LK151 - WM, where are we?

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We take Teotihuacan, held by three musketmen and a cav, for the loss of a cav (134-2).

We abandon Teotihuacan and replace it with the tactical town of Kann, bringing us close to Tlaxcala.

We storm Tlaxcala, defended by three musketmen and a cav (138-2).

We seize and raze Atzcapotzalco, garrisoned by three musketmen (141-2). We gain five workers and capture two trebs.

We abandon Tlaxcala and replace it with Zukertort, bringing us closer to Tlatelolco.

We capture Tlatelolco, held by three musketmen (144-2).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We take and raze Tzintzuntzen, defended by three musketmen (147-2). We gain five workers and capture a treb.

With Tlacopan protected by a lot of blocking terrain, that concludes our Aztec campaign for this turn. We mop up two cav and five musketmen in the former Aztec lands, also capturing three workers (154-2).

In the British Isles we found Evans, mostly so that our ships can go through Cornwall rather than around it, and Muzio, setting up our attack on Saratov in Ireland.

We storm and raze Saratov, garrisoned by three riflemen, two Cossacks, and a pikeman, and sink at least one vessel in port (161-2). We receive no workers, as the results of razing become uncertain in the IA in the usual way.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We bombard and decapitate a Cossack landed next to Volodga (160-2).

We found Harrwitz on Borneo where we razed Oto last turn.

We found five more cities to fill in the gaps left by our devastation of the Aztec lands.

We merge our core city of Megan Halsey up to size twenty—using foreign workers from eliminated civs in this case, since we’ll never pay unit support again, so we may as well keep the more productive native workers.

We replace Yekaterinburg with Steinitz, because we can’t have the port at the base of our ship chain (to Iceland and Greenland, eventually) subject to flipping.

We aren’t attacked on the interturn.


1285 (4): We found Tchigorin, giving us access to the last mainland Aztec city, Tlacopan.

We seize and raze Tlacopan, held by three musketmen and a longbowman (164-2). Between the razing and captures we gain nine workers.

We capture and raze the island city of Tepexpan, defended by three musketmen, two cav, and a pikeman (170-2). We gain five workers.

We replace Tepexpan with the town of DuBois.

This effectively concludes our Aztec campaign, leaving them with only Chiconautla on its three-tile island completely blocked by AI units of three nationalities.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We thus turn to the Chinese war. We plant a spy in Beijing, and find the Chinese to be considerably stronger than the Aztecs, with 58 cav and 102 riflemen.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

The ten cities the Chinese have recently taken from the Sioux (including Shoshone to the north, not shown) don’t have cultural expansions, so we should be able to tear through them at a great rate. We declare war.

We take Shoshone, held by two riflemen (172-2).

We storm Teton, defended by three riflemen (175-2). We capture a cannon and a treb.

We seize and raze Wounded Knee, garrisoned by four riflemen (179-2). We gain three workers.

We capture Santee, held by a rifleman and a musketman (181-2).

We take and raze Nakota, defended by two riflemen (183-2). We gain two workers.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We bludgeon a Chinese cav on our approach to Gros Ventre (184-2).

We storm Gros Ventre, garrisoned by two riflemen, and then batter a cav in the vicinity (187-2).

We seize New Chengdu, held by a rifleman and a musketman (189-2).

We capture and raze Assinoboine, defended by five riflemen (194-2). We gain three workers.

We take and raze Yankton, garrisoned by three riflemen (197-2). We gain five workers.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We storm and raze Sarcee, held by four riflemen (201-2). We gain four workers.

We replace Sarcee with Gunsberg, bringing us close to Tatung.

We capture Tatung, defended by three riflemen (204-2), and gain a treb.

We take Hunkpapa, the last of the ten Chinese-but-recently-Sioux cities on the African mainland (garrison of three riflemen; 207-2).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We abandon Hunkpapa and replace it with Marshall, bringing us close to Kaifeng.

We storm Kaifeng, held by five riflemen (212-2).

Off Ireland we bombard and sink two Russian frigates, along with a galleon (215-2).

In fighting on Ireland we eradicate four Cossacks, a Russian pikeman, and two Aztec musketmen, losing a BEF (222-3).

We sink a Sioux frigate in the Strait of Malacca (223-3).

Behind our new front line in Africa we hunt down a Chinese musketman, a Chinese maceman, and an Aztec musketman (226-3).

All across Africa we capture twenty-six workers from the Chinese—I won’t call them Chinese workers, since most are Sioux.

We found three more cities to fill in gaps, and to let us rush galleons for the invasion of Madagascar (“Shut down everything!” ).

We found and destroyed only two of China’s fifty-eight cav on the first turn of the war, so the possibility exists of an impressive counterattack…but in fact the Chinese just bring thirteen cav forward without attacking at all. Again, I think our defense-eleven infantry are influencing the AI’s decisions.

The Russians still have a lot of ships, and they put a naval stack too large for us to sink right in the path of our ship chain from Ireland to Iceland, complicating our naval moves somewhat.

Tamuin and Yanktonai flip back to the Aztecs. It’s surprising we got this far into the round without anything flipping. We lose just two inf and will recapture the towns easily.

We complete about a dozen temples in recently conquered cities, by a combination of lumberjacking and assigning civil engineers.


1290 (5): We recapture and raze Yanktonai, defended by a spearman (227-3). We gain a worker.

We retake and raze Tamuin, garrisoned by a musketman (228-3). We gain three workers.

We found Lasker, giving us access to Nanking.

We storm Nanking, held by three riflemen and a cav, and capture three workers and treb (232-3).

We bombard and slay fourteen Chinese cav and four riflemen advanced towards our lines, and gain three Leaders/armies (250-3).

We seize Shantung, defended by three riflemen and a cav (254-3). We capture three workers and a treb.

We found Janowski, bringing us close to Tientsin.

We capture Tientsin, garrisoned by three riflemen (257-3). We gain three workers and a treb.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We take Yangchow, held by three riflemen, and sink at least one frigate in port (261-3).

We storm Canton, defended by three riflemen and a cav, and capture two trebs (265-3).

We abandon Nanking and replace it with Rubinstein, bringing us close to Shanghai.

We seize Shanghai, garrisoned by three riflemen and a cav (269-3). We capture a worker and a treb.

We shatter four Chinese cav around Shanghai (273-3).

We pick off the last Aztec musketman behind our lines (274-3).

We found Spielmann, giving us access to Xinjian.

We capture Xinjian, held by three riflemen and a cav, though we come alarmingly close to losing a full-strength cav army (278-3). We gain a worker and a treb.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We abandon Tientsin and Yangchow and replace them with Grunfeld, Breyer, and Reti, giving us three more towns not in resistance where we can rush galleons for the invasion of Madagascar. The gold from selling the cities’ improvements is useful, too, since we’re scrambling for every penny until we discover Steel next turn and can reduce research.

In mopping-up operations we account for two Chinese units, a musketman and a cav, and capture three workers (280-3).

The Russians are still landing units on the British Isles, so we strike down a rifleman in Ireland (281-3).

We land two cav armies next to Russian Perm in Iceland.

Tlatelolco and Ixtapaluca flip, which is no surprise with the Aztec capital just off the African mainland on their invulnerable island. We lose just a conscript inf.

We discover Steel under our own power.


1295 (6): We’re first in the world to Steel, but since we’re hoping the Babylonians will come up with Refining and no other civ has much to give, we don’t trade or sell it.

We retake and raze Ixtapaluca, defended by a rifleman (282-3). We gain four workers.

We re-storm and raze Tlateloloco, garrisoned by a pikeman (283-3). We claim four workers.

We’re still not seeing many Chinese cav, except when we trap them in cities. Could most of them be stuck on Madagascar, which the Chinese took from the Sioux recently?

Although our armies are somewhat depleted and our independent cav will have to do more of the work, we should be able to conquer China’s twelve remaining mainland cities this turn: