[SPOILER] Nicolae Karpathia Khan of France

[Nicolae Carpathia]

First thing I did was move a sentry HA onto the hill. Only 1 catapult in sight. Still too quiet.

Next, I used 2 cover musketeers to wound the longbow and crossbow. After that, my C2 musketeers had odds on the pikes and killed them both. I cleaned up with a 9xp Cuirasser and Musketeer. I left them uncovered, I want as many troops available to hit Ioan's capital. If Ioan wants to move out of the cover of his city and kill them, I can respond in kind and destroy them on flatland. Still, It could be a mistake.

I also razed the city, I realised Ioan's capital is up to its 5th ring, meaning it's going to be a pain to take down and I won't be able to safely keep Garofita. I still want to settle it, pass a few galleons through the canal, and start forking and burning cities in that north sea. Still, depending on how many units he stuffs in the capital, it may end up a complete stalemate.

Sacrificed a perfectly good musketeer to get vision on the south. 2 knights and 4 catapults are yet unaccounted for. I don't know how promoted they are though, Ioan has one Barrage 3 catapult, and it scares the willies out of me. I don't know if he has enough units in the area to take advantage of the hits I get in. The one catapult he used earlier got maybe a single hit in on only 6 of my units.

Here are the reinforcements I'm bringing in. One stack will be following a turn behind my current wave, the next stack yet another turn. I also have the option of diverting troops to start conquering Ioan's north, depending on how easily Ioan's capital falls, and hopefully Ioan's borders will contract.

You know, I just realised I haven't kept a single city I've captured. Everything gets razed and possibly replaced. I'm too cautious.

Anyway, Sareln's annoying me with his borders (though I deserve it).

Sareln's started working on getting knights out.

Finally, the stupid barb archer wasn't attacking my cover axe on schedule. Argh, that's delaying me from improving the tundra copper and snow hill silver. The silver is going straight to GE once it comes in.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Ioan has piled in 7 knights, 3 pikes, 7 cats, 2 longbows, 1 crossbow, and a musket in his capital. All cats are barrage promoted, another is up to barrage 3.

I'm going to delay a turn for reinforcements to catch up. I've moved a few units 1NE, out of range of his cats, so I can move 2SE the next turn and fork his cities.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I'm mid way through the save. I'll give you this as a summary of what I see thus far. I'm going to set up a worldbuilder sim to answer this question:

The gist of it is, I have a stack that has been split up. I could advance them both together this turn, or I could delay a turn and merge them before moving forwards. The intention is to have a stack on the forest tile that forks Trandafiresti and Ghioceni.



The main agenda question:

How much damage will Ioan's stack of 8 cats, 9 knights, 3 pikes, and assorted errata do to a stack of 9 cuiraissers and 4 musketeers sitting in a forest (my suspicion is alot)

If alot, I'm going to delay for a turn, so everything stacks up together, so I won't be killed piecemeal.

When I do move in on Trand, I'm going to simultaneously threaten Violeta or Gladiola with a secondary stack. Independently of that, I have a task force that will be able to threaten Ioan's north as well. Pics forthcoming.

Finally, there's a possibility that Ioan's worker will chop that forest tile. I'm not sure, but I may be able to check its chop status with shift-click. My suspicion is no, Ioan is pretty short of worker improvements in general. He's been working that empty grassland for a few turns.

[Ellimist]

Very nice. Good luck!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Conclusion of worldbuilder sims: Not very well. It was a simple test, get the promotions right and then stack attack cats, then knights, then pikes. Most units got knocked down to ~8 strength, giving all of his knights good odds. Okay, this is a delay.

Nevertheless, next turn is going to be spectacular.

Strike Force Alpha, reporting in. They're going to move onto the forest tile 2SE next turn. Hopefully they'll be able to deal with the brunt of the catapults, and at least one of Ioan's core cities will fall.

Strike Force Beta, reporting in. I still haven't decided to hit either Violeta or Gladiola. We'll see. Probably Violeta first, once it's been captured and the cultural borders contracted I can double back along the roads and threaten Gladiola the next turn. I also intend to disconnect the iron by moving a mace and a pike onto it,

Finally, Strike Force Gamma. I have 4 workers on that tile. Next turn, I will be able to road the tiles marked with 'r'. Then I will be able to drop 7 cuiraissers and 6 musketeers onto the hill next to Orchideea. Once that city is down, Ioan will no longer have any iron, and I can destroy him at my leisure.

I finished Replaceable parts at EoT, rifling in 2 turns. After that, I'm not sure. I can easily draft enough to cover my western flank from Sareln, not much is getting through draft rifles pre-steel. I may want Steel as well, so I can break through Ioan's centre and take his capital. I don't intend to just ram all my units into his 80% cultural defense hill city. I also want to get Astronomy at some point to get my next set of science multipliers, they're going to be extremely strong considering my break even science is now >50% (Too high! Must expand!). Steam power isn't great because I seriously have a single riverside city. Democracy would be good as well, though Ioan is nowhere close to Constitution and Sareln is not researching that anytime soon. I'll finish Economics the moment Sareln has finished Banking, but his empire is small enough that it's worth little to him.

Railroads would be awesome. My empire is more than big enough to justify them going everywhere. I'm due for a Great Person soon, if it's an engineer I'm going for it. I have half a dozen unhooked metals within my cultural borders.

Finally, goddamnit GE, don't leave a perfectly good pike exposed on flatland. It's going to die next turn to a crossbow.

[Ellimist]

I hope you're willing to be the primary turnplayer whenever we end up warring in pbem21.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hopefully we'll be in the renaissance when everyone else's military are medieval. I think this was more strong economic development to the point where I have double the production of anyone else and some critical military techs. Not to mention I have all the good medieval-renaissance wonders wrapped up, Spiral Minaret finished last turn.

More thoughts about military: I seriously can't draft fast enough, some of my cities have already had their first draft cycle roll over. The only advantage Ioan has is that I think he's settled a pair of Great Generals in his capital, meaning he can get formation knights straight out of the gate. That sucks, they have odds on my cuiraissers, but I of course can spam out alot more of them.

Also, Sareln going for Military Tradition scares me a tad. They pretty much neutralise my cannons.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

(Hypothetical cannons)

I was wrong about that forest. I used shift click from a worker to check if I could chop it, and it said it would be done in 3 turns (the same as any other forest). I even had a positive control, I tested it on a forest I knew had already been pre-chopped, and it said it would be done 1 turn. Nevertheless, Ioan managed to get his worker onto the tile and destroy it. Well played, I got a free worker but I no longer got forest cover for my Musketeers.

It still won't save you. I tested out his stack on mine, and I did fairly well, usually lost a half dozen cuiraissers or so. I also promoted my GG Medic to Morale this turn, which let me pillage the road and mean my stack could no longer be attacked by 1-movers without being stranded outside a city.

Southern stack, more than enough to take Violeta. Counting tiles, I can swing around and hit Gladiola the turn after once Ioan's culture clears. Therefore, I'm going to focus down one city at a time.

Northern stack. Yep, Ioan didn't see this one coming, Once the culture clears I should be able to advance the rest of the stack further inland. One problem is I don't know where the next city further along is, hence I won't be able to tell how far I'll be able to advance. Let's hope he's spread out so I don't need to deal with overlapping culture radii.

Sareln is annoying me with his culture, he's stolen back that sheep tile. Argh, I totally mismanaged this city, I shouldn't have cottaged it over. I should have left it as a farm/whip/specialist city, that way I'd get the free culture and it would contribute alot sooner. I would switch it over again to farms but I'm worried I'll get workers sniped off. He's certainly generating alot of culture thanks to Free Speech.

I'd estimate Sareln is making ~300 culture points/turn, which would indicate his break even beaker rate is ~500-600. He did after all tech Military Tradition in ~3 turns, depending on how he overflowed. Could be better, but Sareln simply lacks the land to win the game. What would I have done? Probably expanded faster, and seized that central jungle city earlier.

Another concern is that Sareln's power has been steadily increasing. On the other hand, his border garrisons have not. Clearly he's hiding them, but where, and for what purpose? I'm still a bit worried because what I can't see may hurt me, and I haven't been increasing my western garrisons at all. At the most, I'll be drafting rifles in 2 turns. Rationally, he's unlikely to attack me though, my power rating is too high and I have a have a huge production advantage. He's better off turtling or attacking GE. I'd prefer the former, GE would collapse in a 2-front war, and GE would probably beg for peace from Ioan, which would suck for me as it would free up Ioan's troops. Plus, Sareln needs GE's land to stay competitive.

Finally, I've timed it so quite a few Cuiraissers are finishing at the end of next turn, when rifling completes. That way, I can start on my S15 cavalry alot sooner.

[Ioan76]

Alternatively, if I have copper at my cap as well, that would suggest Ioan doesn't as he moved. That could give me a window of opportunity to hit him before he settles for copper at his old cap or techs IW. Unlikely to work, he'll know about chariots and prepare for it with a scout. Alternatively I just kill his scout and use the opportunity to settle that reach city I've been eyeing, use creative borders and lack of woodland to control the battlefield. God, I so want BW.

Well - it seems that you was "copper-oriented" even before you saw my spearman ( which could happened 1-turn latter if I'd move manually and not let it auto-move ) and even thought/planned an initial attack against me ...

Actually I'm quite happy that I went to "aggresive path" on the begining of the game especially after I read what happened on Professional game - where Mackoti ( on your place ) smashed Nakor with an early-attack - because I'd shared his faith on our game otherwise ...

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I tend to throw ideas into the air when I have nothing to do, regardless of how ambitious they are. Really, the main reason to go to war is to get control of land, and since you never settled that centre area (that Mackoti killed), I had no reason to strike there directly.

I even considered attacking GE at some point, send a few horse archers into his backline to raze the Colossus so that you wouldn't get them. Colossus was huge, I so wish I went for them and won.