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[Mardoc]

Are we N1 power yet?

Not hardly. We're fourth. Gawdzak - Zanth - Furungy - Us. I don't know that we can get to be N1, either, not unless Zanth and Gawdzak take casualties in their wars and we don't.

[Mardoc]

Ok, so maybe #1 isn't unreasonable to hope for after all - we're #2 as of the turn this morning. Not sure if that's us building fast, or Gawdzak/Zanth finally taking some casualties; should have a better idea in a couple turns.

I've got a stack of 25 cannon/10 Inf/15 Other ready to go, which isn't quite enough (and 8 airships for support). A couple more turns and we ought to be ready, though. I'm hoping we can be ready next turn, but realistically it may be two. Turns out I remembered the target wrong - size 20 and his only canal to the little sea - and two tiles from our border, both hills. And it's only a few tiles from Rome itself, and there are another 3-4 cities reachable in 2-3 turns from Ottoman borders. We can definitely manage Rome's core without winning at sea, so long as the relative tech situation stays stable. Just need to maintain stalemate, enough that he can't keep a fleet off our coast so we can concentrate forces.

We took out a pair of Galleons in the little sea between Rome and us - lost one Galleon to do it. I'm very glad for the 80% odds post-Airship, because I only seem to win 2/3 of those fights. He's bringing up a ship of the line, though, which may be a bit more difficult to take out even with airship assistance. Nothing else aggressive this turn from either side.

A couple more turns until we head for Combustion; still have a dozen rifles and a dozen Janns. Part of the delay there has been the discovery that axes can upgrade to Machine Guns and Triremes to Frigates, both also really useful items. It seems more important to have a Frigate today than a Destroyer in six turns - and getting machine guns is also quite important.

Anyway, at the current turn pace, things should be getting bloody Sunday/Mondayish. I'll see if I can't find the time not just to report, but to add pictures.

[flugauto]

N2, hurray! Has Furungy Railroads?

[Mardoc]

N2, hurray! Has Furungy Railroads?

Nope. Doesn't even have steam power. This turn he finished Scientific Method and is now starting on Physics. Which could perhaps be a problem, except we're moving before he'll be able to use it.

This turn, Airships and Frigates let us take three frigate v frigate battles at decent odds and win all three. Won't complain about the naval RNG anymore, two were 85% but one was only 52% - I only took that last because I had galleons who could clean up a survivor if necessary. As best I can tell, his navy is pushed back to his own borders for now; won't make much more progress for the moment since we need to heal the ships, but he's a bit spooked by the airships.

What's ready to go next turn? This monstrous army, plus odds and ends that are still trickling in. Units that will join the army inside Roman territory include: 5 Machine Guns, 7 cannon, 3 infantry and 3 knights. Maybe I can scrape up another couple from random places. The main one: I'm debating how empty to leave Oidu; on the one hand, every unit to absorb collateral helps; on the other, I don't want to lose the friendly culture and railroad line for reinforcement.



Thought seriously about going in this turn instead of next, but...nine of those Infantry were still Rifles, and most of the 'joining' units weren't close enough to the front yet. Furungy's up to 15 visible cannons, so I felt I needed the extra oomph.

We'll be pressing for Cumae directly, by way of that hill chain. I really really hope he stands and fights. Without culture, we can pretty much only hold one tile - the tile the army's on. If we can kill enough of his stuff, we can spread out and start capturing the whole peninsula. If he doesn't let us kill his stuff, we may have to raze instead. Which would be a shame with a size 21 city like that. Granted, not enough of a shame to keep me from doing it . Hurt him enough and he'll stand and fight regardless, somewhere.

Removing Cumae from Rome will cut his access to that little sea, which in turn will let us resettle the cities he razed and barely spend any units garrisoning. Plus it removes a huge city from his research and production queues, and a good chunk of the culture in the area. So he might fight.

I haven't decided where we're going after Cumae. Depends too much on how he reacts, I think. (plus, as always, on how kind the RNG is to us). One possibility is to push directly for Rome - five more tiles. That's a fair bit of time to let him accumulate cannon, but I'm pretty sure he'd fight us for his capital. The goal here would be to destroy his army, so we can rampage. The risk is: four turns of reinforcement, fighting on flatland, I'm not entirely sure it's *his* army that would be destroyed.


Another possibility is to head north and south and take that culture-contested peninsula - more gradual, but it's all close to our borders and doesn't overlap culture with his core, so we could put down rails and actually keep the area.

The third possibility: well, someturn soon, we'll run out of obsolete units and turn tech back on. Combustion ought to let us sweep him from the seas, at which point we load up transports/galleons and start sniping everything that's coastal.

Or, heh. Hold Cumae, bring up Galleons, and make a mad dash for Rome. Can get galleons from Cumae to outside Rome in one turn. Requires insane luck - all he needs to do is park his Ships of the Line in that strait and we're blocked. But it does at least give him an extra reason to try to hold Cumae.

[Mardoc]

Oh, hmm. Staring at the map does suggest one alternate possibility: stick the army right next to Circei. On the one hand, that does leave us on flatland, not a hill. On the other hand, it cuts out all his southern troops from participating immediately; 5 cannon and a bunch of grens/rifles/etc. He'd still have 10 cannon and all his cavalry, plus the garrisons of Cumae and Circei, but cutting out a third of his siege and a large fraction of his hitters would really help. Plus giving him a shot on flatland may tempt him to fight; if I weight the battle too far in my favor he'll just withdraw and fight elsewhere. I'd really like to fight his units in two waves instead of one.

If he declines battle, we can punch out Circei and still move to the hill next to Cumae for the plan as currently envisioned. Getting rid of Circei's culture makes keeping Cumae a lot more potentially feasible - we'd gain cultural control pretty much all the way up to Cumae itself. Gonna have to think on this, but right now it's the direction I'm leaning.

One thing I forgot to mention: we got a Great General from the frigate victories, born way out east. I just moved him up to Istanbul, not knowing what to do with him, but now that I bring him up: we need a GG Medic; I think that's way more important than anything else we could do with him. Need to be able to heal our stack faster than Furungy can produce cannons. Especially if we're going to try to tempt him to fight on two consecutive turns.

Furungy's got his army pretty well spread out, so Morale tricks aren't likely to work. And I don't expect widespread XP to matter much in an era where a 70 unit stack is the minimum for considering offense. On top, without our Heroic Epic anymore, there's no obvious city to build an academy.

[flugauto]

Maybe offer Furungy peace for his 4 eastern cities? Fighting for Cumae, Circei, Setia, Arpinum takes time and then they are in revolt. Of course, he will not accept the peace, but it is worth a try.

[Mardoc]

Although those cities would be nice - they're not the important part of this campaign. The important part is destroying a few thousand hammers of units. We do that, and we can have all of Rome. We fail, and he'll keep researching, and then we'll have to fight them again as infantry.

Besides, it's not like four cities would be enough. We'd still have to take the rest of Rome to have any sort of chance against Zanth.

[Mardoc]

Alright, rolled the dice. He's got 32 Cavalry, 11 cannon, and odds and ends ranging from wounded Rifles down to spearmen. Didn't count, the cannon and Cavs are what matter here. We've got...this:



I went back and forth a few times on whether we needed the hill. Ended up gambling that the river protecting us from half of his stuff will be enough. I do expect to get hit. Only question is whether we've enough stuff and enough high-Str stuff to survive - I might have just sentenced most of our cannon to die by flanking. Or...I might have just tempted Furungy to sacrifice most of his army for a couple kills. Medic III will have a chance to heal the stack after he hits us; if we win most of our battles everything will be hunky-dory. Edit: No, no it won't. Every unit moved. But if we win enough we can stay put for a turn or two to heal.

Everyone cross your fingers!

[Mardoc]

The main reason why I think only the cavs matter: both infantry and machine guns get significant + vs gunpowder. Even a wounded one will probably have pretty good odds, therefore.

The cavs, on the other hand. Well, first, we're unable to take Formation yet, and the inherent bonuses don't apply. Second, the cavs were able to be built with more XP; half of them already have either CI/Pinch or CI/Charge, giving them big bonuses vs anything that might defend our stack. The other half: I hope they're without XP, but probably they just haven't been promoted yet. On top, they win fights and they'll start removing our cannon.

Despite those advantages, the Cavs still don't have odds. That's where the cannon come in. I'd be shocked if any manage to withdraw - but they'll probably wound the top 11 stack defenders pretty badly, and put on 66 collateral hits to the rest of the stack. The reason I think we can handle this, is that we've 86 units! That means we'll still probably have some units unwounded, and most of our stack defenders should only have one hit. Their high base strength means they'll hopefully still have odds after that.

The gunpowder units would matter, if Furungy had more cannon. But I don't think my units will be hurt enough to lose to gunpowder units. Not unless the cavalry do so well that we've lost anyway.

-----

Dang it, I'm nervous! Should have gone for the safer route and parked on the hill.

I hope Furungy plays soon. I can deal with loss, and I can definitely handle victory, but uncertainty is killer.

[GermanJoey]

Why did you move onto the tile 1SE of Circci instead of the tile 1NE of it?