TheArchduke tries his best not to be overrun again as Pericles

[TheArchduke]

As the horse can cross the river and then attack the horse, if my estimate is not off, it can kill the swordsman as well, if barely. It would either barely survive on about 70 health and kill it or really damage the sword.

Or is this overreaching.. Hmm It could be bombard twice and attacked by 2 horses, the swordsman can only attack across the river still next turn.

Your idea has merit, I like the ....block of his northern horse. Although I would rather use the promotion now, so we can use it next turn.

[TheArchduke]

The swordsman is unpromoted, so an attack could succeed even without the hoplite, but it is very, very dicey. And probably not worth it, seeing he can promote.

[Bacchus]

Ah yeah, stepping onto the hill with the horse first and then hitting is an idea. You can even still bring the hoplite for flank and support bonuses, by putting him on the tile vacated by the horse.

I think the bottom line is whether you think him losing a level 2 Archer (str 37, OK, maybe 34 after damage) is less or more of a hit than losing the str 40 melee unit. I would say the Archer is more valuable and more annoying to us whilst the sword is actually pretty useless, all it does is get in the way, doesn't really threaten anything. Moreover, I think we get the chance to kill that sword anyway, because it will always be on the front lines -- the chance to kill the Archer might not reappear though.

Finally, in both variations we bombard the sword with two archers anyway. If you're on the fence, maybe start with that and look at the damage rolls -- if they end up being low, it's more of a motivation to frag the Archer.

However, your hill idea raises an interesting point. If you go onto the hill and hit from there first, and then kill with the horse across the river, you get two horses across. Hoplite will move to support, and the units will make a nice triangle for +4 support. Still, the problem is that one of those horses will immediately be on the receiving end of three Archer shots, including from 2 double-promoted archers. So we should expect to lose a horse. We'd get a bit of compensation in the ability to counterattack the archers, probably killing one or even two.

Seems if we kill the Archer now, the body count at end of next turn will be: his Archer, his sword; if we go for the sword now it would be: his Archer, his sword, maybe another Archer, and our horse.


Lurkers, do post your answer to this puzzle in your thread, would love to read it. I'm still pretty firmly for going after the Archer.

[Bacchus]

Actually, if we bring two horses across, not only is one likely to die, we also end up with a pretty big gap in the middle of our ranks and we won't be able to close it up, not without losing all the momentum we gained. Not sure to what extent he could immediately exploit that gap, but it would be a mess of a fight.

[TheArchduke]

After a long deliberation, and imo it is a terrible close call if we could kill the swordsman, 4 things persuaded me on the validity of your point.

1.) If the Swordsman barely survives, I surely enable a promotion, maybe 2 archers shot are not enough for this. 2 shots and 2 attacks? Definetly.
2.) The promoted archer is a bigger threat, firstly because of his position, secondly because they are instrumental in regards to focus fire. This is a serious war, not the "how quick can Sullla eat TheArchduke" war of PBEM 1. The long run counts here.
3.) He could upgrade to the soon available crossbowmen.
4.) This way, all horses are in mint condition and I am highly unlikely to loose one, Oledavy in contrast can´t even use his southern archer to attack me and will either advance and get him killed or get frustrated and get him killed.

Also Oledavy´s northern horse is a perfect example of getting caught totally out of position, it achieves nothing, even no support of +2 in defense.

   

[Bacchus]

And taking a promo is 3MP, not all of MP?! Awesome!

[Bacchus]

I wonder whether Davy will go after our Archer. I kinda want him to -- at best he gets a cointoss odds of killing it, and it will mean our courser doesn't get shot. And if he loses the cointoss... Ouch.

EDIT: And lurkers, do not how BADLY that horse is out of position. If he decides to bring it back to Lafayette, it will take him -- 1 turn to cross the river and move one tile east; 1 turn to get onto the forested hill at which point he can go no further, 1 turn to actually get to anywhere even NEAR Lafayette.

[TheArchduke]

Not only did oledavy win that damn coin toss, he promoted the swordsman to tortoise.

Hmm.

[TheArchduke]

I titled this picture, thisisnotgoingtohappen.

   

[TheArchduke]

I agonized a lot over this turn.

Offensively we are at a deadend, oledavy has shorter supply lines and we can´t find a weak point.

It is time to end this, I have offered white peace.

To incentivize him, I sent 3 horses north to start pillaging and annoying the heck out of him, coincidentally I was right, Hongkong is/was the better target.

We both only take damage not much more.

If he continues this, I will chop the walls next turn and dig in and do as much damage as I can.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the geography, Singaboy´s perplexing easy peace and 1-2 bad shots really make this a non-achieveable victory anymore and thus only working to put both me and oledavy behind. And me more then oledavy.

If Oledavy is smart, he will take the peace and dow Singaboy with his huge army.