I forgot to take a screen shot of the "before" but it wasn't all that different from last turn, but with an extra spear, and promotions on every unit. He decided to go for putting XP on all his units, instead of just a few, so they all had C1, except for one spear which had C2.
I decided to properly sim it out, and I ended up with three general points for the attack:
1) The first question I wanted to answer was how should I promote my first Cat: Barrage or City Raider? Normally I go for barrage, but in the end I decided to go for CR, because I really wanted to actually damage the top defending axe since it was the only one that had the full 25% fortify bonus.
2) I then realised it was far better to attack with the swords and axes than with HAs, because if I did well enough with them, the final axe might end up attacking a spear instead of another axe, which would be great for my HAs.
3) The final debate was whether to try and sac the chariots to damage the spears enough for my HAs to easily clean up. It turned out that on average my HAs were getting ~40% odds on the spears, while the chariots were getting 6-9%. The risk I would take going for the chariot-first line was that their odds were so low, they weren't all that likely to even do that much damage, and weren't really improving the odds for the HAs enough for it to be worth it. And 40% odds aren't the worst. So I decided then to use the HAs on the hill, then the chariots, then the wounded ones in Sumi, then the ones off of the boat (if I needed them).
Simming done, I went on to the battle, and it largely turned out exactly as I had imagined, although with a few more losses, as it seemed to be Adrien's turn to feel the Lady's pull as I lost a few good odds battles.
CR1 Cat vs C1 Axe 32% loss, dealt 68% damage, 6 units collateralled
Cat vs C1 Axe 34% loss, dealt 44% damage, 5 units collateralled
C1+Shock Axe vs C1 Axe 71% loss, only landed 1 hit
CR Axe vs C1 Axe 52% win
Sword vs C1 Axe 86% win
CR Axe vs C1 Axe 87% loss, 1 hit from winning
C1 HA vs C1 Spear 39% loss
C1 HA vs C2 Spear 42% loss
HA vs C1 Spear 39% retreat
C1 Chariot vs C1 Spear 80% loss
C1 Chariot vs C1 Chariot 85% win
Everything after that was at >99.9%, which allowed me to get that 26th XP on my medic
All told I lost 2 HAs, 2 Axes, 2 Cats, and 1 Chariot.
However, the battle for Bouillabaisse is not yet over, as Dreyin may well pounce:
He's had those boats there for a while now, and I'm fairly sure they're filled with units, in case he sees the opportunity to raze Bouillabaisse. Fortunately I could put 5 units in the city, without needing to leave my GG medic in there. I doubt he'd attack if he can't actually raze the city, although if I had left the medic there, he may have gone for it just to kill that. So, I doubt he's going to go for it, but I'll need to keep a decent force in that city at all times from now on, until I get triremes of my own.
Up by the islands:
He's deleted the workers that were on those islands, and since he had no more navy, I felt safe loading up that HA and heading for Tlateloco. I don't know if it has grown yet, so I may end up razing it, but either way, next turn it falls.
In other news, learned that Jowy and Ichabod are at war, which explains all of the whipping, and is good for me, since it makes it very unlikely that Jowy will jump on any of Adrien's remaining cities.
Immediate concern right now is Dreylin at Bouillabaisse, but in a few turns, when the HAs in Adrien's ex-cap are healed, we'll move on to the next Aztec city.
Took that second island city of Adrien's.
I don't know if it had grown before and he whipped it down to 1, or if it had always been at 1, but it grew on the interturn, so it doesn't really matter.
I'm still nervous about Dreyin trying to raze Bouillabaisse (since renamed And Winter Came). He now has 3 galleys in the area. However, he hasn't been playing consistently after or before me over the last few turns, so I'm not sure how worried I need to be.
The archer in that fleet it going to be exchanged for one of the HAs in AWC, then the fleet will go up to Tenochtitlan. I'm hoping that he'll move most of the defenders to the city in the fog to the south that I'm going to move on next turn out of Blanquette. It's not set in stone though, so I may end up just offloading them at Sumi to go overland and join up with the main stack.
I also offered OB to Jowy. I'm the only civ on my continent he's met, so I imagine the IC routes will be too good to ignore, especially now that he's fighting Ichabod. It'll only give me a few extra commerce, but it's also insurance in case AT cancels our OB.
Nothing much to report this turn, except that I moved my army into Adrien's land from Blanquette, which sent my income plummeting, revealing just how fragile my economy is atm.
So, with 4 more turns of peace with Gawdzak, and very little chance that Adrien will be able to hold off the forces I already have over there, I am going into full infrastructure mode back home. I have micro'd all my cities, and set up builds and whips that should get markets and courthouses in almost every city there within 4 to 6 turns. Basically it's a matter of setting up the best possible market whips to generate as much overflow into courthouses as possible. Hopefully, some aggressive whipping can set my economy back on track, letting me actually take advantage of the land I'm getting from Adrien.
Also, I built what will probably be the last settler of my game, to go grab the last island, directly to the north of On My Way Home. Although I'll delay settling it until I get some of those courthouses.
Seeing this necessitated a change in plans. I'm moving with my main army on Choucroute, while waiting for reinforcements to reach Blanquette for the eventual push on Cassoulet. I plan on bombarding the defenses in Choucroute down for 1 turn, then suiciding two cats to take the city. UNLESS he moves units down from Cassoulet to Choucroute, which I wouldn't mind at all, since it'll mean losing the fortify bonus for most of the defenders, and I'll use all 4 cats.
However, either way, the forces I have in play now are probably enough to take those two cities, but probably not enough to take any more after that. So I am going to build up some more military back home over the next few turns. I'm still doing the market whips (got 4 lined up for next turn) but I'll use the overflow for units out of my main hammer cities, instead of courthouses. The markets are worth more money right now anyway, since I'm probably not going to be running max science for another 5 turns or so. Mostly I'll be building cats, axes, and swords. I really do need more cats though, not so much to take the last few cities of Adrien, but for defensive purposes against Gawdzak.
Assuming another axe/spear is produced out of that city next turn, he'll have 20 units defending. I'll have 20 units that can actually kill something. The odds don't look good with only 4 cats. So I have come up with a cunning plan.
I'll move the units from both stacks in Aztec territory onto the hill 2E of Blanquette. From there, the HAs can go after Cassoulet or Choucroute if I see an advantage in doing so, but more likely I'll just move them 1NW and join up with the reinforcements around Blanquette. I do not feel as though I need to be in any rush to take the last few of Adrien's cities. Jowy is too busy to take any, and I think that Dreylin is content building in peace for now, it's been serving him well so far.
Forcing Adrien to move those units from Cassoulet to Choucroute and back again also serves to get rid of a lot of the fortify bonus that those units in Cassoulet had.
I did say earlier that I would not be upset if my attack stalls at this point, and that is still true. But unless he really whips those cities into nothing over the next 5 turns, I think I'll have a chance at breaking his resistance at Cassoulet with this current plan. If not, I can always wait. I can easily outproduce him in terms of units while also doing infra builds.
Also, with all of my conquests out of resistance, I thought I'd show them off a bit:
Got a couple of nice mature cottages, and in the 2nd ring a copper mine. Will need some worker labour to deal with those jungles, and I've already begun to ship them over.
Holy City, lots of food, but currently at the happy cap, although the whip will wear off when the city grows. The spy is quite useful at the moment, helping me get back graphs with players who have been putting EPs into me.
Adrien's ex capital. Worth a lot of money, although happiness is of course an issue atm, I may end up having to whip away a whole lot of them when most of the garrison leave to continue the attack. Will get a LOT better when the borders expand. I'll refrain from renaming it while Adrien and Martoc are still in the game.
This city was the toughest fight so far in the war, but will remain fairly useless for now, thanks to Dreylin's culture. I did think that it might not be worth it to keep the city, but if I had razed, I'm fairly sure that Dreylin would have come and settled the spot. Once it gets its inner ring back, it'll be a lot better. And it's close enough to my cap to still make money off of trade routes anyway.
Better of the two island cities. There's fish 2W of the city, and the island doesn't require any worker turns. Barely above breaking even in term of cost.
Last of the island cities, it needs a WB for that crabs (I'll build it out of the other island). I do not know why they chose to put the city on the hill, instead of the grassland. A mine is so much more useful than a lone cottage, and now that 1-tile island is orphaned. If I had been thinking a little more critically when I took the city, I would have razed it.
Also, I'm flying to Italy tomorrow, staying there for ten days, then going to Belfast for a few days, then home to Canada for a few days before I set off on a road trip to Vegas. So for the next month or so, my reporting may drop off in frequency.
Wifi isn't good enough for screens, sorry. But since I took a huge gamble this turn, I thought I'd report anyway. As I mentioned previously, I combined my stack on that one hill, revealing only a spear and an axe in Cassoulet. However, this turn he had moved+built 3 more spears and and an axe in that city, and moved 2 spears 1N of Choucroute, leaving the rest in that city.
The gamble I took was to move my stack 1NE and not attack with the HAs (the chariot was sacced to do some scouting). He can get at most 3 more units in that city (those two spears +1 built), which means I'll be able to take that city no problem. However, it does give him the opportunity to attack my stack while it is on flat ground. However, he has to do it across that river, since he still doesn't have construction (no bridges in his land). If he sends everything at it, he will eventually start getting good odds, with his spears attacking my HAs, but it would cost him everything. I have 9 shock HAs to defend against axes, and axes (+spears and cats if needed) to defend against spears. And I moved the next lot of reinforcements from Blanquette into his land, letting him know that I have more units to follow this one main stack.
The other thing he can do is move a bunch of units from Choucroute onto the plains tile 1SE of Cassoulet. If he does that, then we'll see, although I am thinking now that I'll move the main army 1SE onto the hill N of Choucroute, which would cut that city off from the bulk of his army.
I really don't know what is the best thing to do in this kind of situation, in general I mean; when an attack has bogged down as the defender piles more and more units into the remaining cities. But, this is a learning experience, and from what I can tell, the same thing has happened to every other war (Gawdzak vs BGN, Yuri vs BRick, Ichabod vs Jowy). There's lots of cities falling at the start of the attack, then a slow bloody grind through the rest.
In other news, another 10-turn peace with Gawdzak. I really don't like taking these, but I don't see myself having any choice. Hey, maybe we can stay at peace for most of the rest of the game? Also, Dreylin started putting EP into me, which is worrying, fortunately, I am making more EP than he is, thanks to that 1 spy, so I should be able to get graphs back soon enough.
I messed up this turn, lost some units for nothing. I really need to be able to sim these attacks out, but I don't really have the time right now. Anyway, I thought I could take Cassoulet, but I discovered that it would be too bloody, that it would end up needing most of my units, leaving the survivors vulnerable. Unfortunately, it took 2 cats, 1 axe, and 3 ha's for me to realise this. For no losses on Adrien's side. Next turn, I'll link up my reinforcements while bombarding the defenses some more, and see where to go from there.
I'm half tempted to just turn around and leave for now, my current irl situation makes fighting a war like this not a pleasant prospect, I just don't have much time available, and when I do I'm usually tired and/or rushed. I can back out, tech some, get reinforcements, etc etc then go back in 6 to 8 turns to finish things. I don't know, it'll depend on what I see next.
Got some message from BGN, I think telling me he was about to lose his cap, which I can see anyway just from the map and event log. I don't know what else iron and whales could signify.
I found some time today for a sim, and I discovered I really don't have what I need right now to take a shot at any of Adrien's cities when they are filled with defenders. Basically, I want to have 1 final big fight, in which I take out the majority of his force, but I do not have enough units there to do that. I don't even know if the units that I have going to reinforce are going to be enough to tip the scales in my favour, and all of my cities are on infrastructure builds atm. If I hadn't messed up last turn, then I think I would have enough; losing the two cats especially hurt.
I think my current plan is to keep that army where it is, threatening that city, and send some units by boat up to his northern coastal city while it is relatively undefended. Then I'll take that, and put the invasion on hold for a while, I have a GA due in 8 turns, and I want to have most of my infrastructure done by then, especially forges in my main hammer cities. I think I may have to wait until maces before I can finish off Adrien, or maybe Dreylin will get impatient and go for his southern city, and give me an opportunity.
Speaking of Dreylin, last turn he offered to trade one of his 2 gems for my only incense. I offered back asking for 6gpt as well which he rejected. I decided this turn to re-offer his original proposition, just to try stay on his good side for now. He has 5 triremes now, which could easily cut off the two parts of my empire, isolating my army in Old Aztecia. A somewhat nightmarish prospect to say the least.
I also thought about offering to trade 1 of my irons to BGN for his incense, but I don't know how long he'll still have the incense, and it would only give him a few more turns of resistance at best. What it would do is piss off Gawdzak; since our first couple of border scraps, we've been staying at peace, and he has not yet failed in setting up 10-turn peace treaties with me, something which I want to continue as I build up my infrastructure.
Got good enough internet for screens, but I only have one to show at the moment:
That is terrifying, and if I throw all my army at the last of Adrien's cities, there's nothing to keep Ichabod from just rolling over them all the way to the coast. Jowy has 3 cities left, he's not long for this game, and I don't want to lose everything I have won in my war with Adrien, so for the time being, I'm done with that war. It sucks for Adrien, to be stuck playing a game with only 4 cities and no opportunity for expansion, but who knows, maybe Ichabod will just keep going west after finishing off Jowy and end Adrien, hopefully sustaining enough losses in the process to not want to take me on....
Back home I am prepping for my GA in 4 turns, with most of my cities on forges, which are mostly going to be whipped the turn before I pop the GA, followed by couthouses in the cities that need them, and then military. Triremes for Dreylin and Longbows for my borders with Gawdzak and Adrien. I hope to get Civil Service soon (haven't checked the actual timings) so I may go for some maces as well.
Other than that I have no plans as of yet. I'll do I big report thing when I kick off my GA.
