then it's time to hunt some of Jowys ships.
I did leave all my defensive units in JuvenileWizards, because I don't want to loose that city right now, they already have the full fortification bonus and my moving troops around too much, Jowy will know that the attack is coming next turn.

[Old Harry]

8 catapults? Gonna be a bloodbath... Any idea what he has behind the city?

Will you be giving your units G2 to defend on the hill and saving a promo to heal when you attack, or giving them all C1 + G2? Or some mixture?

[Charriu]

Unfortunately I don't know what is behind, because his espionage is better then mine, which is another reason to go now. Yes it will be a bloodbath, the only good thing is that I have a lot of older ancient units, that hopefully will suck up some of the collateral damage.

Right now my plan is the following:

T170: Start the war in the second half of the turn; Move stack to the hill 1NW of HillstormGiants; promote Gallic Warriors to G2 and other ancient units, maybe even the newer unit types; keep at least one promo for healing
T171: I do expect Jowy to have suicided his cats by now. Use the turn to bombard the defenses, heal with promos and at the end of turn thanks to the Medic 2 archer
T172: Suicide my collataral and attack.

I do still have to sim this and depending on the results of the sim I might even suicide in T171 and attack against the +50% defense if the odds are good enough.

But maybe I'm lucky and my brute force approach sends Jowy into another retreat, who knows?

[Charriu]

To give a bit more perspective:

My total unit count: 46

Units that block or can happily take collataral damage, because they are not that important for the attack:

6 catapults
3 trebuchets
3 archers
1 longbowman
1 spearman
= 14

Other older units that will be used in the attack, but are or could be less useful:

9 axeman
4 pikeman
= 13

And these are the important units:

10 crossbowmen
9 Gallic Warriors
= 19