Geezers WOTM03

Extremely well written Hawk and very much to the point. You take a more extreme approach than anything I have ever tried but it is what I have been tending more towards. (Probably why I'm moving up from Monarch to Emporer). I would be very happy to see us go this route.

We haven't met the last AI yet so I would bet the farm that we can't get to it by galley. That makes it domination by default so holding more cities would be helpful.
 
A very nice exposition of your views on warring and the way ahead The-Hawk. :bowdown: I will have to see if I can apply them in my offline games.

I can't load the game to see our unit numbers and :gold: until I get back home on Friday evening. However if you're content with our status then I'm happy to proceed along the lines you indicated. Hopefully I can survive the , to me, extreme lack of infrastructure.

I indicated in one of my early turns that I thought the last civ might be SW of Pisae although it's surprising that the last civ hasn't contacted us yet. Perhaps Augustus & Ragnar are the reason why. However in terms of the strategy you have laid out it's not that important.
 
Summary:
  • OK, things are not going to plan. Shaka made peace with Ramesses, now Ramesses can focus on us. He is counterattacking with knights. We are killing his units faster than he is killing ours, but he is still more powerful. We certainly have lost the opportunity to overrun his nearby cities while he was at war with Shaka. :(
Turn 0
  • Switch Tolosa to Mace, switch Susa back to Barracks
  • Spend a minute trying to imagine what Ramesses’ settler is doing, give up.
  • Decide to turn down research for a bit to promote the higher level gallics.
Turn 1 (800 AD)
  • Sent a stack of cats out with some escorts to start bombarding Pi. Leave a couple of cats behind for now in case a stack shows up.
  • Send some units from Persepolis towards Arbela. They can help defend, later attack Ramesses from the south after Thebes falls.
  • Whip CH in Persepolis – with all its food, the city will grow back quickly.
  • Spice is online, trade to Augustus for sugar
IBT
  • Hannibal has vassalized Cyrus, guess that answers the debate on attacking Tarus.
Turn 2 (815)
  • Upgrade gallic, move units
Turn 3 (830)
  • Bibracte mace -> mace
  • Vienna xbow -> mace
  • Bomb Pi-Ram
Turn 4 (845)
  • Change my mind about units heading towards Arbela… keep them going towards Bibracte to join the fun at Thebes.
  • Took a random look at civics, see that we could be on Hereditary Rule, so I switch.
Turn 5 (860)
  • Upgrade gallic
  • Take Pi-Ramesses at the cost of 1 cat and one mace. Start a barracks. Great General born, join him to Bibracte. Get some gold, upgrade another gallic.
  • Move reserves from Bobracte towards Pi
IBT
  • Ramesses get a GG somewhere, must have had some luck with Shaka.
Turn 6 (875)
  • Send some units towards Thebes, see a wounded Shaka HA… prolly pillaging our future lands.
IBT
  • Rami kills an axe in my scout force with a knight, Shaka kills the wounded knight with a phant.
Turn 7 (890)
  • Scout force back to Pi to wait til the full stack is available.
IBT
  • Shaka peace with Rami :mad:
  • Rami knight attacks Pi, dies on spear
  • Rami knight kills spear
  • Rami knight kills spear
Turn 8 (905)
  • Bibr mace -> spear
  • One of Rami’s wounded knights is a level 5 GG knight, decide to try to kill it.
  • Suicide cat
  • Cat kills knight
  • Cat dies attacking GG knight
  • Cat kills GG, reveals a HA and 3 trebs heading to Pi
  • Turn research back on.
IBT
  • HA kills our cat
  • Treb withdraws from gallic
  • Mace kills knight
  • Knight kills mace
Turn 9 (920)
  • Cat suicide on knight
  • Cat kills knight
  • Cat kills treb
  • Cat kills treb
  • Axe kills treb
  • Axe kills treb
IBT
  • Knight kills axe and retreats
  • Trireme appears west of Tolosa, we might need to abandon our galley bridging Tolosa to the mainland
Turn 10 (935)
  • Moving units.

At end of turn, we have 4 maces, 1 xbow, 1 gallic, 8 cats, 1 spear, 1 axe in Pi-Ramesses. Two spears are very close. No Ramesses units in sight.

Total body count. We took one city, killed 2 LB, 6 knights (one was a super-knight), 4 trebs. Losses were 4 cats, 2 maces, 2 axes, 2 spears.

Discussion Points:

  • Rami will give us gold for peace. I'm not sure we should take it. The way he is throwing units away attacking Pi-Ram, we might be able to wear him down and go after Thebes.
  • Another option might be to make peace, then refocus our efforts elsewhere. Danger with this would be Shaka and Rami getting away from us. Pi-Ram is not a big enough loss to slow Rami down.
  • In either event, we are not going to roll the table from here. If we could have gotten Thebes before Shaka bailed on us, maybe. But now this looks like a long, drawn out slugfest. We might need to go back to research and try to crawl our way back. :(

I'm not sure on a next path, need to think some more. Any other ideas????

View attachment TeamGeezers AD-0935.CivWarlordsSave
 
I think the idea here should be some innovative Balbes-style military tactics that make optimum use of limited units exploiting predictable AI technical flaws.
 
Pity with Shaka.

As long as Shaka and Ram have been at war Ram should not have too many units left. I would go on for now and try to get Thebes if no big stack appears.

I will have a look at the save tomorrow morning.
 
Harbourboy said:
I think the idea here should be some innovative Balbes-style military tactics that make optimum use of limited units exploiting predictable AI technical flaws.
Click to expand...

You're up HB so feel free point out those flaws :cool:

The only option I can think of is that Ramesses has a city somewhat NE of Arbella that will likely be defended by 2 LB. So, send the main stack to Thebes, it's big enough to take that city and put together a second stack in Arbella to go for the unseen city. Not very Balbes like I'm afraid.
 
Well only Balbes can truly be Balbes. :D I think it's still worth putting pressure on Ramesses. Perhaps put a stack together and head along the hills to get him to suicide his forces against them? But will he head for Pi-Ramessses instead to reclaim it?

Even if we can't take Thebes just yet it's probably worth seeing if we can pillage his horses. If nothing else it would be good to get an idea of what forces Ramesses has in Thebes.
 
Hmm, that didn't sound much like consensus.

I have just come to the end of a day where I have submitted TWO (count 'em) losing GOTMs (GOTM 25 and WOTM 15), so I'm not feeling particularly insightful or brilliant right now. Both of those games included some disastrous military operations, so with that in mind, you probably don't really want me masterminding a make-or-break assault on a more powerful neighbour.

I'll play my turnset, but some fairly clear cut directions would probably assist the overall effort somewhat.
 
Had a look at the save. Once the two spears arrive in Pi I would continue the push. I would move our stack through the woods towards Thebes. That way you might better see whether he sends units towards Pi.
 
Having looked at the save and bearing in mind The-Hawk's philosophy then I agree with mark's comments about continuing the war. Pi gets it's cultural defence next turn. Wait for our units to heal and the spears to arrive and then head for Thebes with bulk of the force via the stone and woods.

Looking at the last turnset I wonder if the bulk of the units that The-Hawk dispatched was Ram's force against Shaka. If so, then he must be short of attack forces.

As an aside I can't really understand why Shaka made peace since his power was higher than Ram. Looking at the way Shaka's power graph is growing it's quite possible that he will redeclare against Ram in the not too distant future. :please:

EDIT: Cross post with mark.
 
Harbourboy said:
So, we're going for the blunt instrument rather than surgical genius? All guns trained on Thebes then?
Click to expand...

I think it's more "focused" rather than "blunt" but that certainly seems to be the consensus.
 
I've thought some more about it, I agree we should at least try to go after Thebes. We are behind, if we make peace we will only fall further behind. If we find a monster SOD heading our way, we can always make peace.

Only other thing I'd think about when moving on Thebes. If we see horse or iron, we should disconnect them. It would be nice to turn off his ability to make knights.

I think Engineering was about 10 turns given our sci rate, then we can make some pikes to add to the stack.
 
IBT: nothing

950AD: Move forces toward Thebes.

IBT: An egyptian knight arrives near Arbela. It's in the jungle so active defense with spearmen would be too costly. Our village will get pillaged next turn.

965 AD: Move forces.

IBT: Egyptian knight pillages plantation. We have no answer to this other than to suicide more than one spearman, even when knight is on grass.

980 AD: Heroic spearman earns medal for defeating pillaging knight at odds of 29%!

IBT: A spearman is killed by Egyptian maceman.

995 AD: Move forces.

IBT: A spearman is killed by Egyptian knight.

1010 AD: A spearman kills Egpytian knight.

IBT: Nothing

1025 AD: Move forces.

IBT: We refuse Augustus's request to cancel deals with Hannibal.

1040 AD: Move forces.

IBT: Nothing

1055 AD: Engineering => Feudalism.

IBT: An Egyptian knight kills a maceman in stack.

1070 AD: Spearman kills Egyptian Knight. Thebes guarded by 3 longbowmen, a crossbowman, and two axemen, plus whatever shows up in the next couple f turns before we arrive.

Summary: It's all up to the next player to tell the story of the glorious seige of Thebes.

View attachment TeamGeezers AD-1070.CivWarlordsSave
 
Roster

Harbourboy - just played
Erik - UP
Sam - on deck
Mark
The-Hawk
 
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