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

[NobleHelium]

That is truly bizarre...

[Ilios]

Two more turns have passed.

T113

My big Knight stack waited a turn on the slow movers, pillaging Whosit's only source of Iron.

Whosit still didn't move his southern stack to defend his core, instead taking out the sole Longbow in Dhalphir's city.

My small Knight stack in the north took Zora's Domain, and I moved two more Knights into position two tiles from Great Bay.

Whosit emptied Kakariko as expected, moving every unit, apart from a Catapult into his capital, which means I managed to take that city without any losses as well, getting me a Great General already (go IMP!).

T114

This was the situation in the south:




The remains of the southern indian army first moved towards the capital, which made me a bit nervous, because Whosit could have tried to retake Kakariko, which had a garrison that was a little heavy on the mounted units. I think he might have been able to destroy my troops, but that would have cost him the capital this turn (Kakariko's garrison consisted of 4 Horse Archers, 1 Knight, a War Elephant, a Mace, an Axe, a Pike and two Catapults - by no means weak, but no defensive bonuses). It looks like my recently conquered cities don't get the city defense bonus from Chichen Itza.

In the north I got another lucky roll, allowing a C2S Knight to beat Great Bay's sole remaining defender, a Maceman on a hill (the other two defenders got Dunkirked on a Galley).

This was the situation after I moved around all my units:




As you can see, due to Whosit's lack of strong mounted units, and the subpar road network, I was able to quickly capture all the cities surrounding the indian capital, which means I could leave the minimum amount of units defending them (and by blocking some potential paths for his two Chariots).

Next turn will be the showdown, and I probably won't bother bombing the defenses of Hyrule Castle (which doesn't have a Castle, let alone Walls) to zero. I have 6 Catapults, so will probably use half to bomb and half for the collateral damage.

I'll finish Nationalism at the end of the turn, which means the GA I will start by rushing the Taj Mahal will be a 9-turn one, provided I can capture Hyrule, which has MoM (and Piramids!).

Eot Demo's:




Gunpowder next, then sling Military Tradition, upgrade all my Knights (still haven't lost any ) to Cuirassiers, go Police State/Vassalage/Slavery/Theocray, and go stomp someone else while I wait for the Indian coastal cities to come out of resistance so I can build a navy to take the Indian colonies.





Or I could go full builder mode...

[darrelljs]

Nice work . I would think the attacking with all 6 Catapults is probably better, but I also think it probably won't matter unless I am missing something.

Darrell

[Ilios]

Damn, I was looking forward to getting back to back 9-turn golden ages. And finally getting some experience in the later eras...

[Dhalphir]

Sorry about the abrupt end Ilios. I was the one who initially proposed the concession.

I did have a chance to take you down, and a plan, but when Whosit burned that border city, he cleaned up a great artist that was to be used for a military buildup GA. I had just finished gunpowder and was about to storm up a heap of musketeers and take a shot at you. It probably wouldn't have worked, but without the GA it had no chance at all. I had intended to wait for you to have your fun with Whosit and maybe a bit longer before proposing, once it became clear you got too many spoils of war for me to challenge you, but with Whosit asking to retire to AI it was a logical choice.

You played an amazing game though - I played better in the midgame than I did in the early game and expanded well, but you'd built too much of a lead with good empire management.

[Gazglum]

Great game Ilios. You just played this excellently from start to finish, a well deserved victory.

[Ilios]

Sorry about the abrupt end Ilios. I was the one who initially proposed the concession.

I did have a chance to take you down, and a plan, but when Whosit burned that border city, he cleaned up a great artist that was to be used for a military buildup GA. I had just finished gunpowder and was about to storm up a heap of musketeers and take a shot at you. It probably wouldn't have worked, but without the GA it had no chance at all. I had intended to wait for you to have your fun with Whosit and maybe a bit longer before proposing, once it became clear you got too many spoils of war for me to challenge you, but with Whosit asking to retire to AI it was a logical choice.

You played an amazing game though - I played better in the midgame than I did in the early game and expanded well, but you'd built too much of a lead with good empire management.

That would have been a pretty epic fight! My upgraded Cuirassiers racing back to save the homeland!

Great game Ilios. You just played this excellently from start to finish, a well deserved victory.

Thanks man!