Mr. Cairo PB 52 [Spoilers]

[Mr. Cairo]

OK, so, I managed to get a look at what AT has waiting for me:

No GG shenanigans this time, just an Impi left alone by AT.

So he has 16 Catapults, 8 Knights, 5 Maces, 5 HAs, 3 Pikes, 14 Longbows, 1 Chariot, and 1 Warrior.

My stack has 3 Rifles, 10 Muskets, 10 Knights, 8 Maces, 3 Pikes, 4 Crossbows, 8 Catapults, 5 Trebs, 1 Sword, 1 Chariot, 1 War Elephant, and 2 Impi

So, time to sim it out, and see what would happen if I move my stack next to his city and he attacks it with everything. I'm hoping my Drill 3 Muskets and Rifles do well.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, in all my sims, his Knights all get good odds. Mostly against my Knights and Pikes. His Maces get decent odds as well. HAs are used to soften up before Knight, Flanking 2 is actually quite good here for them. All in all I lose a fair number of my own Knights, Pikes, and maybe a Rifle/Musket or two. He also flanks my collateral quite badly. His Longbows don't get good odds at all. The flanking of my collateral makes it unlikely I'll be able to take the city the turn after being attacked, although most of them can take 2 promos to heal. So if I wait one turn, his healthier Knights might get a chance to kill a few more of my units, but by the next turn the Medic 3 Chariot would have done it's thing and healed a lot of damage.

So it'll be a painful slog, but I think I'll win it eventually. His problem is that my Drill 3 Rifles defend against basically all of his catapults. So they only deal collateral to my other units. Enough that his Knights get good odds, but not enough to hurt my stack completely. In retrospect I should have given a few of my Muskets Formation, I should have expected plenty of Knights from AT. I didn't need to promote all of the Muskets up the drill line, even only slightly injured by the Collateral, they still don't really defend against any of his heavy hitters.

Anyway I'm not going to turn around this time, so let's go in.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, in my sims I was operating under the assumption AT was in Vassalage, and so all his Cats were promoted up to Barrage 2 and his Knights mostly had C3. But he's in Bureaucracy. His Cats can only take Barrage 1 and I don't think he can get three promos on his newly built Knights.

So I re-did my sims and his Knights still get a fair amount of kills, but the odds aren't nearly as good.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, as it happens, he's just leaving everything in his city for me to attack. So now I need to run some sims to see how that'll go.

But I wont be able to do that until tomorrow morning at the earliest, so AT will have to wait. I'll send him a PM to let him know, just in case.

[Mr. Cairo]

In all my sims, attacking right now is suicide. I need to bombard for at least two turns, if not three.

That will give me and him more time to bring in units, and it'll be easier for him. It also gives him more fortify bonus, although I'm assuming most of his Longbows already have the max for that. Even so, it's the only way to do it. If I had more Rifles, it'll be a lot easier.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, he attacked out with all his Cats (lost them all) then with his Knights, had some success, but then lost most of his Maces.

I was very lucky and didn't lose any Rifles, just Knights and Pikes.

I thought about attacking this turn, but with my medic there I can heal up most of my units in just one turn, and with a Fresh Formation Rifle and a Rifle promoted to Drill 4, I feel mostly safe from his remaining Knights. If he attacks with all of them he'll probably only win one or two battles. If that.

I also thought about not doing anything with my collateral so it heals to full, but I decided that taking the defenses down some more was more worthwhile. So I promo-healed those that could, and took away more of the cultural defenses. The really hurt ones I let heal. If it turns out his Knights have more success and they get hurt some more from flanking I might wait another turn to heal them up to full. By that time the rest of my units will have healed and can defend against his Knights.


However, that seems unlikely. Looking at his Knights only two seem likely to have remotely decent odds, the rest will be too injured, even my Muskets should be able to defend against those ones.

Overall, I'd say I came out ahead, mainly because he has no Cats, and they were very good at soaking collateral.

[Mr. Cairo]

All he did last turn was attack with a single Catapult. So I decided to go for it. In retrospect I should probably have waited 1 turn to heal up all my collateral. It's amazing how a small loss of health can have such a huge impact on a fight.

Anyway, here's how it started:

As you can see, that Subutai took very little damage against my siege. Which meant my Trebs couldn't get past it to hit his other top defenders. The reason they did so poorly is because with the reduced health it took one less hit for them to die, and therefore had fewer chances to deal damage. If I had just waited a turn and healed them all I think it would have gone a lot better.

Here's how it went afterwards:

Looks reasonable right? Won more than I lost? No, it was not reasonable. The first Mace had poor odds so that was ok, the only other bad odds battle I took was the first Musket (died) and the Sword (won) and those were ~40% battles. All my other losses were between 60% and 75%. And then, to top it off, this happened:



Here's the final result:


I hope that my Rifles and Muskets will be able to keep winning fights. The Knights are useless against his Pikes. I really don't want to have to wait for reinforcements and healing.

On a lighter note:

[Mr. Cairo]

OK, here is a screenshot showing me finishing Mil Trad by next turn:


No other techs queued:



The only thing that can stop this now is if OH attacks and burns a bunch of my cities which he can't do, and he's busy attacking MJMD anyway.

Which reminds me, I need to get Astro asap after Mil Trad. OH has built up quite the navy.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, the siege progresses. The last couple of turns I've just been bombarding down the defenses. Now I've done that enough that my Rifles can just beat his Longbows:

Next turn will probably be a healing/bombarding turn while I move in the next batch of reinforcements.

I'm also debating whether I should forget about Astro for now and instead tech Chemistry -> Steam Power -> Steel. That will give me some Ironclads for coastal defense, and access to Cannons, which is what OH has reached already. It's not any quicker than going for Astro -> Chemistry for Frigates, but long-term they're more useful techs.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here's a conundrum. Why does a Knight defend against my Drill 4 Rifle, with it's 35% bonus against mounted units:


While a Longbow defends against my C2 Cover Rifle:


I would assume it would be the other way round, or that a Longbow would always defend. I killed a Knight this turn with a D4C2 Rifle that had 90+% odds. Surely a Longbow would have better odds defending?

Anyway, his capital falls next turn, and with Cavs here it shouldn't take too long to finish him off.

WW is killing me:




Also, here's a funny thing:

MJMD can put a unit in my city and block it from OH using it as a canal. But then OH will be able to attack that unit to open it up. If MJMD tries this I can see my territory being a new front for their war