Provolution said:
As I told you before Donsig, you should have gone south in one big stack, but it is out of my hands now. I suggest to send the 3 Immortals in the forest westwards along the mountain route, then send the 2 immortals straight west into that forest. Then focus the forces towards one region.
Our forces were split in the jungle in order to prevent barbarians and stray Iroqi units from getting behind our lines and harassing our poorly defended cities and workers; the force was further split to drive off the Iroqi warrior scouts in order to screen our movements. In hindsight it probably would have been better not to press on towards the south until all our forces had regrouped. But, then again, as it is we encountered five mounted warriors. Had we regrouped we'd still be a few turns away from reaching that hill and the Iroqi would have had even more mounted warriors to meet us. Bear in mind we do not know how many more stray warriors are in the western jungles.
If we sent our three immortals west we invite the Iroqi to send their faster mounted units up towards our homeland. We do not want the Iroqi to gain possession of the military road we are building through the jungle. We do not need these barbarians charging down our road towards our country on those infernal horses of theirs!
greekguy said:
Fortify those two Immortals on the hill and wait for the attack. We need to get rid of some MW's or we can't really get anything done. With the forest stack, leave 2 on the forest and move 1 south to hopefully draw out at least on MW to be cut down next turn.
Well, the attack came and went before we had a chance to fortify. We have the mentioned above that we must be sure to keep these Iroqi units down south. We do not want them marauding north and hindering
our production. Another problem is we do not know exactly where the Iroqi units are now! At least two are on the hill once occupied by our immortals. The other three could be there as well or they could be in the forest to the south and east of the forest our three immortals are in. If we just waltz up towards the forest, either piecemeal or in a stacks we are sure to suffer more losses without being able to attack and initiate our own Goden Age - which we really need now to counter their GA. BTW, I think my calculations of our chances of surviving the Iroqi attacks were erroneous. Mounted Warriors attack at 3 but I may have used the ordinary horseman attack value of 2.
Our best chance at getting the GA started is to catch that warrior that denied us our western core city. He will either run and heal or get greedy and try to catch our settler. Our newest immortal from Dynopolis will pursue this warrior but it will be several turns before it is caught. We may also nee to use the immortal in the jungle near the western mountain to catch him in a pincer. The immortal we have near the gem mountain must protect the workers building the road through the jungle.
Well, here's the situation. Our immortals are stronger than the mounted warriors on both offense and defense but they are slower. Our strong attack value is useless if we can never reach the darn horse guys to attack them. We must confine our campaign to the hilly, forested and marshy areas where the Iroqi movement bonus is nullified. I no longer see a chance to take this war to the Iroqi country side. I do not see how we can conquer them or hamper their production. In fact we have only succeeded in
increacing their productivity via a GA.
So, what can we get from this war? We can claim territory. We can ensure we get the gems. We can push westward to secure the silks. We can hold the jungle and keep the Iroqi from acquiring the incense just south of the jungle. While not crushing the Iroqi we can not only use this war to stunt their physical growth now we can stunt their economic growth down the ages.
The pressing question is what to do with our immortals right now. I think it is very important to flush the Iroqi warrior scouts from the hills. The reason we lost two immortals is we had no idea there were mounted warriors in the area but the Iroqi saw us coming thanks to these blasted scouts. Our military movements must be kept from the enemy! So I am sending Cyrus back into the mountains to chase off the other Iroqi scout.
That leaves our remain stack of three imortals in the little forest. I think it is foolhardy to move them south or east towards the mounted warrior infested larger forest. While I tried to screen the movements of this little stack the Iroqi may have found them. Since their attack on the hill went so well they may have sent a mounted warrior north, saw the stack in the forest then moved back. In any event there is no point in hiding these three. We want the Iroqi to know they are around so the mounted warriors will stay on defense rather than head north. Provolution's suggestion to move these three to the mountains seems best so I will move them northwest this turn. Here's the screen after movement:
They have been sent northward to help boost production around Semtex. For now the immortals coming out of 
are slowed due to river crossings.
In ten turns we should have a couple chariots in place to dislodge those two mounted warriors - if they remain in place.
