1450 AD (0)
There are 92 visible enemy units although most are currently healing or in transit. The next few turns will be trouble. Unless absolutely necessary, I plan to attack only redlined riflemen or yellow cavalry.
IBT-1 rifle defeated, no losses. Babylon drops a lone rifle behind the lines.
1455 AD (1)
Bombard and destroy 5 rifles, 1 musket, 2 cavalry, and 2 longbowmen without loss.
IBT- 1 cav defeated, but after supporting naval bombardment, the landed rifleman kills our defending merc and captures Leidin (I had thought it would go for an undefended city).
1460 AD (2)
Recapture Leidin from redlined rifle. A total of 3 riflemen, 4 cavalry, 1 longbow, and 1 spear are removed without loss. There are still huge Sumerian stacks approaching the north-eastern cities and I have to pull mercs from elsewhere to ensure no lost cities.
Leidin has most infrastructure intact, but lost the library.
IBT- 4 riflemen killed at a cost of 2 mercs, but the Sumerians overrun one of our forts with a large rifle stack. The damaged portion of the Sumerian super-stack retreats
1465 AD (3)
3 riflemen and 3 cavalry destroyed without loss.
IBT- Sumeria loses 2 rifles killing 2 mercs
1470 AD (4)
Kill 5 riflemen, 4 longbows, 2 cavalry, and 1 knight without losses. A couple of the smaller stacks have been destroyed.
IBT- Lose 1 merc and an unimportant road is pillaged.
1475 AD (5)
Kill 4 rifles, 2 MDI, 2 longbows, 2 cavs, and 1 knight at a cost of 1 cavalry.
IBT- We defeat 2 mongolian Cavalry in defense, and the Mongolian saltpeter supply appears in our territory.
1480 AD (6)
Destroy 5 riflemen, 1 cav, 1 knight, 1 musket, and 1 mdi at a cost of 1 cavalry. At this point, I feel we are nearly strong enough to go on the offense in the north (Sameria) and begin laying roads/rails in preparation.
IBT- 1 enemy cav dies to our defenses, riflemen mill around.
1485 AD (7)
Destroy 3 riflemen, 5 cav, and 1 musket costing 1 cavalry. Mercs and workers move into position for a rail line to Sameria.
IBT- Riflemen mill, no attacks except a couple naval bombards.
1490 AD (8)
Attack Samaria and capture it generating a leader (University in Delft). I know it is both over 3 tiles and an enemy city, but the flip risk should be minimal with low Persian culture, and rails negate the distance problem. We also need the extra culture coverage to make an attempt a grabbing furs from Babylon.
In total, we destroy 7 riflemen, 1 cavalry, 1 musket, and 1 longbow at a cost of 1 cavalry. With threatening riflemen at a new low, I move a settler and a 3 mercs toward Suruppak to claim the furs, and hopefully eliminate the northern front for good.
IBT- A bad round for defense as we lose 4 mercs in fortified positions for no enemy losses.
1495 AD (9)
3 riflemen and 7 cavalry destroyed (hopefully the last of the Mongolian breed) without loss. Settler stack advances on Suruppak, and workers begin railing toward our hopeful city position.
IBT- 2 cavalry and 1 knight defeated in defense at a cost of 2 mercs. However, these two mercs were extremely costly as a Sumerian rifle destroys the undelying (native) worker stack, and the Babylonians overrun a key mountain rail position linking Samaria with the rest of our territory. I was relying too much on the AI ignoring mountain mercs
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1500 AD (10)
Despite our recent gains, the strategic position is now grim. Unless we can dislodge 6 riflemen and 1 knight from the mountain, we may lose Samaria and the upcoming fur city due to lack of reinforcements. We can either bomb the riflemen and hope they move off without pillaging the sole rail/road link, or scrape together all the cannon we have to kill them while putting off threats in other areas. I decide to retake the mountain at all costs...
Bombardment (barely) redlines all the riflemen and damages the knight, but we still lose 5 cavalry each with more than 4hp taking the mountain. To make matters worse, we lose 2 cavalry attacking a damaged logbow on another mountain outside Samaria and can't remove it. We do get a leader out of the combat.
With these losses we can't destroy Surrupak, but found Roosendaal anyway to claim furs. Lux tax lowered to 10% and science up to 40% with Electricity in 7 turns.
Post-turn
Rails have really helped to focus our cannon on a single threat each turn and destroy it. Unfortunately, with the last turn's losses I leave somewhat of a mess to the next player with 10 cavalry remaining. We will probably need to simply damage all riflemen in range to give our units time to regroup. Enemy cavalry will attack the mountaintop mercs, so keep all key positions well staffed
I used the leader to rush a library in Samaria for fast culture, but this can be switched to a temple or walls if desired (I probably should have just left the leader active). There are a number of regular mercs building at the moment which can be thought of as city stuffers to prevent captures or mobile infrastructure to garrison unhappy cities.
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