In the south Elkad razed Lepsis and OT4E killed the attackers in return
OT4E cleaned up 3 of our aggressors (imm, axe, spear) losing 1 archer in the process. We got little bit unlucky there..
Let's see what we can do with the Hippo..
CR II Sword vs. CG II FL archer, 27.3 % ... LOSS, 2 hits
CR Sword vs. CG 2 FL archer, 22.5 %... WIN, only 1 hit
Sword vs. 1.9/3 CG II Archer, 67.8 %.. WIN, 2 hits
CR axe vs. C2 spear 3.7/4, 69.9 %... WIN, Hippo is free!
There are 3 healthy numids + a xenu warrior in the nearest stack. Then there are couple of wounded guys strolling around. I guess these are already partly same guys who were deep in GJ territory a while ago. Note the worker force capable of doing some combat roading..
Not too much more to tell about the OT4E front this turn. We distributed the units so that Hippo won't be falling and our workers can't be captured. We barely had enough to guarantee that.
However, there are some positive battles that OT4E can take if he decides to. If he goes for the Hippo with all 6 numids, the expected outcome of battles is probably 4-2 in his favor, maybe somewhere closer to 3.5-2.5. If he takes the shot those will be big RNG rolls. If the battles go 5-1 for him, we will struggle holding Hippo. 3-3 and we probably can clean up and be prepared for the next wave of attackers + OT4E will have more trouble to deal with Elkad whose elephants will hopefully soon join the battlefield.
Our military isn't too impressive after the recent fighting. We are this turn very much in the zone defense mode as the enforced peace with Toku will end.
Some stuff was changed after taking the pic, but the message is that we are building some units:
In the south we found the borders of probably 2metra. This kind of destroys our hypothesis of 3 vertical continents unless something weird is going here:
Demos & Power:
This war kind of stagnates us for at least a couple of turns. Hopefully the long-term impact is there..
OT4E's power stays impressively high despite all the battles he is taking. At some point it gotta stop..
As a final note. What will Toku do? Where is his army? One of our sentry immortals checked all the staging tiles, but I guess if Toku is coming after us, he will move there later during this turn. Based on the power graph, I think it's more probably that if he goes for the aggression, he will first finish Construction and then build a round of catapults. Anyways, it does not matter whether Toku targets us or Elkad, it will definitely fit the picture of this crazy neighborhood, where more or less everybody is screwed in the bottom of the scoreboard.. What a game.
The turn log doesn't make great reading - we lost three axes to OT's attack, but Hippo still stands. Elkad and William have traded war-peace and OT got a great engineer. Has he got a wonder in mind or is he going to bulb Machinery? (Read left-to-right.)
We knew that OT had whipped 9 Numids a couple of turns ago, but it's a bit of a surprise to see them all heading towards us. My guess is that he wants to either:
1. Knock us out of the war
2. Take back Hippo
3. Take or burn KotoR and the MoM
Or some combination of the above. This is how things looked when we logged in:
The upshot is that we're very short of spears, even having produced 3 last turn we still only have 7. The problem we have is how mobile Numids are - OT can fork our cities and we need twice as many units to defend. Luckily he hasn't brought stack defenders, so he probably won't push on, but I fear that he will. We'll get a great general so long as we win one defensive battle next turn. A super medic would be handy to have.
We're making two spears this turn and 3-5 next turn, which still only just gets us parity with OT's Numid force, but will make me feel a lot better. I offered OT white peace on the off chance that he wants to leave Hippo for us. I didn't get an "after" shot of the battlefield, but essentially we have a C1 spear in Hippo and most of the rest of our units on the forest hill 2NE of the city, with two crossbows in KotoR to start building up fortification. OT should lose one or two Numids to take the city, but we can hope it's more.
On the Toku front everything is reassuringly quiet. He didn't war-peace us and we didn't war-peace him. Is this a new age of peace and prosperity with Japan? Do we have to start calling him William again? Stay tuned for the answers to this and other questions!
OT4E took Hippo back as expected. We got our GG in the process. It doesn't look like he's pushing on though so I wondered how to get sight of his stack of Numids.
Then I got very lucky when moving our scout.
OT had to move his stack back to confront Elkad's stack - I'd love to see how 10+ Numids will do against five Wellies and seven spears.
I *think* our best option is to move the whole of the stack except the injured spear to the sheep tile, promote a crossbow to G2, add a couple of workers and put some more units on the tile behind. Then next turn we road, push next to Hippo and give him something to really think about. We're up to 9 spears now with another 4 due to complete in the next two turns, so we should be able to push right through OT... Also note that Elkad's scout is keeping a close eye on what we do here.
At sea OT has a Trireme, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had more boats on their way. I think we probably want to whip a second Trireme, but it seems a waste when we're so close to galleons, which will own the seas, so maybe we just keep our eyes open for now?
City micro
- BG will have 3 spears and a crossbow next turn, so we could put the overflow into a crossbow instead of a spear.
- Col and DA will finish spears this turn, then can think about crosbows, swords or trebs.
Elite can build a 5XP immortal to be our super medic - if it then gets another XP at some point it can take morale for 3 moves.
- HA is at the happy cap so I'm inclined to put the overflow into a treb that can be 2-whipped.
Workers
- I think we need to workshop AC - the worker at FFH could do that or make some chops for Jade's lighthouse and forge (probably the better option)
- We have six workers around KotoR - two are needed for combat roading, two could make some workshops for Elite and KotoR to share, one or two could head north to improve AC. Or perhaps we want four for combat roading?
Demos and all the graphs. Looks like all that whipping has done bad things to OT's economy. The power graph makes me think Toku is building a lot of catapults, still nothing to see in his land though, so I'm hoping he'll aim them at Elkad. If not then a good stack of crossbows should clean up whatever he sends fairly easily so perhaps we need to show them to him? (We should also get some hammers into crossbows in DA and Col just in case.)
Hitru points out that OT might be planning to defend by attacking - he can probably take out a couple of cities and cause a load of mayhem with that stack before Elkad takes his capital. So perhaps Elkad will give him peace in the next few turns? Anyway, I finished off by moving the stack to the sheep tile. We'll have a super medic next to them next turn to help with some healing, after which we'll know where OT's stack is and what our odds of retaking Hippo are.
If any lurkers want some fun Pindicator is having trouble accessing the game, so you could log in and play. I imagine details are in his thread.
Our trireme heroically defeats two enemy triremes this turn! Getting a flawless win against 95% odds is somewhat fortuitous so our luck has definitely evened out now. He retreats to promo-heal and repair next turn.
OT fought back against Elkad and burnt two cities! (The plains hill 2E of the immortal and the plains tile 4N of that.) That puts him ahead on cities, but to be fair they were both small border ones, while Elkad burnt one of OT's core cities and is pushing on to hit Carthage right now, so I'll put him ahead on points.
OT's war weariness is 27 - so that's 12 for cities, then he got:
12 wins - 1 loss
9 wins - 2 losses
6 wins - 3 losses
3 wins - 4 losses
2 wins - 5 losses
We think there were three units to kill, so that's four dead Numids.
Our sentry tiptoes along the road spotting a settler and two Numids that I think arrived this turn. Risky to settle when Elkad's wellies are around.
OT only has one Archer in Thaenae right now. Unfortunately a stack of immortals on the forest tile would pull six Numids back to defend the city. Although our sentry could reduce those numbers against this injured Numid. Is it worth the swap? (98% to win, but then we have to delete it.)
Of course it is!
Imm vs 1.7/6 Numid - 98%... WIN! (1 hit)
We delete the heroic immortal and ponder what OT's next crazy plans are. He could put a stack SSW of Elite on t120 or move it to Hippo to defend or plunge further into Elkad's territory. We'll put a turn into a crossbow in ED this turn, then a spear next turn and we have a crossbow and immortal in range too. Perhaps finishing the walls would be a good idea too?
Our stack heals up, with a GG healer just behind them the units will all be fit to advance next turn. The sentry immortal tells us that there's nothing able to hit the sheep tile next turn except the 3 numids and 1 chariot in Hippo. We want our reinforcements to stay hidden behind the hill, so that it's more of a surprise when they advance next turn.
OT lost a couple of cities to German Joey this turn, which makes us think that he might have abandoned the south and is concentrating on defending Hippo. This makes sense as Hippo is a good core city and numids don't do a lot against war elephants. It's a bit unfortunate for our imperial expansion plans though.
Another unfortunate thing is this stack of axes and spears. That isn't a staging tile and Toku didn't war/peace us when he could 3 turns ago.
We offer both Toku and OT4E peace and wheel our forces over towards the Japanese border. We think that OT will take peace and Toku won't, but we'll see. If both do then our golden age (due in 4 turns) can be spent in Caste System peacefully generating GP points. Anyway, this is how the defences end up this turn (the writing, not the picture).
War weariness:
OT/Elkad: 26/69
OT/GJ: 64/39
OT could be planning to put a stack on the hill SSW of Elite Dangerous, but we're hoping he's concentrating on Elkad. He brought up another trireme in the west, so Ivan is in a bit of danger, especially if the 4-move galley is around. Fingers crossed he'll take that peace offer...
Down south it looks like 2metra's empire extends east. That makes our assumptions about the map shape look a bit dumb...
Surprisingly Toku took peace and OT refused. Well that makes our next ten turns nice and obvious!
We finally got some 3-commerce trade routes, thanks to Xenu's capital and Donovan's island city.
Ah, is this why Toku jumped at peace? 2metra, Cairo, Xenu and Toku have all met Mackoti. Only Toku is at war with him... Does that mean he's got galleons and is invading or is it a scouting war? Getting some sentry caravels out into the seas would be a good idea soon.
OT4E killed an empty galley this turn. Our triremes are in position to punish this transgression.
Trireme vs 1.4/2 Trireme - 86%... WIN! (2 hits)
Then we move a G2 crossbow and sentry immortal in to see what they can see.
Not much! Where did that stack of 8-10 Numids go? We move our attack stack next to Hippo, this may seem a bit like overkill, but if there are 10 Numids in range we'll be glad. Meanwhile our zone defence force by KotoR moves to the forest 2NE of Thaenae to threaten that city in a couple of turns. There could be a stack of 2-movers on the tile SE of the city, which could counter attack at Elite, so we've got workers along to build a road and allow the zone defence force to fall back...
In other news we offered Xenu a silk/spice trade and Donovan a fur/spice trade. We only have one spice so if one accepts the other will get a demand for their luxury. Luckily I don't expect either to accept.
One of our sentry immortals checked all the staging tiles, but I guess if Toku is coming after us, he will move there later during this turn. Based on the power graph, I think it's more probably that if he goes for the aggression, he will first finish Construction and then build a round of catapults. Anyways, it does not matter whether Toku targets us or Elkad, it will definitely fit the picture of this crazy neighborhood, where more or less everybody is screwed in the bottom of the scoreboard.. 
What a game.
We got our GG in the process. 
It doesn't look like he's pushing on though so I wondered how to get sight of his stack of Numids. 
