[Spoiler] Desperados: The Black Sword & Agent

[The Black Sword]

I think the other option to defending in the city would have been to retreat a lot of stuff(leave a few full fortify axes that it would cost him a lot to kill) to the tile 1 SW of Badman's River. He would not have been able to hit that tile due to Badman's culture. Keep the units alive as we gather enough to face them. Then we would have got to use our sword bonus attacking the front city, there's no way they could retake their first ring fast enough before we'd be ready to hit back.

We did have full fortify and walls though, so I wasn't really sure which choice was better without simming out the attack.

Doesn't matter now though obviously, but something to keep in mind in the future. From civstats it looks like they took the city, what were their casualties like? EDIT: Crosspost!

[agent427]

Turn #144

Instead of pushing further in, Rome emptied the city to move its army NW.
Was his goal here to lure me to move my whole army in to retake the city so he could retaliate with the Praetorian city attack bonus?
Hey I know I didn't do so hot defending the city but I'm not a complete idiot.... I hope..



Instead I moved my Maces up onto the hill overlooking the city, and I sent in a sacrificial Impi to recapture the city, which I immediately dry-whipped to size 1.
Retaking the city puts my culture back on the road tile which slows his northern reinforcements by 1 turn, unless he retakes the city, in which case his praets are in attack range of the maces.


Next turn, I can swing the Maces around S->W of the city, where they can cover both tiles of the bottleneck between our territory without being in the city itself. They will be on flat ground, but he only has ~3 catapults left, and I gave one of the maces charge promotion. His praets will have forest cover, but they are all at ~70% health. I don't see any medics around either.

[agent427]

The plot thickens on Turn #145

HRE declared war this turn, moving in on 2 fronts-- towards Sabata in the north, and towards Duck You Sucker in the south.
His army in the north is a little light. Maybe he simmed it out and this is just the right amount of stuff to take the city down? I have counter forces in place to attack if he keeps it instead of razing it at least. Possibly more units lurking in the fog.



His army in the south is a little weird, it's ~15 chariots + odds & ends. Maybe he used a spy to see I had only a lone axe in Duck You Sucker and missed the reserve forces I had hanging just up the road. Or maybe he has a lot of obsolete chariots he wants to get rid of.

Annoying stuff, but makes sense, he would've seen that I lost that Roman city 2 turns ago and could figure out from there that I was having trouble, and he could see me taking units out of the Sabata garrison to put them on the frontlines. We'll see where this goes, if he has a proper full fledged doomstack assembling out there or not.

Rome (other Rome) back off the Praetorians 1 tile north, merging with the other scattered remnant forces.

[The Black Sword]

Hey, quick thoughts:

-we can kill one of his chariots in the south with the Impi in Fistful, and be out or range of his counter attack.

-what if his chariots there move in range of Fistful next turn, I'm not sure we can hold it. Could move the impis and chariot out of Johnny Oro(I doubt he's got any 2 movers left to hit us there now anyway). There's also some units in a Few USD more that should be moved in range. Actually, I'll log back in and do this, in case you're not around.

-maybe move the 2 cats into Duck you for more defense. They'll still beat chariots. I'm not so sure here, because the 2 movers could move east.

-Could put the HA in the north(promote to shock) into the city as well, so it's less likely to fall. Move the mace on the hill 1NW so we can hit his stack next turn with it if we want?

-I know we want a lot of maces, but try to get some catapults as well, particularly for Rome.

[agent427]

By the time I post a turn report I've already finished moving everything and hit end turn so I can't take further unit move suggestions like that. The situation is worse when I'm in a turn split and need to finish my turns in a smaller window of time or risk forgetting & missing a turn.

I left the Catapults where they were reasoning that Duck You Sucker had enough to hold, and if he moved his stuck further inland, I'd want the catapults in a position where they could besiege his army without the river crossing malus.

I logged in to look around but decided not to finish the turn as usual, because I would really like your input on this situation:

Old Rome has retreated its army 1 tile further into its own territory. I don't want to count them out though, all they have to do is park it in a city long enough to heal for it to be a threat again.

HRE did indeed have just enough to take Sabata, supplanted by Horse Archers from Vienna. He has an axe & a Mace left over-- I assume he used up all his horchers. But he razed the city.



In the south he moved he retreated his army 1 Tile SE. He could, as you point out, redirect it north towards Fistful of $ . The city will have an Impi, a Mace, and a few Catapults, plus hill & culture bonus to hold out against the 2-movers.



HRE has offered a peace treaty now. Should I take it?

My thoughts are:
-Sabata never had a chance of claiming those water tiles. Its been drowning in HRE culture all game. I can't resettle it during peacetime because the tile is claimed, and I feel certain that as an IMP civ he has a settler of his own ready to claim the spot.
-But, the city did allow me to concentrate all anti-HRE movement in the north into one spot. If I allow him to take that area and put his typical culture pressure on it, then I have to split defenders between the Ugly and Badman's river. It opens up the possibility of him cutting off that whole northwest part of the empire from my core.
-It also opens up an avenue for another line of Old Roman attack; Old Rome and HRE seem to get along well and have open borders.

So I'm inclined to say no, take out the surviving units and try to hold that front as best I can on flat ground.

[The Black Sword]

I think we're getting drained by the constant war with 2 civs. Despite being top in power we're still taking losses because every border is hostile. We really could use with peace with one of them.

Our best chance at coming back I think, would be to get lasting peace with HRE and try to invade Rome. Do you think HRE would go for lasting peace though? Personally, I hold a lot more in game animosity to HRE than Rome. They've hit us a number of times over the game, and each time I thought they wouldn't want to antagonise us any further but they do it again.

Still, you could accept 10t peace, draw the troops from all the HRE garrisons to the Rome front and aim to have them replenished in 10t time.

To address your thoughts;
-at this stage, I'm not sure resettling a city in the area is worth it for either of us, given the garrison that would be necessary.
-I don't really see a problem with Rome marching through that territory. That just means that their army is way out of position for defending their cities and doesn't really give them any nicer attack options.

By the time I post a turn report I've already finished moving everything and hit end turn so I can't take further unit move suggestions like that

You can still make further adjustments before CH logs in. But I realise in general that you won't be able to change anything after the turn reports.

[agent427]

The trouble with that is, the way the empire is sprawled out, by the time units from the other fronts get to the Roman mainline, the peace with HRE is already half over.
The Roman Army is weaked, but Rome has Feudalism & Longbows, so I don't think a squad of Maces and a couple catapults can make much headway. And even if I could press further in, the empire would just be even more geographically lopsided.

[agent427]

Alright, I sent HRE the peace offer and started moving everything I've got towards Old Rome. I saw that Adrien had a supermedic in his stack so that was enough to convince me, he's going to attack again soon so I'd rather take the offensive there.

[agent427]

I gifted The Network my spare gold for 10 turns, and got a World Map from them. I actually should've made it a map for map trade, so I sent them my Map on this turn. I am hoping that they will see it as a sign that I still hold onto the territory I've lifted from Old Rome and maybe encourage them to take advantage of the war once their own peace treaty subsides.

Mongolia also offered a map trade this turn and I took it. I had not been paying much attention to my distant neighbors until now. I can't give you a good shot because I can't zoom out on Torus, but as tense as my border is with HRE, the Mongolian/HRE border is insane-- Mongolia's whole empire is one long, vertical strip sandwiched between HRE to its west and Persia to its East.

Grimace is in a tight spot. He was war dec'ed by Mongolia a few turns ago, and just declared by Elum last turn, who captured a city. They still has a decent amount of territory (I think, Persia/Elum's colors run together on the map) so I hope he holds out for some time.

Old Rome retreated its own units into the fog. I've pushed the scout that I whipped for no reason other than it was the only unit I could further in, and now have good visibility on the Bay of Rome. With my own triremes in the area and advance sight I am safe from boating from this direction for awhile.

The map I got from the network reveals an opportunity to the west:


Rome has settled this island that I wanted to colonize. I have triremes in the area, plus galleys that were bringing units to the frontline. I can scout it out and if it looks weak, raise some hell there.

With peace with HRE, and the Roman war taking a breather, I take my time on this turn to actually think stuff out. I go through all my cities and play around with tile allocations, I had some poor stuff being worked and didn't realize that Duck You Sucker's growth had stagnated without a lighthouse. We have a bunch of cities with strange, foreign names, so I fix that.

Ulundi, a filler city in my core -> Comanche Blanco (White Comanche)

(Yes, the William Shatner)

Babanago, settled in the Ruins of Django -> Viva Django
Thankfully this fellow had no shortage of sequels and spinoffs.

Nobamba, a city on the coast in the Northwest stretch -> Tepapa

Starring Orson Welles, in his proper fat state

The two Old Roman cities I captured had names I can't even type out, I've change them to Red Blood and Yellow Gold, appropriate as the former has been conquered and sacked 3 times, and the latter has Gold.

You know how after Bruce Lee died there were a bunch of kung-fu movies trying to cash in on his fame with lookalikes? Here, have a Spaghetti Western with a not-quite-Clint Eastwood

I've consolidated units into a fair sized army, one that I think is competitive with outdated units. If Rome acquires Machinery and gold for upgrades soon, my own army will lose its potency. Next turn I start marching into the unknown. I don't have much of a plan beyond finding and wiping out the enemy's army. Maybe there's an opportunity for a city capture; if not I can do what Adrien did and drag out the war with economic pillaging while I pull together repurposed garrison units.

[agent427]

grimace has lost 4 cities in the past 2 turns...