It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[haphazard1]

Interesting to see our rivals running five different religions. Makes the AP less of a concern. And as the only Christian Rome is likely to have fewer friends.

Edit: Unfortunate that the AI has put together a pretty good stack. Elephants with longbows and an axe is a tough target. And the AI has actually brought a reasonable number of catapults for once as well. Just our luck it got smart at the wrong time for us.

[Zalson]

Roster:

Zalson (just played)
RFS-81 (UP!)
haphazard1 (on deck)
Brian Shanahan
shallow_thought

[RFS-81]

Got it! I looked at the save, but won't play right now because I've got a few questions.

The only theatre of war that really matters. I flanked the war elephant to damage the catapults. It was a stupid risk but it paid off. I'd recommend that you don't turtle in the city but the catapults are a heavy price to pay to destroy that stack. Just try not to lose units.

So, slam the stack with catapults, then attack with horse archers to get rid of the cats? Or the other way around?

How come our catapults have retreat odds? Is that because they disengage after they've inflicted maximal damage?

There's a tile that says 1t r.c., and I have no idea what that means.

[Brian Shanahan]

Yeah it looks like a serious threat that Iulius put together against us. Take care with our units, though and we should pull through.

Taking a look at the save, I'd turtle in Sonic this turn, simply because most of the units there have just moved in. Iulius will want to reduce defences to 0 before directly attacking, so we should have at least one turn's grace, which could make the difference. I'd nearly change that spearman build to a catapult (didn't think to look at how much overflow we have for the spearman so if it's not a 1 turn cat, disregard). Wear down the initial stack without too many losses and the second stack will also go down.

I wouldn't plan on attacking Iulius just yet, we've too many forces in Inca and his power is still too high. I'm guessing he's got a third mobile mini stack somewhere before he gasses out on the attack.

[Zalson]

Got it! I looked at the save, but won't play right now because I've got a few questions.

The only theatre of war that really matters. I flanked the war elephant to damage the catapults. It was a stupid risk but it paid off. I'd recommend that you don't turtle in the city but the catapults are a heavy price to pay to destroy that stack. Just try not to lose units.

So, slam the stack with catapults, then attack with horse archers to get rid of the cats? Or the other way around?

How come our catapults have retreat odds? Is that because they disengage after they've inflicted maximal damage?

There's a tile that says 1t r.c., and I have no idea what that means.

I think that's 1t road and chop? Or 1t road and 1t cottage? I'm not sure. Sorry.

Catapults can't kill units which is why they have withdrawal odds. You deal collateral no matter what.

You only flank catapults if you withdraw or win the fight. As for tactics: attack first with catapults to deal collateral damage to the stack. Don't necessarily attack with the horse archers after that: use whichever unit gets the best odds.

That second stack that he has is a LOT of units but there are only 2 defenders: the longbow and the axeman. The others don't get defensive bonuses and all have counters.

Does anyone know the power that:

2 longbows
3 chariots
4 horse archers
4 war elephants
1 praetorian
1 axeman
9 catapults

Represent? Because I think that's most of the power differential.

I think it's fine to turtle in Sonic for a turn. Let the rest of the units get there. Just make sure you don't attack across the river.

Also there's only 35 overflow which is why I went spear instead of cat. Also another defender.

[RFS-81]

I think that's 1t road and chop? Or 1t road and 1t cottage? I'm not sure. Sorry.

There's no forest, but maybe the sign is stale.

[haphazard1]

For RFS-81, you are correct that cats show retreat odds because they are capped on the damage they can do when attacking. (Defending cats are not capped.) When hitting a stack, you are likely to lose your initial few cats unless you get good rolls and retreat. But they do their stack damage no matter what happens to them individually. If you have enough cats it can become impossible to attack with another because all targets are damaged to the limit or more.

On order, it is usually best to decide at the start of a turn how many of your cats to commit, and send them in before everything else to get the stack damage. Just keep in mind that you need enough non-cat units to clean up the wounded, or else survivors will promote and heal. And also remember you are likely to have some wounded cats afterward that will need healthy defender(s) to cover them.

[RFS-81]

Alright, let's see what those war elephants are like! More like this or more like that?

Actually, I slipped and fell into a Youtube hole and looked at different language versions of that Disney video. I think the German one is good, not just because I grew up with that. Dutch is even funnier. French, Hindi and Finnish were also good. Russian should have been awesome, but they sound like they're falling asleep. Aaaanyway...on to civ.

I played two turns so far. I turtled the first turn in Sonic, and did pretty good damage in the second. I also captured Cuzco, the Buddhist holy city. Unfortunately, one cottage got pillaged by a war elephant. (The game doesn't still refer to upgraded cottages as cottages, right?)

A Great General has popped up, and I'm looking for some advice. Using his warlord ability means that I can select a unit and give it +20 XP and free upgrades, correct? The alternative is to put him as instructor into one of our cities. That would be worth two level-ups with barracks/stables, right? A steady supply of level-2 units seems better than a single uber-unit. I'll wait a bit to see if someone responds, otherwise I'll just keep the general around and play the remaining turns.

[Zalson]

The game will tell you what was pillaged. If a town gets pillages, it'll say so.

One of the better uses for a Great General is to merge him with a specific unit for a healer. Something like a chariot is decent choice since it has 2 moves and is unlikely to defend. Chose a chariot that only has combat one, then use the promotions to give the chariot Medic 1, Medic 2, and Medic 3.

I think there may be a few chariots down by Sonic? Maybe even a completely unpromoted one?

Adding the great general to a city with a barracks would give us 5xp normal units and 7xp mounted units. I think a healer would be more advantageous at this point in the game.

If we have any woodsman 3 units, that would also be a good choice: woody 3 gives healing, and combined with medic 1,2,3, makes a great healer unit. i think it can heal any unit back to full in 2 turns?

Good job on Cuzco!

How does the field look after T2 in Sonic? have taken many losses?

Push on and kill Inca, if only for the tradeoutes to Willem!

[haphazard1]

Great generals -- usually the first one goes for a healer unit, as only warlord units with a GG attached can take the special promotions such as medic III. The difference a super healer can make in keeping your armies moving is significant. Default healing in enemy territory is (I think) only 5%. A regular medic I adds 10% to that, and then a medic III adds another (I think) 10% and extends the healing effect to all adjacent units as well. So compared to no medic at all, our units would heal five times as fast in enemy territory (which is usually where you are when you need healing the most). And nearly twice as fast as with a regular medic.

I usually do what Zalson described -- attach the GG to a chariot and make a healer. The chariot is mobile and it is unlikely to defend, so the risk of having your GG healer die defending is much reduced.

Once you have such a GG healer, it is helpful to try to feed it safe kills when you get a chance to clean up badly injured enemy units and the like. The warlord promotion for increased movement (can't recall the name -- morale?) is very nice if you can get enough XP for it. A 3-move super healer is extremely useful. You have to be careful not to risk the GG too much, but especially in large sieges there are often opportunities to finish off an enemy at 99+% odds.

With lots of warring likely in our future, we will probably get more great generals in the future. Once you have a super medic, it becomes a tougher choice as to how best to use them. If we decide on a city for the Heroic Epic, settling GGs there as instructors can be powerful.

Good luck! War turns can be very time-consuming, so do not feel you have to rush to finish. Shorter sets during war would be one option, or just taking longer to play the turnsets.

Nice work taking Cuzco. If we can finish off the Incas and get out of this two-front war situation, that would certainly simplify our situation.