The German War

[MWIN]

Thanks KJN for all the analysis. I thought people wanted more discussion last time. I hope Ruff will chime in before playing the turn this time

[mostly_harmless]

Yes, roading the tile 2S of Worms asap is needed, as 1S of Worms is still firmly in the German culture even after Worms falls.

EDIT: I am also not sure we want to divert troops to take Helms Klamm. Rather focus on the capital and have the late comers and healed up units together with the woodsman axe deal with Helms Klamm a couple of turns later.

EDIT2: Checking out Wismar if only to make them nervous sounds good.

mh

[scooter]

Let's actually talk about attack order and whatnot, since rushing that during the livestream was a point of contention previously. First - the floodplains tile we are on currently will NOT be under our control immediately after taking Worms, correct? Sure looks like Webringen would still control it.

Stray comments.

1) With Helm S Klamm that we'll take next turn (154), let's not send anything from the main stack in that direction this turn. We should be able to move up the the reinforcing Knight from the south this turn, and that along with the hidden Woody2 axe can take the city next turn. No sense in depleting our main stack when those units will do the job well enough.

2) With a Garrison of longbow, Spear, Axe, I see no reason to use anything other than CR maces (if any can promote, I know many of them probably can't) to start with. That first longbow (on hill, guerilla) will be a bear and could even take down 2 units if we have poor luck, but after that it should be a romp. So let's use maces for anything except redlined units, in which case we could use either War Chariots OR any key unit that could really use 1XP for a promo. We want to save our 2-movers, catapults, and war elephants for sure. Maces are the most disposable.

3) This should go without saying, but of course we want to take the city before moving up reinforcements given that we'll be able to use an extra road or two (on the pig tile for instance).

4) I know the original thought was that we should NOT bother trying to mess with Wismar ahead of time, and that made sense when WPC was seemingly going to actually do something, but I think we should reconsider. Wismar's pop can be converted into units, and if we could snipe it painlessly, we should at least consider that. I think we should consider taking one of our trailing Maces and sticking it on the plains hill N-NE of Wasserburg, where we can easily see into Wismar and get a nice view of the area. If it's virtually empty, we could detach 3-4 of our trailing Knights to take care of it. If it's defended, well then fine, they're using up military defending a city we're ignoring for now. All I'm suggesting for this turn is moving one mace so we can make a more informed decision. That mace is Str8 and on a hill, so it will get odds on anything they attack it with, so they'll almost certainly leave it alone. Given the culture situation, it wouldn't make in time for the Webringen assault anyway, so I don't think there's any obvious downside to checking into this.

Alright. Thoughts? Now is the time to discuss this. Sullla's previous picture is here in spoilers for easy reference.

edit: Moved this into here. Looks like I crossposted with kjn on several of these ideas, but let's continue the discussion.

[novice]

Everything scooter (and kjn) said sounds good.

I would also love it if we could find some units to pillage the flood plains NW of Wasserburg after we've captured Worms. That tile will be in neutral territory once Worms has fallen, and CFC have that chariot in range.

[mostly_harmless]

First - the floodplains tile we are on currently will NOT be under our control immediately after taking Worms, correct? Sure looks like Webringen would still control it.

I think it will be free.
Look at this map from Sulllas last turn post. It shows the culture after Worms is captured.
Webringen is on four rings, right? So that means the floodplains become neutral.

mh

[scooter]

No, I'm talking about the floodplains we are currently sitting on with our stack, which is 1S of Worms, so that would fall within the 4th ring for Webringen.

[kjn]

1) We can either take Helm's Klamm with the W2 axe and the knight next turn (T154), or we can use the knight 1SE of Horse Feathers with the W2 axe in 2t (T155), or we can use a drafted mace and the W2 axe in 3t (T156), in which case we draft Frozen Jungle on draft T155, right when the city drops its first draf unhappiness.

I think I favour the T156 option, the trailing knight has no promos to use so won't get high odds against the fortified C1 axe behind walls, and we can use the knight outside Ditchdigger against Wanzleben.

2) I did a rough sim with the Worms situation, and we will lose at least two maces to the longbow - in one unlucky case I lost three to it. Then I think we might very well lose another one to the fortified axe. And no, none of our maces in the main stack has any promos to use.

[kjn]

I would also love it if we could find some units to pillage the flood plains NW of Wasserburg after we've captured Worms. That tile will be in neutral territory once Worms has fallen, and CFC have that chariot in range.

If we get the choice between razing Wismar and pillaging that village, I think I'd prefer razing Wismar. If we can't hit Wismar, I think I'd prefer to have those units closer to the front line. We can get Wasserburg up to +6 even without the FP farm, and maybe focus the city more as a hybrid with riverside FIN windmills on all those grass hills?

[scooter]

Do we not want to keep Wismar?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I'm reluctant to raze any cities we don't absolutely have to. Wismar has population we can whip and tiles that have been developed that we can grow onto, although tbh I'm not a fan of how they have managed tile development there as that could be setup to be a production powerhouse.

Also, Wismar could perhaps be negotiated to WPC as a guarantee of them getting something out of the war if we have to go back on our agreement to not take a separate peace. I'd prefer we strong arm into doing what we want without having to give a city away, but this could be an option if nothing else is available.