"Time to get up! There's Talented Cavalry by our city to defeat! We're six months late in attacking them" called the garrison commander at The Fens.
"Man, I feel woozy," said one of the riflemen. "Did we invent the stasis chamber several centuries early or what?"
"What chamber?" asked a cannoneer.
"It's like a device that keeps you in suspended animation, and then you can be awoken years later and feel just like you did before... only a bit woozy for the first hour or two."
"It does feel kinda like that. Maybe we should add it to our spaceship..."
1725 AD - The war resumes just as we said it would at the end of the last section, with attacking the Cavalry that had tried to attack The Fens. A Regular Cavalry is chosen for promotion-hunting.
The tactic works, and the Cavalry is now a Veteran.
But before we get too much into what's going on now, it might behoove us to give a quick overview of the situation for those who have not re-read the last section recently. We are at war with the Talented, who are by any measure of the term a runaway AI:
We have razed our heartland cities, including the capital of Thunderfall, in an effort to slow the enemy advance. It has slowed them some, but perhaps not enough.
The Talented have stacks of units that are larger than our entire army, and we are sending our entire army north to meet them. The goal is to keep The Fens, home of Smith's Trading Company; Bright Future, the site of JS Bach's Cathedral, has already been razed by retreating troops to avoid letting it fall into enemy hands. Failing that, we hope to defend a desert-mountain line that is impassable to cavalry.
The south, much of which was taken from the Commercial last century, is completely undefended due to the exodus to defend the north. The Commercial are now our allies, having begrudgingly agreed to fight with us after realizing that, should we fall to the Talented, they would stand no chance of stopping them on their own.
So in short, the situation is very grim. The question is not how to win the war, but how to lose the least.
With that goal, additional Cavalry advance to execute our tried-and-true pillaging technique to the northwest of The Fens. Unfortunately, countless Talented Infantry have rendered this impossible, and it becomes a scouting sortie instead.
The four stacks southwest of my Cavalry contain 35 Guerillas, 150 Infantry, 16 Longbowmen, 40 Medieval Infantry, 30 Musketmen, 7 Pikemen, 5 Spearmen, 5 Swordsmen, and 19 Riflemen, for a grand total of 307 units. That compares with our entire army of 141 units (mostly Cavalry and Riflemen). And what does the Cavalry discover when venturing farther? More units!
This stack alone contains 137 units, or nearly our entire army. Two are Archers, but most are Infantry. It is a Stack of Doom.
Seeking more intel, our Cavalry attempts to climb the nearby Mountain.
Surprisingly, no more stacks are revealed.
But we still have at least 444 units to deal with, not counting their Cavalry stacks that we know exist, but have not spotted recently, nor counting their more minor stacks in the area. And of the five stacks, we estimate the first three can reach The Fens before peace negotiations - in other words, about 3/4 of the first 307 units, or between 225 and 230 units in total, plus whatever Cavalry come by. This is Bad News. And our pillaging plan is not going to work.
With 37 Riflemen currently, including Conscripts, it was decided that defending The Fens against 225 units with an average attack of about 5 was probably not teneable. The Riflemen would have a defence of about 10.5 each after fortification and city bonuses, but even if they took out three apiece, it would be insufficient.
So, instead, a gamble was decided upon - building a Barricade outside the city. That would increase the effective strength of the Riflemen to 13.5 apiece - enough that the enemy would at least suffer considerable casualties.
The odds were still very long, but at least they would be better.
Finally, some Cavalry were sent out to pillage the roads leading east, making it so that if the Talented wanted to reach The Fens before negotiation time, they would have to either assault or go around the Barricade - and in the process, take Zone of Control and cannon damage.
A round of drafting concluded the turn, adding another dozen or so Riflemen, while workers built rails to connect our southern cities. And then, with the five-year-turn over, the fateful End Turn button was clicked.
At first, events were largely diplomatic, one noteworthy event being the Innovators turning against Science along with the Talented.
It was ironic, both due to innovation opposing science, as well as that the Talented *shouldn't* have any trouble defeating the Scientists by themselves. The Talented proceeded to bring the Innovators in against the Governors and Utopians as well.
The first combat of the turn invovled our scout Cavalry.
After that, the Talented rushed towards Occidental Slope - a perfect occurence for us.
This was exactly what The Fens needed - a repreive from the onslaught. Occidental Slope was already a lost cause, and our Spearman was ready and waiting to stop their Cavalry from crossing the slopes to our new southern heartland.
After about six minutes, the Talented were finished with troops movements. Doom looked slightly less certain.