[Spoilers] Beyond the Sword and Back - Ilios relearns some old tricks

[Ilios]

They are shown in the city screen.

Darrell

Oh. I'm keeping multiple units at a turn from completion to hide my buildup.

[darrelljs]

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Well its good you have Engineering. I would probably take all my mounted except a few HA and put them in Franzen, along with a few Workers. Then I'd road the tile north of the Pig and go to the grassland hill south of his silver. The following turn you can either take SnowHead or fork any two of his three front line cities. I'd take your slow stack and land it west of your incense tile, maneuvering to the north of Kakariko.

You really need more Knights, his power is not that much lower than yours. His MGF has also spiked a lot recently, so he's going to be able to crank out defenders like crazy.

You can get Liberalism in 4t without the shock of unit supply costs.

Darrell

[Ilios]

Good thing you didn't mention whom I am attacking.

I'll mull over your suggestions, not sure if attacking Karakiro is the best idea, since he will have most of huis troops around as a counterweight tot dhalphir. I agree I could have gotten more Knights. As to his Mfg, he is in the last turns of a golden age.

[NobleHelium]

Well, that's obviously Whosit.

[darrelljs]

.

Darrell

[Ilios]

T110

So, this was the turn I was supposed to move in, but last turn, Dhalpir declared on Whosit, and then this happened:




Dhalphir took a Whosit city, on the mainland, but hard to reinforce logistically.

You can also see Hashoosh and Yuris going at each other, each losing a great general unit!

I had moved a Sentry Chariot into Dhalphir's land, and managed to spot this:




This is clearly Whosit's main stack, and it looks like he's preparing to road the indicated tile with the two Fast Workers in the screenshot and move to the same jungled hill tile the chariot is on.

I'm torn now, because I would love for Whosit to burn that Dhalphir city, but then I am at risk losing the offensive window, and I'll be forced to wait till I have Cuirassiers (only two techs away after Liberalism finishes though).

Power graph:




Yuris and Hashoosh lost quite a few units it would seem.

I'm up to 21 Knights.

Demo's:

[darrelljs]

Now we're getting somewhere . Images are blocked at work, but 21 Knights...that's serious business.

Darrell

[Ilios]

T111 greets me with a message from Dhalphir:




Sure, that doesn't telegraph me that he wants me to attack Whosit with my stack of Knights.

That means I was right, and Whosit has moved in?




Yup!

I agonized for a while, conferred with Darrell, and decided that I'll have to be a total bastard and move in now. Sorry Whosit...

I first moved a sentry Horse Archer next to Snowhead, which only showed a Spear, an Axe and an Archer as defenders. I then had all Knights that could join the HA, and moved three more to one tile off. I didn't move any slowmovers into Whosit lands to save upkeep money, since I knew that by taking Snowhead I would be able to move them three tiles thanks to the Indian road network.

I moved a smaller harassment stack with some HA's, a Pike, an Axe, a Maceman and some Catapults on the Stone tile next to Kakariko, and pillaged both the Quarry and the road (no more cheap Walls).

Next turn update in a bit!

[Ilios]

So T112...

I quickly looked at how Whosit retreated his big stack:




He attacked!

And not only that, my Chariot in the city was the only reason Dhalphir held it!

Well, I understand Whosit didn't just want to retreat and turtle inside of his capital, but this basically handed me a swift victory over him. Kind of feels wrong...

Anyway, I moved the Chariot (damaged by collateral) to another Dhalphir city on the front, revealing two French Horse Archers. No Indian spoils for you Dhalphir.




In the north, Whosit upgraded his Snowspear Spearman to a Pike. I moved in the Knights one tile off the city, and lucked out on the first one, defeating the Pike at around 30% odds. Two other Knights easily beat the remaining garrison, giving me my first conquest of the war.

I once more moved my sentry Horse Archer forward first, moving to Whosit's sole Iron resource:




Yup, Whosit will need to strip Kakariko of its defenses to be able to hold the capital next turn.

After a while, I moved my forces thusly:




I moved a Knight into position on Zora's domain, revealing only an Archer on defense. I wanted to be sure to take the city and keep moving along the coast, so I moved three more low experience Knights on the same tile.

The rest of the Knight, around 13 of them, most of them triple promoted or promotable, moved with the HA on the Iron tile. The one movers followed the road and moved to Snowhead's south. Whosit could hit Snowhead with two Chariots, so I moved an Axe and a Spear into the city, joining the Knight that captured it.




In the southeastern theatre, I moved the harassing stack next to Kakariko, followed by some more Knights and one movers.




The x's mark the unfortunate road network error, which means that Whosit will not be able to hit my Knight stack.

Hey, a Great General!

Lets see the log:




Well, I hope this isn't a RBMod bug, where you get a Great Artist for every Great General you generate.

Seriously, I considered asking in the IT thread if Whosit and Dhalphir got the Artists the normal way. Still, what a coincidence!

Dhalphir's Artist spawned in an unfortunate spot, if Whosit decides to try and take Duna (only one green Longbow defending).

Finally, the power graph:




Well, I feel I played a solid game, but it looks like my opponents have managed to beat themselves as well...

I even felt confident enough to put some cities on wealth builds instead of units.

And yes, I have stopped researching Liberalism at one turn of completion, swapped to Nationalism, and hope to capture the MoM right when I finish it (I still have a Great Engineer for the Taj Mahal hanging around).