Dtay's Little Red Book

[dtay]

Wilfork bringing in the cash



And yet the hindu holy city would net me even more...



Soo...



Upgrades on t165, attack on t166. Shoudl be able to upgrade about 13 knights or so. From memory the blitz force will then be about 13 Cavalry, 7 Cuirs, and then ~15 knights. I'll probably try to upgrade a few of those knights as I advance, though they'll still eat through any ancient era happy-garrisons. That's then followed behind by some slow moving garrison forces (Oromos, Longbows, Pikes) that are currently guarding the border. And will still be guarding the border, the border shall simply be moving :P.

Avernus and Rhi'nnon will fall on the first turn of the war, and then the hindu holy city will hopefully fall on the 3rd (unfortunately 60% culture borders will stop me from setting up to hit it in t2).

Demos

[dtay]

I'm going to have more cavs than I thought, finishing rifling at a mere 20%. That should be enough for 18 knight->Cavalry upgrades. Here's a shot of the soon-to-be-front



Unfortunately, that hindu holy city has to be at 60% by now given holy city + shrine, so it we won't be able to pull a uncovered-road-blitzkrieg like I did against CH. Next turn move troops 1N of Boyce and upgrade. Then on t166 take Riannon and avernus, hopefully only losing maybe 1 knight to weaken the pike if the odds for a cav aren't sufficiently good.

I'm now realizing when I spoke earlier I was wrong, (had the map wrong in my head / not sure, total brain meltdown), I can in fact take the holy city on t2. After taking the cities, I can move the rest of my stack to any of the tiles 2N, 3N, or 4N of avernus to set up a t2 strike on the hindu holy city, clearing it's culture. I have no idea what roads that will open up, depends on the culture of the cities behind it, but we'll see. Again, almost certainly slower than the Ch war since that was recently conquered Whosit territory for much of it, which means light culture control.

Power - I like the look of that dip in Pind's line



Dazed has a ton of galley's here for... unclear purposes. They're in my view, but not in range of any cities. And attacking me would seem to make basically no sense for him



As I write that I realize that that city is actually the closest he can get them to TBS without being in optics-vision range, which brings us to:

Lots of people, including Pind!!! and Finharry!!! can research astronomy. Dangerous. I'll go partially down that line next so I can get Astronomy not long after someone else breaks the bubble.

[dtay]

I realize he's actually leaving cause of technical problems, but Cyneheard is bowing out RIGHT before the cavalry (literally and figuratively) arrive... such unfortunate timing

On that note... come on guys I wanna attack already

[Ituralde]

I completely sympathize with you. It's like they're having this break on purpose to make the lurkers wait longer...

Of course it's hard for the players as well, but please, somebody think of the lurkers!

[Ceiliazul]

So... event log says

When can we see the ??

[dtay]

So... event log says

When can we see the ??

The game, and therefore the war, is on!




I took the two cities as planned, I think with slightly worse results than expected, but nothing egregious. Holy city should fall next turn, and then we're flying blind! Exciting.

I'm taking these cities at a lot higher pop than I did CH's, both b/c Pind just managed to grow his higher and he lacks Slavery (or nationhood). That latter point is great, stop emergency defenders and should make this a lot less painful. But the higher pop does mean extremely high revolt times as you see in the above shot.


Finharry got Astro. Going to have a look through my coastal guards now. I can't think of an efficient solution to defending against both Krovice and Finharry, I think there's no answer besides "a lot of units", (Rifles, Cavs, and collateral).




Other reasons to go down Astro line, stop these Pin caravels from screwing up my coast



Demos, 30% science

[Ceiliazul]

-500 trade route yield. Wow.

Oh, and your demos look pretty good too...

[dtay]

Well, I spoke too soon that I wouldn't be using the open-roads blitzkrieg tactic. Taking the holy city opened up a path to hit The Twelve Duns



Scout her out with the sentry



And taken



You can see a stack of collateral building up here. I'd love to get a strike in against this, but I doubt Pind leaves it vulnerable. In his position I would be aiming to ultimately fall back to some position like I had in PB19, enough hitters and collateral to make 1 army evaporate once I enter Pind's culture and use that for deterrence until I get a truly massive stack.

No bank or market, but kept the Forge which is nice (granaries and grocers are nice as well, but also cheap for me, building forges is a pain)



I seem to have not taken a final positioning shot. I put all the wounded units in Avernus to heal, and sent the healthy stack to within striking distance of <unnamed city in the south that I can now see but can't on this shot>. It has 1-3 "ok" units (longbows or pikes that I can only get ~75% on usually) and then some ancient trash in it, so it should fall next turn.

[dtay]

Post Pind turn shot, he's retreated further



So strand will fall next turn. From the look of the borders I should then be able to hit Otter Ferry on the following turn on the diagonal. And there looks to be a 3rd city in the Brayle/Otter/???? column to aim at as well. I'll have my sentry cuir take a north south trip on the roads to see what's up, I'd love it if the collateral stack was in range once I open up some roads but I doubt Pind made such a mistake.

[dtay]

So this is the first war turn where I've had to stop halfway and sim stuff out (haven't done said sims yet). A sign things are about to slow down.

Anyway, here's what happened.

I move in and take Strand, roads unfortunately did not open up as I hoped



I'm sorely lacking in information. Solution: Sacrificial worker scouts! Putting captured chinese workers to good use (I've gotten 4 so far)



Lots of openings up north I see. More scouting!



So here's Pind's army (or at least part of it). Some ancient trash, 3 knights, some classical semi-useful things, and then a stack of ~10 collateral

Final shot after moving the sentry cuir out



I need to sim out exactly how many cavs I need to withstand Pind throwing all that collateral at me and then hitting with the nearby units. my gut is the Cavs currently in range are insufficient (wounded cavs will be mostly healed next turn). So I THINK the move is end around up north, fork the cities while staying out of range of the collateral. I'll do the sims though to make sure, because if it's a winning matchup eliminating the units is actually more important than the cities, especially since pind isn't in slavery or nationhood.