Woden's and Chevalier Mal Fet's [Insert Clever Name Here] Team Thread

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I feel bad, I owe you guys a little more. 

So, like I said, I'm pulling my units back to cover behind the hills of Nan Madol:




Japper leads with a crossbow, but he can't do anything more with it now - he'll have to cross the hills and expose himself to melee attack to put it to use. 

Why the defensive posture? 

Like I've said before, my main goal with this army is to 

a)Cover Woden's flank and preserve him from any surprises. Woden has the offensive muscle of our troops, and flinging swordsmen into battle to get cut up by knights and crossbows would be foolish. 
b)Preserve the army intact until it can be upgraded, then go on the offensive. 

That means cautious, conservative tactics. Remember, our main opponent here is not Japper and Cornflakes. We can brush them aside if we wanted to - but we'd get hurt doing it. Our real opponent looms behind - Sullla's vast, almost entirely intact army, and Singaboy's rapidly swelling forces, too. I'm really counting on Archduke and Emperor to pin down part of Singaboy here - facing both with a Theocracy powered army will be tough. I can't pull my weight, so it'll mostly be Woden against 2 armies, and I don't like our odds of that. 

So we're moving forward slowly. Picking off a unit here, a unit there, gradually choking Cornflakes down and taking his cities while keeping our armies intact. If we can stay more or less intact when the Romans renew the war, I feel like Woden's GG and the thick defensive terrain will let us make a good stand. 

The fortunes of war really favored Rome here, eh? He had two cities right up in his face, while we had a thousand miles to walk to reach the nearest Khmer city. Japper impossibly failed to spot the attack coming and did nothing to defend his two border cities, which Rome scooped up without a fight, while we get to face the full might of both armies. I mean yes, we have our fair share of the blame, but what were we supposed to do, NOT raze Aranyaka? C'mon.   And I have to tip my hat, the peace treaty was a stroke of brilliance by Rome (well, China, actually, since Singaboy played after us and saw the DoW). He neatly turned the enemy armies around to face us, digested his new conquests, and gets to bring up fresh new units and upgrades ready for round 2. It was commendably fast by Singaboy, too - I wonder if they had that planned, and it was our bad luck to declare on the first turn they could sign peace? 

Well, nothing to be done now but to soldier on. Gameplan: Take Cornflake's well-defended northern city with minimal losses. Speed isn't as important as low casualties, because we have to be ready to face Rome/China. Save up gold, and as soon as the VA build is done swap into professional army and get my crossbows out, while researching stirrups, then do the same for knights. Musketmen will have to wait until I have caravels out. 

Here's the front at the end of my turn: English units withdrawing slowly, but maintaining control so that Japper can't help Cornflakes against Woden:

[Woden]

Nubia-Turn 102

The rivers run red with blood. Here is what I saw when I opened the save...

He was able to kill a knight and a crossbow! Ouch, but he exposes 3 knights. Let's see if we can take them out. I sat looking at this screen for probably 20 minutes trying to find what to do, not a lot of room to maneuver. Anyways, I start on the northern knight with a crossbow, then bash it with the northern most knight, which doesn't quite kill it so I...

which gives me...

Killing it with that knight opens up the hill tile for a crossbow to move up and shot at another knight...

I was able to hit that knight with 3 crossbow attacks, killing it. In the excitement of battle I didn't get a final screenshot. I hit the 3rd knight with a crossbow, then...

Here is how it ended up looking...

So far, loses are 1 knight and 1 crossbow for me, 4 knights for Cornflakes. I think I will probably lose at least 1 knight but it doesn't look like he has anymore knights around. I figure at most he had 6 knights and there is one down by the encampment at his capital, so there may be one in the fog somewhere but after this turn I am liking the outlook of this war. I should be able to start working on the city walls next turn. 

Down south...

My horses are healed and it is time to move out. I am going to move along the river, out of sight and rush in from the southeast, away from the encampment. I don't think I can take the city with horses and crossbows but should be able to draw some units south as my northern army moves in after taking the northern city. 

Back home I notice this...

 

New barb camp! Normally at this stage of the game, no biggie but I don't have any units around to take care of it right now. Luckily it is not by any horses. I think the capital will build a unit after the market. Anyways, here is the homeland...

Was able to get 2 mines and a pasture down this turn. The other builders moved and will put down improvements next turn. Things are chugging along nicely but I will need to start building muskets as soon as Gunpowder is finished to get ready for a possible Russian advance when our friendship runs out in 12 turns. At least CMF was able to play this morning and I will have a turn tonight or tomorrow.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Could you hold Muskets 1 turn, and build swords? It's another strain on our gold, but we might cram more out. With Sullla's high science rate, his army of Legions will be Muskets soon, and knights/crossbows can't do too much against those.

Also, be sure to keep the ram nice and covered. We don't have a backup, so taking it out is Cornflake's best shot, and he'll probably sacrifice his remaining knights to get it if he has the chance.

Exchange rate is good so far, but we'll likely need reinforcements soon.

My turn will go up tomorrow night, leaving town now.

[Woden]

I was thinking about building swords to upgrade but the production card is no longer available, so I think building Muskets would actually be more cost effective. I will have to run the numbers to double check. I do have 1 sword and 2 warriors that can be upgraded and now think it was a mistake to upgrade the 2nd crossbow a few turns ago. I could have upgraded a musket in the southern city. I am getting another envoy in a few turns that will go in Valletta for an additional +2 and with that plus the added mines, musket shouldn't take too long to build in Amon and Isis while running the production card.

Edit: And yes, need to cover the ram. I did start a new ram in the southern captured city just in case. It will take 11 turns and probably too late for the war but figured better late than never.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

awesome. I also will appreciate the gunpowder inspiration for my own swords.

[Woden]

Sword vs Musket analysis:

Swords cost 90 without any production card available and upgrade 230 to upgrade (115 with Professional Army).
Muskets cost 240 but can be 160 with the +50% card.

Difference in production cost is 70. If we figure a 2:1 -to- ratio with PA, it is still a little cheaper to build swords to upgrade (115 versus 140). Maybe I will delay Gunpowder a few turns to have some swords as backups. The issue I see with building a bunch of swords to upgrade is that CMF has a bunch of units that need upgrades and I have a bunch of tiles I want to buy fro district placement or chops. I think the opportunity costs are fairly high by waiting for upgrades. I can hold off on Gunpowder a little while, while I save to upgrade my sword and finish some infrastructure but don't want to wait too long as it may hurt us down the road.

[Woden]

Nubia-Turn 106

What damage did I take? Here is what I saw when I opened the save...

He was able to kill 2 knight and injury the other 2! Not good. After I opened the save and looked at it for a while, I actually closed it and thought about it for a good hour until I came back to look at it again before I made my moves. I have 2 options here: 

Option 1: Press ahead, take down his walls and probably take the city next turn but lose all my knights in the process. This would get us the city but restrict our chances of taking his capital and no chance at Japper's. I don't like this option at all.

Option 2: Do a tactical retreat to heal up, wait for my southern attack group to get into position to draw some units south, upgrade my last chariot, then hit hard in a few turns. This also takes Japper's capital off the table but increases the chances of taking Cornflakes'

I will say, Rome/China getting peace with Japper really screwed us as now we have to kill all their units instead of splitting them. Well done guys, brillant move. 

CMF, I think it was probably a mistake to have you sit back and not apply pressure on Cornflakes crossbows sitting behind his city. I think your units would be relatively safe as Cornflakes is going to want hit my units over yours since I have the Generals. Nothing we can do now but I think we may need you to start engaging when I push again. I am going to move some crossbows east to be able to apply pressure from the north. you should probably push against Japper to keep him from supporting Conrflakes. I will try to come up with a battle plan in the next few turns as my units heal. Japper's capital is off the table but I don't think we should go after it even if we could. Sullla will just attack as soon as we took the city and I am getting pretty battered here. Our main objective should be Khmer's cities and maybe Japper's northern city. You should be able to attack it by land and sea, plus I don't think boats have the same restrictions attacking walls cities as land units but I could be wrong. I also think a main objective of yours for the next 20 turns should be to get cities along the northern coast between Actium and Nan Madol. There is at least 2 locations for decent cities. This is the sea where action against Rome will occur, so we need shipbuilding capacity up there ASAP. 

Anyways, I move most of my units out of harms way, killing his horseman in the process...

Down south... 

I will move my units to east of the little bend by the 2 horsemen, then push north. Looks like Sullla is using his time to surround Japper. I figure it will probably take 3 turns for Sullla to take Japper's capital and his southern city and maybe another turn to take his northern. Then he can march on Cornflakes capital if he wants to push that far. So that gives us maybe 10 turns to take the norther city and at least be pressuring the capital. Should be do-able. 

Back home...

I hook up some horses at Osiris and move my other builders around for more improvements. At Horus, I will be able to remove the mine next turn and then harvest the gold on T108, just in time to send it to CMF. Builder at Thoth finishes and I start a Holy Site. I will chop the jungle tile next turn to speed it along. Not the most optimal but at least I will get +20% with the chop. It shouldn't finish it and I will chop a forest to complete it, along with a shrine. Again, not the most optimal but it will get it done and then I can focus on a few swords. Plus it will give me some faith for much needed granaries at Taueret, Amon, and/or Osiris.

[Woden]

I went back and checked and Japper/Sullla peace happened on T101. The earliest Rome can delcare again is T111. 3 turns to take Japper's cities and at least 2 turns to move towards the Khmer capital, gives us until T116 to be pushing on Cornflakes' capital.

On our part, if we take 3 turns to heal up and regroup, then 3 turns to take the city and 3 turns to re-position and push south, should get us pushing on the capital on T115. Then again, I should have my southern army applying pressure in 3 or 4 turns anyway. The question now is how aggressive Rome/China will be. We will have to make sure we have at least 1 musket visible to them to make sure they know we have the next generation of army tech. Hopefully that will cool any aggression down to where they will want to regroup and be satisfied with their captured lands. I don't know, we could be in a real world of hurt if they decide to push forward. Luckily we should have money to upgrade your units by then.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

That is very dispiriting news about Cornflakes' spirited defense (no pun intended, I'm really tired and not eloquent tonight). Lots of bad luck and poor execution on our parts - you're right, I should have risked my swords to press those crossbows tighter, better I lose cheap swords than your knights. 

Let's regroup, and keep to your timeline. Sullla will certainly declare war in 5 turns, striking for Heart of Darkness. Could it be possible to maybe pull the same trick on him that he did on us? Take Cornflake's two border cities (both much further from us than Japper's were from Sullla, and much better defended while Japper left his gate wide open, -grumblegrumble-) and offer peace? I don't think that would work, for a number of reasons, but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case. 

If we can at least take Khmer's capital, it won't be a total loss, and we'll have that unsettled land around KHmer to fill up with cities relatively quickly to try to equalize numbers. Not as good as Sullla capturing fresh Kongolese cities basically for free, but what are ya gonna do?* The main thing remains to preserve the army while conquering, because getting ourselves slaughtered taking Khmer's cities will just hand even more free cities to Rome/China. 

Good call on showing them a musket. That will at least give them pause. At T109, when they perhaps don't feel threatened that they'll lose the race for Kongo's capital, I might re-send them a DoF. In an ideal world, they accept it, we get Khmer's capital and 30 turns to rebuild, working to bring together a joint alliance against the leaders, and the next turn I finish the Venetian Arsenal and have 29 turns of uninterrupted shipbuilding - even my low level of development will be able to swamp Sullla's handful of harbors in that case. They'll be more likely to accept if we still have a big stick of military power, if we look vulnerable they'll quite correctly ignore our DoF and roll over us, forcing a defense at my cities that will likely mean the game is decided anyway (too much land for Rome/China, loss of Nan Madol, loss of too many units, etc). 


*Seriously, it seems like we got the short end of the stick here. Like, Japper and Mike cheated. I think Mike had to delete some units and leave, but the team in return got a huge upgrade in the form of Cornflakes as a player. But of course Cornflakes has knowledge of the map, and spends most of his time building to face us, leaving a huge scorched-earth no man's land we have to cross in order to attack. Meanwhile, Japper merrily did exactly nothing to prepare for the Roman attack, giving Rome a bunch of free cities, and now we get to grind through the large Khmer military while Rome basically scoops up free cities unopposed. I apologize for complaining, no one likes reading this, but it feels good writing it - it's just frustrating that we're going to fall behind despite our best efforts not because of anything we did, but in large part because of the actions of other players. Like, imagine if Japper and Mike's positions at the start had been switched. Totally different ball game, right? Imagine Rome's army of legions and crossbows trying to make headway over well-defended Khmer canal cities backed by knights and crossbows, while we have Japper's paltry army of Ngaos and archers wandering around Nan Madol while Woden's modern forces crash over the isthmus. 

Bah. 

I know, I know, luck breaks a lot of ways in this game. But it feels like we're about due for some to go our way, yeah? 

Sorry. Just tired. Long trip. Poor mood. :/ Report tomorrow.

[Woden]

I don't think we have time to try to get peace on T111, then wait 10 turns and try to re-declare on T121. I killed a big chuck of Cornflakes knights that he will have a hard time replacing and am pretty sure Sullla has a bunch of them surrounding Japper's cities right now. You can see one in the southern screenshot plus it looks to be more open from the east. If we were to get peace, Sullla would just steamroll Cornflakes before we could jump back in. My thinking as of now is to pause the fighting and maybe they will re-position a little to defend against Sullla but probably not. I am assuming most, if not all, of Cornflakes units are behind the northern city waiting for me to continue pushing units to within range. This will let me get my southern force into position to either out flank him and rip through the old junk sitting in reserve or be able to push on his capital. I don't have a ram yet but maybe can bring the walls down with crossbows? IDK, the main purpose of teh southern attack will try and draw his reserves away so at least when I kill something in the north, there is not another unit waiting to replace it. Anyways, I will think about options and get back to you.