[PB59] Tarkeel is alone against the darkness

[Tarkeel]

Superdeath sent a PM stating that we're at war, and letting me know I'd have to wait to play until the reload kerfuffle is done and SD has replayed. Most likely he wanted to war-peace me, as last turn he had a stack walking into DZ/TBS land, and he will have spotted the first wave of cuirs being produced. What he doesn't know is that in four more turns we have cavalry, three if I burn the knight-upgrade-gold on research. I'm guessing his scouting quechas got teleported onto Joshy's former peninsula or something.

[Tarkeel]

New guess: my scouting chariot got teleported onto one of Amica's island cities, which held some of SD's navy?

[Tarkeel]

Since it's likely the reload involves me in some way, I'll just state that I have nothing against it. If Ramk can fix it by moving units that also works, but I'm guessing we might need both?

[Ramkhamhaeng]

New guess: my scouting chariot got teleported onto one of Amica's island cities, which held some of SD's navy?

No, it was your scout in SD's territory. Due his war declartion the open borders deal was canceled. The unit was teleported on SD' stack and pushed it back.

I placed your scout one plot westward and assume SD will not atack it.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 183 (1230 AD) - Tides of War
As expected, Superdeath declared war to offer peace, even tacking on war with Commodore in the second offer. I decline, if for nothing else to assess the situation. Our army isn't that large right now, only 7 knights and 5 cuirs, but more are coming, and in soon Rifling comes in. It's better to have the tech for fresh builds and drafting so we turn up the slider, and it will come in two turns.

"30s2Mars" is stuffed full of 6 longbows and 6 pikes, but almost everything is more or less undefended. Our slow stack consists of 13 catas and 4 trebs, with 8 wellies and a mace as hitters, and some axes for cleanup. We draft out a round of muskets to support the stack. I've been trying to calm his nerves by not spending EPs in that direction the last few turns, but we still have almost full city vision on his empire. He only just got guilds last turn, and is still missing several key techs like CodeOfLaws, CivilService, Paper and Gunpowder, and is only now researching Calendar.

There's no real action as SD declared just as we were about to set up for the attack, but the slow movers should advance next turn, and we're sending an amphibious side-stack of pillagers for him to deal with.

Edit: I sent Amica an offer to stop trading with SD, which should gut his economy as all his foreign trade is going through Amica's territory now.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 184 (1240 AD)
Superdeath managed to get peace from DZ to focus on me, and spent a sizeable amount of his budget on upgrading the inner fleet to caravels. Our navies there are now evenly matched, 5 caravels each, but my sixth is just arriving this turn.

On land he now has 13 knights in the area, and the full stack of 15-ish catas and wellies are slowly heading back north. We'll just have to wait for Rifling to come in next turn so we have cavalry and rifles to deal with it.

SD has a Quechua raoming in Commodore's lands which we take a shot at:
F1 Scout WarChariot vs C1 Quechua, 88.7% + 2.3%: loss
Well, that bodes well for this war...

[Tarkeel]

Turn 185 (1250 AD)
Rifling comes in, and we set research to Theology for theocracy, due in 5 turn which is when we'll get our next great person and maybe start a GA. We draft a round of rifles, and stage our rifles and cavs out of sight. Will probably move in the slow movers under rifle cover next turn, and send in the cavs the turn after.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 186 (1260 AD)
A turn's worth of gold is spent upgrading knights to cav; we're saving some more to upgrade some war charriots. Moving in this turn would let us bring 2 rifles; by waiting to next turn we can get 6. Here's the situation:


SD has a reserve force of longbows coming up from the south; he also has a big stack of knights somewhere out of sight, so I think I need to wait for the extra rifles before moving in.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 187 (1270 AD) - Alea iacta est

[Tarkeel]

Turn 188 (1270 AD)
When I say that collateral is the great equalizer, this is what I'm talking about:










I'm not bothering to check the log for odds, but that went worse than I'd expected; he had a lot more catapults than I thought. He deserves to get peace after that stand, so I'll send a white peace offer. If not, I guess we're building cav until we get cannons, and then go for round 2.