okay, it looks to me like we are woefully underpowered right now to launch an attack on napoleon. therefore, this looks to be another uninteresting turnset.
TURN 0
everything looks good except for the -24 gold/turn. i tap the research rate -1 and get it down to -7 per turn, which will suffice for the time being.
TURN 1
saladin makes a sudden appearance.
he's already way more advanced than us, and will not consent to trade any technology out of music, philosophy, engineering, divine right, and compass. we have no techs to trade him anyway.
he's going to make life difficult for us later on.
forge constructed in tenochtitlán, i start a maceman.
TURN 2
ugg. napoleon declares war again. that was not what we needed.
he steals one of our workers but does no further damage.
my plans are entirely changed; no more is rebuilding a viable option; the only thing we can really do right now are guard our borders carefully and harass napoleon.
our war elephant knocks out a maurading horseman.
TURN 3
napoleon steals another worker, which i couldnt do anything about.
having another look, the situation is not good at all.
its very likely that we'll lose rome, but hopefully we can do enough damage to their forces to prevent them from doing anything else.
IBT-
so far everything's gone perfectly. most of our defenses are still at full HP.
longbowman defeats french horse archer
spearman defeats french war elephant
war elephant defeats french war elephant
axeman defeats french swordsman.
axeman defeats french horse archer
however, our farm was pillaged, our cottage was pillaged, etc.
TURN 4-
i'm still in no position to attack the french, so basically i try to strengthen the defenses in rome by moving a couple more troops in that direction.
IBT-
so far we couldnt ask for anything better. the french have successfully managed to kill themselves attacking rome at the cost of only one of our spearmen.
the full list:
our war elephant destroys a french war elephant away from rome.
in rome, a war elephant destroys an attacking war elephant.
a longbowman destroys an attacking longbowman.
war elephant defeats horse archer.
jaguar sitting in a jungle south of rome defeats horse archer.
spearmen defeats horse archer.
spearmen loses to horse archer.
axeman defeats spearman.
the only injured troops are the war elephant and jaguar attacked outside of rome, the longbowman in rome, and of course the spearman we lost. it is remarkable that nobody else has sustained damge.
TURN 5-
i decide to suicide two cats to weaken the stacks outside of rome.
there's absolutely nothing else i can do but sit and wait.
IBT
our infallible luck continues.
for the first time in this siege, napoleon comes at us with cats and does some collateral damage.
the full list:
catapult withdraws from combat with longbowman, but the collateral damage already done.
longbowman defeats war elephant
war elephant defeats catapult, but the damage done.
war elephant defeats horse archer
axeman defeats horse archer
jaguar loses to horse archer
axeman defeats spearman
axeman defeats war elephant
axeman defeats swordsman
war elephant away from rome defeats spearman.
axeman defeats spearman.
despite this incredible good fortune, our defenses in rome are pretty much fried by this point, but some of them will recuperate after being upgraded.
TURN 6-
right now its all about keeping rome away from napoleon.
out of pure necessity i'm upgrading an archer in rome to a longbow.
i also knock napoleon's catapult out of the picture, we don't need him to give us more collateral damage
a horse archer is wandering near antium, so i attack it with an injured elephant. unfortunately it loses with 80 some odd% odds. i finish it off with the other elephant
IBT-
the disaster has been averted. somehow, we've managed to knock off napoleon's invading force at the cost of one spearman, one jaguar, one axeman, 118 gold to upgrade an archer, and some tile improvements.
the remainder of napoleon's force comes after us, and we defeat all of them, except for one horse archer which kills the doomed axeman which destroyed the catapult.
TURN 7-
suddenly napoleon looks a lot less mighty.
right now, he's damaged our defenses enough so that we've got to keep building elephants, macemen, longbows, crossbows, and of course cats (and knights, when we can build them).
i would emphasize macemen, cats, and to a lesser degree crossbows.
horse archer defeats maurading longbowman and flees to rome.
IBT-
jaguar defeats horse archer south of rome.
stunningly, he is then defeated by a horse archer.
TURN 8-
of note is that maceman are starting to show up in napoleon's cities.
this turn is surprisingly quiet.
TURN 9-
a crossbowman defeats a maurading french swordsman.
note that an empty french galley is heading towards us down the western shore. i don't see how this is much of a problem.
IBT-
crossbowman loses to invading horse archer.
TURN 10-
i notice a barb longbowman near texcoco and destroy it with an axeman in texcoco (i had to move the jaguar that was de-fogging that area away to save rome. it should probably be replaced whenever we can spare a unit.)
i destroy the horse archer who destroyed our crossbowman with a war elephant just outside antium.
ok, basically our next path is straightforward. build up the military with macemen, cats, crossbows, elephants and possibly horse archers. attack napoleon when ready.
IMO.
