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

[Whosit]

Hm, another point about my surprising success in combat is probably also an indication of how strong promoted units fare against unpromoted units, even when the latter units are "hard counters." Anyway, Even C2Formation Keshiks only get about 31% odds on an unpromoted WE, so I see my options as:

1) If I have enough healthy flankers (unlikely), use those and then send in the higher promo units.

2) Withdraw to Preston to heal. I have Strength 6 units behind walls, so without siege units, he's not going to accomplish much.

I think option 2 is what's going to happen. Much as I'd like to kill those War Elephants before they can restack with more troops, I don't think it's worth the cost. I'll just hole up, heal, get some spears moved in (maybe I should get a spear or two out of Soos, actually, since those can get Formation right out of the gate!), and look for opportunities to deal damage at weaker locations. Of course, I'll need to keep plenty of troops in Preston because I'm sure Grimace will attack again.

Ready for some really shitty C&D? Trying to guess how much mobile power Grimace actually has.

2K: Sailing, Hunting, Mining, Animal Husbandry
4K: Wheel, Metal Casting, Construction
6K: Mathematics, Archery
8K: Bronze Working
10K: HBR, Iron Working

Est. Total from Techs: 60K

Buildings: 1x Barracks (3K)??

Population: 14 cities ~6 pop each, so 14x3 = 42K

So maybe 100-120K in tech, buildings, and pop.

Has about 320K power total, so 200K in units. Or thereabouts. I've seen 32K in Elephants just now (4 of 'em) and probably about 30K defending Yamato last check (I'll need to look again this turn). A Warrior or Archer in each city would be between 26-39K. Let's say at least 60K defending cities. So if I had to make a guess, 100-150K of units I can't account for. That means he might have another stack a little bit larger than the one he just threw at me. And, of course, he's building or whipping more units each turn. Ah, I guess I also know he has at least 13K worth of naval units. Maybe more. Not that much compared to his total, though.

I'll probably play the actual turn a little bit later tonight.

[Whosit]

It seems that war is good for business, i.e., getting me to post more frequently.

I'm ranked #3 in score, and my crop yield is decent (but falling behind), but economy? Lagging. And time will show its ravages. If I had to make a bet, it's that I eventually make some gains in this war, but Cheater Hater eventually eats me. Maybe with help from Elum (who once again denied Open Borders, I wonder what his deal is?).

So, future theatres:


This island is gonna be mine. I'm going to offer some map trades in the next few turns to see if anyone has picked up the Korea Maps, but I'm fairly confident that with the number of Triremes I'll have in the water soon, I'll have control of the seas. Grimace doesn't have any open borders that I can see, so taking out his overseas cities should hurt his income a good bit (each city is getting 3 IC routes).


Adim Graf Spee is a raze target for me. It's possible Grimace has more ivory elsewhere, or can get it in trade, but at the very least I can cut it off for a little bit and maybe mess up some builds. I should also attempt to pillage those Copper and Iron mines, though I'm sure he has other sources of metals.

I have 3 Galleys ready to load up troops as soon as they are healed (probably in 2 turns? Because healing won't start this turn as I moved units back into the city). I have a fourth en route, but it will probably arrive too late. I should really build a spy somewhere to get better intel. Anyway, anything I land I'm giving up as dead, but I'll try to extract them if possible. At the very least, I don't think Grimace can reinforce that city with anything but the Chariots in Yamato.


He does have 4 of them, so it might be wiser for me to wait for that 4th Galley.... If I can't raze the city on the turn after the landing, he'll have been able to reinforce and whip, and then he'll probably keep a heavier guard in the city.

If only Elum would give OB, then Lexington could be reached as well.


Starting to feel some war weariness. I'm kind of surprised I'm already feeling any. I know all my losses have been in enemy territory, but I think it's been... 8 units max. Hopefully having his stack wiped out and 3 cities lost is hurting his happy cap, too.

I took the opportunity to revolt to Hinduism (most of my large cities have the religion) since I can do it for free in the GA. I have no ability to spread missionaries right now, though.



Look at that top crop. That's Elum, for sure, and I bet 2nd place is CH. I'll give this to Grimace: He's replenishing his lost army power pretty quickly. Faster than I'd like for sure.

[Whosit]

Hey, who wants to play a game? Let's put down bets on how many of Grimace's cities I'll have to capture or raze before he'll take peace! Here's my bet:

All of them.

[Commodore]

Well, um...if that's doable, why not? I know you wanted to go the other way, but what's wrong with eating east rather than west?

[Whosit]

The reason I wanted to go West, at least partways, is because by my reckoning, taking the eastern portion of CH's empire would leave me which a much more easily defensible border. Right now, I'm in the same position as he is, defensively. If he wanted to, he could hit me hard with mounted units in several locations. If I captured all the cities I wanted, I'd only really have to defend at... one, maybe two locations. Assuming I can trust Johns. Which I think I can? I'm choosing to trust him, at any rate. Plus, almost all the cities I take would have good resources, matured cottages, or both.

Heading east... maybe there's good stuff there? There's the GLH, sure, but I don't have enough maps of Grimace's territory to know if it's worth adding on. Plus, there's the consideration that I'd be stringing my defenses out even further and I'd be butting heads with Elum a bit more.

My real mistake was assuming that Grimace would let this be a quickie. I mean, I've seen it before. Some aggressor comes out with overwhelming force, burns down a few border cities, and offers peace, and that's that. What I really should have done is just go after CH first, get that more secured western border, and then pay Grimace back for his little cultural insult to me. That's my take on events, at any rate.

Now, I guess my main hope is to wrap up the war with Grimace as quickly as possible (I'm defining that as destroying his ability to effectively fight back. I'll be happy to cripple him to the point that he can't mount an effective counter attack and I won't have to keep heavy garrisons in my east). Maybe I can get to Knights and hit CH while Knights are still relevant and maybe CH won't have decided to attack me yet or actually put real garrisons in his east. I'm so upset! It all looks so... conquerable right now!

[GermanJoey]

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.

i think hammer-for-hammer, catapults wouldn't be super good in that situation because half the stack was hwatcha, which would absorb many of the collateral hits.

anyways, nice job Whosit!

[spacetyrantxenu]

There were only 4 cats in the stack, the rest was vulnerable to collateral damage. Unless Whosit was very unlucky about collateral targeting the cats wouldn't have absorbed the maximum possible four hits for each attack. More likely they'd absorb a few hits per round but that would still leave enough hits remaining to significantly weaken the other stack defenders. He really only needed a few hits on each WE and spear to make it a big mop up attack, I think. I agree though, if there were a significantly higher proportion of the stack made up of collateral immune units that hitting the stack with siege would get to be useless. I annoyingly dealt with that situation in PB18.

[Whosit]

Well, I ought to have Construction on exit from this GA, anyway. I wish I could make more Soos's because 3-promo catapults?! That city also needs a little more infrastructure: Forge, Courthouse, Market (for happy). It's hard to justify putting that all in, though, because those are turns spent not building units.

Also, civstats tells me I'm now in a race with Elum to gobble up Grimace. (Grimace lost 33 points, but I thought all pop was even?) I got the feels Elum is going to get the lion's share here, but honestly, anything that makes this war finish more quickly is fine by me. But this raises a new question: If Grimace offers me peace now, do I take it? Can Elum fight all the way to my current border with Grimace in 10 turn's time? I don't want the GLH to fall into Elum's hands, for sure. But I think I'd take peace, attempt my strike on CH (and pray to the gods that it does not backfire on me), once peace with CH is secured, head back east to take what I can.

However, chances are, Grimace is just going to fight us both until he's gone.

[Whosit]

I have finally officially met everyone in the game! (Note to self: When I log back in, see if there's anyone else who is still missing contacts.) I offered ipecac Open Borders, hoping to get some more trade routes going, and I also sent both Elum and Johns a map trade request. Doubt Elum will accept, though. I kinda wish there was way to tell who accepted those trades.

I just snooped around when I logged in, didn't really play the turn. Might make some build adjustments. I really need to start adding on more Keshiks, but I also need a ton of other stuff. More boats, some more spears, many cities need infrastructure that I am hard pressed to find the time to put in, though I am trying. I also decided to 1-turn Construction for a few reasons. Bridges and Catapults, mainly. I think I might have Soos build one or two super catapults and show 'em to CH. Speaking of.



Yeah, that was just a skirmish between them, as seems to be usual. I've been keeping on eye on CH with my sentry Chariots and I haven't seen signs of a military buildup, but of course I feel I should be worried that he'll pull a fast one on me now that he has 10 turns freedom and he knows I'm dealing with Grimace.



Here's where contact is made. Johns really seems on the ropes, having to defend his city with a blockade instead of units, but perhaps that's just a clever idea.

I think I had a rant in me earlier, but I lost it. I think the sum of it was that I'm going to capture as much of Grimace's territory as I can to try and make this war worth it, try to leverage that extra territory into an advantage over CH so I can go get him with Knights or something.

Tech plans: Construction > Civil Service > Machinery > Compass (maybe, I want Harbors) > Beeline Guilds.

[Whosit]

Oh, yeah, do you guys need any particular pictures from me? So you know what I'm talking about when I name cities or regions? I know I forget what I'm talking about half the time.

Also, I really should name provinces and seas in my empire.