[SPOILERS] Team BASTARD settles on deer.

[Ceiliazul]

Oh, one final note. The moment it took me to refuse their peace treaty, was the moment when I considered that I want to outlive Azza. But...not badly enough to let them back out of a war they chose.

All good reasons, dude.

[Mardoc]

There's only so much I can do here, guys. FinHarry already got lucky that Azza and I were so mad at each other as to waste a lot on each other. I could probably have killed their stack already if I hadn't used up all my cats on Azza. He could probably have wiped their stack too, if he weren't more interested in making sure I got nothing.

They've still got twice the cities I do, better developed, and better tech. Those advantages will keep increasing, too. All I can do is delay and hope for the horse to learn to sing.

That said, I have to mention that their current stack in my lands has only 1 mace and 1 spear as stack defenders. If I can wound those, then I ought to be able to play Elephant vs. Knight again. I think there's a good chance I can wipe that stack yet; even if I can't, it won't get more than one city.

[Ceiliazul]

Thats the spirit!

[Mardoc]

FinHarry took out Red this turn . It cost them three catapults and a Knight, and wounded a lot of the rest of their stack. Reasonable exchange rate for a garrison that was three longbows and a couple ancient bodies. They burned it, which even for Victoria has to hurt.

I'm debating if I should counterattack or not. I would love to wipe out that stack, and I'd hate to give them free access to the rest of Spain if I were to come up short. Not sure if I'll have another opportunity like this, either; they ought to be able to reinforce pretty easily now that they've removed my culture from the area. It's probably why they burned Red, they couldn't afford to split their stack.

They've got a Mace and a Pike and a Spear to protect from elephants, and a pair of unwounded knights to make everything else struggle. But after that, they've just got a lot of juicy targets - Knights at half health, catapults, all kinds of things that even longbows ought to get odds against.

Got six more players/10 hours, whichever comes first, to make up my mind.

[Mardoc]

Well, when in doubt, talk it through, right?

They've got this left:



I've got, in range:
2 Combat II Horse Archers
3 Healthy War Elephants, CII/CI/CI
1 wounded WE 3.2/7
8 longbows
2 spears
1 axe

1 catapult

Out of range, but will defend Infrared, I've got a longbow, catapult, and HA.

How it likely goes down:
I start by catapult, then WE/WE. All lose, but wound pike, knight, and mace.

Then WE/HA/HA, probably one wins. He's left with maybe a wounded knight as best stack defender. Throw in the longbows and assume 2/3 win, so that's six dead units on his side. Spears and Axe? Maybe 2 more kills if I'm lucky.

Total of ~8 kills on my side, if it works out. Leaves him with 3-4 very wounded knights, 4ish cats, one other unit. I'm left with a pile of redlined longbows in the open, with city garrison promos. He can probably push forward just fine with that, especially if he brings up his city garrisons.

On the other hand, can I do better by waiting? Let him run away, and he'll heal up and come back with not only full health, but also a handful of maces to defend the stack against anything I might throw. My cities are nearly tapped out, so I won't be getting much more than I have. And if I let him walk up to my city walls - well, as Red showed, he'll mainly just lose cats. Although he'll need more cats than he's currently got, anyway...

Arghh, I'm not sure that helped any. It looks like we're firmly into the 'maybe' range, mostly dependent on the RNG. I could imagine getting 12 kills and the rest redlined, or only four kills and he can push straight on to Infrared with that supermedic to heal his stack.

[Mardoc]

Well, that was a fiasco.

Killed two, redlined most of the rest, but ran out of gas before I started winning. It started well: the catapult redlined one of the healthy knights and collateralled the other. I killed the mace and a knight at ~20% odds with the elephants. But then the RNG turned against me; the battle was capped off by things like longbow vs HA, 49.5% odds, not even inflicting a single scratch. I stopped before throwing the spears against catapults at 25% odds.

Ah well. Silver lining: I'll be out of the game sooner.

[Ceiliazul]

Ah well. Silver lining: I'll be out of the game sooner.

Respect.

[Civ] is not a journey to the grave with the
intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- WOW-- What a Ride!

[Mardoc]

Don't have much longer. They killed another of my big stacks, and (correctly) started spreading out to take my cities faster. I'm down to ~five cities. I'm going to try to kill their galley, although I have mixed feelings on that. I want to be a tough morsel, but killing their navy may leave me in the game for a long time. My island city isn't a valuable enough city to be worth a lot of effort, at least now when Azza's still sitting out there with only axes in his cities. Guessing the appropriate way to handle that is to build a raiding force and be super-annoying.

Well, either that, or to take the retire to AI option once I'm down to just the island. Dunno. I really don't want to risk giving them an out for war weariness, I think I've killed enough of their stuff that that's hurting them. But I also want to spend my time on other things.

[Mardoc]

Phew. Boldly eliminated that worry by vulturing my island. I figure five more turns and I'll be freeeee!

[Mardoc]

Alright, down to my last city. Last I looked, it was four longbows behind 46% city walls, staring at five knights and a cat. City's size 2, so I probably won't manage another longbow before they attack. So, five turns at most, depending on how brave and lucky FinHarry are.

Seems like a good time to wrap up and summarize. But really, it's a simple story. I think I played pretty well, with the exception of dealing with Azza. And that totally wrecked my game. I think, ultimately, my mistake was thinking I could stop short of total annihilation. I needed to bottle up my rage, feed it, and not act on it until I could launch a crippling blow immediately. "Never do a foe a small injury".

Course, that assumes there *was* a solution. There may not have been. Could be that Azza was always going to push, and it was merely a question of when I started the long destructive war - maybe I let him have the border city and he goes on for something even more aggressive and ill-defended. Or, if I let him get away with no-army REX for too long, then I can't strike back even if I want to.

Ah well. Freedom is soon.