[SPOILERS] Sandover(cre/spi) of Egypt

[fluffyflyingpig]

Such a convienient time to end one war and start another one!

[Sandover]

Sandover,

I have declared war on Rome.To the extent possible, I will try to avoid encroaching upon your borders with any annexed territory.

I am very interested in your peace offer. But I must find a way to reach an agreement with you that will not invoke the wrath of bordering Civs.

I hope to find a solution that will placate all parties soon. Since I am already at war on one front, it should be fairly obvious that I that would prefer to avoid engagement with you on the other front.

GES

Sandover,


I am afraid i will have to stop all Hindu Missionaries for now. Khmer has just declared war on me, and i will need to mobilize all my troops in order to fight back. With that said,


I wish to buy several Mounted units from you. Do you have any to spare? I am speaking about Cuirassers and Calvary. I have more then enough Siege units i believe, and i am several turns away from Rifling and Nationalism unfortunately. I need 4 more turns to get both techs online, and one last turn to revolt to Nationalism.


The Price is up to you.


Also, if you can loan me several troops, i'll be grateful for the help.


Thank you,


Amelia.

Hm, ok. Gotta figure this out.

[Sandover]

Amelia,

If you're up against the full force of the Khmers you're going to need way more soldiers than those I'd be willing to sell or lend you. I'm going to need a few turns (maybe as many as five) to assemble a force that is strong enough to fight the Khmer army head to head, but I'm ready to offer you my direct assistance. The preparations are already underway so all I need you to do is to agree to a few things.

- I'm going to need unlimited access to Roman territory.
- I need your world map. An offer has already been made in-game.
- It's vital that I get a detailed update on Khmer positioning every turn.
- I want you to focus all of your available forces to the mid/south region of your empire and leave the north in the hands of my border garrisons.

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

Turn update coming later during the day.

[Sandover]

This is what I see when I open the save;



That's the Knight stack Timmy spent so much effort putting together. Amelia won't have a chance to win this war alone and I have no interest in letting my enemies grow stronger, so here we are. I'm pulling my Cuirassiers back from the east and intend to gather what I can in terms of Cavalry, Riflemen and Cannons for a counter-strike against GES. If I can hit his stack while it's cutting through Rome I'll probably be in a decent position to actually invade him further down the line. I want a decisive victory out of this now when someone is finally exposing his units on the offense.



My navy was repositioned to hit the Khmer coast. I'm pretty sure Loon Lake is fielding enough Rifles to be safe from attack but I'm going to at least have a look next turn. If there's no opportunity for attack here I will pull these units westward to deal with the expected Khmer annexation of Shorepoint Base.

[Gaspar]

Sandover,

Any chance of getting a slightly more detailed analysis of your thought process on how to react to the Khmer war declaration? Just seems a bit... un-Sandover-ish to rally to the aid of your neighbor without more... significant concessions.

Thanks!

[Sandover]

Sure thing. Tomorrow.

[Sandover]

Turn 162

Amelia showed me screens of a lot of Khmers. Lots and lots of Khmers. So many, in fact, that hardly anyone was left at home.











Those units should've been inside the city. Apparently they're heading east for some reason. Either to protect his east or to threaten mine. Probably the former, though his east is more of a colony than a border now.

It feels good having finally made the Khmers suffer for their cheapish attack on Chillingworth. Happy times.

Closer to home;



I'm mousing over what's left of the Roman army. It's not much, but Amelia should be able to slow GES' assault down at least a little. Victory Mines has fallen as expected, but there seem to be no intention to claim Shorepoint Base (as confirmed by my newly landed Explorer). Only a few Khmer units are visible to me, and I don't know whether I should expect an attack on Ravenholm or not.

That small stack of mine is the garrison of Worthington heading east to join up with the garrison of Weird River, that is now defending Lighthouse Point. I need four more turns for the Cuirassiers to get there, so I will have to play defense for now.

I'll deal with Gaspar's question later. Need to send some emails.

[Sandover]

Amelia,

Thank you for the screen shots. Keep them coming.

Loon Lake has fallen to my navy. No casualties were suffered, but I expect to lose a Cuirassier when GES next play the turn.

I landed an Explorer at Shorepoint Base. He headed south and spotted two non-sentry Khmer HAs two tiles south of his current position. No other units are visible in the area.

My army will assemble in the area around Lighthouse Point. I might be able to extend to supporting the defense of Ravenholm in a few turns if it isn't too late by then, but I make no promises. It all depends on the Khmer movements. It is vital that they do not penetrate the pass south of Lighthouse Point, because so long as the city do not fall I have an open avenue along which I can counter-attack into Overwatch Nexus.

If you at some point generate a Great General and aren't in need of emergency upgrades please forward him to me. He can make a much larger difference at the military camps of Satet than he can in Rome.

What's your EP-situation versus the Khmers like?
Do you have Scooter's power graph?
Have you at some point traded your world map to somebody other than me?

I think that is all for now. I'm attaching the save to this message.

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

And the mandatory taunting;

GES,

Bad things happen in war, and ours is still ongoing. The ruins of Loon Lake shall serve you as a reminder of your failure to appreciate my generousity.

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

[novice]

Great stuff, Sandover.

[Sandover]

Any chance of getting a slightly more detailed analysis of your thought process on how to react to the Khmer war declaration?

I had three options.

1. Watch the cake get eaten
This would lead to Khmer taking control of Rome. It would be bad of me to let this happen even if the Khmer empire hadn't been an enemy of mine for ages. Not worth considering.

2. Share the cake
Basically attack from the other end to claim as large a chunk as possible for myself. There are a few reasons why this isn't a good idea. From a practical perspektive GES got a huge head start and would undoubtedly claim the larger piece. This would also serve to warn him that I intend to fight him in the area, at a time when I was hoping for a surprise attack (as it turned out I probably gave that advantage away by razing Loon Lake, which was clearly worth it). More important was the fact that I recently signed peace with Rome, and that I'm not one to easily break signed treaties (the treaty of Nubian was different as it involved a clause where TT had to make himself of value to me).

3. Protect the cake
The largest advantage of this is that I get to use Roman territory for maneuvering when fighting GES. In a game with limited access points and fortified armies commanded by careful leaders, such a chance is not to be neglected. They aren't going to attack me. I just isn't happening. So this might be my one shot at catching an enemy army on the offense, defeat it, and use the opportunity for a counter invasion. Rushing mobilization is going to see me fall behind Scooter economically again, but with Moogle and GES scratching his back I'm not likely to win a tech race anyway. I was hoping GES would be different than Timmy, and he is to some extent, but if you read his last email you see that he express fear for his bordering civs. He didn't have the guts to cease the aid to Moogle, and under such conditions there's no way I can work with him - and therefore I do not care if I push him straight into the hands of Scooter by my current actions.

I sort of rambled my way away from the subject at the end there but I think I got the question answered before then.

Great stuff, Sandover.

As always, right?