[SPOILERS] Don't mention the war

[plako]

You swapped off Guilds? Not finishing it?

Also, do you still a NAP with TMIT?

Yes. Mackoti is clearly heading towards Communism. I'm doing some research overflow preparations so that depending on his timings I can do Scientific Method + Communism back to back turns or give up and direct the research e.g. to Constitution+Democracy. I'm also hopefully getting Scientist to help me out in this in few turns.

I've NAP with TMIT until T150.

[plako]

After sleeping, Serdoa's behavior feels even more suspicious. It feels like WK has been informing him about our time schedule. I see no other logical explanation for him moving in this particular turn. He probably likes WK way more than us. If this saves him, this would be alright, but I've suspicison this might be just a player cheese gifting things PB2 style and then bailing out.

Also WK has been lately putting most of his EP on me. Not liking this at all.

[NobleHelium]

I'd talk to Mack and inform him of your suspicions.

[plako]

I'd talk to Mack and inform him of your suspicions.

I've talked now both with Mackoti and WK. I got no "phony" vibes from WK so I guess my paranoia was not justified.

[plako]

T129

Big turn. First of all I got this from WK:

Serdoa continues to play strangely, he moved almost all his garrison out of Kerk towards you. Does he have some sort of grudge against you from earlier or something? I dunno...

Anyway, Kerk has fallen and I've eliminated 7 or so units in your lands that my siege could reach. All that's left is 3 muskets SE of your nearby city that I couldn't reach. If you need help with that ask, but I'd like to keep most of my siege moving if you can handle it yourself.

BTW, want to extend our NAP? I've been thinking about it and I think extending it to around t160 would be fine with me.

More to come...

[plako]

Situation near Kerkouane. Serdoa has attacked over the river against my Woodsman+Combat musket in the forest. WK has apparently killed the things that we're left standing in the hill south of the forest. There are too many other thing on the combat log so I won't bother going through it. I think I probably should try to kill these units. I've e.g. 3 Cuirassiers in range and can throw few cats against the stack. This should secure my south and I could send all my units to north.

[plako]

What is this - Hippo is totally empty! I've Guerrilla II Lbow close enough. So I'll take it and gift it to Mackoti. I wonder where did the units go. I can't see them heading towards me.

You can also see the remnants of my stack near Hadrumetum. Serdoa attacked out. Many of his units are redlined. But he has reinforcements coming. Now I'll probably just take the walls down and use couple of trebs or cats to hopefully worn down the top defender and try to preserve my best units and take 50-50 battles with dogs/chariots.



Units inside Hadrumetum. I see Grenadier + 2* Musketman + cat in the hilled road tile and 4 muskets behind it:

[plako]

At first I captured Hippo - 144 gold - Forge and Courthouse preserved and gift it to Mackoti. Nice city.

Next lower the walls of Hadrumetum: treb+6*cats finished the job. Walls would have been good investment to Serdoa. I also think that he would have accomplished more via delaying us, if he would have retreated and then prepared to recapture Hadrumetum so I'm pretty happy he attacked out.

Then let's see the odds of various things that could hit the city. unpromoted Grenadier and musket (City Garrison I) vary as top defender:
treb (city raider II) 31.9%
cat (city raider II) 2.9%
Cuirassier (Pinch) 63%

There are just 3 healthy units in the city. After getting them down killing the rest is easy.

I'm tempted to hit the city with Cuirassier, but in the name of preserving best units. I'll throw Barrage II cat in 1st. At ~0% odds it causes collateral damage to 3 units. There are so many over 50% wounded units that this is pretty normal result. Top defender wasn't scratched. Not what I wanted. Let's try with treb then. aargh it was stacked with dog soldier so both treb and dog die and treb causes collateral damage to just 1 unit. Luckily it is the 2nd best defender so we've this situation:

[NobleHelium]

I basically never group units, and if I do I degroup them before the turn ends.

[plako]

I think it is time to start sending the Cuirassiers in. I'll promote them all to Pinch before attacking. Odds start from 75% and after 2 units are already 95%.

After 8 attacks there are these units left: