[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[pindicator]

Turn rolled and it looks like slowcheetah has a new mouseketeer in Tours. Nothing new in Rheims or Paris.
Gunpowder in 4, but we need the pillage gold out of Rheims to get there.

Scooter, if we think we can, I would suggest a settler. Put it on the horse island we just picked up our chariot from - run an artist to pop borders and work the wheat. Probably impractical due to being at war with a power about to wipe us out, but I'd thought I'd throw it out there.

[pindicator]

I moved a caravel one tile to get sight on Coventry, but here is the situation:



We really need to watch that southern galleon group. They could get inside Five Guys in two turns.
I thought for a bit about loading our remaining units in the northern galleons - having them come down and pick those guys up. But Coventry is pretty well defended against the forces we would have. I'm not sure that's worth it.

The knights and musketeers are no longer in Paris. They must be on those boats.

Brainingstorming...

* We sink the galleon group if it advances. This will cost us a number of galleons, I suspect, probably 4 to 6
* We let the galleon group inside the city and then attack amphibiously. This would cost us a number of land units, and we would need to pull our current forces back. We woulld need 17-20 attackers, most of them would need to be pikemen.
* Taking Rheims would mean needing to defend against knights and musketeers that could land next turn.
* Is there any way we can capitalize on him removing defenders from Paris?

[pindicator]

Ok, i lied. I did do one other thing:

[NobleHelium]

Fail!

Anyway I don't think it makes any sense to let him into FG and then attack amphibiously. Why set up such an unfavorable engagement? I think we unload all our units on the galleons next to Rheims and then either spread our galleons out such that we block both tiles west of his stack, or shadow it and attack it next turn if it advances. We have eight galleons that I assume are fully healed, so a 4/4 stack split against six possibly more galleons would be borderline dicey...

The guys on the big island can pillage for a bit if they can't be moved anywhere useful.

[pindicator]

What do you think about this?

NORTHERN GALLEONS
* t207: Move to the tile that I moved the caravel to already (N-NW of Coventry)
* t208: move S-S, pick up the army, then move E-E
* t209: unload at Paris
SOUTHERN GALLEONS
* t207: unload everything except for 2 maces, 1 xbow, and 1 pike back on the tile where our army is at
* t207 (cont): move the group SW-SW-S-SE, and use those 4 units to capture Rheims amphibiously. Save the pike for last to put i the city
* t208: if he advances his galleons then sink them
FIVE GUYS GALLEONS
* t207: move between Five Guys and his boats, ideally somewhere he won't have vision on before moving his galleons
* t208: if he advances his galleons then sink them

The idea is to transfer the army to the northern galleons and try for Paris, Coventry, or even Trafalgar. The rest of our galleons then work to sink his galleon group.

Noble, I honestly can't tell who you're directing the Fail comment at

[TheHumanHydra]

Lurker guess: the Hinduism failing to spread.

[NobleHelium]

Yes, the spread of course.

For the southern galleons that plan is okay but we should move galleons one by one and attack Rheims before unloading units back onto the big island stack. We may need more units than expected taking Rheims, or fewer, and this gives us flexibility.

[pindicator]

Yes, the spread of course.

For the southern galleons that plan is okay but we should move galleons one by one and attack Rheims before unloading units back onto the big island stack. We may need more units than expected taking Rheims, or fewer, and this gives us flexibility.

Yeah, that's a good addition. I hope it doesn't take more than that; it's just a single crossbow at Rheims. I was envisioning attacking with our crossbow first and then finishing up with CR2 maces.

I'm just not sold on it as a strategy - makes me wish we had kept all the units on the ground last turn / had been thinking about this land transfer last turn. That way it wouldn't have cost us an extra turn to unload and wait in spot. Plus if he shows up with any kind of northern stack then we could see our army sunk.

Lurker guess: the Hinduism failing to spread.

Oh yeah,

[scooter]

Overall I like the plan. Dumping units into the northern Galleons does make me nervous, though. The southern Galleons definitely need to die in the waters before reaching Five Guys, no doubt.

I tried to pop into the game to look at it more closely, but I can't seem to get in, and it seems to think I'm logged in. Oops. I should be around on chat for the next hour and a half or so, so poke me if you get a chance.

[NobleHelium]

I think we stage the FG galleons 4S of the "blockade" sign. That covers both the northern and southern vectors of his galleon stack. Try to bring along a caravel or two if possible since his stack might go out of sight and we need to find it before using galleon moves preferably.