[PB59] Pindicator's One Thread to Rule Them All

[pindicator]

Turn 131 in the Grim Death March of the Shire

Anybody ever play Myth: the Fallen Lords? The original one where at the end you take a small army into the heart of Balor's fortress and his stuff is just so freaking powerful that there's no way that you should be able to do but (spoiler's incoming) you have a secret artifact that let's you immobilize him while your army cuts off his head? You start off with thousands and only a handful survive to finish the task.

This march feels like the buildup of the last levels of that game. Except I don't have a secret artifact.




He has knights. There's no way he should lose this city. If I'm able to burn Cocoon it's because he didn't have the will to whip enough knights for defense.

Have no idea what naufrager is doing with his horse archers. He must like losing them piecemeal.

[pindicator]

Turn 132 in the Naval Engagements of the Shire

Moved up my stack next to Cocoon and still only 1 knight. I'm feeling like Amicalola isn't whipping enough, but he has stuffed some good units into the city: a couple longbows and elephants. I dunno though, I think he should have at least half a dozen knights in there next turn or he's not doing something right.

But down south there's a little bit of naval stuff going on that we'll capture:




Amicalola had long ago ran several triremes through my territory to harass naufrager, and only one of them has returned to tell the tale. Naufrager has 2 triremes in pursuit. I whipped out a trireme myself and will put it in position to block his path out. Triremes are part of my long-term plan to live longer, as I will try to get a small fleet out and make my final stand in Bracegirdle. Bracegirdle is whipping out units that are just going to fortify in place, by the way. They will not move to defend any mainland losses; not yet at least.

It would have been nice to get to Longbows but no way that happens.

And yes, that is a 3-move galley in the upper left, about to pick up 2 units for some coastal harassment. I probably end up right by a trireme and get sunk but whatever.

[pindicator]

How many units you want to bet I have left in my stack next turn? I'm going to say .... 12 badly damaged units

[pindicator]

Turn 133 in the Burning of the Shire

Damn, I was so close.

It was 13 badly damaged units. Thought I took a screenshot but there aren't any in the folder.

Anyway, nothing to be done now. I took my shot and missed. Mackoti isn't going to save us; he's too checked out / tied up in his own war. Amicalola was given free reign to just tech away this game because naufrager is just about the most timid warmonger I've think I've ever played against. His first attack should never have succeeded, had Amicalola not done the stab.

I think that's what irks me the most here: Amicalola coming out of this on top is going to justify that stab when really i still say it was a bad play. He wanted the island then he should have just taken the island. If he wanted to kill me then he should have killed me. Doing both was a risk and he's lucky things have turned out his way.

I've got one more thing to try, in 5 turns. But really I'm going to just be whipping triremes out of the coastal cities and trying to hole up on Bracegirdle now.

[pindicator]

Turn 134 in the Revenge Burning by the Shire

Uh oh, somebody forgot to watch the seas




This feels oddly fulfilling: burning backline cities that Amicalola thought for sure nobody would burn because he's pitched in a war on the other front.

Where have we seen this before?




If we're lucky we get another one before he sinks my boat

Speaking of sinking boats, the 30% boat luck swung the other way and his trireme killed mine with only minimal damage. If you recall, that happened to me at the very beginning of the fight: my galley killing his at 30% odds. That is what led me to be able to promote this galley to Nav-1 and allowed the maneuver we saw this turn.

It's all connected. All of it: karma.

[Thoth]

That must have felt good.

[pindicator]

Turn 135 in the Stalking of the Shire

Oh it was! To be honest, I've never had so much fun in being annihilated. I guess it was rather freeing when Amicalola destroyed any chance I had of playing a normal game. I was just free to sew chaos between him and naufrager and do what I could. I still have one more idea on something I could do to really mess things up too, but I'm not sure about the timing of it. It might not happen. I don't know, we'll see.

Anyway, I think I'm getting under Amicalola's skin a little. He moved up a galley to block my Nav-1 galley and had renamed it




So I named mine something along the same lines and decided to take the swing. Where else was I going to go, anyway?

It was worth it just for this line in the event log:



Sadly all the nearby cities have been coverred with Knights. (He was building knights in his island cities!?) Going to be hard to transport them to the mainland now, but I'm sure he'll be able to get them there eventually.




If our galley isn't dead next turn then we can promote to Nav-2! I wonder what's in range up north?

[Thoth]

[klops]

lol

entertaining read, for sure

You might have hit a sweet spot when he stopped building "old" units and had not yet enough knights. btw, what about those 13 injured guys? Party on, or all slaughtered?

[pindicator]

Oh, all slaughtered. Like I said in the build-up, once I saw the first knight when I was still 2 tiles away I figured we should be wiped out if he was anywhere competent at whipping units.

This turn the units that I tried retreating with were cut down - workers and knights are just too mobile. I think 2 horchers and 2 chariots survived.

But that wasn't nearly as fun to report on