[Spoilers] The Crack'd Pot Civ

[mackoti]

and here is the result on the power graph:

good good, thats the spirit

[Tasunke]

Cool story! Congratulations!

Reminds me of when I used a hoard of muskets and grenadiers (9/12) to DESTROY my opponent who was using Infantry and tanks (20/28) :D

Basically he was a Newb that relied on technology with his 5 super cities meanwhile I was whipping/drafting an army of like 80 from my twenty mediocre cities. Granted, this was due to me hotjoining into an already abandoned MP game where the leader was just sandboxing it .... still fun :D

Point is, that whole underdog thing is totally my jam

[Mr. Cairo]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the support, and I certainly am enjoying the game now. However, since Gavagai has not attacked GJ (and instead took the barb holy city that was close to my territory), and GJ is whipping and drafting rifles like crazy now, I'm not sure if I can keep it up.
But, I have finally got my Great Merchant to Gavs cap and cashed him in for some 1300 gold, so I have a straight run at Rifling myself. However, I do have to mention that I kinda messed up here, since I should have been going for Grens. I still might, but I already have Rep Parts (or will next turn), and Rifling is closer.

I just really hope that someone else decides to take advantage of GJ getting tied up with me and attacks him. That's really my only hope right now.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here we go again

[Mr. Cairo]

And we're back. Thanks DZ.

My last post may have indcated some interesting times, but GJ moved a single tile into my territory before turning around.

I continued to impoverish my nation and oppress my people creating my Glorious Army of the Reconquista, and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and liberate my people from the oppressive rule of Gandhi the Most Vile.

That opportunity came last turn (two weeks ago) when Gavagai declared war, unfortunately I had moved my workers out of position for some reason, so I needed to wait another turn.

That turn (eventually) came, and the attack began. Gavagai took two cities last turn this turn, after GJ popped a GA and revolted into Slavery/Nationhood, and sent a good number of his rifles on my border up towards Gavagai's attack, leaving this in Quon Tali:

That's 16 Rifles, 3 Longbows, 2 Knights, 4 Trebs, and 1 Catapult.

Here is my army:

23 Rifles, 15 Muskets, 4 Samurai, 4 Longbows, 3 War Elephants, 2 Knights, 4 Trebs, and 26 Catapults.


I roaded up to Quon Tali, promoted my Trebs (all had 5xp) to Accuracy, which allowed them to bombard the defenses down to 1% by themselves. I then sent in the Catapults, losing 18 in total, before attacking with everything else. All of my attacks after the catapults had the odds in my favour, but I lost 4 of them anyway. 

In terms of hammers, I lost 1340 to kill 2460.
For Reference:

Cav: 120
Rifle: 110
Cuir: 100
Knight: 90
Musket: 80
Trebuchet: 80
Mace: 70
WE: 60
Xbow: 60
Pike: 60
LBow: 50
Cat: 50
Axe: 35
Spear: 35
Impi: 35
Chariot: 30
Archer: 25
Galley: 50
Caravel: 60

And according to the demos, I'm now FOURTH in power, which means I'm ahead of GJ. Hopefully, I can at least reclaim my lost territories, and perhaps even take a bite out of GJ before Gav cleans it up. I might also go after the islands that GJ controls.

At come point I'll do a post about what it cost me to get that army, but here's a hint: excluding my capital, the average size of my cities is probably around 6. 


Here's the end-of-turn situation:

[Mr. Cairo]

[Mr. Cairo]

I'm finally advancing on another of GJ's cities. Annoyingly, he appears to have retreated most of his troops away from Gavagai's attack into his core towards me, so I'm facing roughly equal numbers of Rifles. But they're spread out to cover three cities. Nevertheless, it's going to be bloody.

I doubt I'm going to retake all of my lost cities.

[Mr. Cairo]

So, GJ evacuated the city I was attacking, 9th Mountain (replanted by the ruins of New Seti), leaving 2 Rifles. I sacced 3 cats before killing them with Rifles. Taking the city opened up a route to a hill SE of Dal Hon, where most of his forces are concentrated. He had a couple Rifles and Knights on that hill, but another 3 Cats softened them up so that Rifles and WE's could kill them, then I moved most of of my army onto that hill.

Here's the situation now:

My army


His army

This turn I lost 6 Cats and killed 4 Rifles, 3 Knights, and 1 LB.
I also took a barb city far to the west, and I'm going to start on some settlers to fit a few more fillers up there. As long as I avoid teching Astronomy, any coastal city is worth it. Obviously that leaves me somewhat vulnerable to OT4E in the long run, but nothing I can do will change that. Some recent trade agreements between us though make me think he's not interested in attacking me any time soon. He's finally finishing off Chumchu, and then will probably attack DZ.

Here's the power bar graph:

Looks like GJ did actually defend his capital a bit, although I'm going to be curious to find out which of me and Gavagai killed most of GJ's units this war.

[Mr. Cairo]

It took a few turns until I had enough forces to be comfortable attacking GJ's Rifles in Dal Hon, but this turn the city fell.

It cost me 16 Catapults, 3 Trebs, 10 Rifles, and 1 Musket to kill 33 Rifles of Joey's. I can't complain about the luck, I lost a few 60-70% battles, but won about five 40% battles in a row.

He doesn't have a lot left now. Ugarat is empty, and Seti has 2 Rifles. Song Clan, the last of his own mainland cities has 8-ish Rifles and is being sieged by Gavagai, albiet slowly thanks to Gavagai only having 5 Cats and needing to get through Great Artist bomb levels of culture. His two island cities have plenty of Rifles too, ~10 on one of them.

War losses to-date, (including his last invasion towards my capital, but not including his initial attack with the GA-bomb and Knights, since I wasn't keeping track then):
Me: 52 Catapults, 4 Trebuchets, 14 Rifles, 12 Musketman, 3 Longbows, 1 Pike, 1 Samurai, 1 War Elephant, 1 Caravel, 1 Galley
5870 Hammers 
GermanJoey: 62 Rifles, 1 Musketman, 5 Longbows, 1 Cho-Ko-Nu, 23 Knights, 7 Trebuchets, 2 Catapults
9940 Hammers 

[Mr. Cairo]

Interesting times ahead, DZ Declared on OT4E, not sure if there's been any fighting yet, or it was intended to make a 10-turn enforced peace. But the turn after that, this turn, OT4E attacked Gavagai, taking a couple of his island cities, while offering another luxury trade to me. I think he might be gearing up to take on Gav and DZ to force a concession, and doesn't want me to interfere. Well I wont, for now, his luxeries are far too important, I'd lose 4-5 happy faces empire-wide going to war with him. However, if OT4E is really going to fight Gav, as opposed to just hitting him from the sea with East Indiamen, then I might have a chance to vulture some of Gav's cities, including "North Korea", ex-barb Holy City closest to me, which could really turn my finances around.

In the meantime, I have one last GJ city on the mainland to take, then I'll see if he's ok with accepting peace, since I don't have the galleys to go after his islands, and the ww is a pain. I doubt he'll accept, and I'll be forced to either live with the ww, or build a few more galleys and invade his islands. I'll probably end up having to ferry units from Gavagai's lands, if he lets me.

Now, in case things do go as I predict, and Gav + DZ aren't enough to prevent OT4E from winning, and they complain that I didn't join in, here are my justifications:


But really, I try and always play towards what is best for my civ, and what will bring me closer to winning. DZ and Gav will want to work together to defeat OT4E because that increases their chances of winning. Me joining them against OT4E doesn't help me in that goal at all, it justs helps one of them end up winning. Letting the three of them exhaust eachother fighting while I rebuild and vulture their corpses, is the only route I have to victory, as unlikely as it may be. If OT4E starts to lose badly against them, I'll go after him, of course, see if I can pick off a few island cities, but even in such a losing scenario, it's likely that his navy will survive longer than his army, making an attempt on those cities foolhardy in the extreme.

Finally, a question, if there are any lurkers reading following this game anymore, can you liberate a city back to an eliminated player?