[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Knghts are only 10 more hammers than muskets, no?

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, but most of his are drafted. Though, to be fair, that isn't an unexhaustable resource and does come with it's own drawbacks. And the units that are really giving me trouble are the ones he built in his HE city which have formation.

[The Black Sword]

I attacked with the 4 cats and 13 knights:



This is the catapulted stack.



I tried out some flanking on the top units before I got odds, but they died anyway.

After the first kill I got the GG and used him to promote 3 knight to C3 and 1 knight which had no xp to C2. I hope I don't regret not going with a healer.

In the end I lost 5 knights and 4 cats to kill 4 muskets, 3 elephants and 1 mace. Which is slightly worse than expected, I averaged 1 less loss in the sims and 1 more kill, and that didn't include the GG. It does mean we managed 48 flank attacks though. Here's what his stack looks like now:



and our defenders:



He has 20 hitters and we have 16 non-knight defenders. The city should be safe, though the hammer exchange, which is more important, is still up in the air.

Given that we are sitting behind a castle and he has no stack healer at the moment, I thought it was a good position to stand our ground, but we needed to flank those cats or we'd be in trouble and we could do it at a reasonable hammer exchange. How much that decreases their effectiveness though, I'm unsure and he can use the really weak ones to bombard.

The other option was to leave some sort of minimum LB defense in the city. But I think he could take that out at a reasonable rate for him and once he takes the city, Popinjay and Modular Man are harder to attack out of due to the adjacent hills.



His damn boats are annoying me, I built a LB in Sleeper instead of a caravel, so we have 3 units inside in case they are full. Similarly Modular Man has a LB, a Knight and an injured Knight from Bagabond too. I hope that's enough given our cultural defenses and him attacking amphibiously.



Dubious move building the explorer in the Capital. We are only about 10 more xp from another GG though which seems quite likely next turn. With just 5xp an explorer can get woodsman 3 for healing, so we can sprinkle a few extra knight promos and get a healer too.

We can finally build the HE now too. Sleeper is the best choice in a vacuum, but it's build queue is full for the moment and it's a bit vulneruble. Might be a better idea to go with an island city but none have the same raw hammers and units built will take longer to arrive.

[Ceiliazul]

recon units cannot take woody 3. nice try tho!

[The Black Sword]

It's a good thing Bigger hasn't had time to play yet then.

[The Black Sword]

53%, 65%, 70%, 55%.

I needed 3 kills to get the next GG and I have another full strength C2 Knight in range. He'd need to be left in Bagabond though, which is why I kept him back. Now I don't have anyone to get the third kill after him anyway.

Oh, and dtay finished Military Tradition, Cuirs on the way now.

[The Black Sword]

I teched Theology last turn, pretty sure I'll switch to Slavery/Theocracy now. Our next GP looks to me like it's 11t away, with about 66% chance of a non scientist. That's too long to wait for the GA. I'd prefer whipping our civ to the ground and lose it later than risk it now. I'm worried dtay could march on our capital with his doomstack and we can't scramble enough troops to stop him. We're working a lot of coast tiles in the empire that we can whip off without effecting our production. We lose 240h from the revolt turn, but that's made back with 1 turn of whipping. Hopefully the GA then can carry our tech onto Steel/Military Science/Astro. There's not much more to do with our gold now anyway, so I think I'll turn tech on Gunpowder.



I left 3 LBs in the city with fortify bonus, looks like they did well enough. I was afraid of the cats so I didn't leave too many.

[The Black Sword]

Another nice screw-up, I didn't check the revolt time, stuck with 2 turns of anarchy, not one, would have just stayed out of Theocracy if I realised.

Mack has Astro now, so I can't keep pulling defenses from the south coast, better whip in some garrisons there.

On the bright side, we killed another galley in the north, not sure what his play was up there.

[Jowy]

Still head above the water?

[The Black Sword]

I think so ...

This turn his doomstack should move onto the hill SW of Jetboy. It consists of 24 cats and 24 hitters, mostly musket, which does seem a bit cat heavy. I'll keep over 24 defenders in the city, so it won't fall. IIRC, I can just about manage that without leaving any Knights there so they won't get hit by any cat collateral damage. I expect he'll just take the turn to bombard down our defenses like last time though. He needs all his cats for that thanks to the castle.

The turn after I have an extra 6 cats and 2 Knights in range of his stack, which appears to be enough to tip the balance. So, that turn we just throw the kitchen sink at him and see what happens. I think our attackers will be about 13 cats, 20 knights and 20 other units. Our losses should be 20-25 units. We won't completely wipe out his stack but he'll be left with mostly cats and a couple of injured hitters, while we're in a city with a GG healer so we should be able to finish them off with minimal casualties over subsequent turns.

Unfortunately, he has another small stack of about 10 units which will be beside Modular Man on the north coast next turn. So we'll have to give up that city to have enough units in the capital. Modular Man is not that important but the real worry is if we can't scramble enough units to stop him if he marches on Sleeper afterward.

I left Sewer Jack, the crap plains cow plant, empty this turn. I don't know why I built Castles here or in Modular Man, did I forget that the walls only affect his cats? Anyway, this can be 1 turned out of the fog by Cuirs, and with only 20% defenses he'd probably be able to kill any unit I left there. If it lasts until next turn I can whip it back to size 1 for a pike and might put some other defenses backs in.

Popinjay, the copper plant, can also be 1 turned by Cuirs but it's a hill plant with 40% culture defense, so hopefully the 3 LBs and a pike is enough.

Mack has been clearly checking out the garrisons of our island cities with Frigates(!). If he wants them, I doubt we can stop him, have to hope his war with OH keeps him occupied a bit longer.

I'll take some pictures if I get a chance but probably won't have time today.