[SPOILERS] Will the Sun(rise) Ever Set on Washington, Mongolia?

[Whosit]

Grimace is playing quick, but it isn't preventing him from being obnoxious. He seems to have the same idea as me. A Trireme came outta the fog and destroyed Blubs's fishing nets. Not sure if it'll go north or south next turn, but I whipped Blubs' Trireme and I can try to hunt it down next turn. There's now a pair of Triremes sailing out of Yamato. I'll have 3 stacked in a couple of turns, but for the time being I think I can defend the nets already in my borders. Did a few more boat whips, and I should have 3-4 Triremes north and south of the straights soon. Fort finished, so once I have enough escorts, I'm sending 3-4 Galleys north with Keshiks aboard to go city-hunting.

Spotting a popped Maceman in Zulu territory. I should assume CH has similar tech but just hasn't shown it to me yet. I am way behind. I need to make some gains in this war to make it worth it. My scouting chariot is off to try and finally make contact with the Vikings, see what's up there. I think everyone but me is in either Bureaucracy or Vassalage. I'm down Machinery, CS, Feudalism, Construction, and there's probably some closing in on Guilds now. It's pretty scary to be me.

Perhaps when all this is over, I could get some pointers on where I went wrong on the economy. If I had to guess, not enough cottages early enough. I tried to add 'em on as much as I could, but I didn't have as much green space as I'd have liked. In fact, though my geography has some advantages, I ended up with a lot of coastal cities and shit towns. Hm.

[Whosit]

The time has come.



Glad he made a move. Now I just have to sim this out. I plan to strike with my mounted units, because I imagine there are some workers behind that stack, and I'd rather hit it now than let it hit me. There are SIX anti-mounted units in that stack (3 WE, 3 Spear), but if I can get past those, I should be OK. Pretty sure I have 16 Keshik in the city, plus these 9. Some have promotions but, I should have enough.

Should have logged in last night, oops.

The good news is that if I'm successful here, that should gut most of his power.

[Whosit]

OK, so I think hitting the Elephants and Spears with Flankers is the way to go. In my sim, I got pretty lucky and dealt a fair amount of damage even in the fights I lost. I also forgot that flanking siege units had been nerfed, because I don't think I killed even a single Hwacha with flanking after a dozen wins.

If my luck holds out like this, I have just enough Keshiks to wipe out the stack. If my luck turns sour, though.... Well, better run these combats and see.

[Whosit]

Turn 145: The Bloody Battle of Preston Northwest

The combat rolls went largely in my favor. In the end I lost a couple of 0XP Keshiks in risky battles, but I was just trying to put some XP on them so I'm not too broken up about that.

See for combat results:

Flanking Keshik vs WE (4.4%/47.8%): LOSS (2 hits)
Flanking Keshik vs WE (4.4%/47.8%): LOSS (1 hit)
Flanking Keshik vs WE (4.4%/47.8%): WITHDRAW (4 hits)
Flanking Keshik vs WE (13.3%/43.4%): LOSS (4 hits)
Flanking Keshik vs Spear (26.7%/36.7%): WIN!
Flanking Keshik vs Spear (26.7%/36.7%): WITHDRAW (4 hits)
Shock Keshik vs Wounded WE (55.6%/8.9%): WIN!
Shock Keshik vs Spear (70.3%/5.9%): WIN
Shock Keshik vs Sword (92.7%/1.5%): WIN
Shock Keshik vs Sword (92.7%/1.5%): WIN
Shock Keshik vs C1 Axe (97.4%): WIN
Keshik vs. Axe (78.3%): LOSS
Keshik vs. Axe (78.3%): WIN
Keshik vs. Axe (78.3%): WIN
Keshik vs. Axe (78.3%): LOSS
Keshik vs. Wounded WE (92.9%): WIN
C2 Keshik vs Wounded Axe (98.2%): WIN
C2 Keshik vs Wounded WE (99.9%): WIN
C2 Keshik vs Spear: WIN
C2 Keshik vs Hwacha: WIN (wiped out remaining Hwachas)
Keshik vs Axe: WIN

Hammer values:
Keshik: 50
War Elephant: 60
Swordsman: 40
Hwacha: 50
Axeman/Spearman: 35

I lost Keshik x5 = 250 hammers
He lost WE x3, Swordsman x2, Hwacha x4, Axeman x5, Spearman x3 = 740

That's about a 1:3 hammer ratio in my favor!

Power Ratings:
Keshik: 6K
WE: 8K? (not sure if lower combat power in RtR changes the soldier point value)
Hwacha: 5K
Swordsman/Axeman: 6K
Spearman: 4K

I lost 30K
He lost 98K?

An even better ratio there.

Though we lost a few brave soldiers in the bold attack:

Decisive victory was ours!

A Great General emerged from the blood bath, and he will be settled in Soos.

That means Mounted units produced there only need 1 more XP for their 4th promotion, and any land units will get 3 promotions, and naval units will get 2. I need Literature to put the HE in here, but I was hoping to secure some Marble first....

Fortunately for me, I remembered to check the event log for this turn:

Another war between the HRE and the Zulu! I've no idea if this is going to be a major hot war or not (it seems they've only skirmished in the past), but with the Zulu's main army no doubt tied up fighting Rome, perhaps CH sees this as a chance to deal some major damage. There's been a power drop for Zulu recently, too:



I'm going to offer white peace to Grimace again. Perhaps now that he's seen his main army wiped out, he'll reconsider the wisdom of this battle. I need to get my forces healed up and I need to HIT CH AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE! I do have a Medic 1 Chariot in place to speed up healing, though it's going to take many turns, for sure. Hopefully I can still accomplish this in the 10 turn treaty time limit... but this assumes Grimace even takes the offer.


I've dealt a severe blow to his power, but as you can see, my production is still the weakest out there by an increasingly worrying margin. I think I'm going to pop that Great Scientist for a Golden Age now, much long overdue. I just hope I can finish teching CS in that time frame. The boost to commerce and production won't hurt, but I'm sure even my GA demos won't be that competitive.

I haven't finished my turn yet, just wanted to get the report up.

[flugauto]

Congratulations! The War Elephants' power is still 8.

[Commodore]

Nice!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Thanks for the report and well done on the combat. I expected that to be more expensive without your own catapults to soften up the spears and elephants.

[Whosit]

Yeah, I'm a little surprised at how effective my Keshiks were, but as long as the Flankers get some hits in, I think it works out. Plus it means that a few survived.

More pictures from the rest of the turn.


My exploring chariot spotted this little stack on his way west. It doesn't look terribly scary by itself, so I wonder if CH has more troops committed elsewhere, or if this is only intended as a limited war to clear some space. I dearly hope it's a prolonged war, because I'm not looking forward to dealing with a big stack of Macemen and Catapults. Chariot had to keep going west, though, so couldn't stop and keep an eye on things.


Demographics before I hit the Golden Age button.




Yay more beakers!


Demographics immediately after, with research set to 100%. I'm still trailing behind #1 by quite a bit, so that's nice and scary.


This is the demos after I drop research back to 0% (need some more gold), made a few whips and tile adjustments, and revolted to Caste System for a little bit.


The "beneficiary" of Caste System. I also realized this is a spot to put Moai. So there's there. I'll put slow-build hammers into it during the GA, but then I guess I'll try the whip and overflow trick. Maybe using Archers? I'll have to do the math to see if it's worth it.


Take the peace, Grimace, before you force me to cave in your skull (though perhaps that's what you want at this point).


Army. Look at all those Triremes I suddenly have! I'll be getting like 5 more over the next 3-4 turns. That should be a good stopping point. I'll want to add in a few more Galleys, though.

[Whosit]

Ch was complaining about the 3-way turn split. I'm guessing that's Adrien > Johns > CH. If this is still going on by the time I want to declare, I suppose I ought to move before CH to keep things from getting completely awful.

As long as it doesn't turn into a 4 way turn split it should be alright

[Whosit]

God Damn It, Grimace.

As feared, he did not accept peace. I think he's in Grudge Mode, so the only way I get out of this fight is to either destroy him or at least destroy his ability to maintain the fight. He advanced with those 3 additional WE's and killed the lone Keshik, but at least the dying Keshik dealt a few hits in. I will figure out how to deal with those 3 units, but I can promote a couple of Formation Keshiks, which might do the trick.

Zulu did lose that city that CH was camped next to last turn, unfortunately. Based on CivStats, looks like a raze. Wish I could help ya, buddy, but I accidentally got myself stuck in a quagmire.

I need to figure out what my best move is going to be. I think I should try to get Open Borders with Elum again, just because it might give me an easier route to Grimace's Ivory City. I think my best bet right now might be to drop 6-8 Keshiks and hope they can take that city down. I'm expecting most of Grimace's defenses to be in Yamato, so while he could whip something to defend, I'm counting on having enough units to smash through whatever he's got and raze it. I'll need to wait a few turns for units to heal and to get enough Triremes in position to cover my forces. I might go after Grimace's boats if he doesn't pull them back into Yamato.

Besides cutting off his Ivory to prevent him from making more of these obnoxious War Elephants, I'll also need to begin my amphibious campaign north of the current battlefield. I'm pretty sure I know where Grimace's capital is, though I doubt I can catch it unguarded. But as I've said before, I'm going to see if I can take his island cities and burn any lightly defended ports. I'm not sure how long this is going to take me. It depends on how fast my units heal and how fast I can make new Galleys. I think I need to put 2-3 more in the water to manage the planned logistics.