[SPOILERS] Team BASTARD settles on deer.

[Mardoc]

So basically, I think it's a persona, you think it's a personality? Guess it doesn't really matter in terms of how to interact with him, for now anyway.

In other news...

Hi Mardoc,

I thought I should let you know I just logged in and declared war on you - so our turn order is Azza-Me-you. We should get the turn finished in the next 6-8 hours so I hope it doesn't cause you any trouble (beyond the obvious in-game trouble...)

Apologies,
Old Harry

What a gentleman! Three way split was inevitable if they wanted to fight me, but this is the approach that should keep the timer going as best as possible.

Gotta admit, I'm rather surprised to see them doing this; I'd have thought they'd prefer one fight at a time. I'm guessing it's related to having my army mostly wounded and outside my borders. But...I wanted out of this game anyway, so this is good. Will whip another round of elephants next turn, then after that, probably mostly longbows and cats. Just gotta be a good sport at this point, for another couple weeks, and it should be all over.

[Mardoc]

Yup, he used the chance to kill my field army. Not sure if he'll be going for my border cities next, or to finish off Azza. In exchange for that army, last turn and this turn, I killed 2 Knights and a HA. Not the best, but at least it's something. I'll aim to at least get all my archers up to longbows before they arrive, and keep whipping my cities.

[Mardoc]

They seem to be focused on me still. Took one of my border cities, kept their army mostly in Dental Plan. I had chances to kill a few more Knights and took them, but I'll be running out of steam soonish. Going to try to get at least a CGII longbow from each of my cities before I go - that's probably a unit that can kill a knight.

Not sure if switching focus to me is smart or dumb - probably depends on whether Azza keeps playing super-passive and anti-Spain. Which...is probably a safe way to bet :rolleyes: I guess as long as he's going to just add up axes and use whatever effort he spends on trying to raze more of my stuff, they might as well let Azza stew and try to break me. I at least have elephants and longbows, more all the time.

[Mardoc]

Dang, Knights are good units. Couldn't even get odds with War Elephants to counterattack FinHarry's stacks in Dental Plan and Orange. So instead I backed off a smidge, spent my GG for some Formation upgrades, and kept whipping. This turn is mostly Longbows, but next round will be cats.

I did manage to snipe a worker pair; they'll kill the HA that did it, but that's still a worthy trade. I guess I'm starting to see why HA/cat is the preferred method. Cats for killing, HA for taking advantage of mistakes and being hitters.

Edit: Oh! In foreign news, Azza declared on Boldly. Maybe to use his GG on a warrior-defended port? Maybe to teleport his galley away from mine? Who knows!

[Mardoc]

Ah, that was fun. FinHarry advanced a Knight/HA stack to fork two of my cities. They were within range of my WE stack, without any non-mounted units to cover.

Took five WE vs Knight battles, won four - as expected, since they were all 69%+ odds after I took my Formation promos. I think he can take Red next turn, but he's going to bleed for it. Or he can destroy my WE stack; they're all wounded so he should have pretty good odds. I still think that's pretty much 1 60h WE for 1 100h Knight. Or he can withdraw, and bring up cats to do this properly. Which I probably couldn't stop, but it'll take him a while and I'll get a couple more CGIII longbows out of each city while I wait.

[Ceiliazul]

Nice hit... and Dental plan is the most apt name for a front city since 'Pindicator'.

Thumbs up!

[Mardoc]

Excellent, they attacked my WE stack. And lost three more Knights and a Horse Archer! I didn't expect the WE to do nearly that well.

Course, they have a pile of cats advancing now, which I probably can't stop. But I'm up to about 10 Knights removed from the Aztecs so far . And they've got to go through CGIII longbows to get anywhere.

Considered counterattacking their Knight stack again; most of their units are wounded. But I just didn't have enough in range; I'd have had to strip those CGIII longbows from cities to try to hit wounded knights, and that just doesn't seem like a winning move.

Also have my workers out chopping away the forests from my furs and deer . I don't think I'm going to make it 30 more turns to justify leaving them in place.

[Mardoc]

FinHarry offered me a Peace Treaty this turn! After declaring war on Boldly, to go with the wars on me and Azza

I guess they were nervous about his reporting HA and chariot. Still seems like a very bad mistake, to keep piling up enemies like this! He's got almost as much Power as they do, and I don't believe he's got *any* distracting wars.

I said no, of course. Then counteroffered: they can have peace if they give me all their conquests - Orange back, and also all of Azza's cities (guessed at this by where their naming scheme changed since I can't see all the cities). Something like 10 cities - I'd be shocked if they accept. I guess I'd accept merely half of that, if they're desperate for peace here.

They'd use the time to finish Azza off and tech up, like they should have done in the first place before picking a second fight. But they'd be back, and my position would be even worse when they returned.

Realistically - I've whipped super deep to get the longbows and elephants to stymie them. I'm not coming back from this anyway. And I want to be dead.

And they were the aggressors here, after I helped them clear out Azza's main army. So they don't deserve anything from me anyway. If they want peace, then they shouldn't get it.

My course is clear - maximize war weariness and the price they pay for this continent. Who knows? Maybe Boldly will choose to fight in my land and really make them pay big. Maybe they'll finish me off after all, after whipping their homeland deep for another round of Knights and another round of cats. Either way, I win .

I'm stacking up a truly big pile of longbows, enough that I'm actually no longer certain they've enough cats to power through it. At the least, they'll have to use them all up for one city. I put up walls in Infrared to go with the big stack - that'll likely cost them an extra turn bombarding. No further casualties this turn, except they captured a worker pair who was chopping my deer. They can kill my newest city for free with the HA dropped off from their galley, although it's size 1 so they might not want to risk it.

I'm taking most of my longbows out of queues and starting on cats instead. Need the ability to counterattack, now that it seems I can maybe keep them out of my cities.

All in all, it's still hopeless. The best case scenario for an independent Spain is that Boldly joins in and we get an endless bloody stalemate - I hold the cities and culture, Boldly uses that to outmanuever the Aztecs. And realistically, I'm not entirely sure why he would; Finharry are hurting pretty bad. True, he doesn't want them as neighbors. But it'd be a pretty big investment on his part now. I'll hold a while with or without him, maybe long enough to let him gain a tech advantage before he's got to face them.

Ah well. Wait and see - and show them why you don't attack a Protective civ in the longbow era.

[Mardoc]

Oh, one final note. The moment it took me to refuse their peace treaty, was the moment when I considered that I want to outlive Azza. But...not badly enough to let them back out of a war they chose.

[Commodore]

Ah well. Wait and see - and show them why you don't attack a Protective civ in the longbow era. Mardoc, the Hope Ender!

FTFY