[SPOILERS] Athlete and Lewwyn are SHAKA OF THE VIKINGS

[Lewwyn]

Yes yes yes Turn came again. Man it has got to be killing TRD to be passing the turns TO me. If I were him I'd die a little inside as I gave the turn to the guy who's planning his demise.

BTW funny story. TRD always sends me the turn with minimal contact. Basically he says, "Next Turn" whenever he sends the save. When he passed the turn after I killed his 11 troops in the city, he sent the turn and said, "Well done. Next Turn." Nothing else,

Okay to the task. Serdoa you asked about that power graph yes? Check it:

So yeah, if he's hiding any units they really, really, really good at hiding their power. To note, he hasn't really built any units since I smashed his army. Basically he got machinery, got one crossbow, lost his army, then built a catapult, maybe two. And I know its a cat because Seven saw it rolling its way down from Chastity to join the stack. No clue what he's doing, but at this rate, I'm gonna take another city soon.

How soon? I'm thinking 3 turns to land on the Jungle SE of Charity and a 4th to take the city. Here's the planned troop movement:



You can see the main stack is already on the Jungle tile 3 SE of Charity. I believe that tile is invisible to TRD. Can I get a lurker confirmation on that? Anyway this is the staging tile. There are still 3 cats in Loki because I moved them back into the city from the diligence staging tile.

Now to read the lines understand that:
Blue - Next turn
Maroon - 2 turns
Red - 3 turns

The cats are coming up from the south and whatnot but instead of sending them to loki and then attacking from there I decided to stage on the jungle away from the city. (BTW loki is still protected by 5 zerks, 2 xbow and 1 spear) Since I can cut through the jungle and it won't waste any turns, after those 3 cats from Loki drop to the jungle, TRD will not see any more cats beyond the 1 that needs to go to Loki in order to join the attack on time. BTW notice another two zerkers coming from Freya? I ditched the naval part of this exercise for now because I don't want to wait the probably 7-8 turns until I get my galleons from Seven. Naval attack is still very much in the picture for the future.

So how many units total will land on the jungle SE of Charity in 3 turns?
13 zerkers, 7 cats, 1 Xbow, 1 spear....
Considering he only has a bowman and cat in Charity... Yeah it might be overkill. But I'm considering his cat stack too. With this many units even if he hits I'll have enough firepower left to take the city and waste any cats that withdraw. Still, if I'm correct about him not able to see the Jungle tile, he's about to see a full on stack the size of what hit 'Sloth' appear next to his central city on a jungle tile. Yeah, not great to be him.

Oh and you have to take into account the fact he probably thinks that I'm actually moving those units south to his other city. Since he barely moves his units I'm not expecting an exodus to the south, but it should worry him.

So yeah my one concern is that I'm not correct about TRD's vision. Lurkers?

[novice]

Since you ask: That peak and jungle hill in TRD's culture give him visibility on your staging tile.

When in doubt, check in worldbuilder.

[Lewwyn]

Hrm, got it. So that sort of leaves me thinking... staging on that tile is pointless. Why not simply go to the Jungle tile next turn.

Honestly there's no reason to wait 3 turns. I have 11 zerker, 3 cats spear and xbow (+ any zerks in Loki that I think I can spare.) That can go next turn to the jungle. The only thing I gain by waiting is more cats and really that's not that important. 3 cats are enough whether I decide to bombard or sac attack. Charity has little garrison. The best he can do, I believe, is Whip an Xbow, ubgrade the bowman and bring his cat and HA stack into the city, which will simply mean more cat killing for me. 3 cats is enough to bring the defense down to 16% or damage 2 xbows and 3 HAs. 11 or more berserkers will be able to take care of the rest. At the least I take the city. At most I get the city and destroy almost all of the rest of his standing army.

Next turn it is!

[Lewwyn]

I've had alot of diplo with Seven over the course of my reign of the Vikings. Mostly he's preparing to attack Ruff and of course I helped him speed astro. Here is his most recent communique:

I made sure to produce enough gold this turn that I can pay you back next turn if you want. So let me know if you want your 110 gold right away to speed up engineering, or would like me to hold onto it for a galley upgrade.

Also, just a suggestion, I can just straight-up produce galleons for you. It's technically more efficient than doing upgrades and it sounds like it will be faster, too. While they will only have 4 speed, I am in vassalage so they do at least start with 2xp. Also, most likely the speed point won't be critical in this age. I already have one spare galleon under construction (due next turn, I think) and can start and whip 1-2 more without too much trouble. And you have high production, and could trade Berserkers for them almost 1 to 1.

In other news, Ruff seems to be following the plan of
1) Cancel NAP with technologically superior neighbor, forcing him to build up units.
2) Don't build military or research military techs.
3) Build Pyramids!

Lol. The only question is how many cities of his I'll actually be able to hold. I don't really want to face his actual army, which does have catapults and reasonably high numbers of units.

Seven

So yeah, Ruff looks slightly unaware. Seven is getting prepared and might have a couple berserkers for his attack. I'm thinking I may just ask for the gold because as you may have noticed, current tech rate is unsustainable for engineering in 4 turns. (The caveat to this is that I have a GP being born in 2 turns and if its a Prophet I'll get a shrine and shrine gold to boost it.) Still having the gold might be better anyway especially if I just trade zerker for galleon straight up.

[Lewwyn]

So nothing yet. I'm still waiting for the save. TRD is on a business trip so its understandable.

Still I'm really itching to play.

So, I'm just thinking about my techs a bit. I definitely don't have time to get liberalism, not with my war. But what would be most useful after engineering in my current war state? HBR? I'm seriously debating it. I think getting HBR and some 2 movers would be a huge boon. Not to mention a flanking attack on his cat stacks. If I had a few HA's right now I'd throw em at that cat stack in a second. Plus HBR moves me towards knights and its cheaper than some of my other techs.

Pretty much just some musings, while I wait for the turn.

[luddite]

I'm guessing that your war with TRD will be finished before any military tech you research becomes useful, and anyway you'd probably be better off with macemen over horse archers. I'd just stick to economy techs for now, unless you think you'll have to go to war with Nakor in the near future.

[Lewwyn]

I'm guessing that your war with TRD will be finished before any military tech you research becomes useful, and anyway you'd probably be better off with macemen over horse archers. I'd just stick to economy techs for now, unless you think you'll have to go to war with Nakor in the near future.

I can see your point on that. I will need HBR at some point though. Researching it now gives me the option of HAs to hunt down his cats with 2 movers. However going economic is good for adding earlier to the snowball. I will keep it in mind...

Turn came! TRD says he should be regular again.

I moved my troops into his territory at the jungle. Here's what the battlefield looks like:



You may notice the one cat I have is 1 tile north of the Loki. Whoops indeed. My finger slipped as I let the move go and he flew north of Loki instead of into the city... If TRD does try to take it out, I may be able to take out a couple of his units, who knows. At worst I lose it and it doesn't distract TRD. Oh well. Onto the meat of the discussion.

You can see he's produced another crossbow at Diligence. The cat and HA stack is the same, and lo and behold a bowman and a cat sit in the city alone... scared... soon to be dead... So why hasn't he reinforced it? I believe he didn't expect an attack in the center. I mean I have troops heading south, and Diligence is more vulnerable in terms of frontline. So he builds the Crossbow in diligence and he builds one in the south:



My scout + the fact that I started moving the troops south + my msg to Nakor probably made TRD feel that I was going to head south or north. In effect I'm wasting his time and diverting his attention. Well he'll pay for it

Back to main battle discussion. If he hits my troops with all the cats, he will lose them all and at most I will lose 3-4 units, and thats only if he attacks with the bowman. Only 4 units can reach my stack. The crossbowman in the south will take 3-4 turns to reach me. The Diligence stack will take at least 2 turns, 3 turns if he wants to go around the lake in order to avoid being sniped from units in Loki. Plus once I take the city, he has to attack across a river(outlined in light blue).

Furthermore, if he were to sac his cats. Every zerker of the 12 there are ready for promotion. Some have 2 promotions waiting. So yeah, instant heals and they keep moving on.

2 more zerkers landed in freya, 1 zerker and 1 cat being produced off shore will be in Freya in 2 turns. I should be able to launch an attack on diligence (especially when I get engineering in 3 turns) within 4 turns. I actually hope he moves those crossbow from diligence, it will be great to have that city less well defended.

Oh and:



Shrine monies here I come. No worries about that nasty -44 income! Seven's also passing me back the 110 gold. You may also notice that TRD is researching Compass at 58 turns

[Lewwyn]

Okay people war update time! I've captured the Charity (OOF I forgot to rename it, just realized that now. I"m terrible with this renaming thing. Would have been nice to do some psych dmg.), and I'm feeling quite comfortable. I took no losses beyond two cat sacs. He had whipped a new crossbow in the city and moved the cat out of the city. So I got to kill a bowman and a crossbow. Anyway, I am not one to sit upon my laurels so here is the current situation and plan:



Code:
Black Box: is that Crossbow from the south trying to move to the front of the battlefield. Now that I've taken the city it looks VERY out of position.
Dark Green Box:Charity contains 10 fully healthy Zerkers, 1 crossbow and 1 spear
Green Box: On the jungle, 2 healthy zerkers(one with a mounted promo) 1 redlined Zerker, 1 cat, 1 spear, 1 crossbow
Light Green Box: Loki has 5 zerkers, 1 crossbow, 2 cats (TRD didn't kill the one misclick cat)
Rose/Pink Circle: 1 HA, 1 cat, 1 crossbow (I believe the HA is whipped last turn in kindness and the crossbow whipped last turn in Chastity to the west.)
Red Circle:8 cats, 3 HAs
Purple Circle: Diligence has 1 crossbow, 1 spear and 2 bowmen
White HaHa:Pretty self explanatory. Its the single crossbow from Dilligence. I say haha because its on a grassland tile with no roads! Next turn it only has one move and cannot react to anything. Judging by the direction I assume that this crossbow will land in the Red Circle.

So what does all this mean for me on TRDs next turn? What will he do? TRD's options are not good.

First lets look at Loki. The only things that can hit the city is the cat stack and the 4 HAs At most he will be able to kill 4 units while losing most of his cats. That will leave me with 2 units left in the city, and I'll be able to counter attack his troops from the jungle tile. In essence his losses would far out weigh mine and he would not take the city.

Second let's look at the light green. This is the option that gives me some pause. I really don't want to lose the cat or the easy to kill redline zerker, something about loosing units that can't defend themselves irk me. This is why I moved the crossbow, spear and 1 zerker from Loki to this tile. I also left one from the main attack force. If TRD wants to take it out though, its even worse than Loki. Reason being he can again only hit with the 4 HAs and the cats. at most he will be able to kill 4 units and possibly the cat by flank. But to do so he will have to sac many of his cats. And any units that he leaves on the tile next to the jungle will be killed by units in loki on my turn. So again, little gain and high loss on his side. Remember he doesn't have alot of troops left so he has to play conservative. I on the other hand and am STILL pouring on the power.

Third option is a direct assault on Charity. This is problematic for TRD for a couple reasons, first he only has 4 HAs, and 1 crossbow able to hit Charity next turn. So at max he can only kill 5 of the 12 units in charity. Second he has to cross a river to hit the city. Third any damages he incurs on my units will be partially healed by waiting promotions and I will destroy whatever army he has left in a counter attack. Its really not very feasible.

Fourth option is to move all units into Red square as a staging tile and build up troops. This is what I think he is planning. My reasoning for that is the HAHA crossbow seems to be moving to that tile. He can also move the pink stack there. That will mean next turn he will have 2 crossbows, 4 Has, and 9 cats on that tile. He may feel comfortable leaving it there with the crossbows, and the river. The problem is that my zerkers are amphibious! If he leaves any units across the river outside that city, I will kill them. No doubt. I just don't know if he's realized that yet! Sort of shows how useful zerkers can be. +10% city attack and amphibious is good.

SO Fifth option for TRD is to Turtle. He could move all units 1 tile off Charity for staging, out of sight(though not out of Seven's sight ), and be safe from a counter. Heres the thing about this option. The very best Tile for him to plant his army and stage is on the HaHa tile! From there he's one tile from charity and 1 tile from diligence, he can protect both. Unfortunately its also the worst tile because there's no road. So his best tile is two north of Charity on the rice. And that sucks for him because he cannot respond to an attack on diligence. the only other good tile is 1 west but that is next to my borders and I would rally out Loki and kill anything that staged there.

So I believe that the 5th option is his best option of alot of bad options, but that he will go with option 4, which is actually the worst option. We'll see if I'm right. So my moves in this area depend on his choice of option at this point.

Also note on that picture the two red boxes. Engineering in 1 turns (this after end turn, so actually its 2 turns) and TRD has upped his research slider again, compass in 1 turn... why compass? maybe to see line of sight? anyone got an opinion or reasoning on that?

BTW do you know why I upped Engineering to two turns instead of leaving it at 3? Because it enables me to land next to Diligence in two turns

Take a look at this:



So I 3 pop whipped Odin last turn for a 1 turn zerker. (I had two unhappy). The over flow allowed me to build another zerker in 1 turn!(Or the great wall in 1 turn... or MoM in 8 turns. In the end I figured that the zerker was worth more as it would be able to land next to Diligence in two turns and I believe Nakor is going for MoM based on his play style. Lurker opinions on this decision?). So this turn I moved the zerker onto the blue galley. Next turn that galley will arrive in Freya and unload a zerker that with engineering will be able to land on the grassland tile 1 SE of diligence(he will wait a turn in freya). There is a Cat in Thor(redbox) and the Zerker in Odin(blue box).

Next turn the cat goes on the galley the galley moves 1 NW and the zerker gets on and the galley move toward Freya. On turn two the galley moves into freya and unloads. Engineering has been researched, so referring back to the very first picture, the 2 zerkers and 1 cat will land next to diligence. Also the two zerkers SW of Freya will land there. I have several cats in the south unpictured that will reach that tile on that turn as well. Even better is with engineering any unit from Loki can land on that tile as well. At present I'm having the two cats and the one double city raider promoted zerker go for dilligence, but I could send more depending on how TRD plays out his turn(ie does he destroy his army or not). That calculates up to 5 zerkers and 7 cats landing on that tile. Now at this point I can do any number of things, knock down the tile defense, sac all the cats, attack with the zerkers, wait an extra turn for more zerkers. Who knows. The thing I'm certain of is I will have Diligence in 3-4 turns, and at least 1 galleon in 2 turns. Kindness has not long to live either.

Just a note this really shows the power of the Viking extra naval movement point. If I were not the vikings NONE of what I've done here would have been possible.

Oh and Power graph:



You may notice TRD power upped, almost parallel to mine which is still rising. I can account for this with a crossbow whip last turn in Charity and chastity(one of which is already dead), a HA whip in Kindness, and possibly a whip or two offshore. There were no new units whipped in diligence or temperance. So yeah, I almost know every single units TRD has. Its a little like playing poker with your opponent's hand showing.

Lurkers, questions, comments? Especially on that MoM vs. Zerker choice. I almost feel bad letting the opportunity slip.

[Bruindane]

Lurkers, questions, comments? Especially on that MoM vs. Zerker choice. I almost feel bad letting the opportunity slip.

When at war build troops to finish the fight so the whole empire can be at peace sooner. Channeling my inner philosopher there.

[Lewwyn]

Aye that's a very good way to look at it, and in the end the reason I cam down on that side of the fence. I was simply tempted by the allure of extended GAs because they are quite powerful plus denial factor. If I want to win the game, I need every edge and every edge take from my opponents.

IF things continue as planned, I will take out TRD and all his lands, Seven will attack Ruff, and Nakor will continue to stay in the position he likes best, the middle. I really don't know how he's going to feel if Seven and I carve up our opponents though. He'll just be sandwiched between two powers, so maybe he'll attempt to swing the outcome and pick a side. I already know he's sort of on TRDs side. I suspect he's giving him a bit of gold too. otherwise I have no idea why TRD is wasting gold teching compass. He probably doesn't realize how precarious Diligence is and there for isn't upgrading the bowmen there.