[SPOILERS] A threesome becomes a twosome

[DaveV]

Done. I had more than enough summons to clear out Napa and its surrounding units (I didn't kill the skeleton and spectre east of the city). Next turn, I think we should build roads along the arrows, then we should be able to hit Eisswein with three Maelstroms (and a snowfall if they don't pillage the road west of Nada). After the attack, we can pillage the roads on the X tiles.

Composite picture (taken before I checked this thread, so it doesn't show the Priests and ice elemental. I used one of the priests to cast Cure Disease; in retrospect, I probably should have summoned another ice elemental instead.

[plako]

They recaptured Napa/Nada. Unless we can really threaten Eisswin I suggest just razing the city and moving the bulk of our forces towards Botanic Gardens. Territory towards Zinfindel is much better (less forests ro we can reallly use the mobility) and we're better positioned to defend our core cities. Their current positioning is far from protecting our core. Saltus is unimportant city so just have some kind of defenders there. We want to hit staright towards their core cities and raze them.

[DaveV]

I disagree strongly. We are several turns away from being able to attack out of Botanic Gardens, and I expect to be able to raze Eiesswein (sic) this turn and maybe Champagne if they've neglected its garrisson. The fifth mud golem can move NW of Napa and road the tile next turn to give us a shot at several of their cities, including possibly the capital. I agree that we're vulnerable to a counterattack, but I think our best means of preventing one is to keep them on the defensive.

[plako]

Tough one. I like to play it safer. However, if you want to take the risk I will follow.

[DaveV]

A lot depends on what recon shows this turn. I'd like to see what they've done with their army that's been razing team 4 cities (Clan are showing a higher power rating than Vampires on the graphs, and I doubt that it's all SoK).

[DaveV]

Since it's looking as though we may not have a turn to play this week, here are my thoughts about the upcoming turn.



Again, a lot depends on what the aerial recon tells us, but here's my best case scenario: promote one of the 10xp adepts in Saltus to Meta II (maybe our last chance at that for a while, since I don't have Metamagic mana any more). Promote the other to Air II. After promoting, summon a puppet, move to "A", and cast Maelstrom. The mage with the Air I promotion should promote to Air II, move to "A", and summon his puppet. The puppet can move to "B" and cast another Maelstrom, or to some other tile if it lets him hit more units.

Then, pille everybody into "A". Gibbon can summon a puppet to cast snowfall on the main stack if it's in range (sitting in Eiesswein, maybe?). Raze Eiesswein (sic) and Champagne. The two Extension II mages should summon puppets who move to "B" and summon 4-move spectres, who raze Zinfandel if it only has one unit at home.

As I said before, I'd like to have a mud golem move to "A" so it can build a road if we need to bug out. Spectres or puppets with leftover movement can pillage roads to the southwest so the stack they were using to attack Team 4 can't reach us.

[HidingKneel]

Spectres or puppets with leftover movement can pillage roads to the southwest so the stack they were using to attack Team 4 can't reach us.

Puppets can pillage?

[plako]

They can't

[DaveV]

Loki's puppets can't pillage, all other ones can.

This is probably my last login before vacation. Sorry, plako, I know you're busy with other games, but you're in charge now.

[plako]

Aargh. Used some time yesterday and couldn't make up my mind what to do. I also way too many active wars in the queue at the moment in all my games.

So I could follow your idea and take the risk. We could kill some units. This time there are some pretty good targets like Vampires, catapults and Chariots. But we don't have enough to really kill the stack so we might end up killing just irrelevant Morois/Bloodpets. I also spotted Orge in the north near my borders, but still seems relatively quiet so I guess. Trying to figure out now what would be optimal way to attack.