My pleasure! It feels good to be active in this thread again.
You know I didn't really check on that, only happiness in general after drafting. Most of our cities still have a double-digit surplus, and the lowest was +6. So no news on that just yet, as Ruff only attacked us this turn and I'll need to wait for retep one last time before checking things out. Also, I am not sure how to find out own WW number since we can't see our own diplo on the F4 screen. Any known workarounds for that?
Incidentally, Ruff did take two cities in the new turn. I can tell that Frontenac is a goner, but I dunno if the other one was the Hague or Carillion (each Size 3). I did fail to mention that Carillion was vulnerable to the Frontenac stack as well, and that I upgraded a Warrior to a Pikeman there because if I am going to have a city fall, I'm taking someone down with me.
The WW should be visible when you click on Ruff in the diplo screen and then mouse over us (you see diplo from his PoV)
But my question was more about the number of unhappy faces we got from the WW which you say is tiny
And yes, I understand what you were requesting, but no attack happened from Ruff to my knowledge last turn. He even left a sentry Chariot of ours right on his border.
I'll see if I can get you our numbers against both retep and Ruff when I am able to login, although I have tried hovering over Fredrick on the FA screen before to no avail.
Hey all, the turn is currently being delayed because I am waiting for retep to play. There is talk in the tech thread of just skipping his turn, which should be his last. Let me give you the particulars.
- retep has 4 Muskets (16% city defense) left in his city of Little People, which is now Size 3 IIRC.
- At that size, he does not have enough production into his current Musket build to whip it.
- I have about 8 Knights, two CR2 Maces and 3 Cats.
- I highly doubt that he would be attacking my stack with his defensive units, so the only thing for him to do would be to hit Enter.
- I could have eliminated him last turn but chose to wait in order to preserve units for my war with Ruff, so retep may think he's already eliminated.
- retep has not been to the RB forum since Sept 13.
- Per Mardoc, retep did not leave his password in his spoiler thread.
I had stated that it would be pointless to PM him, but he could have email alerts set up. So I am going to try that right now. But if I am not successful, would it be poor play to go ahead and play my part of the turn based on the above?
(October 7th, 2015, 17:36)Molach Wrote: If all above holds (i.e. no possibility of of getting more defense) then my view is no problem at all.
Well, Xenu somewhat made a liar out of me, which you'll see in my upcoming report. But my projections on the situation were based on how retep had been handling defense over the last few turns.
This was a big turn, and the most fun I have had in awhile. It marked the end of retep's Aztec empire (you know, I don't remember ever seeing one Jaguar?) and our first chance to size up the chances we had against Ruff.
Let's start with retep's side of this turn, with a section I have lovingly titled:
YOU HAD ONE JOB, XENU!
Xenu was gracious enough to step in and play the game during retep's apparent absence. I had logged in after seeing the AI had finished the turn on CivStats, but Xenu was still playing the turn. He allowed me to hang out and watch, which I also found puzzling.
"Watch what?", I thought. "How long does it take to press Enter?" After all, that is pretty much what retep had been doing for the last few turns save whipping an occasional Musket when able to do so.
Before I could even reflexively answer myself, Xenu had used 3 defending Muskets in Little People and taken back the city of One More Day! He also was able to whip a new Musket in Little People after all, as well as a Scout in OMD which he thought would be an extra body for defense. During the unfolding of events, we pretty much bantered the whole time which seemed acceptable under the circumstances. Besides, the admin started it.
Anyway, here's our chat [start from bottom]:
I was going to play the retep part of the turn but Xenu chose to take off, leaving me free to collect my thoughts on this new development. After all, now I had two Aztec cities to take down and was really hoping to put this war to rest....
I came back to the turn a few hours later with a good idea on how I wanted to handle the island. Let's see how we did, shall we?
Little People
I chose to kick off with the city I had made plans for, and had no shortage of firepower to capture it. And despite losing One More Day to the north and having to reset the riot countdown there once secured, it actually made it much easier to succeed here. There was now only a Musket and a Longbow, both Garrison I.
First we attacked the Musket head on with a Barrage I Cat, demoting retep's Musket to backup duty:
Then we finished them off with two CR2 Maces. I selected the Maces because I wanted our Knights to get back to the mainland, fresh and promotable!
We got 105 gold out of the deal too, which was going to help us stay on schedule for MT. I'll have to play around with some sliders to get it back to 2 turns...
One More Day
Xenu's action against this city was unexpected, as it went beyond the what I had gotten used to from retep. But after our big win at One More Day, I knew I could use my ace-in-the-hole without issue. You see, last turn I had loaded up a Galleon just outside of Chesapeake with 3 Knights with the hopes of dropping them at Sainte-Foy this turn. Just before the ship left the harbor, the captain was ordered to return to port.
This gave me access to 3 Knights that had a straight shot into OMD. It only took one.
Aargh, 4 more turns of anarchy here! But after only losing one Cat and one Longbow, totally worth it.
I'm no numerologist, but how often do you see Strength (kinda) matching Experience?
...because all is well on this part of the globe, with 9 Knights scheduled to report to Sainte-Foy for orders and additional training.
OK, let's take a look at the main event, our war against the Zulu:
From Frontenac to Oswego
As expected, Frontenac and the Hague fell this turn with Ruff keeping both cities. In each conquest, he burned just about all Catapults at his disposal in doing so: 8 on Frontenac and 4 against the Hague. He also lost 3 Knights and a Musket, while we lost about 14 defenders total. So a pretty even split. So scroll up from the bottom and try not to laugh at how the whole thing starts...
Thank you Captain Obvious! What tipped you off?
Ruff had then started to head north to engage Oswego. He had no Cats in this stack, but Oswego was also founded on more forgiving grassland. It would be interesting to see how this battle went and how much Ruff was willing to leave on the battlefield. After all, his stack approaching Oswego was only 25 units , a far cry from the 50-odd he sent to Frontenac.
And this is where I think we may have a shot. With each conquest, Ruff will need to leave units behind to keep his gains. And this takes me back to the Cat strategy I mentioned earlier, where we save the barrage of stacks to those under 10-12 units. This way we get more bang for our buck when it comes time for our Cuirs to cleanup.
See the stack of Muskets SW of Ruff's main stack? That is a batch of about 8-9 wounded units that I wish I had the ability to take out right now. This bunch will likely scurry to Frontenac for protection next turn so they can heal. But should a similar stack remain outside of Oswego, we should have the resources available to mow it down by then.
Last thing in this area is that Frontenac had 7 turns of unrest. So that gives us 6 turns to try to take that city back while borders are nil and defenses are low.
From The Hague to Rotterdam
With the barrage of 4 Catapults, Ruff was able to take the Hague without even engaging his 5 Knights. He decided to send them on their own to Rotterdam's doorstep.
Luckily, we had units in the right place/right time again. I started my attack on the Knight stack with a nearby Catapult that was staged to attack enemy units at the Hague if it made sense. However, once again a Galleon full of Knights just outside of Duquesne was available to come ashore to save the day.
First, here's our enemy strength after the Cat attack:
And then here is the aftermath: 6 battles, 5 Zulu dead. And check it out, everyone involved in the battle (except for our brave rock-loaders) earned a promotion! Amazing!
That's right, even the Pike outside Rotterdam was now at 2/2 XP. And he used his remaining movement to arrive at the Sheep hill just west of Damascus. The reason for this is because we got to kick it old school after all, with one of our Chariots barely taking out that Axeman. I wanted the Pike there to dissuade the WE in Ulundi to come up and take the city back.
But 53 more gold out ot the deal, which comes at just the right time.
But my projections on the situation were based on how retep had been handling defense over the last few turns. 
on taking Retep out !