The Pen vs The Sword (Gandhi of NA)

[The Black Sword]

Here we go ...


Most of the current army:


Ridiculous power spike:


Dazed's annoying galley:


If he continues his trajectory, he'll spot my galley's staging T164. I think it's probably better to give up the Jah Keved raze if it lets the rest of my invasion take him by surprise. I can still put a lot of pressure on it and hold units in place.

I also have the island invasion stack selected. It might be a bit overkill, but these cities won't be culturally crushed like the mainland ones, so they're a priority.

Dazed also picked up Compass, presumably for harbours. It might force us to go towards Optics though and I'd really prefer to delay that until after Economics. I've already really delayed that so long.

[The Black Sword]

There's only one demo that matters right?


Lurkers have to agree with me on that one!

I begin to be cautiously optimistic that this thing might actually work. Dazed's galley lies at anchor, the captain's name will be cursed by the Khmer for centuries to come:


I spent my GG for 2x10xp:

GG healer and ... amphib Cuir maybe. Though if he just targets the spear it's probably not worth it.

We're still plugging away at more cuirs:


Next turn I upgrade the rest of my knights and my 15xp HA. I also move into my staging positions.

[Rowain]

There's only one demo that matters right?

[The Black Sword]

I thought I had made an awful mistake after moving onto this staging tile:


But it turns out past-me, who left the sign, is smarter than I give him credit for, that tile is still unseen by Dazed despite the lake. Present-me however is just as dumb as ever. Thinking that was a mistake, I moved some of the stragglers, a musket and 3 cats to the tile to the east, which is in his vision. Ah well, hopefully that won't be enough to spark anything, though really, the power graph should have already tipped him off that something is up.

Here's everything else I have planned:


Diverted a galley to pick up the GM that came in this turn, so only 3 of them here. To compensate I threw the 2 Cuirs in, including the 17xp one. I hope I don't come up short.



I don't know what I'm getting into up here. Didn't want to make Dazed suspicious by scouting it out, hence the numbers.




I should have enough force here to take Tzeentech and hold off Dazed's army in Luna.

One last shot of the capital in all it's glory before the GA ends:


In tech, we're up to full 50% known tech bonus on Edu and Banking. Might have to divert to Optics though, because Dazed already has it. I estimate Free Market is worth more than 250gpt ... don't want to delay that much longer. Hopefully Pillage gold and Trade mission will get me some distance.

[Ituralde]

That's an awful lot of troops you got there. Looking forward to see them in action

[The Black Sword]

Well, Dazed revolted to Slavery, did some whips and moved shuffled some defences. Here's my army before we started:


Unfortunately, the only casualty was Frontline, which did go well:


Lost the 2 suicide cats and then Cuirs won all the battles, mostly in the 80+. Here's our garrison:


I was indeed cursing the 1 missed galley in Jah Keved:


I unloaded 4 of the units, and stole a worker, but I couldn't afford to add any extra Cuirs to my threat range. I need them all for Tzeentech:



He could put up a good defence there next turn. I should have brought more siege in. I was very tempted to go threaten Luna instead but this city gives him a huge mobility advantage. I should have good odds on everything after the first 4 pikes though.

I'm not quite sure I have enough units in my main force to march on the MoM city like I hoped. We'll see. The island is woefully defended though, so hopefully I'll take that and can send these troops back over.

[von Adlercreutz]

Nice going! Which city is the MoM city?

[The Black Sword]

Urithiru is the MoM city. The general aim for the war is to take that and everything behind it. Given it's defensive location, I'm then pretty confident I'll be able to hold there, despite the culture crush. After that I'll re-assess the situation, but hopefully I'll have much superior production at that stage, which will allow further gains.

Also, I just remember Optics gives +1 sight over water, so he would have seen my galleys last turn, another point that probably gave me away.

[The Black Sword]

Seems unlikely the turn is going to roll on time, so I logged in to see how Dazed set up his defense.

Jah Keved lost some units:


Depending what he whipped in(3 pop), this is takeable next turn. I wonder if he thought the boats were now completely empty.

Tzeentech is the most interesting place though:



He has 1 pike in the city itself and something else has been whipped in. He spent his 3 cats on my hill stack, but I didn't promote most of the Cuirs, so they'll have 2 promo heals. Once Tzeentech falls, he should lose the culture SW of it, so both of these 1 mover stacks can be hit by my Cuirs. I'm not sure what the plan was here, probably the best thing would have been to leave the force that was in the city to take as many casualties as possible, since they couldn't really retreat, and keep the others safe. It might be he's trying to lure me onto flatland to hit, but I don't think he has the troops for that yet and I'd probably prefer fighting them on flat than in cities.

On the island, Shard is left undefended, so 3 possible city captures next turn.

[Ceiliazul]

Nicely done, keep it up!