It looks like OT is sending the whole army after Spirit Stream. I'm not confident that it'll hold out any more. Perhaps with 2-3 more spears and a couple more archers? We're also turning down this invitation to raze Polarity Sect. We wouldn't get any money since OT only just captured it, we'd lose some very juicy trade routes and we'd upset the neighbour that we want to leave us alone for the next 20-30 turns. Also we need this immortal to accompany the attack on Toku, so he's heading back north.
With Iron working in we have Iron by AC, Col and (as I predicted in chat some time ago) under KotoR! We'll start some swords then. OT has a LOT of Iron by the way. Mostly on our border.
We're planning to get Machinery eot112, then we'll have some swords, crossbows and other stuff to waddle up to Lorem and TBD and ask for the keys. It looks like Toku won't play nice though - what do you think he'll have on this galley heading toward our backlines? AC probably needs to put some hammers into a crossbow from t113 onwards. Here's a question - Toku doesn't have HBR, hasn't got a great general, so the only way he'll have a sentry chariot is by winning a battle with a flanking chariot, right?
Demos and power. OT had a little dent in his spike when he lost 3-4 units, but nothing to write home about. Ours should start going up nicely in about four turns.
The southern hemisphere seems deserted. This can't all be due to Donovan's early demise, can it? This brand-new barb city won't give much of a return yet for the risk of capturing it, so we'll come back to it on our way back.
Ah, shit. This means that Elkad won't be joining us in the fight against Toku. Elkad replied to our copper-copper message with a copper-ivory message. Was he referring to Carthage's penchant for elephants?
OT's units saw more action in GJ's land: 61-46 = 15 WW, so either:
- 15 wins,
- 12 wins and a loss,
- 9W/2L,
- 6W/3L,
- 3W/4L,
- 5 losses
GJ got a great general this turn so OT must have been the aggressor and must have lost at least one fight, I'll guess it was 3/4, but 6/3 is possible too. Rival best soldiers is down by 15000 (2.5 Numids). So do we switch our focus to OT4E?
We decided we have an opportunity to take Hippo and Thaenae while OT is busy concentrating on Elkad. We don't know that this isn't an extortion attempt by Elkad though, so we'll try to move so that OT can't see what we're up to. These are most of the options that I can see. OT's scout means that moving axes onto the galley from BG would be spotted. Also putting the galley there is a pretty threatening move so we won't do that, but the rest should go under the radar.
If all goes to plan we can capture Thaenae t113 and Hippo t115. Then we can turn our attention to OT's island city, while he and Elkad duke it out.
Up north the info about Toku's cities suddenly seems less important somehow. I'm pretty sure he's got a zone-defence stack on the furs tile, but the stuff we can see in Lorem and TBD is very tempting... If we go through with the OT attack then this is off the table though and we're using our crossbows for defence in case he gets ideas.
What we do about this galley is a conundrum too. If we're going to hassle Toku's island holdings we need to make the marked movements. If he's just checking up on our galley's moves then that's fine, we can still feint towards the island and keep troops pinned down. If he carries on moving around to threaten Jade Empire then we may need to whip a trireme from Goldeneye. (He logged in and played half-way through our turn - I'm a slooooow player - and moved it NW and back, so looks like he's just scouting.)
Hey lurkers, OT4E logged in twice for about ten minutes last night, but didn't end turn. Either he's too depressed about losing his capital , he was too drunk, he forgot to press the button or he's playing clock games to see if we're going to attack him.
If it's the latter is it acceptable for us to log in, play most of our turn, and press end turn, then after he plays we log back in and do the offensive war moves? (Unfortunately we can't just log in and do them now as that would be a double move.)
This will probably be fine logistically since we'll be waiting for GJ to play in about 18 hours anyway.
I'd be surprised if OT is playing clock games as he's always been pretty honourable in the past, so if he isn't (and yes, I know there's no way we can tell) would the above strategy still be acceptable?
(June 10th, 2018, 04:13)Krill Wrote: Looks like normal Saturday night delay.
Yeah, I'm just getting itchy about declaring war...
Turn 112
So the big decision - do we go all in to take Hippo, Thaenae and Tacape? Of course we do. This is our last view of OT's empire before our scout gets bounced out.
Through the magic of teleportation we now have two imms in Elkad's land, while 5 imms, an axe and a spear are 2N of Theanae. If OT moves his third archer into the city next turn then we'll struggle to take it, but we might wheel around to Hippo instead.
Up north there is a spear on a forest covering a worker. We have an axe in range:
Axe vs Spear - 75% ... WIN - 4 hits!
Then we'll kill a scout for the XP.
Imm vs scout - 99%... WIN - 1 hit!
We cover the axe with a spear and finally we load two axes on our Galley and will decide where to send them next turn.
Without OT's trade routes our economy drops off by 9 beakers. Thanks to research/wealth builds we're still going to get Machinery by about 4 beakers. It'll be another 7 turns before Elkad's trade routes hit 2c so our southernmost scout needs to figure out how to get us linked to the rest of Donovan's cities.
Demos and power. We now know that OT isn't top power. Crumbs.
OT reinforced with two more units so we're not getting Thaenae this turn.
So we surrounded Hippo Civ 6-style and cut the road to Thaenae. The spear could attack out and hit the immortals on the silver, but then it loses it's fortification and might get a bit scratched, which would be fine by us.
It looks like Elkad took a bit of a battering from OT's numids - from war weariness we think he lost 4 spears and an axe, while OT lost 6 numidian cavalry. Elkad has some reinforcements, but is likely to fall back to the forest until the war elephants we just saw can make it to the front.
Demos and power. OT has been taking a battering. Unfortunately most of our power is in techs right now, but over the next five turns we should keep that spike rising.
OT took these battles:
Spear vs immortal 96% WIN (2 hits - promo heal to 3.7/4)
C1 Numid vs immortal 77% LOSS! (only 2 hits!)
C2 George Patton vs immortal 89% WIN (5 hits!)
C2 Numid vs immortal 89% LOSS! (only 2 hits!)
C1 Axe vs C1 axe 50% LOSS (only 2 hits!)
So we got very lucky.
We have six units that can hit Thaenae (2 archers) this turn, or eight that can hit Hippo (archer/spear), or we use all 12 on both cities. Or we could clean up general patton with a spear then an immortal, pillage roads, or all sorts of other neat stuff. Too many options! (It also looks like I forgot to give some of the immortals the promotions I'd intended last turn. Oops.)
Meanwhile Elkad is pressing the attack, but seems to be running out of gas...
Other stuff:
- Donovan and Toku both have furs which Donovan might trade for our spices since we have a second source to be hooked soon, while Toku doesn't have silver and might trade for that.
- I put the cities on the builds I think best, but didn't micro them at all.
Indeed, a good turn of events for us! You might remember these events from 50 turns ago including fighting in the very same area?:
(April 12th, 2018, 16:20)Old Harry Wrote: Turn 61 pt 1
So far this game our luck hasn't been so hot:
T39 - lost a 10% battle flawlessly when Tokugawa's warrior shanked our scout - fair enough, that's not unexpected
T50 - lost a coinflip for Stonehenge - meh, I never expect to win 50/50's anyway
T57 - lost a 90% spear vs warrior battle - well I guess the warrior was C1 Shock...
This turn:
CR1 axe vs fortified axe behind walls - 10% - OT4E WINS! Wait. What? What? How? What? And it wasn't even close?
CR1 axe vs fortified axe behind walls - 23% - OT4E WINS! Again? Hang on, what's going on?
CR1 axe vs fortified axe behind walls - 88% - Okay, great, a battle where the odds are finally firmly not in our favour, what's going to happen? - OT4E WINS with 4HP to spare! - Well at least it was close this time.
Sigh.
Stonehenge we are probably never getting back, but at least we got our RNG revenge against OT4E
Anyways, we spent quite a while analyzing our options. Me an OH were yearning for blood and freedom for the city of Hippo, but Hitru forced us to calm ourselves. After all many of our units were damaged, which made the odds a bit shaky. If the attack had went according to plan, we were expected to lose 2-3, quite likely 3 axes taking Hippo. That’s probably worth it, but with only one truly bad roll things could change quite a bit and we might easily lose 5-6 units. Next turn when swords arrive, we should only lose 1-2 swords despite OT4E surely adding an archer or walls into the mix.
So we did the more cautious thing and killed couple of Numids including the GG:
C2 spear vs. C2 shock Numid, 74.7 %... WIN, 1 hit
Imm vs. George Patton Numid 1.2/6, 99.4 %... WIN, 4 hits (1 away from dying). Annoyingly this imm will probably be just free experience next turn..
And we pillaged the road so now both Hippo and Thaenae are isolated from OT4E’s core. OT4E also lost his silver, which should hurt him with his IND forges.. Let's see if we get an opportunity to pillage his ivory in the south..
Next turn Hippo will surely be on the menu, but otherwise the discussion revolved around these items:
Attacking the island city, which just got fresh walls
Attacking Thaenae, which could have both positive and negative implications for our future Elkad border
How to stay prepared for Toku as our enforced peace ends in 2 turns and when to turn our aggressive attention there again
How to stay alert of OT4E’s potentially returning army from GJ front. According to our calculations it could reach the Hippo area as soon as in 2 turns, but we would expect it to say hi to Elkad first
And overall how to accommodate as much bloodshed between Elkad and OT4E as possible while progressing ourselves
Domestically we are slacking a bit with our wealth-builds and are putting up some military for a change. Toku is researching Construction at the moment. We will probably 2-turn it after he is done, gotta get that sweet known-tech-bonus.
Demos and graphs:
Round of whipping and teching pause makes these more ugly again:
OT4E was completely out of running due to his economy already before, but at latest due to these events he is never coming back. He has a decent number of cities and mfg though, so in the short-term we can't afford to be overconfident
You can see a in the above picture Toku building a somewhat weird road in the north. The flat graph however makes us think that there won't be an attack.. Let's see what our sentry imm reveals next turn..
This can't all be due to Donovan's early demise, can it? This brand-new barb city won't give much of a return yet for the risk of capturing it, so we'll come back to it on our way back.
Thanks to research/wealth builds we're still going to get Machinery by about 4 beakers. 
It'll be another 7 turns before Elkad's trade routes hit 2c so our southernmost scout needs to figure out how to get us linked to the rest of Donovan's cities.
well I guess the warrior was C1 Shock...
Wait. What? What? How? What? And it wasn't even close?
Again? Hang on, what's going on?
After all many of our units were damaged, which made the odds a bit shaky. If the attack had went according to plan, we were expected to lose 2-3, quite likely 3 axes taking Hippo. That’s probably worth it, but with only one truly bad roll things could change quite a bit and we might easily lose 5-6 units. Next turn when swords arrive, we should only lose 1-2 swords despite OT4E surely adding an archer or walls into the mix.
Let's see if we get an opportunity to pillage his ivory in the south.. 
