[SPOILERS] Athlete and Lewwyn are SHAKA OF THE VIKINGS

[Lewwyn]

12 Zerkers, 2 Crossbows, 7 Cats, 1 Spear In 3 turns
or
14 Zerkers, 2 Crossbows 7 cats, 1 spear in 4 turns.

We'll have to see how things turn out. No screenies today, not much has changed from yesterday. However, if you look at yesterday's screenie of Freya, You may notice there are 4 units in there. 1 gg zerk, 1 reg zerk, an archer and a galley. This turn there is only an archer in the city. Three tiles out of Freya is my Galley and two triremes. If you were TRD what would you think?

In fact, there are no zerkers on board the vessel, they are south out of sight with the main army. I shall now move the 3 naval units north and into TRDs territory. The naval feint has begun.

In other news, Nakor sent an axe to my south. It sees my worker chopping the jungle on the rice. While I haven't built the city yet... that should be an indication to him that I am. I wonder if he'll mention it.

[Lewwyn]

Okay before we begin, I want to make a confession. This battle planning is a bit nerve wracking. I can honestly say that every move I make makes a difference in whether I win or lose. Its really a mixture of dread and excitement when I get the turn. I just don't wanna screw up. lol

That said, the battle plan is refining. I feel much more comfortable about my odds this turn.

Let's start with Power Demos:


Yesssss. I'm now 2nd in power. I'm totally killing my economy, but I'm going to fix that AFTER I beat TRD to dust.

Heres my Naval feint!


Now here's a good view of the enemy:

You can see the culture has popped, but he hasn't taken any extra tiles that I control, yet. That's huge; I'll address it more in the battle plan. You can see the enemy city, the extra bowman SW, the 3 HA's (Seven has an axe with them), and the two cats.

Next my plan:

Let me lay out what what here.
Green - Main force, read it on the side.
Blue - A Crossbow and a Zerker
Purple - 1 Zerker
Maroon - the Galley with a Zerker and cat that will unload in the city next turn (also in the city, Freya, is a cat that just finished)
Brown - An Axe that I had sitting there, I upgraded to zerker
Sky Blue - 2 Zerkers, a crossbow and a spear
Oh and there's an axe 1 SE, 1 E from the south that I'm moving to Freyr which is empty. That city is empty because I'm moving that axe to Brown so that I don't suffer more unhappiness when the zerker there leaves the city.

Now Pink are the battle paths. Depending on whether the culture expands over the hill tile NE of Sloth or not will determine if I attack from a hill or a grassland. Currently the north hill tile (red) is at 29% culture, the grassland is at 10%. I'm hoping it doesn't change too much.

Now next turn Green Blue and Maroon will move two tiles to the pink intersection. Teal in the south will move two tiles north into jungle controlled by TRD culture. The purple zerker and brown zerker will move to Blue tile, 1 turn behind.

The following turn we strike. If the hill is available we go from there. We move the main force on the hill, bombard with 3 cats, sac 4 cats and attack. The Purple zerker will be one tile behind. I also plan on Quad whipping Freya (OWWWW) for another berzerker who will join purple and brown at the pink intersection. Teal will move 1 tile north onto grassland south of sloth. This is to split any counterattack and provide more troops for 2nd wave.

So in two turns we hit, in three we hit again. I'm hoping 1 or 2 cats of the 4 sacs survive to bombard before the second wave, and have the 3 remaining cats sac before the 2nd wave.

Recap, 7 cats, 2 crossbow 1 spear, 10 zerkers in wave one in two turns,
5 zerkers, 1 spear, 1 crossbow in wave two.

So awesome awesome?

[luddite]

Looks good
One thing I would suggest though, is to move your sky blue stack to the jungle tile south of the lake. That way, if he decides to attack that stack, any units he uses to attack will be in range of your other units. It makes it impossible for him to attack that stack while retreating.

[Lewwyn]

mnnhmm

Yeah that's a good point, I'll do that.

[Lewwyn]

Turn in and played.

So Power graphs are starting to get scary:


Notice EVERYONE is spiking I'm still in second, behind India who's fallen off my graph, but Nakor is going parallel to my rise. Don't like it at all.

Speaking of Nakor, he's forced my hand:

See the settler under the axe? That wasn't there last turn. So... either he settles in place or he moves 1 NE to the grass tile to claim the rice I've just uncovered. That would have screwed my placement. So I was forced to settle this turn. It is likely he was going to settle in place, but I had no guarantee of that. The new city (whoops writing this now I forgot to rename it) is undefended for 2 turns while the troops push forward.

AS for the battle, Naval Feint first:

Nice right? Hopefully he won't realize I only moved to spaces and had an extra move. If I actually did have two berserkers on that galley I actually probably could have razed the city this turn! Sadly, I could not spare the troops from my main attack force. We'll see if he gets nervous and reinforces next turn. Even if he just whips a troop to do it, I win.

Main battle:

well more cats... 4 more cats... There are 2 cats sitting with the 3 HAs and India's axe. From my staging position though I can hit his city and currently he can't hit me with anything other than 1 HA. Next turn I will attempt to kill as many of his units as possible. Cats won't do much if he doesn't have units to counterattack with. Maybe he'll withdraw and hit back? He hasn't added more units to Sloth though. Still 12.



I quadruple whipped Freya... I got my 5th zerker for 2nd wave though. But this city is also doing something else extremely important:



Despite the +4 unhappy for the next 31 turns this city is going to turn a GP in 6 turns with a little specialist microing. I'm hoping for a prophet as this is a Holy city for Buddhism and 28% of the world is Buddhist!

Next turn will be super interesting.

[Rowain]

Looking forward to it.

Many Thanks that you continue to give us huge reports with pictures

[Lewwyn]

My pleasure Rowain!

Now I got the turn and let me tell you, the RNG paid me back! No losses beyond the 4 sac cats! I could have taken the city with the first wave! I chose not to do it yet but I'll get to that.

Let's take a look at the finished battlefield:



Hah, you can see my forces have taken some damage but only one was a close critical battle. I only used 3 promotions before attacking so the others are still unpromoted. Best of all they get to sit on a hill and the 6 cats in the NW can't hit them! There is no option of Counterattack for TRD this turn. His cats cannot hit any of my stacks actually. He did NOT move his cats into a position for a counter. I find this odd, because Only the HA's can reach any of my stacks (and the lone 2.0 health spear in the city.)

Now why didn't I take it... I mean I could have I had a Crossbow and a spear who had yet to move. Instead I let them sit on the hill. The reason is that only those two units have enough moves to garrison the city. If I take it this turn and I only have the 2 in the city and I don't get my culture to pop back over the tile that is 1 NW of the city, TRD's cats and HA's can swoop in and raze the city. Thats what I'm afraid of. I believe TRD would not recapture the city, he would raze it as he can see there is little chance of holding it at this point. So I wait a turn. Next turn I can take it and reinforce it heavily.

I need to point out something quick though. In the north you'll notice a strangely clad unit in the topmost city, a crossbow! TRD got machinery this turn and popped out a crossbow. What does this mean? It means I was lucky and I pushed at a good time. If I had waited even one more turn he may have been able to upgrade one of the 4 bowmen in Sloth to a crossbow. That would have really put a damper on things. I might have actually lost some units! Now this does mean my conquests of TRD will be a little more difficult, BUT take in to consideration that he just lost 11 units while I only lost 4 cats on the exchange. His main force is dead. As far as I can tell he's got 1 bowman for each back line city, the 3 HA's and the 6 cats. He's also got whatever crossbows he popped out this turn and the next. I imagine he was researching ASAP in order to get a counter and holding off on building many units until he was able to do so. Just a turn too late.

In other news I"ve removed my naval feint. He didn't reinforce the city, only built another trieme. He basically called my bluff. If I coninued he most likely would have a attacked those ships. I perfer to run them back home again and get the upgraded to galleons in a couple turns when Seven's astro pops. Next time it won't be a feint.

Nakor popped his city on the axe. Well close borders it is. I feel my city placement is a little better. I've also started clearing all the jungle around the new city as I wish for no army to be given refuge.

Oh and, heh heh, power graphs:


I truly extended my lead in power here. I can't wait to see how much TRD's power dips when the unit losses register.

Any questions?

EDIT: one other thing, TRD got a GG midway through the attack.

[novice]

Nice. Looking forward to the continuation.

[Lewwyn]

Yeah I'm looking forward to it too. Unfortunately the save didn't make it around today. I'll probably get it when I wake up.

[Lewwyn]

Ha. Turn came in late, got it at midnight my time. I figured what the hey, lets play. Took back the city and renamed it. My borders did NOT cover back so I made the right call waiting a turn. Definitely would have had the city razed. Here's a pic:



Notice he didn't move any troops. Oh well good for me.I turned tech back up and engineering will be done in 7, well 6 now that I ended the turn. I have three plans of attack, but its late and I will detail them for you all tomorrow, not much else occurred in this turn. Troops moved into the city and I will wait a couple turns for healing. I really wish I had HA's...