[spoilers] Pindicator and Regoarrarr - Bismark of Ethiopia

[regoarrarr]

I think we're mostly on the same page. I agree with what you're saying about the overall goal being taking over administration of Yuri's land. But there's a big difference between "win the war in one push" and "try to cripple him now then mop up later down the tech path". and knowing the answers to that question can drive what we do here.

I agree with Char -> Iron -> Tarsonis. I don't think the copper and horse are that necessary - if he's not building pikes, his best unit is probably the longbow (maybe mace), and I'm not too scared of those.

I was thinking maybe after Tarsonis (if we make it that far), we swing west to Zhakul. If we can take that, we really cut his empire in half, making his defense a nightmare. Even more so if we can successfully coordinate with Commodore to go after Monlyth / Mar Sara (of course that presumes that Commodore can spare forces from his Cyneheard war, which doesn't seem that likely)

Also agree not to waste OF units on Inferno Island

[oledavy]

I doubt I'll be telling you anything you haven't already realized, but here goes.

First Impressions:

It's somewhat difficult to really make plans without an idea of Yuri's force distribution, I would make finding that out top priority.

This is definitely not a war you can win in one grand campaign, not unless Yuri just collapses, or you can get Commodore involved. In this era, with the units you have, you're better off trying to execute any offensives before he gets into 'hold the walls' mode, then coming back later to finish him with rifles. You're already operating at a pretty significant logistical disadvantage, since your production centres are not on the same landmass as your targets. His interior lines of reinforcement means he'll win any prolonged struggle. The fact that he already has the units needed to repel you is equally worrisome. So, whatever you do, needs to be done quickly and decisively.

You can probably pick up Char, Tarsonis, Xii and Molynth. Tarsonis is the most critical city in this equation. Besides being his capital, it's his most productive city, and shields his core. Without it, his position in the south is completely untennable. His entire south will able to be forked and reduced at will. So, all your efforts need to be focused on taking Char and driving towards Tarsonis before he can rally his defense. If you can stage sufficient forces in Wayne's World before D-Day, on the corn tile, it would be worthwhile to do so. You would be able to move onto the iron the first turn, and fork Char and Tarsonis. Otherwise, drive from the northeast through Char before marching on the capital. If you manage that, Xii and Menlth will be effectively cut on, left to wither on the vine, and you will be able to besiege them at your leisure. You'll want to get as many spies out as possible, and have enough EPs to put Tarsonis, and Char, if possible, in revolt.

You shouldn't bother with any naval component, not worthwhile in an age with longbows and two-move boats. Maybe just a couple triremes to blockade and nail any galleys that wander by. I would also skip trying to pillage his iron, it's likely he'll just trade for it if you cut him off; and there are probably nations out there willing to prop him up. See who he could potentially trade with for it.

You'll want as many one-movers as possible following behind your mounted stack, to lockdown and defend Tarsonis when you take it. You can then take your time churning out catapults and maneuvering your forces to take Monlyeth and Xii. Any reinforcements to those two cities will have to loop around the western road network. That's going to be a long time, even with engineering. After you've reduced those four cities, act as the situation dictates. Hard to plan that far ahead, but you'll probably want to sue for a favorable peace to integrate the new cities into the empire.

As near as I can tell, his four most important cities are Tarsonis, Char, Aiur, and Beshir. With two in your hands, he should start to fall behind pretty quickly. The most critical thing here is making sure the initial offensive succeeds and Tarsonis falls. As near as I can tell, it's the key to Yuri's entire defensive position and by far his most important city. If you make sure it falls, it will probably be game over for him.

[pindicator]

Wow, this makes me wish we had started this conversation 20 turns ago instead of on the eve of the war when all the pieces are already in place. Good stuff Davey, and the part about putting troops on the corn wasn't even noticed by us.

I doubt I'll be telling you anything you haven't already realized, but here goes.

First Impressions:

It's somewhat difficult to really make plans without an idea of Yuri's force distribution, I would make finding that out top priority.

Yeah, this is true and I feel dumb for telling Rego it was okay to pull our spies back. But the spies' goal for the next 5 turns needs to be finding Yuris' defenses: first any troops near Char & Xil (we already know that each border city is staffed with 3 longbows, 2 spears, & 2 axes), and then troops near Tarsonis. At least the task should be easier in that his troops are likely on the road network, so we will be able to explore 6 tiles a turn between the 2 spies. That's 30 tiles we can uncover before attacking assuming he doesn't move his army around (and if the RNG is kind). Now's the point where I notice our spy in yuri's territory is for some reason not on the road network

This is definitely not a war you can win in one grand campaign, not unless Yuri just collapses, or you can get Commodore involved. In this era, with the units you have, you're better off trying to execute any offensives before he gets into 'hold the walls' mode, then coming back later to finish him with rifles. You're already operating at a pretty significant logistical disadvantage, since your production centres are not on the same landmass as your targets. His interior lines of reinforcement means he'll win any prolonged struggle. The fact that he already has the units needed to repel you is equally worrisome. So, whatever you do, needs to be done quickly and decisively.

Agree with everything in this paragraph. Even if it ends up being knights v longbows, he can just whip himself silly. Of course, even that would be a win for us IMO.

You can probably pick up Char, Tarsonis, Xii and Molynth. Tarsonis is the most critical city in this equation. Besides being his capital, it's his most productive city, and shields his core. Without it, his position in the south is completely untennable. His entire south will able to be forked and reduced at will. So, all your efforts need to be focused on taking Char and driving towards Tarsonis before he can rally his defense. If you can stage sufficient forces in Wayne's World before D-Day, on the corn tile, it would be worthwhile to do so. You would be able to move onto the iron the first turn, and fork Char and Tarsonis. Otherwise, drive from the northeast through Char before marching on the capital. If you manage that, Xii and Menlth will be effectively cut on, left to wither on the vine, and you will be able to besiege them at your leisure. You'll want to get as many spies out as possible, and have enough EPs to put Tarsonis, and Char, if possible, in revolt.

I think we need to have a serious look at the situation when/if we get to Tarsonis. It may be that the best course of action will be to burn that city, even if we have a considerable knight force at that point.

Logistics are going to be a continuing nightmare. One thing our builds have not accounted for is for the war to devolve into a stalemate. What few elephants and crossbows we made pre-knights have gone towards our galley plan, and the catapults plus other elephants are in the east just in case Krill decides to take advantage of this.

Now, we are not entirely without staying power on the western island. We have 3 cities on the island that will be able to pump out 20+hpt (that's base production; all cities have a forge and one of those cities is our HE city). I'm confident we could hold Xil & Char, but Tarsonis will depend because the supply lines to it are going to be long. If the advances slog down I think we need to be prepared to move our catapult + elephant force quickly west and then use our production cities in the east to replenish that reserve. But what do we build after we start the war? I think we need to put out quite a few longbows and catapults, unless we think we can accomplish our goals with just knights.

You shouldn't bother with any naval component, not worthwhile in an age with longbows and two-move boats. Maybe just a couple triremes to blockade and nail any galleys that wander by. I would also skip trying to pillage his iron, it's likely he'll just trade for it if you cut him off; and there are probably nations out there willing to prop him up. See who he could potentially trade with for it.

Yeah, the galley plan is in place and moving already. It's a small force: 4 elephants & 2 crossbows. The plan is more to harass and take easy targets than it is to do any real assault. We may bring them in to reinforce a city (like Tarsonis) or we may try to tie up troops in his backlines. We could even later unload the troops outside of Yuri's vision and then move the galleys around to just threaten like we could boat his cities, hopefully forcing him to put production into defense there.

As for pillaging his iron, here is where our geography works in our favor. All trade routes from east to west pass through our borders. So the war is going to prevent anybody to our east from trading with Yuri until somebody gets Astronomy. Commodore & Cyneheard are the only two people who could possibly trade Yuri iron but neither have a native source (Commodore only has iron because we're gifting him our 2nd source as a bit of goodwill for taking Schweddy Balls). So we have a definite window pre-Astronomy where disconnecting Yuri's resources will provide a military edge. Yuri has 2 potential sources; the one up north can even be disconnected on the first turn of the war with a single horse archer that starts NE of Vorpal Blade. If Yuri's front with Commodore is like his front with us he has a unit on top of the iron, so we may want to bring a few horse archers over there right away, before the war starts.

Let's send our sentry HA south to Vorpal Blade to make see if Yuri has even hooked that iron up yet. We can also ask Commodore to trade world maps to see if the iron in the north is hooked up.

[NobleHelium]

You being at war with yuris stops him from getting a trade route to anyone across your land. However it does not stop the other player from getting a trade route to him. Only one player needs a trade route to the other to trade resources.

[pindicator]

You being at war with yuris stops him from getting a trade route to anyone across your land. However it does not stop the other player from getting a trade route to him. Only one player needs a trade route to the other to trade resources.

Well phooey to that. I guess we could do the good ole fashioned trireme blockade. Could we do that in neutral territory to prevent anybody's trade routes from going through? Like south of Wayne's World?

[NobleHelium]

Not sure. You could declare war on the other guy to break the trade route.

[novice]

Let's send our sentry HA south to Vorpal Blade to make see if Yuri has even hooked that iron up yet. We can also ask Commodore to trade world maps to see if the iron in the north is hooked up.

You can mouse over a resource to see its improvement status. If it's not mined, it will say "requires mine". If it's mined but not roaded, it will say "requires road".

[regoarrarr]

You can mouse over a resource to see its improvement status. If it's not mined, it will say "requires mine". If it's mined but not roaded, it will say "requires road".

Yeah - it says "Requires Mine" so it's not hooked up. Probably makes sense given that it's not in any cities BFC and his worker labor has not been what one would call "impressive"

Also agree that it would be nice to have had these conversations 20 turns ago

We will move that spy back on to the road network next turn but it needs to go to Xil - one problem that we have as I know you know Pin but maybe Dave does not is that in RB Mod spies only have 1 tile vision so it's a lot harder to find things. I will do another power estimate on Yuri here some time during the break.

As for the corn tile at WW, can't Yuri see that tile? Also agree that we can declare war on someone if they trade iron. Krill is the only one that would worry me - not only does he have a lot of power, we would lose our sugar and ivory trades.

I do like the idea of a separate force striking out of WW though - logistically can we make that happen?

[pindicator]

I do like the idea of a separate force striking out of WW though - logistically can we make that happen?

At this point, no. We could abandon Funyun and use those galleys to shuttle troops but it would delay the attack

[regoarrarr]

At this point, no. We could abandon Funyun and use those galleys to shuttle troops but it would delay the attack

Well what about the last few galleys - can they go to WW instead of Coneheads? Maybe at a delay of a turn or two? That would get us 8-10 knights there, right?

But maybe it's not wise to divide our troops at all. I mean 33 knights and 8 HA is a pretty awe-inducing force.

Now to someone like you or I (or Krill, or etc...), it's not that fearsome. Fall back, whip pikes and cats, and bide your time to annihilate it on flatland. But to someone who a) isn't at the highest tier, b) doesn't have a lot of military experience, and c) is playing his turns in 5 minute increments, I think that he may just hide in his cities. Do we have any examples of him being attacked by a large force in previous games?

C2 pikes do get odds on C2 or C1 Shock knights (and he annoyingly is AGG), but if we can position our forces so that any pikes that hit us have to end the turn on flatland or at least outside of cities - we can nail them on our turn since he won't really be able to cover them well and every pike / unit we kill outside of a city is a win for us, even if we lose some of our troops.

I don't know - maybe I'm crazy but if we can just keep our forces together I think we have a shot to make it to Tarsonis and beyond.