RB Pitboss #1 [SPOILERS!] - Kublai Khan of Rome

[Munro]

Neo Kobe (aka Problem Child) fell to the catapults as expected, and Broker's sub (plako) and I now have 3 cav and 1 currassier ready to strike the next Kodii city of Roundabout.



Kodii did have an axe in Roundabout which he upgraded to a rifle a few turns ago when I moved my forest2 mace down into striking range. The mace continued on to the unroaded hill 1E of the city to act as bait / cover for the 2 cav which I knew would be arriving shortly from Broker.

Kodii took the bait so Roundabout is now empty... He did have a cannon heading up to reinforce it from Urumqi but I cut the road from Urumqi last turn with a spy, so that won't arrive in time now either (nor anything else from Urumqi).

So unless Kodii has the necessary hammers already invested for a pike or rifle, we'll probably pick that up next turn as well, as planned. Fingers crossed...


Meanwhile, with Broker's mounted stack feinting on Kodii's capital, in the mid south, Kodii's monster Cataphract stack still seems to be patrolling behind Kodii's lines and has not yet made any move on the newly (refounded) city of Zero Gravitas, which was founded to take back the culturally Roman southern grasslands north of Urumqi. That's given me the chance to push out the cultural borders in 2 turns (gotta love Cultural trait) and chop the nearest adjacent forest for good measure.

Chopping will continue until morale improves!



Finally.. Kodii plan C is about to launch, quite literally, from Grey Area. Kodii's coastal pensinsula Maoi city of Relativity is protected by a single warrior (thanks to EP Intel from Broker). Originally my plan was to whip and launch a single empty Galley just to force Kodii to squader yet more cash on an expensive upgrade. But what the hell, I'll stick a mace in there as well in case Kodii calls my bluff, it'll be an easy raze.



Finally.. back on the dsplaisted front, Dan continues to get serious with a stream of rifles. I've counted 10 or more in transit towards my capital.

He still only has 3 cannon though...



The ideal spot from which to seige is the hill 1N of the city (defensive protection, and no river to cross). But if I keep enough pinch-promoted aggressive rifles on those hills, he won't be able to occupy those spots without using at least some of his cannon, which will make it tough for him to then take the city.

On the other hand, if he suicides his rifles across the river, up hill and against my pinch promoted rifles, he won't have enough left to take the city even if he saves his 3 cannon.

Meanwhile I should hopefully have enough time to whip enough cav and catapults, and draft enough rifles, to take down his stack before he can strike (especially if he gives up on the hills and moves into the open).

Watch this space...

[Jabah]

Thanks for all this updates.
We sure will be watching, hopefully some more bloody actions to come

[Munro]

Thanks Jabah.

Well, this will be my last update for a while as I am leaving Thursday to spend the holidays in Belize with the missus and the in-laws... Meanwhile I leave the holy Taoist Khanate of Rome in the capable hands of Morgan Khan. Hopefully for the lurkers here, he will be as loquacious in spoilers as he is cunning in battle.

Here is my parting screenshot from this turn:



You can see in the top right corner that Operation Roundabout was a success. The very first of plako's 2 cavalry won at 40% odds against the lone, injured rifle and none of the 3 helpers that were waiting to finish him off got the chance for any action today. "Limiting Factor" has now joined our slowly growing empire.

Meanwhile, I have started making my plans for Kodii's city of Boost. Killing Time will expand it's borders in 14 turns (or less if I am ready sooner) making it straightforward to move in with a couple of cats and other units and take down the city whevnever I am ready. I have 90%+ cultural dominance of the 2 tiles immediatley to its north and northeast.

Now the timing just depends on dsplaisted ... he still only has 3 cannon on the road to Not Invented Here (along with the 14 rifles or so I've counted so far). We can draft more than that... he's still going to need more seige. Especially since I won't let him take either of the hills without using some of those precious cannons up.

Morgan - if you reading this, note that dsplaisted is in Theocracy, so most of those rifles probably will get pinch before they attack (assuming he tries to take one of the hills; if not hopefully we'll have enough units in place by then to just wipe him out on the flat; note that you'll have 4-5 cats there in the next 4 turns, in time for when the last of his rifles arrives).

Anyway, I'm out of here. Have fun and good luck!

PS Note we are only 6 combat points from our next GG... settling him in NIH might be a good longer term option if you can get dsiplaisted's stack neutralized, but don't be afraid to attach him to the troops to help deal with that stack of dsplaisted's if it comes down to that. We already have our super medic..

[Morgan]

Galley Attempt to raise city failed, city was garrisoned with a Cannon in addition to the warrior.

Planned drafts/whip were not complete due to lack of pop.

Defense of NIH in progress, proceeding as planned.

no screenies

[Morgan]

Defence of NIH continues, enemy has formed one stack on the WNW forest hill, 80% defend the inner hill.

[Swiss Pauli]

Welcome! And we look forward to a screenshot or two in due course

[Morgan]

Defence of NIH has seen some hard battles, our 80% stack was defeated by cannon barage, there were minimal casuties to the attackers. the hill was held by 3 undamaged, 2 damaged Rifles and 2 mace and our enslaved worker. one enemy cannon slinlked off to the enemy held forsrt hil 1W1NW. Our noble troops with 3 sucide catapualts retook the hill 1W. Sadly a Cav, rifle, mace were lost. Further noble catapults pounded the enemy on the hill 1W1NW of NIH. Their sacrifice weaken the enemy rifles and may allow our 2 rifles and 3 muskets to hold the hill if not, hopefully they have saved the city. Further rifles are enroute to defend and without cannon support the enemy can be held.



The GG was used to upgrade the warrior to a woods3 Rifle, further promotions will be saved until required. Our gracoius allies have donated a sum of money that will pay for the upgrade of 2 units.

Let us pray the RNG Gods are kind.

[Morgan]

Well seems the enemy decided to hold and heal rather that attack, a cannon is healing and another is enroute. Renforcements have arrived, even though they are a little thin.

Kodi seems to want to try a cheeky one, cannon and rifle heading to raise spy factory. Curry is enroute to cover along with a catapult, i've begged our allies for 80g for a little upgrade so fingers crossed.

[Munro]

After a nice vacation 2010 seems to be continuing where 2009 left off, as I've returned to discover that the whole world has made peace except for me and I now have two hostile nations (each bigger than Rome) facing me alone.

Morgan has done a nice job holding off dsplaisted. He's still outnumbered by defenders and still hasn't managed to get a position next to my city to start wearing down the defences, more than 20 turns now since he first invaded. NIH should continue to hold and at the very least I know he can't both capture it and keep it. Razing it wouldn't do much for him either since he clearly has superiority already and this basically just looks like an attempted land grab. So I imagine he'd be reluctant to raze it if he did ever actually break through (which would let me take it right back).



Kodii is a different story though. Since Broker now made peace with Kodii in exchange for the border holy city of Urumqi, half Kodii's stack has been teleported onto my border (see below) and the other half is just a few tiles along in the border city of Boost. Whoever takes over for Kodii is going to get an easy ride now...



Without Broker's troops keeping Kodii pinned down on the defensive, there's no way to hold both dsp and Kodii on my own. Seems like a bad move by Broker - he sacrifices a loyal ally, strengthens two nearby rivals and helps do rego's dirty work all at the same time while gaining... ? One city he would have inevitably captured anyway (and sacrificing the chance to continue taking more).

Broker tells me (and I believe him) that the original intent was for me to come along as well, but somehow that got lost in the negotiations while I was away and dsplaisted won't entertain it anyway (he still thinks he's about to take my capital). Not looking good for Rome or for Broker.

Regardless, going after Exploit seems crazy at this point. He seems to be one of the few trustworthy players in this game, and he was already working in our interests, helping to keep rego contained with few options to expand himself (with me on one side and Rego/Sunrise on the other). And going after him with rifles when drafting is at it's strongest makes even less sense. Exploit has just than 13% of the land, 18% of population. The remaining 82% of us could easily just starve him of techs anytime we want... why take him on now? Seems a lot like Broker got manipulated into dumping two close allies and rego and dsp will be the ones who stand the most to gain.

Anyway, for my part I can at least be confident of providing lurkers with what lurkers crave most - war makes the grass grow greener! Blood blood blood!!

[Munro]

Thought I would post some quick thoughts on the ever-changing diplo situation. (Just because the timer stops, doesn't seem to mean much in this game... ).

• Broker still seems to be trying to negotiate me a place in the dogpile gang (ugh) and has pledged military support against Kodii if dsp won't go for it.
  
• dsp won't go for it because he has been trying to overrun me for ages and finally smells blood.
  
• Even if Broker persuades dsp, there's no guarantee that Kodii's replacement will go along with that either - with two juicy stacks on my borders and no reason not to try and make some gains.
  

So I think it's time for Plan B.

- "Worst case", Broker has offered troops to hold off Kodii. (It doesn't help Broker any if I lose ground to Kodii's benefit).
- Exploit has also offered troops in exchange for voluntary, temporary vassalage (which really means border security through line-of-sight to my cities).
- The added bonus is that with Exploit still on side, we may be able to get Kodii's replacement (who is Exploit's RL friend) to 'switch sides' (whatever that means in this game) and turn on dsp.

That doesn't really address the tech situation though. With tech brokering off, things get really complicated and careful co-ordination is required - pretty much impossible when alliances are changing and being broken even more quickly than the techs themselves are being researched....

Just need to convince Broker now .. Exploit is still standing by with his vassal offer but not for long. Apparently he is also already trying to negotiate a break-up of the dogpile before it has even begun (which shouldn't be too hard) so I want to accept his help before he finds another way out. I don't see dsp giving up his prize anytime soon and those extra rifles would probably come in handy against dsp's vastly superior production and economy....