[Spoilers] luddite tries to remember how this game works

[luddite]

If he is in a good defensive position, can you threaten his city to force him to leave it?

Probably! My main plan is just to go for his cities, since I can't really catch his 2-movers with my stack of 1-movers. But I don't expect he'll be nice enough to just pile up his army in a city and let me smack it with artillery. I was thinking that this would go one of two ways:

1) He waits until he has a huge number of musketeers, then hits me when I'm on flat ground (unavoidable at some point if I move towards his cities)
2) He dodges around me and just races towards my cities which are now barely defended.

Either way, it would be really nice if I could kill 4 musketeers now, before he has a chance to combine a big stack. But yes... attacking a forest hill is obviously not ideal. Maybe he thinks I won't go for it, but that at least gives me a chance to attack.

Another possibility would be to go west, through the forest tile, and onto that flat grass protected by the river. Then I'd never be unprotected. But I feel like I don't need that right now.

[luddite]

He pulled back from the forest hill. My scouting worker revealed the rest (?) of his forces, 10 musketeers in all.



I decided to push up. He can see my original stack now, but my new stack (3 arty 1 AT) is still hidden. There's a chance he might attack me on the hill with his 10-4 advantage, and if so I can punish him. If not I'll just keep advancing towards his city, as planned. Road the hill next turn and combine. I *should* be OK to defend against 10 musketeers, but it all comes down to RNG in the end.

Also, I pillaged the desert hill road to slow him down if he wants to counter. I can always remake it.

[luddite]

Time for more guessing games! 4 musketeers disappeared, 2 galleys appeared in their place. Are the musketeers in the galleys, or not? No way to know!



Will I ever actually be able to fight a real battle in this game...?

[luddite]

Man, this is tough. The galleys really present some difficult choices.

1) if he didn't know about my second stack before, he definitely does now.
2) there's no way of knowing for sure if they're loaded or not.
2) galley warfare is stupid. I could whip galleys and try to hit them, but then he'd get the big coastal defense bonus. I wish I could make triremes but that's still a long way away.
3) If he wants to attack amphibiously, his odds are terrible. one AT could possibly stop 4 musketeers alone, and swords/axes/archers are also good defense.
4) If he stops to unload first that gives time to reinforce whichever city is nearby. of course, musketeers can move, so that doesn't buy much time.
5) Assuming it's fully loaded, that's a hefty commitment! 2 galleys + 4 musketeers is almost half his (current) army. The 6 musketeers (or 7, he whipped this turn) musketeers he has left won't do anything against my stack of 8 arty-type units. I can potentially march straight into his capital right now. Or, instead of razing his cities, I could split my stack and take 2.
6) Potentially worse than landing units is that he can pillage all of my fishing boats, which seriously hurts all of my coastal cities. Those are my main source of food right now; there's really no backup.
7) On the other hand, I was already preparing to trade cities with him. If he pillages all of my workboats before also taking my cities, so much the worse for him. I'll just exchange them for his much better cities. The galleys are also slower than moving his musketeers along roads, so this might be a blessing for me.
8) I do have sailing... I could whip my own galleys but it's highly random. worth it...?

I don't know, I'll have to think more.

[luddite]

Tough turn. I moved in my worker and found what I'm guessing is all of his musketeers, 12 in all. So he wasn't loading the galleys after all!



I thought long and hard about what to do about the galleys. I'm *pretty* sure they're unloaded. Still, they might have a chariot or something. I can defend with axes, swords, archers, etc. But is it worth building galleys? I will try to build some galleys for defense, but this is really a pain.

Of course the real battle is up north in Cairo's territory. He has almost twice my MFG right now. I gotta take some cities quickly, or win a battle, or SOMETHING.

Good luck, little stack! I really wish you were bigger. 12 musketeers is fine, but his forces are only going to get bigger, and I don't have a good way to reinforce.

[luddite]

This feels like an important turn. If Cairo is going to hit me, hell do it this turn while I'm on flat ground, right? Otherwise I'll move to the hill, hit Rheims, and then move through hills to hit his other city to the west. I don't hink he'll hit me though, not unless he has more units hidden. And his power is still pretty low. I hope he does hit me though...

[T-hawk]

Cairo never posts so we have no idea what he's up to, so it's exciting to see both your side and his together from your point of view.

[Krill]

Lurker request: if you do get to use your arty to attack, please can you show the musketeer stack damage level after each arty attack? I kinda want to see just how brutal arty are when attacking weaker units.

[luddite]

Lurker request: if you do get to use your arty to attack, please can you show the musketeer stack damage level after each arty attack? I kinda want to see just how brutal arty are when attacking weaker units.

I'll try! It's pretty brutal, based on what I've tested in sims. I wasn't joking earlier when I was thinking about hitting his stack on the forested hill- there's a good chance I could have killed it with zero losses if he had stayed there.

[Commodore]

I don't know how many have done modern warfare in BtS against humans, it's hilariously brutal even at level. My planned force levels invading an enemy with 20 arty and 50 infantry on rails were at least 100 MGs and 100 tanks as my bare minimum.