Return of the Horde: Temujin of Rome

[scooter]

So, here are is the casualty report for the last turn:

WK
3 Catapults
2 Knights
1 Frigate
1 Caravel
2 Pikes
2 Muskets

Team #1
2 Galleys
2 Frigates
6 Catapults
2 Knights
4 Cuirassiers

Dedicated lurker who would like to briefly procrastinate checking in!

WK: 71k soldier points lost
Team1: 118k soldier points lost

So in terms of soldier points, that's obviously a win. Hammers would be similar I'd assume. Breakdown in case someone's curious:

WK
3 Catapults *5k == 10k
2 Knights *10k == 20k
1 Frigate *8k == 8k
1 Caravel *3k == 3k
2 Pikes *6k == 12k
2 Muskets *9k == 18k

Total: 71k

Team #1
2 Galleys *2k == 4k
2 Frigates *8k == 16k
6 Catapults *5k == 30k
2 Knights *10k == 20k
4 Cuirassiers *12k == 48k

Total: 118k

[Shoot the Moon]

Sorry

My mistake. I just couldn't wait to report on the action. Will stay away from stealing your thunder from here on out.

For the record, you're welcome to report for me any time you like

[WarriorKnight]

I'll post a more comprehensive update of this turn over the weekend. In short though, we managed to kill Speaker's entire stack 1W of W, killing 2 GG's while also getting a second GG in the process. Speaker's navy has been eliminated, and Shoot now has a big stack of Knights/Musketeers in my lands.

Basically, a very successful turn.

[SevenSpirits]

Awesome, can't wait for the update!

[WarriorKnight]

And I some some spare time for the update.

Firstly, you've probably seen it already, but dave posted the chat we had during this turn in his thread. Check it out here.


Anyway, back to the game. First up, naval battle. It was fairly straightforward:

Galleon vs Galley - 98.7% WIN
Frigate vs Galleon - 63.8% WIN

Even better neither unit took damage. Sadly sunrise will have ships in the northern sea soon enough but X is now completely safe for the time being.

The main discussion we had was whether or not to counterattack against Speaker's stack with our own injured stack. A injured stack with 2 GG's in it is very tempting to kill, but we only had units left over from the initial attack with only 2 Knights for reinforcements and there was discussion that we might lose more units then it was worth. We argued for a while with dave arguing to counterattack while Shoot was being more conservative with me hovering between both viewpoints but we eventually decided to go for it (more detail in the chat).

Anyway, here's how things went down:

Preat vs GG Cuirassier - 0.8% LOSS
Preat vs GG Cuirassier - 7.0% HUMILIATION (no damage)
Musket vs GG Cuirassier - 21.1% WIN!
Knight vs Cuirassier - 20.4% LOSS
Knight vs Musket - 73.4% LOSS!
Musket vs Musket - 68.7% WIN
Knight vs Knight - 69.6% LOSS!
Musket vs Cuirassier - 83.1% WIN
Knight vs GG Cuirassier - 76.9% LOSS! (with 0.2 health left )
Musket vs Knight - 72.3% WIN
Musket vs Cat - 82.2% WIN (cleanup time)
Pike vs Musket - 92.5% WIN
Pike vs Knight - 96.4% WIN
HA vs Cuirassier - 93.8% WIN
LBow vs Cuirassier - 99.9% WIN
LBow vs GG Cuirassier - 99.1% WIN

Final unit tally this turn:

My losses:
4 Knights
2 Preats
1 LBow (deleted)

Speakerise losses:
5 Cuirs (2 of them GG's!)
2 Knights
2 Muskets
1 Cat
1 Galleon
1 Galley

Massive partying followed for killing both GG's and a ton of other units.

Anyway, here's things as they are now:



Overall things went pretty well. The RNG was a little against us as we lost 3 65%+ battle in exchange for winning a 20% one, but that does kinda help make up for Speaker's bad run. You can see just how large the garrison is now, no way it's falling anytime soon.

Shoot's reinforcements:



That stack had some pikes in it which have gone back to Maurice Levy, which is why it isn't that big anymore. Nonetheless, I'm grateful that our GG medic is here along with some backup.

In other news, thanks to lowered units costs I've broke 300gpt EoT. The 2 GG's we got this turn will likely be settled in dave and Shoot's HE cities for 5xp units out the gate (I'm running Theo instead, it let's them stay in OR).

[scooter]

Good work guys!

[oledavy]

[SIZE="4"]First Battle for Kararomum W - Post-Mortem[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Final Casualties[/SIZE]

Team #1
2 Frigates (12,000)
1 Galleon (4,000)
3 Galleys (6,000)
7 Catapults (21,000)
4 Knights (24,000)
9 Cuirassiers (81,000)
2 Muskets (12,000)
2 Great Generals

Power Lost: 160,000
Hammers Lost: 1,362

Team #3

1 Frigate (6,000)
1 Caravel (3,000)
6 Knights (36,000)
3 Catapults (9,000)
2 Praetorian (8,000)
1 Longbow (4,000)
2 Pikes (8,000)
2 Muskets (12,000)

Power Lost: 86,000
Hammers Lost: 718

Note that with drafting online, the hammer values are not perfect measures of strength anymore.

Apologies to anyone if I'm give impression that we're gloating over this battle. It's not my intent here, and I would give this kind of analysis to any battle of this magnitude. Up to now, the military action has mostly consisted of city-sniping from Luddite and Nabaxo, Team #1's naval campaign against me, and skirmishing with Sunrise. This has been the first multi-turn, large-scale battle we've fought, and so I think, deserves a few words said. That being said, I think I speak for the team when I say we're really proud of how things went here. We went toe-to-toe with Speaker and Sunrise, two of the best tacticians on RB, and came out on top. Truth be told, in the end, we got lucky against - what was in hindsight - a poorly thought-out offensive from Team #1.

I imagine Team #1 conceived the naval offensive against France and the push at Kararorum W about the same time, with the aim of exerting pressure on our team. Their broad strategic goal was probably to force us to expend resources in military and slow down our expansion. On the whole, they've been successful in that; especially against me in the East. I've already elaborated extensively on their tactical goals in the Eastern Sea, so I won't delve back into that here. On the Western Front, what they wanted to accomplish was the capture of Kararomum W. At that point, they would detonate a GA bomb in it to bisect the front with WK and deny him all that land. Had this situation materialized, it would have seriously jeopardized our ability to defend that front. Team #1 attacked at the perfect time, hitting me when I was out of rushing civics and while my own armed forces were out of position fighting against Nabaxo, and WK before we had had a chance to build cannons.

However, despite their perfect timing, where Team #1 failed here was really in the planning stages. Their plan to take W with a naval feint and landing 1-movers to combine with a primary mounted stack was beautifully executed. However, they simply never had enough units to make this work, not for the number of defenders WK had tooling around the area. Hell, we even screwed up some of our unit movements and we still had more than enough to destroy their stack. I don't think Team #1 expected that many reserves were available, or the naval fleet WK sprung on them. However, rather than retreat after WK played his hand, Speaker decided to go ahead. And here's where things really broke in our favor. A couple more full strength units in the stack, or a few less units in the city, would have prevented us from destroying the stack. We barely had enough to finish off their forces as it was. The dice just broke against Team #1, and Speaker refused to let up the assault, dooming Spunrise's Army. However, even had Speaker won those battles, as he should have, sticking around for this fight was a terrible idea. He should have known at that point the city wasn't falling, and for all he knew, we had cannon waiting in the wings to attack the stack. Now, you could argue that retreat was just as bad of an option, after all, we had positioned workers to road and chase down the mounted stack. However, we simply didn't have enough in the city to really attack all those units at full strength, and any units of ours that won would have been easily mopped up. Sunrise could have reloaded his galleons, and the Speaker moved off the mounted forces to fight another day. However, they chose not to do so. The RNG ensured this would be a decisive victory for us, but even had it not been for that, Team #1 lost the moment that army entered out territory and Speaker decided to press the attack.

From this point on, it was simply a matter of mopping up. We had the dice break against us a several times - it was like the RNG has a sense of karma - but the end was never in doubt.

Tactically, this is obviously a solid victory for us. The biggest win here was killing Speaker's Combat IV + Formation + Morale Cuirassiers before they could get the free upgrade to cavalry. Those would have been really nasty to deal with. However, we also destroyed a large portion of Team #1's current striking power. While there are still significant portions of their military unaccounted for, at this point, we definitely have a power edge. We now have control of the field, and the forces to even go on the offensive if we so chose. However, Team #1's recent research of rifling probably precludes this. We'll be having a discussion on this and whether or not to use that GA against them soon enough I'm sure. Sunrise's navy promises to be annoying now, however, without units, they can do little more than sail around and shake their fists at WK's units ashore. While they do offer Team #1 some tactical flexibility, on the whole, they represent hammers not easily redeemed. That being said, I would feel better if we controlled the seas in the west.

So, in summary, Team #1 attempted a beautifully planned maneuver to seize control of Kararomum W and bisect the front. However, without sufficient numbers, the offensive never had a chance of success. This battle was less a story of us being tactically innovative and more a story of Team #1 goofing up. Speaker's insistence on pressing the attack on the city combined with bad RNG luck ensured that this battle ended in a decisive victory for the Real Men of Genius.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Now if you only remembered to manually cancel worker actions at the end of every turn so no one spotted the fort being built you could push at el lo hel, things would be perfect!

[WarriorKnight]

Now if you only remembered to manually cancel worker actions at the end of every turn so no one spotted the fort being built you could push at el lo hel, things would be perfect!

Doesn't matter anyway, with sunrise actually having ships in the ocean and having drafted enough Redcoats the attack probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

I better start updating again soon.

[WarriorKnight]

Here's a mini overview of my currrent core cities. I'm not doing every city, as most of them are just fishing villages.



I miss bureaucracy. It makes a decent amount of hammers and commerce, but without bureau it's more of a jack of all trades. At the moment though, it's working on a GP which is our only chance of getting Prophet anytime soon. I have to run merchants or else dave will beat me to the next GP, that's for trying to beat a PHI civ to a GP. I'd guess the final odds will be around 40% Engineer, 35% Prophet and 25% Merchant.




The next draft will have around 50 unhappy turns, so it's given me quite a useful boost. Currently I'm giving it a break growing while waiting for Rifling to come in, when I'll go back to drafting nonstop.




Still nowhere near it's max potential. Once it gets Ironworks, a levee, State Property, Biology and Railroad it'll be putting out a scary amount of hammers, probably more than any other city on our team. In the meantime it's still putting out a lot of hammers, shame I need to tie it up with building Ironworks for now.




With HE and Drydocks I'm soon going to have overflow building Frigates. That sounds good but this doesn't have anywhere near the potential of V, I can really only work coast in the future. However it's certainly doing a fine job as my main shipyard.




Included for completeness more than anything. I'm surprised I'm still 3rd in food, although I'm sure dave will soon dethrone me from that position. As expected I'm slowly slipping away in MFG, although my fishing villages should mean my GNP should keep going up.

Any particular requests?