Well, this is a real full-blown everyone-against-us dogpile. Bigger declared on us, with 20+ French Musketeers advancing on Beginnerman.
– I offered Beginnerman + Barb City + Chemistry to Bigger for peace. I doubt he'll accept. We have basically 0 military in all of Azzaland, and he's been scouting us thoroughly so he knows it. Everything was drawn down to try holding off Commodore. Bigger could swipe the whole of Azzaland from us virtually uncontested with his musketeers. To make matters worse, he received the event which gives all his muskets a free Pinch promotion
– I offered Chemistry + Banking to Commodore for peace
– I offered Chemistry to 2metra for peace
– I offered Gold + Ivory to AT ... hopefully he'll remain neutral
You may log in to look around if you want, but don't make any more diplomatic offers.
A slight glimmer of good news amidst the roar and chaos of our besieged empire: Trade mission was successful for 1700 gold, bringing our total to just over 2000. Due to unit losses reducing costs we only need about 2200 gold to research Steel, Estimated in 7 turns. This is why I offered peace to everyone. 10 turns of peace would allow us to carefully time auto-upgrades from Catapults to Cannon, and maybe get out 2 from each of our hammer-heavy cities before it runs out.
One other piece of good news ... All of our knights survived the attack on 2metra's stack. Our luck here was good, winning a bunch of 70-80% battles. Unfortunately our maces/muskets had much worse luck. Although mostly attacking in the 70-80% range we exchanged about 50/50. Knights will head down to Commodore, even though they are all wounded. They are sorely needed. GG is definitely going to give us a supermedic.
So, any bets on whether those peace offers will be accepted ... mostly rhetorical of course since lurkers can't really comment on this. I bet they all refuse, leaving us to die and collapse as we may. Bigger will come out the big winner here because we're putting up a strong fight vs 2metra, and maybe vs Commodore? But Commodore will have to slog through us, whereas Bigger can just run his musketeers around wherever he wants.
I thought he accepted the offer for war with 2metra?
Doesn't that make him obligated (by the put of game agreement to follow said deals) to declare at least?
Unfortunate timing, and I'm gonna have no time to chat other the next few turns...
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
He did accept, but he only received the resources for 1 turn (last turn) so it's not worth causing trouble over. We'll just have to ride this our and see what happens. Hopefully we have enough production cities left when Steel comes in so that we can get a few cannon into the field and hopefully hold back the hordes.
I really have to run this morning, so no pictures yet
This is the results of the 2metra attack (for simplicity's sake I'm lumping the 4-5 Commodore units in with 2metra when referring to them). I was hoping that our Maces/Muskets would have better luck, but alas we exchanged about 1:1 after the knights all made there kill. The important part is that we killed all 2metra's knights except 2. Both of those are redlined, but each survived at least one attack which combined with the XP they already had is probably enough for 2-3 promos which would mostly heal them. We have 3 units in Sheep, one of those a full-strength musket, so we should be safe there. Since all of our knights won their battles we inflicted significant flanking damage on 2metra's catapults, killing all but 3 by flanking. I hope our stack is safe With Commodore's attack urgently calling forces down to the south I couldn't wait 1 more turn until our stack would end up in the city. The plan is the wheel the knights down to the Commodore front, hopefully with enough time for one turn of healing with the supermedic before they're called into action.
Here's Bigger's stack that's invading from the West. I doubt we'll be able to hold anything West of Apocalypse. I've pretty much resigned myself to giving up Beginnerman, Jobs, Kayak, Ruck, and Who Am I. We have literally no military behind the peacetime garrison of Beginnerman. Several of those cities are even empty My plan is to cut our losses and focus on holding Apocalypse, Google, and Bah ... I'm hoping that Bigger will approach cautiously and be satisfied with the easy picking of Azzaland and take peace, giving us an opportunity to build cannon (assuming we aren't overrun in the east).
Knights are the focus for the next 8 turns, then Cannon. Azzaland is gone, but we're not out of the game yet. 5 more turns will tell whether there's still hope of recovery or if we will fall into the dustbin of History. 3 more turns is the time we have until Commodore can his Postos Village. If we can hold Postos AND AT doesn't declare on us there is still hope of one day recovering. If we either loose Postos or if AT declares (meaning we loose Blimp, followed soon after by Postos) it's lights out and we just fight as best we can until the curtain closes. Unfortunately our spy spotted straggling AT forces hurrying to SWAT in 1's and 2's ... a couple maces, a couple cats, a couple knights. Certainly no SOD, but since our forces are all jamming into Postos it won't require a SOD to knock up Blimp in 3 turns. This is all assuming the 2metra front remains stalemated, which is by no means guaranteed either
Well, this was immensely fun while it lasted, and the fight to the bitter end will have interest of its own. If the dogpile had waited 10 more turns ... JUST TEN MORE TURNS!!!! I would bet that we could have succeeded. In 10 turns we would have drafted 20 muskets (not being war we wouldn't have drafted more than about 2 cities per turn). In 10 turns we would have build 10 knights. In 10 turns we would have had Cannon online and built at least 5 by timing overflow and Catapult auto-upgrades. With the extra forces from 10 more turns of buildup at our disposal we wouldn't have had to draw Azzaland so thin ... but enough of the What If's I'll deal what blows I can in return and see if we can't reach Steel with enough production centers still intact to put up a respectable defense.
Be realistic - we would have scientific method not steel
But yeah, this was horrible timing. Should we move the Beginnerman troops out, or swap into slavery?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
I did move out the Beginnerman troops already. Not sure if this was best ... in fact I was thinking about it this afternoon and it may have been a huge mistake. TT/Bigger only had 2 catapults. Culture defenses were only 20% so he could have just stormed the walls, but we would have killed about 8-12 muskets/knights depending on the RNG luck. But it's done already. Also don't know whether to try a stand at Jobs or just retreat strait to Apocalypse. I'm leaning towards completely evacuating everything and retreating back to Apocalypse. Jobs is a nice city, but would soon fall. None of the other cities of any size but Apocalypse also has great production. If we can save Apocalypse, let TT/Bigger march through and gobble everything up in the next 5 turn, and then sign peace for 10 that gives us a cushion of about 8 turns of building Cannon.
I was wondering about slavery too. Maybe? I think not until after we get Steel. Azzaland doesn't have high pop anyway, and units prices at this stage of the game require 2-3 pop whips. If we whip off the core we'll hurt our teching pace (plus 1-turn of Anarchy), and I think Steel is really our only glimmer of hope. I'll say no to Slavery for sure until Steel.
Ok, I logged in to see what 2metra did. He threw his 2 redlined Cats into our stack in the east, and then moved his stack onto the Jungle ... retreating from the eastern front. This will allow our army there to heal up, and hopefully bring this front to a stalemate. He is sending Knights and slow-movers around the north towards Google. I'll be drafting Volcano and Pork Chop and sending those muskets to reinforce Google.
Our other two drafts will be Postos and ... I don't know. We're at the happy cap in Blimp, but maybe take the hit for another unit into Postos. Otherwise probably Jobs, retreating it back to the south. Might as well get what use we can of of the city before it gets captured.
Incidentally, the loss of units plus the loss of maintenance in Beginnerman reduced our expenses to 300gpt. We need 7 turns of research now, which costs 2100 gold, maybe less if we can reduce the slider a bit on the last turn. We basically have that much in the bank. The trouble now might be that we loose too much commerce due to captured cities or unhappy citizens that it slows our research pace too much.
With Commodore's attack urgently calling forces down to the south I couldn't wait 1 more turn until our stack would end up in the city. The plan is the wheel the knights down to the Commodore front, hopefully with enough time for one turn of healing with the supermedic before they're called into action.
My plan is to cut our losses and focus on holding Apocalypse, Google, and Bah ... I'm hoping that Bigger will approach cautiously and be satisfied with the easy picking of Azzaland and take peace, giving us an opportunity to build cannon (assuming we aren't overrun in the east).
I'll deal what blows I can in return and see if we can't reach Steel with enough production centers still intact to put up a respectable defense.