Gavagai climbs the chaos ladder

[Mjmd]

What is in those trailing two stacks / how much do you have coming?

[Gavagai]

It's three more chariots and more HAs (naked). There is also one more HA that has retreated from the spear and is most likely out of commission until the end of the war. Next turn I will assemble against Rome a total of 11 HAs and 6 chariots, assuming I spend one HA on taking Neapolis.
I do not have a picture here but I discovered I have lots of islands to the west. If I knew I had so much space earlier, I probably would not have attacked and instead focused on settling this land and trying to build the Colossus. Good I have not done it because the Colossus has already fallen (to Pindicator, probably, out of the Oracle), I would not be able to build it in time.
Also, Plemo expanding like that is kind of normal but the fact that he also built the Lighthouse is a scandal. Miguelito was supposed to build it, he has Roosevelt, after all. Now this game will be very hard to win and I do not want to lose to Plemo second time in a row.

[Gavagai]

Whoever Plemo's neighbors are - they must dogpile him right now and it is a terrible misplay they aren't doing that. He has 15 cities to my four and yet less military than I have, he is very overextended.

[Gavagai]

The situation at the start of the turn. The warrior in Neapolis killed a Horse Archer (97 percent chance), so I had to clean up with a chariot. I had what you see on the screen plus two chariots one tile to the north against a spear and an axe in Rome and two spears and an axe in Antium. Two of those spears were dry-whipped on the previous turn; no Praetorians in sight. Somehow xist was completely unprepared even though there was nothing sneaky about my upcoming attack.

The situation after combat. To compensate for the loss of a HA on the previous turn, it all went exceptionally well. I killed two spears at low odds and got myself two triple-promoted horse archers. My total losses were one chariot and one HA. Both cities came with granaries, Antium even with a bonus pop. The remainder of my stack is moving eastward, to take out xist's final city.

[Mjmd]

Somehow xist was completely unprepared even though there was nothing sneaky about my upcoming attack.

I can't tell if you are trying to be modest or if you actually think this, but just to be clear  

Your power graph spiked up fast and without a lot of whips. I'm assuming quite a bit of chopping occurred?

[Krill]

Ooh, nicely done, but one request: a wide overview screenshot pretty please?

[klops]

wow, that was fast und effective.
When I saw your army, I didn't know how xist could possibly defend but still expected 1-2 dead HA per city.
Did you build some stables to promote? I think it's difficult to time well, either better chances or earlier attack date.

[Dreylin]

And most importantly, what does one do with a huge HA army once the target battle is won...?  

[Gavagai]

Somehow xist was completely unprepared even though there was nothing sneaky about my upcoming attack.

I can't tell if you are trying to be modest or if you actually think this, but just to be clear  

Your power graph spiked up fast and without a lot of whips. I'm assuming quite a bit of chopping occurred?

Well, I get that ten turns ago I was dead last in power in this region and even barring that I have a larger army than one can typically expect at that point of the game. So, yeah, there was a surprise factor of a sort. The problem is, xist did not need much. I ran sims before committing to attack - with 3 Praets and 2 Axes he had about 30 percent chance to hold Rome against everything I have. Praets are just that good behind defensive bonuses. If I saw 3-4 Praets in his power graph, I would strongly consider switching my target to greenline.
So, xist had his Iron connected around T75, 11 turns ago - just when I researched HBR. Learning that I have HBR was very easy and given that xist is a very likely target that alone could have sent a properly paranoid player into a panic mode. Could he have produced 3 Praets in the timespan during which I built 13 HAs? I don't think it sets expectations too high. Instead, he produced 0 as far as I know - though I thought I saw one in his power graph and it can still be lurking inside his last city. Tech Iron Working as your first classical tech, connect Iron early and then do not build Praets for 10 turns - this is a surprising way to play Rome.
Oh, and yes, there was lots of chopping. I chopped almost all I had in my territory, luckily, xist left me plenty of untouched wood. There was whipping also - something 2-3 whips in each of my cities in rapid succesion. I only had four cities though, so probably did not look like much

[Gavagai]

Ooh, nicely done, but one request: a wide overview screenshot pretty please?

Sure, next time I log into the game. Meanwhile, I have a few other screenshots prepared, will post shortly.