[SPOILERS!] Grimace and wetbandit hope to stay on their side of the DMZ

[Grimace]

Turn 154

Well, that went worse than I had hoped. Whosit attacked my trireme stack and killed 4 triremes and 2 galleys at the cost of one trireme and one galley of his. Odds were:
Unpromoted trireme attacks C1 trireme, 27.2% odds, LOSS, 46% health remaining
C2 trireme attacks unpromoted trireme, 67.6% odds, WIN
C2 trireme attacks unpromoted trireme, 67.6% odds, WIN
Unpromoted trireme attacks unpromoted trireme, 32.2% odds, WIN
C1 trireme attacks damaged C1 trireme, 98% odds, WIN
C1 trireme attacks unpromoted galley, 91% odds, WIN
Unpromoted galley attacks unpromoted galley, 32.2% odds, LOSS, 5% health remaining
Unpromoted galley attacks damaged unpromoted galley, 100% odds, WIN

Once again, the RNG is not kind to me. Oh, and Whosit got a GG out of it, as well.

On the other side, Elum is forking Bismarck and Lexington. I upgraded the warrior in Bismarck to a spear, which with the 40% cultural defenses should kill at least one knight before dying. On the Lexington side, I moved a WE to block the stack, but it’s unlikely to stop it entirely if he moves forward. I'm going to lose one of those cities next turn, depending on which direction he turns. Most likely he’ll go Bismarck since Lex is on a hill.

[Grimace]

Turn 155

Not too surprisingly, Elum captured both Lex and Bismarck this turn, as well as capturing Ark Royal in an amphibious assault. However, I managed to get Engineering this turn -- which gave me +1 road movement -- and allowed me to reach Bismarck with 3 War Elephants I had moving around. Elum left an undamaged and damaged knight to hold Bismarck, and I lost the first C1 WE to the undamaged knight, then won both the following battles, recapturing it. I immediately whipped it from 4 to 2 (an archer) so that when he recaptures it it's basically useless to him. Following the archer is a pikeman, if it survives that long. Elum's only stack in range is 4 knights and a GG HA which he was moving forward to threaten my capital. He can take the city back with that stack, but the WE that recaptured the city is undamaged, so he may lose a knight doing so. The other damaged WE will likely just die. I also whipped a pikeman in Enterprise, though being at the beginning of the turn split means my whips won't take effect until after he's acted.



I'm also whipping walls (and soon castles) in my few remaining large cities to make it as hard to take them as possible.

[Grimace]

Turn 156

Well, Whosit is giving up on taking my remaining cities with Keshiks and has started moving a large stack of regular assault troops forward.


Luckily they're slow and I'll be able to whip a few times before they get close.

Elum strangely enough didn't try to recapture Bismarck. With only one WE in it, he had 5 Knights that should have been able to easily take it. But he didn't. Well, I'm not going to look a gift horse and all that. The archer I whipped showed up and I was able to move a pike from Big E there so it's definitely not going to fall easily now.

I also disbanded almost all of my workers since I can't use them right now anyway with Elum's knights hanging around and I don't want to give them to anyone else. I'm not going to need them for the rest of my game, anyway.

[Grimace]

Turn 157

Elum has backed off of his 2-mover tactics and is now moving catapults forward to make a giant stack-of-doom as well. Guess it's going to be a race to see who can capture the most of my cities.

It'll be at least 3 turns before Whosit can lay seige to Big E, and at least 2 turns before Elum can lay siege to Prince of Wales. They both have big enough stacks that I won't be able to stop them, but at least I'll have made them work for it. I probably won't post any more screenshots until the fun begins unless something interesting happens.

[Grimace]

Turn 158

Elum has moved his SOD forward and is beginning his siege of Prince of Wales.


My WEs only get about 20% odds against his C2/Formation knights, so I'm just going to let them absorb attacks instead.

I noticed Elum only left 1 knight in Lexington, so I moved 3 WEs forward from Big E to threaten it and see what he does. He has a small stack of knights in range to put them in the city, and my WEs can still get back to Big E before Whosit gets there, so it's worth forcing him to act, especially since that small stack threatens Bismarck. If I can get them to go into Lex, Bismarck will be unthreatened for at least a little bit, allowing me to reinforce PoW or Big E as needed.

[Grimace]

Turn 159

So Elum succeeded in capturing Prince of Wales at the loss of a single catapult. On the other hand, I recaptured Lexington with no loss with a WE (killing a knight). Not sure if I'll even be able to produce any new defenders there before he can take it back again.



Whosit's stack is at the gateway to my land now, and I'll be interested to see where he goes first. If he goes E, he's probably going for my capital. If he goes SE, he's going for Yamato. I suspect he's going to Yamato, as he has a few triremes and galleys coming up towards there as well. Or maybe he's going to hit Yamato with an amphibious assault and send his main stack to Big E. Either way, I'll be curious to see what happens. I have 4 hwachas ready to pound his stack as soon as it comes off the hill, and luckily he has no knights or maces -- just keshiks, swords, and spears.

[Grimace]

Turn 160

So I got this strange diplo request from Johns at the beginning of my turn:


It probably means something, but I don't know what it is, and even if it's code for something to help me it won't matter now. 10 turns ago? Yeah, maybe it would have. But now, nothing can save me.

Elum is currently on pause while he digests his newest acquisition. And now the focus switches to Whosit.



Whosit decided to go after Yamato, my GLH city. I have four Hwachas that exist solely to do damage to his stack, so here we go (none of my hwachas are promoted):
Hwacha vs C1/Charge Keshik – 10.5% odds…LOSS. Damaged units: C1/Charge Keshik 5.1/6, C1/Charge Keshik 5.5/6, C2/Shock Mace 7.4/8, Sword 5.5/6, 3 spears 3.7/4
Hwacha vs damaged (5.5/6) C1/Charge Keshik – 19.4% odds…LOSS. Damaged units: C1/Charge Keshik 4.6/6, C2/Shock Mace 6.7/8, C3/Shock Keshik 5/6, F2 Keshik 5.5/6, 4 Swords 5.8/6.
Hwacha vs damaged (5.1/6) C1/Charge Keshik – 22% odds…LOSS. Damaged units: C1/Charge Keshik 4.5/6, 2 Swords 5.5/6, 2 axes 4.7/5, C1/M1 Chariot 3.5/4.
Hwacha vs C2 Keshik – 23% odds…LOSS. Damaged units: C2 Keshik 5.5/6, C2/Shock Keshik 4.1/6, C1/F1/Sentry Keshik 5.5/6, 3 spears 3.4/4.

I may have missed a damaged unit there as it’s hard to read the stack when it’s so big.

I also suicided 6 chariots against Whosit’s stack as they are utterly useless in defense and on the attack they at least damaged some units. But that means that Yamato solely has 3 pikes for defense, which will be fantastic against his Keshiks, but less useful against the swords, especially with their insane RtR bonus. I whipped Yamato again, but it won’t get the unit until after Whosit’s turn, so it doesn’t matter except to make the city smaller when he captures it.

[Grimace]

Turn 161

Whosit captured Yamato relatively easily without losing a single unit (thank you +50% city attack). Then turned his Keshiks on Enterprise, as his other units wouldn't reach. He did manage to capture it (E only had a couple of defenders), but it cost him 3 Keshiks.

Elum has moved his SOD out of PoW and is probably heading for Bismarck. On the other hand, I completed a Castle in Adm Graf Spee, so it's cultural defenses are up to 100% now. Because of its position, that's most likely going to be the last survivor of my empire unless Whosit heads straight there.

[Grimace]

Turn 162

Elum's stack is next to Bismarck. I attacked out with 2 WEs at 20% odds and lost both...no surprise. All that remains is a pair of pikes and an archer, so he really doesn't even need his catapults.

Once Bismarck falls I'll be down to 3 cities and two of them will be isolated from the other.

[Grimace]

Turn 162

Well, that was interesting!

Elum, to no one's surprise, captured Bismarck easily. He didn't even lose a single unit. However, after that he went on to declare war on Whosit and captured Big E from him! Power-wise they're very close, but Elum is ahead technologically (he just nabbed Liberalism), so he has the advantage. Not sure how much he's going to push it, though -- will he keep warring against Whosit, or just push him out of Big E and Yamato?

In any case, I'm down to 3 cities -- Arizona (in the North), and Lexington and Adm Graf Spee in the South-ish. Lexington is weakly defended with a single WE, while AGF and AZ have at least a few units in them. I could end up living longer than I expected if a war heats up between Whosit and Elum, as they'll be too busy with eachother to mess with little old me.