Where to will Singaboy steer the Teutonic power?

[Singaboy]

T138:
Archduke finally had the courage to attack Aachen and the city wall is gone unfortunately. Maybe without his OP +10 strength crossbow, it would have survived just a little. The Great General is back, so it was merely teleported to Troy. I have to say, though I really enjoy a lot of aspects in the game, some bugs and game concepts are hard to swallow. One of them surely is the fact that Great Generals are invincible. Who thought of such nonsense? You can bring them onto the battlefield and they are already OP as it is, but no, Firaxis makes sure, they can never die? What risk factor is that? Someone got to change this. Or at least, when you defeat the covering unit, it should be teleported to the capital. The penalty of teleporting them 3 tiles away is a joke.



Never mind, doesn't make a damn difference in this game. Maybe Alhambram and his city conversion will cut short the game anyway. Not that I mind. What I mind is that his unit blocks my units from moving about. His unit makes sure, I cant move my crossbow out and shoot from behind the walls. This is really irritating.

So, what can I do? I kill the horseman with the encampment defense, shift the musket into Aachen for +10 city defense and escape with the crossbow a little. I also move my new Ulm musket onto the hill behind the river for good defensive bonus and to add some sort of distraction. The wounded knight is brought into Ulm to heal while another crossbow continues his journey from Seoul along the trade route.

Sadly, Archduke benefits from two OP units here for his next attack. He should have been courteous enough to not use his hoplite which he is aware of being bugged. I would be surprised to see Aachen survive the next turn. 3 crossbow shots including the OP crossbow, a knight, 2 swords and 1 hoplite. My only hope is that his troops get wounded a fair bit.

From there, it will be defending Ulm until Archduke gets attacked elsewhere. There is no space for a peace treaty or ceding of cities. I will make peace if he gives me back my cities. He might end up razing Aachen, who knows.

[Singaboy]

T139:

I am pleasantly surprised to see Aachen still standing. What is more, Archduke is on the retreat. He didn't even attempt to attack the city just because of my musket and defense 62. Well, maybe he noticed that this war gets him nowhere in the overall scheme of things. My two additional muskets might have given him a moral blow. Good, time to promote that crossbow, advance the other one too. The knight can heal in Ulm and production of military units resume.



Let's have a look at the peace deal that Archduke suggests. Remember I have nothing to lose here and ceding of cities won't happen. Ok, he wants 80 gold and Frankfurt (Troy).

Not gonna happen. He might come back to attack the city, but I am not going to accept that. In fact, once he is involved in other wars (oledavy), he will have a hard time to fight multiple fronts just like I had, when he sneak attacked the first time round. I am not going to give him the respite of peace to assemble his troops elsewhere. He would simply come back again.

But, I want to test his sense of the overall situation and offer this instead. This is going to be tricky for him. Swallow your pride and hand back Frankfurt, but free your troops for the west or get insulted and come back for Aachen. The nice thing is, that my military strength has recovered a little and I am not too far behind Archduke. He might think he killed a lot of my units, but I can produce them fairly fast in Aachen and Ulm. In 3/4/5 turns, I will get more muskets. 

It might backfire though and he gets into a rage attacking Aachen full force, razing it or something like this, but it's worth the gamble and fun. I got nothing to win or lose in this game and can afford to gamble here.

[Singaboy]

T140:
Well, Archduke didn't take my offer. Too bad, his units are just out of reach of my attacks, but themselves, can't really do much harm. The longer he waits, the more units I will have to defend.

My hope is to accumulate so many units until I can overwhelm him without fearing too many counter attacks. Of course, as long as it's just the two of us at war, that won't be the case.

7 turns til the friendship runs out between oledavy and Archduke according to my count. Might be different though. Next time I will take better note of such things.

[Dreylin]

Interesting, didn't see that coming.

How long to fix the walls? Any available chops/Builders to rush them to completion?

[Singaboy]

To fix the walls, one needs to be free of attacks for a bit. I think something like 10 turns. I will check, but walls in Aachen are not on the high list of priorities. Archduke has retreated now but had to pillage a stone.

Bremen is about to finish a worker, I am thinking of getting a few settlers too in order to expand. Will all be very short lives once one of the juggernauts decide to attack me. Thanks to Archduke's insistence to attack a second time (remember, Dreylin told me to offer friendship which I did, but he demanded 80 gold), we're both ripe for the picking.

[srgtb]

I believe it's only 3 turns of the city not taking damage before they can be rebuilt or repaired.

[Singaboy]

T141 and 142 are somewhat boring compared to the high tension turns before that. I think Always War would be an interesting option for a game  

I built another musket giving me a new Eureka:



Archduke is still hanging around south of Aachen with his units. I need to wait for an opportune moment to attack Troy. Ideally a few turns into a war declaration by someone else. I need to be patient here. My forces now are 3 muskets, 2 crossbows, 1 battering ram and a knight. There will be 2 more muskets in 2 turns and Aachen goes for yet another one done in 5 turns. A crossbow will be ready in Seoul soon too. That should give me a strike force of 6 muskets, 3 crossbows, knight and ram. Unless Archduke has his entire army still at Troy, this should be sufficient to take Troy and liberate it. Ideally, I would be able to venture south to take the city that provide iron and horses.

But, I had plans before and they didn't really work out. So, I am just cruising along. For techs, I would like to go the path to get cavalry, but I am waiting for the 6 government slot Eureka, done in 2 turns to continue that path. In the meantime, I set research on the path to field cannons, currently taking a staggering 25 turns. My research and culture output are abysmal really.

[Singaboy]

T143/144:

Now, turns fly past. Archduke pillages one of my trade routes in exchange for his horseman. I continue to build up my military, it will be 6 muskets, 3 crossbows and a knight to retake Frankfurt.

It's still 3 turns til T147 and Archduke's and oledavy's friendship to end. For all the Great General's that Archduke has, in the end, it didn't really make him the ruler of the world. Quite the opposite actually. I wonder whether it is worth to invest so heavily to get them but fall behind in other aspects. Or maybe he was just not daring enough to absorb some of his own losses to advance. Too cautious play sometimes doesn't pay. As I said, the first time round, he should have kept Frankfurt and continued all the way. Would have ended my game much sooner, rather than being in limbo as I am right now. 6 cities with no chance of achieving anything.

I got a new government on turn 144 and with it, new policies: As I might want to expand a little on the south, I get colonization back. Currently, Ulm is on trader duty, as the new government gives me 2 new trade routes, hence I need 3 traders. Aachen will finish its musket and then repair the city walls (1 turn). I would like Ulm to get a workshop too. Bremen is making a campus as my science is atrocious.



Oh, I forgot, Archduke came up with a proposal. I thought, he might give me back Frankfurt to enjoy 10 turns of peace on my side, but alas...

I have yet to see a single sensible trade offer from him.

[Dreylin]

I guess he thinks it's more likely that oledavy will attack you than him? I don't really understand why he withdrew and didn't press the attack against Aachen (a sign of weakness) and now expects you to pay him off for Peace!?

[Singaboy]

Since I have no friendship agreement with oledavy (he declined to agree on it some time back), it would have been in oledavy's best interest to attack me when Aachen was under siege. As he didn't, I assume (sending 1 gold at various points), we do have some agreement to not attack each other for now.

We shall see what happens in a few turns when their friendship agreements expires. I do hope to see a war between them to jump in and get Frankfurt back and possibly more. War weariness is certainly an issue for Mainz (-2 amenities right now), but I plan to aim for the 2nd great Engineer, which gives +1 amenity for one city. Once Aachen has finished its current musket, I might aim to repair the Hansa and finish the special project to net the second great engineer.