[PB58 - spoilers] AT's Order of the Civ

[AutomatedTeller]

the invasion continues. Looks like I'll be able to take Endor fairly easily



Hopefully, no surprises.

Don't really understand why that stack is still sitting on the jungle tile there, but I'm ignoring it for now. I'll take the city first.

On the west side, there is some manuevering:



I did kill a scout, so I don't think he knows I have 3 praets and a cat. I'm hoping he moves his mini stack out after a chariot, but my guess is that he doesn't. I f he does, I'll try to whack it with praets.

[mackoti]

If he stays there he gains 1 turn, if you go around.

[AutomatedTeller]

I guess. In any case, what he did was retreat all his units and left just a warrior in the city. He had put up walls, so it feels like the right move was to leave the units in the city, but hey - free city!! I took it without loss.

Endor was taken with a granary and a lighthouse, but it has no food for a little bit. Need workers.

I then did a sim on attacking his units on a hill. I sent 3 catapults (losing 2) and then cleaned up the stack with praets, so in the exchange, he lost 150 hammers (and a city) and I lost 100. He has 3 axes 1N of the hill, so I put a few more praets - axes get crappy odds vs praets on hills, so I expect he'll either retreat or sit there - but I have some chariots, so he'll have to do something.

in the west, he did move his axe/spear combo out, so I hit them with praets, losing none (praet on spear is not really fair to the spear, is it?)

3 praets, 2 cats and 2 chariots should be able to do pretty well out west.

I got a great merchant, so I bulbed metal casting and started some forges. No one has machinery, so my praets still reign supreme.

serdoa has a galley hanging around one of my cities, but he has nothing that can invade a city with an axe and a spear successfully.

[AutomatedTeller]

Looks like my invasion will be fairly short lived. Tarkeel has catapults, so I probably will have to stop soon. I guess Praets also make nice garrison troops.

I'll try the next city, but I worry about his elephants. I could turn around and go after serdoa. 2 cities isn't all that good a take for praets but then, I do suck at war.

[AutomatedTeller]

Tarkeel seemed to have managed to burn a city. I assume it was Durkon - I'm not sure how he did that. I had 3 units in it, one of which was a Praetorian with a 40% culture and 25% fort, so should have easily handled 2 axes on it's own. Maybe I missed a galley and he burned MitD or Belkar?

[AutomatedTeller]

He burned Belkar. I guess I missed the galley under one of the triremes. Ah well. Belkar wasn't a ridiculously important city, so I'll just replant it.

More worrisome is that 2 people have HBR - I presume one of them is him and the other is Serdoa, so I'm likely to get elephants soon.

Not a very effective war. I might get 2 cities out of it, maybe a spot for a 3rd. Lost a city, but it's replantable.

I have scouts from Jowy and Ruff hanging around my western cities, which isn't really good.

[AutomatedTeller]

Tarkeel does have ballista's, which isn't really as bad as I thought. The ballista elephant "always go after mounted" is a double edged sword - they are useful for killing wounded praets if you have chariots.

Tarkeel hit my western stack with 2 cats, causing me to retreat across the river and probably rest a little - I have another cat and a spear and a new praet coming.

In the east, I found 5 cats, 9 axes and an elephant in Mon Calamari and I debated retreating... but he has uncleared jungle next to the city, so I moved my 10 praet/5 cat/2 axe and a chariot group there. Mon Calamari has walls, so will be tough.

The thing is, his stack can't really hurt my praets too badly. If he attacks out, he'll lose his cats and a bunch of his axes, if not all of them, and only kill a few praets. Praets are awesome...

Some pics a little later.

[AutomatedTeller]

Seige of Mal Calamari:



I need to sim this out some - I think I'll end up bombarding for at least a turn (assuming he doesn't send something out to kill the catapult)

if he attacks out, he loses the city - he can't hurt the cats and I don't think he can hurt the praets enough with his cats for the axes to make a difference. Nice thing about praets vs axes is that cats hurt axes more than they hurt praets. Bombarding is more about increasing the survivability of the latter cats (the first one or two will die against the elephant whether the walls are up or not).

Praets are awesome, man.

I think 2 turns of bombardment, then hitting. It will take a few turns to take the city, because he has a lot of defenders (and likely to add more)

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, looks like the invasion is failing. Unsurprising, really. Praets are awesome, but slow and I did a poor job setting it up. He now has 2 elephants, 8 cats and 11 axes in Mal Calamari and 4 more axes in the jungle. I can hit him and do some damage, but he can completely clean up my stack.

I face a real risk on being counter attacked.



That's not good.

My options seem to be:

1) bombard and attack the city
2) Retreat south and ask for peace
3) Attack the stack of 4 axes in the jungle
4) sit and ask for peace

I don't know what I'll do. I mean, it doesn't really matter, since serdoa just kicked off a GA and switched into OR, caste system and hereditary rule, plus buddhism. My hope in this invasion was to take enough cities to be able keep up with serdoa, pick up his wonders. I totally screwed that up for both me and Tarkeel

[AutomatedTeller]

I threw away a couple of catapults against the elephant out west - didn;'t even scratch the damn thing. I retreated the stack and asked for peace.

I figure it's 50/50 that he gives it to me. He might be able to take back Endor, might not, I'm not sure.

Overall, this has not been good for me or Tarkeel. Best for both of us is that we demilitarize the border and go bother other people. I don't know how that happens, mind you.