[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

The flanking I'll need to sim out but I think that the RB-mod means 10HP damage from each Knight flank attack. I don't know the mechanics on how cats/non-cats absorb collateral unfortunately (like how seige units mean a skipped hit). That's critical information on whether our 15 Knights would have any chance of scoring kills or not. We might be forced to throw a bunch of LBs in the fray to ensure that the Knights survive long enough to deliver their flanking damage.

NOTE: The barrageI doesn't seem to make any difference against Knights due to trunctation (7.8 or 7.1) . I don't think that Knights ignore FS so that might be a better for more direct damage since hurting the Knights will be our key to flanking damage (but non-Knights would probably get hurt more).

Yeah, I wouldn't put too much time into the sims yet until we see the moves and exact forces involved. I definitely won't make any moves that pass the point of no return until posting here and waiting... I'm certainly willing to claim a full 12 hours for that turn.

In 2 turns I think we'll have 19 knights available to attack, maybe 20. If the cat sacrifice can bring Knight v Knight combat above 50% for us, that could be interesting. Then we could be left with Ichabod's wounded units, and our victorious units still inside a castle with some defense left.

[MindyMcCready]

Honestly I wouldn't even take peace for Boheme back right now.

I just want to say how 100% I am behind this statement. Don't really know what our win-lose chances are but Ichabod has not only attacked our core but also denied us our Retep kill (which I so desperately wanted) after we *graciously* remained neutral during his Cheetah conquest. Unforgiveable I say!

Gunpowder and then straight to Nationalism if we can make it there.

20 Knights looks much better than 15 for flanking damage. We should not let that stack leave our lands alive.

[WilliamLP]

I haven't played all the key moves for this turn yet.




Mackoti and Harry are scrapping it out, Azza is getting eaten, knights are marauding, Commodore is teching. More news at 11.




Ichabod made an unexpected, and quite baffling move. His stack went 1 tile north. This gives us another turn where he threatens nothing. Our 1-move stack is shown and the bulk of it has 1 more move available. The staging area has 19 knights and 15 cats, basically.

Does he really want to think about assaulting William Tell with its hills, castle, and magnificent defensive river? He can move to the hill to siege, but we might be able to strike regardless because almost all his top defenders are knights with no defensive bonus.

He can pillage roads all he likes too, because we have combat engineers for days in the area.

His one movers are past the point of no return now I think. If we want to hit this stack I think we're going to get a chance.

The goal here is simply max pain, try to prove that his attack was a negative move for him. Even letting him wander around aimlessly not killing a single unit isn't a terrible outcome for that.

Any input on this area is appreciated.

(And note the city builds are obviously not set to what they're going to be. Also note the gold SW of WT has a road, despite looking like it doesn't in the graphics.)

On the island as usual it's all micro-tactics, all the time.




The C2 spear in Magic Flute gets a promotion to pike, else the city might fall to the knight next turn. Our worker by Faust chopped walls and "retired" with his final job done. The other worker is working on chopping the deer for some more annoyance.

Commodore unloaded 2 more knights SW of Faust. Have fun with those 5 longbows fortifying themselves behind walls on a hill.

The carrack blocks our reinforcement path but we have 3 boats there now to his 1. Two units are loaded in the C1 galley for tactics next turn. The C2 galley is empty and would be the top defender.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm working on some possibilities - I'll post soon.

[MindyMcCready]

So interesting! Apologize for the forthcoming rambling. Take the nuggets, reject the rest.

That stack is dangerously close to being vulnerable to pikes. He's got 4 phalnaxes and 4 CBs. If we can get through those then his cats or Knights would be defending next.

Some things: That elephant + 6 pike + 6 spear will be both visible and vulnerable to Knights. Of course, they're anti-mounted, but they'll do much better inside a city right now. If we can back them up 1N (they'll still be visible depending) with workers for roads.

Another thing: Our own stack is very vulnerable to his Knights. He'd certainly take the 50-50 odds on our Knights and wipe out our cats at the same time.

My first instinct is that he's trying to fake us out at WT either that or he's not a fan of the castle in Manon. Wait until he sees WT. :LOL: It's not nearly strategic enough and navigating those rivers is going to take several turns so I'd agree that it's a mistake if he's moving there.

Say
T168: SW of WT
T169 S of WT (flatlands)
T170: S ot WT cats bombard; Knights NE-E assault.
OR T171: Full Assult.

So he'd be on flatlands on T169, but depending on unit position, it'd be tough for us to attack him without facing our own river crossing penalty. He's got no LB, so it'd be no different from hitting him on a hill.

If he heads north:
T168: SW of WT
T169: W of WT
T170: N of WT
T171: cats bombard walls
T172: Full assault.

There is some advantage in hitting WT in that he cuts off Don Giovanni. If he's getting a little bit cold feet about our ability to hit back then chunking off those 3 cities (La Boheme + WT + Don) would be the easiest to keep. WT's conquored and Don's cut off from reinforcements. He might be thinking that he can force a retreat for all 3 cities. 3 cities that cost him nothing.

I'm sure that you are, but we need to be whipping Don into the ground. That city is virtually cut off right now and that 100% defense bonus is only being applied to 2 units. We need to spam LBs there.

So overall WT is not a bad move for him if he's thinking that he can force a retreat. Another advantage is that we can't hide a stack from him when he moves onto that gold and he can also flank away any reinforcements stack.

Possibility #2: It's a fake out. He's trying to divert pikes away from Manon.
-Knights are pretty tough. Even with 100% culture his C2 Knights on a C1 (15%fort) Pike there's not too much more than a coin-flip chance of victory against the second Knight. 58% odds of 70HP or more -
-C2 Spears with zero fort have 66%.
-CG2 full fort LBs generally can only stop 1 Knight.

So it would cost him most of his Knights but he could run at Manon without stripping culture. But why would he? You know, the more I think about, the more that I think that he is making a run at WT. 3 cities and call it a day. Enough damage to us that he can pick us up later for cheap.

If that's the case, then once he takes the gold tile we're going to have trouble reinforcing WT from any safe position. So our only chance is to move 3W of WT this turn or 1N3W of WT or some equivalent position where we can get into WT in one turn or else risk the flanking damage.

Some options: Let him have WT after a fierce battle against LBs. Our Knights and cats re-take LaBoheme and/or Don and we've trapped him deep inside our culture and try to get WT back as a concession. If we're thinking about re-taking La Boheme, a Treb or two would be very effective. CR1 or CR2 and they're likely to retreat from anything other than a Knight. Whip one out from each of Manon and Don and then re-take that city.

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, if he wants to trade down knights vs Pikes and Longbows at 1 for 1 odds or worse with a hammer disadvantage, I'd say we won the battle even if he takes a city doing this.

So the goals are
1. Not let him attack anything in the open with his cats. (Easy right now since they don't threaten anything.)
2. Not let him have an attack with his mounted stack that isn't a hammer loss for him.
3. Don't let him force either of the same next turn.
4. (Ideally) force the armageddon battle in our favour.

His options:
1. Move NE. We just have to not be completely cut off from WT here, and he'd have to grind knights into pikes up a hill over a river into culture. We need to be able to move some LBs in there to prevent the Phalanx and Xbows from crushing our pikes, but not that many because what he has other than knights isn't scary.
2. It was all a feint, he threatens Manon with one of NW, W, SW. This is basically what we were expecting except he just wasted a turn. We'd want to consider the decisive strike here, though we'd also have a turn where he can't do anything except siege down a castle.
3. Retreat 1SE. (Retreating 1S would be pretty silly). This is saying "oh crap, you might be able to flank my cats, I'd better get to a city". This is actually what I hope he doesn't do. (Back when I said I hope he overcommits, I really did mean _over_. )
4. Knight tricks? SW-SW (fork Hoffmann) would be suicide. SE-SE (threaten Don G) and we just need to be able to get some mounted defenders in there.

So for this turn I'm thinking:
1. Our western death stack probably stays right where it is or moves 1S. Alternatively almost all of it could move 1E. A reason not to do that is that he has a sentry horse archer (this is even shown!) We want to give him a chance to commit to the west. And I don't see any key tactics where being one move further to the east gets us anything next turn.

2. Our mounted defenders move into WT itself. This way they can defend Don G. as well. The disadvantage of this is they can't participate in an attack beside Manon next turn unless they cross a river. But that's ok because pikes and spears probably won't be our key offensive units. The alternative play would be to move to the hill 1W of WT (with combat workers). But the tactics there are a little trickier because he could attack with knights (up a hill, and I doubt he'd do it) or move E-NE to cut off Don G. So I don't think I like that as much.

3. Just a few longbows (2-3?) move out of Manon NE-NE-N to where they can defend the non-knights inside of Don G. next turn, or else get back in Manon.

4. We upgrade a couple more spears.

So I think that's the play, unless you can see I missed something:
- Stuff all the pointy sticks in WT, with a few LBs available to join.
- Consolidate the wastern death stack 1W of the peak where possible.

[WilliamLP]

Made the moves, basically as written above. No more screenshots this turn because of Pitboss exhaustion.

Also, it's now open season on Pitboss 11 comments.

[WilliamLP]

Now that I've had a chance to read Retep's PB 11 thread, I have a very hard time reconciling the version of him in this game with that one. Over there he was extremely astute, intelligent, heck even charming and likable. Every insight he made about that game was spot on, except maybe at the very end. Despite the language barrier he's even a brilliant writer at times.

So what happened here? My guess is he just saw how boxed in his start was, saw the Barbiere plant, got discouraged and just said "F this" to the rest of the game? Switching places though, I believe I could have produced plenty of fun and intrigue out of his start.

[Krill]

I'd save those comments until you outlive him, to be honest.

[MindyMcCready]

:LOL: