The German War

[kalin]

WPC said that they have to show their hand a turn earlier right? In this case we may not need to do anything.

Kalin

[darrelljs]

If I were the Germans I'd throw everything against us. WPC made no pretense at friendship, but our attack will feel like a betrayal to a certain extent.

Darrell

[kjn]

That's correct. The geography and the wide German borders to their east means WPC will have at least one more tile to cross before they can attack any German city with one-movers. So the earliest they can attack a German city is T152 if they want to use their catapults.

In a way, I almost hope they're ready to take some risks and split their stack, given how thin the Germans are on the ground. If they can knock out both Wilhelmshaven and Warendorf on T151 (possible with chariots), and we manage to take Wolfratshausen and Wasserburg then just about every German city is threatened.

[Jabah]

My notes for the German units right now stand at:

17 axes, 9 chariots, 3 spears, 8 quechua, 7 catapults

So they have more Catapults than we do? I was kind of curious (and I'm sure this is a dumb question), but do we have enough?

Supposing they put everything in their front city. What kind of casualties could be expected if they suicide all the cats against our stack next to the city ?
Could their axes hope to get decent odds against the top defenders (or at least better odds than waiting to be slaughtered in the city next turn), or will they just gain some time (with longbow to come ?) while our injured troops are healing.

[Sullla]

That would be a dream scenario for us. Remember that kjn is listing all of the German units everywhere in their territory; they don't have that many units in one stack combined. Their main group had 10 axes, 5 catapults, 4 chariots, and 2 spears the last time that we saw it... and that was last turn. If they throw it against our main army on flat ground, we'll easily survive the collateral damage and clean them up. There is simply no way that they can win with Strength 5 units against Strength 8 and Strength 10 units out in the open (not unless they outnumbered us like 3:1 which they do not).

I hope and pray that they will do something silly like this. They will do far better to turtle up and stall for time to research longbows. Their single best play right now is to sacrifice their poorly placed border cities and concentrate on defending their core cities (unfortunately all of which are placed on hills).

[Ruff_Hi]

This is the next step, a push northwest up the southern river valley through the German core. I went ahead and drew in the cultural borders for these cities, so that you can see what tiles will be freed up as we capture these locations. The white arrows show the most likely lines of advance for our units. There's one mistake here though; the arrow heading northwest from Wasserburg should be a tile south, to push through that little gap in Worms' culture. We can move from the grassland hill south of Wasserburg NW-NW (with worker roads) and be only two tiles away from Worms. After Worms, we take the capital next to free up its enormous cultural pressure and take down the German team's best city.

Here is the war plan for the turn after next (T152) ... assuming that Wasserburg falls on T151 (it should). Note that the above pic has us moving 1 tile too many (as Sullla mentioned). So ... the question is ... where to next?

Personally, I prefer that wooded hill that we couldn't get to this turn ... that should have us at the gates of Worms on T153 with it falling on T154. Yes, one movers would have to attack over a river but we should have the unit and number advantage.

The other option (assuming we finish Eng on T151) is that we move to the pigs and then 1NW of the pigs so that we can attack Worms without a river demerit.

[Ichabod]

I've read in Sullla's report that, if the German main stack moves to Wasserburg, we'll bombard the city defenses and attack with the units directly. Is this better than attacking with the catapults and then just clearing with the units? I guess it could be competitive in number of hammers trade, but since we can draft Maces, but we can only build catapults, keeping the catapults is worth more. Just want to know people's opinion about this (if someone can explain the thought process of this decision for me).

[Cyneheard]

I've read in Sullla's report that, if the German main stack moves to Wasserburg, we'll bombard the city defenses and attack with the units directly. Is this better than attacking with the catapults and then just clearing with the units? I guess it could be competitive in number of hammers trade, but since we can draft Maces, but we can only build catapults, keeping the catapults is worth more. Just want to know people's opinion about this (if someone can explain the thought process of this decision for me).

One advantage of keeping the catapults alive: we may have other battles where we need the collateral. It probably depends on how many units the Germans put in Wasserburg, though.

[kalin]

I don't know why we'd want to attack over the river... We should move at least some units on the pig tile to deny usage.

Kalin

[Lewwyn]

If they don't defend the city, then those units are on a road an the german culture will be gone so the stack should be able to move W-NW on to the pigs right? They'll be protected by the river and can then move to the FP the next turn then attack.I'm not sure splitting the army is going to be an option if they don't suicide their stack into the city next turn.