[SPOILERS] Seven Isabellas of India

[SevenSpirits]

t146:

Ruff has 5 cities of interest to me - his three island cities and 2 closest mainland ones. Due to the layout of the map, his capital and the city on the far island are one galleon's move farther away from me than the rest. Since I had two galleons leading the others, at the beginning of this turn I had 2 galleons in range of the two far cities, and 3 in range of the the other 3 cities. The front galleon had a sentry chariot and 2 maces, and the others all had 3 maces.

While I had used 4-move caravels to scout most of the garrisons without detection, I had been unable to scout the capital - I would have had to approach it from the far side. But it was a good guess it was defended by weak units, with the strong units and most forces on the mainland.

So here we are. The first thing I did was send the Caravel in deep, to spot the garrison at Rock Am Ring. It was two archers. Those aren't going away, while if I wait, he might build a praetorian and delay me further. Therefore, I declared war and sent in my forward 3-mace galleon. (Had there been a newly build strong unit there that turn, I probably would have deleted the caravel and waited a turn.)



One the maces had two promotions giving 63.x% odds, the others had 1 promotion giving 52.x% odds. Altogether there is about an 80% chance that these three maces will be sufficient. Unfortunately, I lost the first two combats, so I had to send in the troops which would have ideally captured his far island city. The fourth mace unsurprisingly won.

I then went after his western coastal mainland city. It had one archer and fell to two maces. (This time the initial odds were only 34%. Altogether I am down ~3 coin flips though. Oh, I also attacked his galley by the far island with my caravel at 80% and lost, so 5 coin flips. I then cleaned it up with a galleon.)



Finally I used a fourth galleon of maces to capture his second city. This one had an archer, so it obviously required two maces, one of which died.

The fifth galleon just moved up. It's not in range of Rockwave (the far island city) this turn, but its troops can be transferred to another galleon that is. And Rockwave is currently defended by a single warrior, so I expect that attack to work. While I had originally intended its cargo to assault Ruff's other nearby mainland city this turn, it's a) just going to be razed if I capture it and b) reasonably well defended by an archer and axe. So no big deal. Let Ruff keep it and be forced to defend it.



The goal of all this was to gain three high-pop island cities, and due to those bad initial die rolls I only got two. Luckily, the best two! And the third is currently poorly defended and impossible to reinforce except by whip.

Building remaining were sparse, but both cities had a granary, and the capital had an academy and of course the pyramids. I won't complain.

Oh! And I also took out a trireme guarding some fish near Pinkpop!



Note: Download and Pinkpop did not figure into any raze attempts as I would ideally like to take and hold them later. But if I attacked them now, my troops are too spread out to defend them.

I also picked up a few hundred gold. Since my capital completes an observatory this turn, I'm taking just one more turn of building up cash before I switch to research again.



I recently researched Meditation and Theology so I can get the Apostolic Palace and a few Monasteries. (And I whipped the nearly-complete Observatory to get some good overflow.) I'm currently sitting on Horseback Riding and will soon get Paper, bulb Education, and start getting those nice Renaissance techs.

By the way - here is my Heroic Epic city. Really the only other city I did a decent job with.



Here's the summary of combats. Oh by the way, I kind of renamed all my cities to Hindu gods, and the units that I fought with to Disciples/Chariots of Kali/Shiva, my chosen gods of destruction. Except that Caravel at the end - I forgot. (Maybe that's why it didn't lose...?)

Finally, my settling party for the much-anticipated new city of Ganesha:



Wish I had another worker in the party but you know, there's a war going on and we don't have room in the one ship we were generously allotted.

Now, I wonder what's going to happen next? Lewwyn has been kept up-to-date on these plans, so nothing changes there. But it's unclear how the rest will react. I sent the following note to Ruff with the save:

Hi Ruff, our civilizations are now at war. I'll let you see the details yourself. Unfortunately for you, this is to a great extent the fault of your predecessor, though your decision to cancel our NAP did not help you.

I am always open to negotiation, though considering my army you may find yourself with little leverage.

Seven

Meanwhile, TRD is doing a pretty atrocious job of defending himself against the smart attacks of Lewwyn on the mainland, and is basically sunk. (Uh, see his Lewwyn's thread for details, I think.) So, interesting times...

[novice]

Nice. You razed Ruff's mainland city?

[SevenSpirits]

Oops, guess I missed the shot of that.



Yes I did!

(Since he has units, not to mention cities and roads nearby, there's not a chance I would hold it.)

[Square Leg]

Great update! Thanks.

Nice to see some action at last!

[SevenSpirits]

Some diplo chat with Ruff.

He acted like he wanted to negotiate peace (and also said he didn't care much about the game, which I believe) but didn't end up making any offers except cease fire. I offered him peace and a NAP for two coastal cities (the island one which I can capture next turn anyway and one more, or two of the others) and he pretty much abandoned discussions at that point with no counteroffer.

Here are two examples of things he could have said that IMO end up way better for him than his apparent chosen course:

1) "I'll let you capture the island city, and give you 100 gold. We sign peace and a NAP and open borders with a no exploration clause."

2) "You have two choices. I let you capture the island city [since it unfortunately became his capital, it can't be gifted] and we sign peace and a NAP immediate after. Or, I whip my island city down to 1 or 2 pop before you can take it."

Either of those would have worked. As I pretty much expected from reading his other threads, I really don't understand Ruff's motivations. Does he actually want war? Does he think that I actually want peace? I guess maybe I'll find out when the game is over!

[SevenSpirits]

Good news:

My position is still awesome!

Bad news:

Loading a unit into a transport doesn't cost any movement. Unloading a unit from a transport doesn't cost any movement. But if you are doing both at the same time, no movement points left. Therefore I have close to no chance of taking Ruff's capital this turn, as only a single mace and a chariot are in range, and the chariot only has about 30% odds vs the warrior.

Bizarre news:

Ruff whipped his capital down to size 2. That's the Civ IV equivalent of finding someone you can use as a valuable hostage while you are on the phone with the person who cares and who can kill you, and immediately executing them!



Good news again:

No hurry then! I have time to pillage all the villages (I want farms there anyway) and farm some XP for a great general, which would really be quite handy.

Domestically, military builds were on hold while I finishing Horseback Riding and see what Ruff does next. Since Ruff's army is pretty much all Praets and Catapults it won't hurt to have a few Horse Archers. (Can anyone point me to how flank attacks work?) Getting up lots of Hindu Monasteries and Temples in anticipation of the Apostolic Palace.

[SevenSpirits]

A few more turns (but no screenshots, sorry)... I've pillaged/blockaded the crap out of Ruff's island city Rockwave, which is fairly hilarious because as long as I leave it in Ruff's hands, it's his Bureaucracy capital.

Ruff sent 5 workers to chop forests on my border. I sent in a chariot to delete 3 of them which were on the same tile and undefended.

Also, I razed another of Ruff's coastal cities, which was inexplicably defended by only a single axe. In some mildly bad luck, I lost 2 maces in the process (expected losses were probably ~1.5).

Also founded Ganesha on one of the silvers for +2 happy, and started camping the first elephant. Two more workers are being ferried over. And I switched to representation as it was only -1 happy in the cities that need happy (and the silver allowed this) and gives +48 total beakers from specialists in the capital (3 free specs, 2 settled merchants, and 3 specialists currently being run, all with +100% research).

I've been grabbing techs in a turn each for a few turns while burning through all the city capture gold. Alphabet, Paper, and most recently Education with the help of a 1900-beaker great scientist. I still have another such scientist. I should be able to get Printing Press next turn, assisted by the other bulb, before I run out of cash. Then it's probably back a bit to pick up Guilds/Banking (required for Replaceable Parts), Code of Laws/(maybe Drama)/Philosophy (for Liberalism), and Gunpowder, in some order and much more slowly. It will probably depend on what I see Nakor teching. He's in a golden age which is kind of scary.

Also my capital just popped out another great merchant at 16%. (I would have preferred a scientist or engineer... and while I'm miffed that I haven't gotten a prophet yet with 33% odds repeatedly, building a shrine is probably past its point of efficiency.) I'll probably start a golden age once the captured Ruff cities, Varuna and Durga, come out of resistance in 4/5 turns.

Finally, in 4 turns I finish the AP which will immediately be worth 26 base hammers spread out over various cities.

[Tatan]

(Can anyone point me to how flank attacks work?)

I might not be the best person to explain this, but AFAIK it works like this:

Some units have a special flank attack vs certain other units. For example, Knights have a flank attack against catapults and trebuchets. What this means is that when a knight attacks an enemy stack with a catapult or trebuchet in it, if the knight wins or withdraws it can deal "flanking damage" to the catapults/trebuchets [I'm not sure if there is an upper limit to number of units that can be damaged]. This damage can and will kill units out-right if those units are already wounded, which is why a lot of people [myself included] consider flanking unbalanced.

You mentioned using Horse Archers flanking Ruff's catapults; HAs don't actually have a flank attack unfortunately, so you would need knights. CFC's unit table mentions which units get flanking against which other units.

Hope that helps some.

[Serdoa]

According to the Civilopedia HAs do have flank attack against Cats and Trebs. And I am pretty sure I used them in PBEM7 for exactly that.

Though if the Cats have full health and you start attacking you need several wins with HAs to kill them - 5-6 I believe.

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks for the help guys. It looks like a few Horse Archers can't be a bad thing.

The next turn finally came back (I guess Ruff had missed it by accident) - I researched Printing Press, no problem, could have done it at 0% even I think.

Nakor is starting to build Cataphracts but thankfully hasn't, AFAICT from alphabet, gotten any new techs.