LK163 - AWM, India

[LKendter]

1824 AD (5)
Whack an Aztec stack continues. I kill 10 crossbows and 1 bucket. I lost 1 enslaver and 1 knight of the realm. (96-31)
Crossbow killing Knight arrived. A courthouse is rushed in Fez. A new worker was gained.
I kill a stray Austrian crossbow. (97-31)
I figured out how contact with Britain. I just found Dover close to Manaus. Sadly, that isn’t far from where I found Israel. A new big front has been opened.
[End of session 1]
I kill a stray Maghreb crossbow. (98-31)
I find stacks from Maghreb with musketeers. They have completed ballistics. There is no way I want to attack them on hills with knights.

(IT) The Aztecs move around a lot, but no attacks. Now they are heading back toward Fez.
I killed 2 Egypt crossbows losing 2 knights. (100-34)
I’m starting to wonder how much the territory to the south is. My first gut was small, but I’ve been seeing a lot of units.

 

[LKendter]

1826 AD (6)
I continue to nibble on Egypt. I kill 1 enslaver, 1 bombard and 2 crossbows. I lost 1 camel and 1 knight. (104-36)
Really Blessed Brahmin arrives. Salvador gets a rushed castle and a culture bomb.
Whack an Aztec stack continues. I kill 10 crossbows, 1 pike, 4 chariots and 4 buckets. I lost 5 knights and 1 Ratha. The buckets were getting really lucky on defense on flatlands. (123-42)
Ratha of Doom arrives. Fez gets a rushed harbor. It is a cheaper building, but Fez really needs that to grow.
Follow up Knight arrives right after. Rick’s Cafe gets a rushed courthouse.
(IT) I lost 3 knights and 1 bombard. I kill 2 Egypt crossbows. (125-44)
Trying to move forward versus Egypt is getting frustrating.

 

[LKendter]

1828 AD (7)
I hit a small stack from South Africa. I kill 2 pikes and 2 crossbows. I lost our elite golden archer. (129-44)
Whack an Aztec stack won’t end. I kill 2 spears, 9 crossbows and 3 eagle warriors. I lost 1 elephant, 1 enslaver, 1 arquebusier and 1 knight. (143-48)
I kill 1 Israel crossbow. (144-48)
A free settler arrived from Brasilia.
It looks like I need at least 15+ units to move forward vs Egypt. Once again crossbows kill / beat up to many units. I kill 2 crossbows. (150-49)
(IT) I lost 2 elephants, and 2 arquebusier. I took out 2 Aztec crossbows. Our heroic knight killed 3 Egypt crossbows. (155-53)

 

[LKendter]

1830 AD (8)
I kill a stray Israel musket. (151-49)
That front looks like it is starting to heat up. I see more Israel and some British units coming our way. I burn $472 to rush a castle in the area. We may need fast healing soon in that area.
I kill 3 Maghreb muskets, and 1 pike wandering around Fez. (155-49)
Whack an Aztec stack is finally ending. I kill 13 crossbows, 1 MDI, 1 archer and 1 eagle warrior. I lost 1 knight. (172-50)
I gained a worker.
[End of session 2]
(IT) The next research project is Physics. Sadly it takes 5 turns. Those courthouses reducing the corruption so far aren’t getting us to stay at 4 turn research.
After that we want ballistics for the better ground units.
I lost 1 knight and 1 arquebusier. (174-50)

 

[LKendter]

1832 AD (9)
Israel is next to our borders. I kill 2 knights. (177-50)
I kill a stupid Spanish crossbow landing by Rio. (178-50)
I’m cleaning up the last stray Aztecs. I kill 3 buckets and 1 crossbow. (182-50)
Jolly Roger is under construction.
(IT) I lost 1 arquebusier. I killed 1 MDI. (183-51)


1834 AD (10)
The northern front around Manaus and Guarulhos is starting to heat up.
I kill 1 British Ironsides. I lost 1 elephant.
I kill 2 Austrian MDI and 1 crossbow. I lost 1 knight.
I rushed a castle in Guarulhos.
I killed 1 Maghreb camel.

I kill 2 Egyptian muskets. I lost 2 knights.
[End of session 3]

 

[LKendter]

Summary:
We need to slowly slip in universities in our large, high river cities. Our science rating isn’t cutting it.
An example is Istanbul that is building one right now. The majority of the tiles yield 2 gold, and 2 gems titles yielding 4 gold. Madras has multiple river tiles and tobacco that yields extra gold and is building one. Falling too far behind in tech is one of the ways you can lose AW.

 

[LKendter]

It in my opinion isn’t worth trying to move forward versus Egypt for a while. It keeps being a stalemate. We need the spare fighting units moving to the British / Israeli front. There is a stack of 8 knights near Rio that I am starting to move north.

 

[LKendter]

I’ve starting to send some reinforcing knights to the British / Israeli front, but it will be a while until they arrive.
The British / Israeli front is hold you ground dealing with the first wave. This front is fragile for at least 10 turns. I have a lot of defensive units moving that way.

 

[LKendter]

The Maghreb front is where we can finally move forward. The Aztec rush is gone. A nice stack of units is building up in the area. Keep the camels in the area. There are the only units that can attack strays in the desert, then retreat. I’m trying to get roads into the desert tiles to make it easier to hit and run stray units.

 

[LKendter]

I’m working on getting irrigation up to former France. These cities will be decent once large enough. The stack has split in half with one heading to Orleans and the other to Tours.
The settler by Fortaleza is moving south. The best area left to settle is between Tours and Aydin with a nice combo of hills and grassland. These will be nice cities long-term.
You can see the reinforcement parade heading north.

 

[LKendter]

Former Turkey is just about done with worker actions.
Bursa still needs at least one plains irrigated to grow faster.
Edrine still has two tiles not mined.
Uskudar should irrigate the oasis, and mine 1 or 2 more hills.

The homeland still needs some work. Karachi in particular needs to get all those plains irrigated to start growing and become more useful. Lissan also needs more irrigated plains.

To the left of Salvador we now see borders. I'm not sure if that hints at an island, or that what we see of Egypt loops up to another civ.

 

[LKendter]

ROSTER:
LKendter
Greebley (up)
Elephantium (on deck)
Jersey Joe

 

[Jersey Joe]

Sorry about the long goto's. For the most part they went to 1 of 2 places; (1) just south of Hieraconpolis, on the long road from our core cities, from their they got sent to the Brazilian front or (2) on the hills just south of Tours on the long road from the former turns lands and from there they got sent to Avigon. I might have sent some monks from Fez to Paris or south of that. I did try stop using gotos in my last turn or 2.

The Maghreb front is where we can finally move forward. The Aztec rush is gone. A nice stack of units is building up in the area. Keep the camels in the area. There are the only units that can attack
strays in the desert, then retreat. I’m trying to get roads into the desert tiles to make it easier to hit and run stray units.

Brahmin and Knights of the Realm can also attack and retreat in the desert.

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it.

 

[Greebley]

Agree Ballistics is a tech we want ASAP:
- looks like we can get physics in one less turn (4 turns total; 3 now) as it is not that far away, so I will likely work on that. It means more scientists for this IBT (about 15-20?) but will need less once we get more Uni's online.

Not sure if I will be able to do the same for Ballistics. Not sure how much more that will require over physics.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Greebley, Physics and Ballistics have the same base cost. Any difference will be owing to how many of our enemies know the respective techs.
Edrine can run 2 more scientists, it does not need the 2 shields from the unimproved desert tiles.

 

[Greebley]

ok thanks for the info. We should be able to get Ballistics on turn 7 then (3 + 4).

I had time to play this weekend - we get physics next turn. Will continue this week and likely finish next weekend at some point.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn:
MM'ed Physics down to 3 turns. We have a lot of Engineer specialists, which isn't a bad thing, but can slow science.

1836 AD: Kill units near us. We do poorly on the new Brittish front line. We lose 2 out of 4 Knight vs Knight battles for example.

Also sent some units after Magreb.

1838 AD: Kill less units on the Israel English front because we can't do so without exposing units.

IBT: We win most attacks against us. Bombardment is definitely annoying.
Some more troops from the Aztecs from the west.

1840 AD: It takes us 3 units (2 losses) to kill a single defender near Egypt. This is not good as we don't have a lot to spare.

We move next to Magreb city of Oran.

IBT: Brittish are now moving on Curitaba, so I need to shift troops. We are facing attack 6 units now.

1842 AD: Oran is captured. Unfortunately, It looks like the Ocean near Fez may be an inland sea. This means heading more east will create a longer front. I have been roading west in any case but face some troops there to deal with.
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We got a leader and rushed a castle in the city being attacked by britain. Also got another monk. Ther is one unused in Maunus.

1844 AD: We finally meet Nubia who is going to plant a town near our lands.
We got our first Lawyer.
This is 5 turns so I am stopping here.

Double check we are at war with Nubia before hitting enter. I realized we were not so tried to save the new version and then re-upload but I might have messed it up.

Notes:
The higher defense units is rough. We really need the 5 attack and then 6 attack units as soon as we can get them. We have 2 turns before we get attack 5 (with some money saved up for upgrades). We do have castles.

My gut feeling is that we will have a really tough time from now until we get rails, but can catch up and surpass them them.

The bombardment near England has been so heavy that I have moved units away from the coast. The situation for the territory that we have captured from Egypt is really rough. If need be, it might mean falling back.

I think we will mostly need to defend in Oran so I rushed the walls. It has extra defense from the hills but then so do all the enemies. I was thinking we should connect up to the road (we have 1 turn road workers) to the West and head that way.

 

[Greebley]

One more thing. Double check the cities. I fixed a rioting city while creating the report at about the same time I declared war with Nubia the first time. I may have lost that change like I did the Nubian war declaration (i.e. At some point I failed to save correctly).

 

[LKendter]

We are having horrid luck with meeting new civs. It is bad enough I stumble onto two of them. We didn’t need to add Nubia to the list.

I am glad to see the irrigation chain continuing to Paris / Tours. They have enough production to eventually help our empire.

At this point I think our best bet is to continue to push toward Maghreb. I agree to push the roads toward Oran. The other fronts need time to get rid of the initial rush. I don’t want to be totally stuck. Any weakened civ will help, and Maghreb don’t have any initial rush left. Plus the rush from the Aztecs and South Africa came from that area. There is a good chance of multiple weak civs in that area.

ROSTER:
LKendter
Greebley
Elephantium (up)
Jersey Joe (on deck)