I got rushed through the turn and largely forgot to take screenshots. But I did capture this:
Meanwhile, our main stack bombarded down half the fortification at Daichi. And I unloaded 13 units at Ushijima, which should be enough to take out the stack of pikemen there.
I feel like that work boat is a better missionary than the actual missionaries I've built. Anyway, we're up to 74 cities now, which is 148gpt in Beyond.
Last turn I showed you the successful attack on Miya Atsumu, but didnt' mention that I also unloaded 4 units for an attack on Miya Osamu. This turn we made those attacks, starting with a CR2 mace against his mace defender. At 25% odds he lost, but successfully roughed up the defender enough that I had odds in my next two fights. A musket went in against the mace next at 62% odds and won, and then my second mace went against his Ballistaphant at 88% odds and the city fell.
Next up was Daichi:
Mouse left a crossbow and 2 longbows behind last turn when he tried to escape with his caravels and evacuated the land troops north. There are an ever-growing (and starting to be concerning) number of catapults in his stack south of Hinata, as well as 7 or 8 knights inside the city itself, so his numbers of hitters isn't growing so much as the number of catapults.
I promoted a few catapults to barrage in order to get all of the city wall defenses down this turn. Once the defenses were at 0% then my CR2 mace even had odds against his crossbow defender. We won that battle at 71% odds, then won the next two as well: C2 camel archers against his longbows, winning at 70% and 73% respectively. Over all a good turn to not have any battles go against me when I had the odds.
Since my catapults did not have any move I decided to keep the stack right where it was. Next turn we will move everything up. It is a little slower this way, but the navy is a little indisposed as I am also pushing an attack against Ushijima.
Mouse is only now moving to recapture Sasuka. With his workers moved that direction he is trying to keep his reinvestment minimal, while he evacuates his navy out of Ushijima and to block any reinforcement by sea. I wonder if he pulled away a couple pikes from Ushijima; it may have been the smart move here to save as many units from that island city. (This is one reason I wanted to send an attack force on the city and gain control of the waterways so soon: i didn't want him to be able to combine his forces.)
My catapults here again bombarded city defenses to zero, and again i had to use a couple barrage promotions for the extra city bombard to get it to zero this turn. Next turn we will send in my collateral and between my maces and knights I should be able to take the city, or at least bring it down to just a few defenders. He has so many pikes in here that they are only really good against my 4 camel archers, and even then they are not that great after taking collateral damage. I'm hopeful the city will fall next turn, and then we will bring these units back to the main force. Some of them may be used to cut through the canal at Narita and hit the cities on his east coast by sea, to cut out his culture and speed up my main stack's advance.
And how I left things at Daichi:
There are also 4 drafted muskets moving north, 3 tiles south of the city. Next turn everything will move into Daichi and from there we will advance on his army again.
And finally, how things are in the western islands:
Old Harry has been constantly scouting me on multiple fronts, enough to make me paranoid that I am his next target, and this turn I added a bit of measures of my own to keep eyes on what he is doing, especially near our border.
But in the upcoming turns I am going to want more of these double-sentry privateers, and I'm going to want them on more borders. TBW is strong to my south. And Gavagai's power is spiking:
With the first battle being a sneak attack on the city in the opening salvo of the war, failed by a single 65% attack missing an unsuspecting city...
With the second battle being insufficient camel archers and crossbows attempting to assault a city of pikemen...
Will the third time be the time that this damned city finally falls?
He has muskets now, but even with a CG2 musket being the top defender I have numbers. So I sent in the catapults in - they got good hits in on the musket and the longbow both. So I sent in the maces:
C1 mace against the CG2 crossbow (53.1%): WIN
Mace against CG2 longbow (79.8%): WIN
Mace against CG2 musket (69.6%): LOSS, damaged to 20hp
Mace against C1 pike (99.3%): WIN
Here I was out of land-bound maces, but with a pair on a galley from the mainland I saw the odds were significantly better to attack with maces off the boat then with the camel archers going in against pikes.
Mace against wounded C1 pike (89.6%): LOSS
I swear, every 90% battle is as good as a loss
Still, another mace; another 90% battle.
Mace against wounded C1 pike (90.8%):
....
....
The camel archers then went in, all 4 winning their 90+% battles. And then finally the pike took out the CG2 musket with a 98% attack.
Leaving me with this:
If I could win a 90% battle this war would be over already.
"Superdeath seems to have acquired a rep for aggression somehow. In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
-Old Harry. PB48.
I have 35 real units (counting crossbows) and another 10 collateral in the main stack against his 20 hitters and 8 catapults. Pretty sure I'm okay if he attacks with everything but I hate that I'm not sure.
Elkad only has 3 cities left. And I'm the natural target for OH to go after next. So I really need to wrap this up soonish.
With that in mind, I decided not to mess around and we're bringing in all the reserves.
I upgraded about 9 galleons between last turn and this one. Every galley that had nav-2, pretty much.
Mouseferatu hit me with all that he had on his half of the turn: the catapults went in and then his hitters. He killed 5 camel archers (including my great general), 3 war elephants, 2 muskets, and 1 mace. I suppose I thought this was worse when I first saw it, because there was quite a bit of damage to a lot of units, including the two surviving camel archers and two surviving muskets. But it makes sense that the camels would take the brunt of things, going up against Ballistaphants.
With the bulk of my army being maces, I used the trebs to knock down the city defenses, and then sacrificed 8 catapults and a couple crossbows (until I realized that everything was already too injured for crossbows to do any more collateral). So then it was time to send in the hitters:
Naturally I lost my two early battles near 90% and really felt like the odds were going against me. I honestly did not think I had enough left over to take the city, but I planned on just inflicting as much damage as I could to his units in the city, and then the second wave coming up on galleons would take this all down.
But luck turned my way; battles that were just barely being won with red-lined units started to turn into flawless victories, and I ended up taking the city with 1 of my last 2 badly wounded camel archers. In spoilers you can see the full attack order and report.
CR1 mace (88hp) v CG2 crossbow (59hp), 41.9%: LOSS, crossbow to 8hp
CR2 mace (75hp) v C1 mace (60hp), 88.3%: WIN
C1 mace (89hp) v CG1 musket (57hp), 87.9%: LOSS, only 1 hit musket to 37hp
C1, CR mace (77hp) v C1 musket (63hp), 86.9%: LOSS, only 1 hit musket to 42hp
C1 mace (91hp) v C2 knight (62hp), 78.7%: WIN
C1 mace (88hp) v GG Medic Knight (65hp), 79.2%: WIN
C1 mace (83hp) v C3 knight (52hp), 87.5%: WIN
C1 mace (82hp) v C3 knight (49hp), 88.7%: WIN
C1 mace (79hp) v C2 knight (49hp), 87.9%: WIN
C1 mace (79hp) v GG C2 Knight (48hp), 90.8%: WIN
C1 mace (79hp) v C1 Knight (49hp), 92.3%: WIN
CR mace (67hp) v CG1 musket (37hp), 91.7%: WIN
G xbow (100hp) v C3 knight (34hp), 87.9%: WIN
C1 xbow (87hp) v C1 musket (42hp), 78.3%: WIN
mace (76hp) v C1 ballistaphant (56hp), 93.3%: WIN
G xbow (89hp) v C3 ballistaphant (46hp), 90.0%: WIN
C1 xbow (78hp) v C2 pikeman (71hp), 81.5%: WIN
C2 mace (63hp) v C1 pikeman (71hp), 85.1%: WIN
longbow (87hp) v C1 pikeman (64hp), 70.9%: WIN
musket (70hp) v C3 ballistaphant (32hp), 98.6%: WIN
elephant (71hp) v GG C2 ballistaphant (32hp), 91.7%: WIN
C1 musket (48hp) v C3 knight (22hp), 84.8%: WIN
C1, medic camel archer (31hp) v CG2 crossbow (8hp), 96.4%: WIN WIN WIN YES YES YES
This war is over; we are now in the mop-up phase. The goal now is to get through that mop-up as quickly as possible and then turn my attention to setting my defenses. Because Gavagai in the west has just signed a Defensive Pact with Commodore, and OH is about done with Elkad - I'm starting to feel like a weak Pindicator could be an opportunistic attack for either of them.
The rest of the turn still needs to be played, but we are going to pause a little bit for a break. And for a deserved celebration. The end is in sight!
He probably opens this and says "oh cool, Pin is okay with this after all"
So now the 21 units that were going to reinforce the main stack are instead going to shuttle to the west and either hit Gavagai's troops as he tries his vast overreach - or they are going to mop up Mouseferatu's west coast by sea. And everything is back to units - specifically boats. I'll have to go for Steel next. Cannons for defending from OH and Dockyards to keep up with Gav's police state production.
In the meantime I've got OH showing off his new Cuirs and Cannons. Can't help but think that I'm going to be next to be munched.
![[Image: noidea.gif]](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/noidea.gif)
In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
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