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[Spoilers] Old Harry's Game

Turn 149

Hydra didn't accept my kind offer of peace frown - in fact it looks like he's upset about something... A couple of rifles and some catapults? Hum, maybe there are more units on the hill north of the gems? That would let them join up on one of the three grass tiles east of the rice and head towards Barnet or Matlock.


There is still a chance that this is a feint and he's really coming from the north, so I'm going to sacrifice Aidy Boothroyd to find out... Ah, crap.


I count 34 rifles, 2 muskets, 5 maces, 1 cavalry, 2 knights, 4 cats and 2 trebuchets in the main stack - with another cav in Aquanauts and the two rifles and 8 cats in the other stack that is one impressive army! With that size of force he must be going after Barnet, I'd guess using this path. If he goes after Matlock instead he's welcome to it, it'll give me more time to get defenses in place.


I can hit the stack on t150 with 9 cats and a few grenadiers, then on t151 with another 10 cats and a bunch of other units. I think however that it'll be better to wait until t152 and hit the stack with all the cats and a lot of grenadiers from inside barnet itself. If I hold back some promotions the units can then promo-heal and defend. I have 25 cats and 15 grenadiers and a bunch of maces that can upgrade for 83 gold a time, I'll keep building grenadiers (with a few rifles for defense) and I'll store them somewhere out of sight.


My main worry is that he'll have cavalry catching the stack up which the grenadiers won't get odds on - guess I'll just have to hope he doesn't have too many and that the cats will do enough damage to them to let the grenadiers hit some rifles...

So the dreams I had of getting Oxford are going on hold - it's all military in every city for the next few turns. I should have gone to Police State two turns ago! Next turn I could start researching Nationalism, but I think that money will be more useful for upgrading maces to grenadiers right now. If I bee-line Infantry it's 6 techs and maybe 15 or 20 turns. I think Steel for Cannons might be more useful after (or before) Nationalism. BTW the food surplus on Halifax is just ridiculous - I should have used that as the National Epic city, not Nuneaton.


Here is that spike in Hydra's power. He only got 76,000 soldiers this turn, which is almost exactly five cavalry. Crumbs.


The last action of the turn is to delete Aidy Boothroyd, who has given his life for the greater glory of the Indian Empire. It wasn't worth it was it Aidy?

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Turn 150

Add 15 Cavalry to that stack. Its now about 70 units... yikes


Will 25 cats be enough? I'll add a handfull more Grenadiers and Rifles on t151 and t152. Should I spend money to upgrade horse archers to Knights, or should I concentrate on Mace-Rifle and Mace-Grenadier upgrades?


Power is still going up...

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Having looked at the upgrades and the amount I spent getting Replacable Parts and Rifling I think I've made a mistake - if I'd used the great engineer to part-bulb Steel (before I finished Printing Press) and some of the money spent on PP, RP and Rifling to finish it I could have upgraded a bunch more maces to grenadiers and also a load of catapults to be cannon. For some reason I had rifling fixed in my mind as a goal and didn't look at what other options were available.

Rifles are fine for defending, but I'm planning to attack his stack (because I've got so many grenadiers I have to, but I probably would anyway) so cannon would be far more valuable... I guess this is why people talk about top of the tree and bottom of the tree in warfare at this point. Its good to keep learning things duh

Whether that mistake costs me the game I guess we'll discover in two turns time. popcorn
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Turn 151

Hydra's stack is going to be 25 cav, 36 rifles, 12 cats and a few others.


I'm going to have 33 Grenadiers, 25 catapults and a handful of rifles along with about ten pikes, 12 horse archers and five knights. I'm building wealth everywhere that can't get a unit to the fight so that I can upgrade more units.


I've just done a sim (without bothering with promotions) and I didn't come close to destroying the stack... I'll just have to hope the RNG gods are with me next turn.

He's just showing off now.


I've also got a couple of great scientists sitting around - bulbing sci meth isn't much use right now, so I'll keep them until we see if I have a future...
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Turn 152

So this is the big fight. I have a few crossbows in Barnet who I'll upgrade to rifles at the end of the turn. I'm keeping stacks in place until the units are needed because I have a great general due and some pinch promotions could be handy. As it is right now most of my grenadiers can only get combat one, although since they will mostly be fighting cavalry that isn't going to be an issue.


I'll promote all 25 cats to barrage and send them in first.

The first four battles go terribly - I get two hits in out of 14 - is that just RNG trolling or do cavalry have something to stop themselves getting hit by catapults?


Towards the end a few cats get a couple of hits in, but every cav got more hits. I don't see anything about first strikes in the civilopaediea so does strength influence how likely you are to hit?


I attack with six maces next (odds are around 2%) - I want to give the grenadiers more of a chance to hit the rifles. But again I don't get many hits in. Then I send in five axes and a mace I'd forgotten about with similar results.


Next up I have knights and horse archers, not sure if combat or flanking promos are more helpful (probably combat as I don't expect to be using these units again and the catapults [post-turn edit: Wrong, flanking would have been more useful to hit catapults]) and should I start with HAs or knights (probably HAs as the knights are more likely to survive). It only takes one HA to get rifles defending, so on to grenadiers (who unfortunately are still attacking cavs). The first gets 20%, and the seventh is the first to win (at 44%).

A Great General is born in ipswich and attached to a spear, giving xp to six grenadiers and three knights letting them get combat II and pinch.


Eventually I end up with 11 rifles, 13 grenadiers, 13 pikes and a few other units sitting in Barnet Everything has been promoted to pinch or guerrilla I. I don't think I've done a good job of this - I should have attacked with the mounted units before the maces and axes. In the end I killed 16 cav and two rifles. So I expect Hydra to take Barnet next turn with his 34 remaining rifles.


We both took a hit on power, but I took a lot more:




Anyway I'm building a bunch of units and revolted to slavery and police state. If Hydra takes Barnet I'm inclined to conceed, but I just don't think it's a knockout blow - I don't want to string things out longer than necessary for Azza and Serdoa, but even without Barnet I'll have a bigger population than Hydra (although I've whipped heavily this turn). I just won't have a research base any more. Guess I'll know when I get the turn back.

After I ended turn I went back and re-played the battle going cats->horse archers->maces->grenadiers->axes->grenadiers->horse archers->knights and ended up killing 15 cav and 5 rifles and having a few more grenadiers survive. So I don't think it would have made a great difference, but I wish it was easier to set up a big battle like that in worldbuilder - it's the promotions that I can't be bothered getting right that made a big difference here.
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Crazy turn, I wonder how it will turn out.

Any chance you could post the save and pw so we can try the battle ourselves?
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yes yes please.
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Yeah, I'd be interested in experimenting.
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I took a save once I had the units in place, does this work for you:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rjiw1nh2o8a9xw...dSwordSave

Password is Harry

A prize for anyone who can dig themselves out of the hole I made!

Edit: fixed link to correct save
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Password doesn't work.
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