Will report soon. Nijmegen is ours. Army on his way to The hague. Heavy fighting at Dariush (damn SoD of Willem). Darius looses a lot of his army, etc.... Stay tuned.
Update tonight. RL was intervening. Want to end this turn. It is nailbiting
Ok here we go again. What a turnset this has become. We have very good news and some very bad news. First of all I had some computer problems. My game crashed twice during this turnset so I had to replay this again from the 1470 save. So some things did change a little but just a little. I tried to play the same way I did before. One of the things that changed is that Darius did not attack Pasargadae but is currently outside Persepolis. But more on that later. This turnset has it all. Bloodshed, fierce fights, fights till the end. Happy endings, not so happy endings, stupid mistake which turned out good (phew). Stay tuned.
I left at 1470 with two stacks to hit Willem at 2 cities. Then I remembered SGOTM 15 where I did a similar thing with a stack of cuirasseers and lost them, especially with the high power rating of Willem. I send out the spies, well, to spy and try to locate his stack of doom. In the meantime I gather up the troops and keep building more like mad. Nijmegen, the Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, all are lightly defended by something like 4-5 units. I can't find his stack of doom, damnit but I feel strong enough to attack the lower part of his empire. I declare war and go to Nijmegen. My spy then spots his SoD. It is close to the Persian border. I redirect reinforcements to the borders.
Next turn I use the spy on Nijmegen, succeeds, loose 2 trebs and get this:
I settle the GS from the stack. I set science back to 0%, culture to 20% and select chemistry as the next tech, hoping to use it as trade bait.
I move my army towards the Hague. I spot Willems SoD towards Dariush. Redirect more troops tp there. In 1505 we get this little guy:
I send our little pool of great people closer to the war lines. The next turn Willem tries out our defenses at Dariush while he is bombing and looses 3 units. Phew. Reinforcements will get there in time. We have a good stack of 10 units there. Lets hope it is enough. This battle will be hard. I take out 7 units and loose 1. WvO redirects his troops to the hill.
In the mean time my army is at the Hagues door. WvO is knocking at our door and I do this:
WvO decides it is payback time and man, does he have luck with trebs. I have 45% hill defense janissaries and CGII longbows but his trebs just retreat and deal massive damage to my defenders. I only kill 1 treb of the 4. Hard battle then where we loose 9 units and WvO 10 units more. We both lick our wounds and heal and I get more reinforcements when all of a sudden his SoD grows to this:
I scouted his whole land and didn't find that big stack of trebs. Did he just build all those???? This will be very hard. Lets hope our stack lasts. Our main army moves towards Amsterdam in between. And here are our precious. 6 of them. We got another great general.
I try my luck with Sury and beg for fur and he gives it to us. We got grocers in the capital and jewish shrine city. I also trade education with saladin for mercantalism and 270 gold. I trade also music to Zao to get on his good side for 150 gold. We need the money badly so I thought it was good. And then, the inevitable:
We loose Dariush. In the last fight I think we killed 2 units or so to our 5-6 units. Alas, poor Dariush, we will have to retake you soon I guess. I then make the biggest mistake in my turnset. I attack Amsterdam and we get this:
Take that Willem. You take Dariush, we take Nijmegen, the Hague and Amsterdam and still have a bigger army then you do and more on the way. But wait, I only had 2 GP on our main army. Whooops. Thank god Amsterdam has settled GP's otherwise I had to reload the game. Lol. Sorry. The fight at Dariush was just to intense.
For the next one. There is still an army at Persepolis but that city should be fine. Darius is bringing 7 troops or so and we have great defenders there. I have build a lot of knights so we should be able to counter strike soon (we need siege though). There is a small stack at Dariush in the forest. Those were our reinforcements who were 1 turn too late to defend.
Overall one of the most exciting turnsets I have ever played. I expected WvO to redirect his main army to defend his capitol, but nooooo, just keep on attacking Dariush, you little ........ I hope the next player can salvage the situation with that city. Our main army is still pretty much intact. Willem lost more then double the units to us and is now behind in score which is good if you ask me. Last trade I make is stone to Sury for 14 gold per turn. I didn't revolt to merc yet, but we could surely use that civ.
Good luck to the next one in line. I hope you guys didn't mind the long turnset. I really wanted to keep Dariush, but alas....
Only domination, no razing, need a GP to settle. Yes I am evil I tell you, EVIL!!!! MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
