Mighty Suryavarman II

[vranasm]

whatever you decide don't forget to buy forced peace with the other side.

I preferred wiping Bismarck for really long time now (even before MM), but L seems to be the other mind.
I will trust you that you meet the better decision ;-).

 

[lymond]

I'm more than happy to attack Biz. Like I said, we could avoid Wang altogether. Wang will be a tough out.

We could probably just quick cap Biz.

 

[vranasm]

the weekend came and went....

 

[nocho]

Yes, sorry. I was struck by pretty high fever from saturday. I'm still not quite ok, but better now. Since I won't go to work today I may actually have time for a set. If I haven't posted a set in the next 24 hrs, please count me out and forgive me.

 

[vranasm]

ah no problem...I sometimes get fever too and now it's the "right" season to get some...

wish you quick bettering...

 

[nocho]

Well, it's nothing too serious but I have to spend a couple of days in hospital because of a bacterial infection. Therefore, I'm sad to ask to be skipped. And sorry again for holding this up for so long.

 

[lymond]

Hope you feel better, nocho

 

[vranasm]

yeah hoping too... it does look a bit serious...

I won't have time today, but tomorrow I should be able to give the game a look for refreshing things with playing wednesday, if that is ok by everyone.

 

[vranasm]

checking the save now.

I think it's probably straight forward.

I would gather all Cuirs in south to Djenne, upgrade them all to Cavs and heal them to full.
"Old empire" prepares stack 2 in the north.

at the T1 of war I would raze Bremen then move to fork Berlin+Hamburg

northern smaller stack would proceed from Phrygian, Essen towards our main army.

I should scout Berlin+Hamburg with some spare cuir first

Not sure how to avoid war with WK since we can't beg anything. Would we be ok with demanding? Not sure if we have enough power though.

 

[lymond]

I'd heal before upgrading since it's less HP. Sounds good otherwise.

Again, note that Biz had a rather large stack down SE. Some WEs.

 

[vranasm]

First part of the TS is played

I start with inspecting all cities, finishing builds etc.

WK came with great offer to joing Caste

Spoiler :

I don't accept his offer

Bismarck enters GA

Spoiler :

Wasn't sure where we wanted to settle another city, but I think I guessed the right place

Spoiler :

I found the Bismarck SoD, the only problem being he is out of reach at T0 of war

Spoiler :

I made the big upgrade

Spoiler :

I had to decide if I want to lure the SoD this turn or turn later when I will move cavs in a bit better position.
I decided to postpone the attack

Next turn I decided that it's the right moment for DoW

Spoiler :

as discussed I razed Bremen

Spoiler :

the rest of cavs moves to safer position letting Bismarck make his move

Spoiler :

Our northern army

Spoiler :

will make it's move towards northern cities

capturing Phrygian

Spoiler :

Next turn the bastard WK declares on US!

Spoiler :

And Bismarck captures the city down south with his big SoD probably.

Spoiler :

There is couple of grens in middle of our MM land

I guess we have first to secure our MM cities.
There is 2 Grens nearby Kumbi, i can draw one cav from our northern stack to Kumbi and next turn kill those grens probably.
1 cav from Djenne could go towards that cuir in middle
Our southern SoD should kill the Bismarck SoD trapped in the city.
There is near Djenne stack of cannons and I could attack it with 2 cavs nearby.

Hopefully with some spare.

Good news is that WK has only 1.0 of our military power...

now that I think about it it was pretty big mistake not to accept the Caste demand from WK... we could have that forced peace :-(.

I think we have still good position though. If we manage to beat that Bismarck stack without many losses it's completely possible he will throw in.

 

[nocho]

Ouch about Wang's dow. Are you playing more turns? I'm also up in RR13 so if it's back to me it'll have to wait a bit (again ).

 

[vranasm]

Ouch about Wang's dow. Are you playing more turns? I'm also up in RR13 so if it's back to me it'll have to wait a bit (again ).

well hoped for some comments... I don't think the situation is hopeless, but for sure something the team could discuss.

I don't play lately much civ though... more into lol ;-)

 

[nocho]

Vra, if we go all random with cripp, maybe we should also give this a decent finish? Or shall we just call this a technical win and be done with it?

Whatever you say.

 

[vranasm]

Vra, if we go all random with cripp, maybe we should also give this a decent finish? Or shall we just call this a technical win and be done with it?

Whatever you say.

oh well... is it win? Honestly in no mood to continue, but I think we didn't met the 40% and 10 WE's.

we're 5% from the 40%, so I think if we clear the Bismarck stack and catch all Korea's stack in MM land and kill them, then I would call it technical win ;-)

From that point it will be more grind and the participation is low, so no fun in that too.

hmhm... OK I am going to do the turn I proposed earlier and post report how it went and decide if we won or lost ;-)

 

[vranasm]

hmm played few more turns...

good news... Bismarck SoD is dead.

bad news... there is pretty big stack of grens, cannons and cuirs from WK near Kumbi Saleh and Timbuktu

so definitely no win... our stack heals in Djenne.

So do we continue or declare it flop?

 

[nocho]

I guess it might well be doable still (who knows what silly things WK plans to do with his stack), but nobody seems too eager anymore to find out. I think we played pretty well up to this unexpected DoW that caught us off our guard a bit. I rarely finish my solo games anyway, so I'm quite allright with seeing that we managed to build up a commanding position from a crammed start with so-so land. Hence, I hereby declare this a win!

 

[vranasm]

WE WON!!!

and even better we even fullfilled all the rules. Even if I made there critical mistake with using stocked GG for medic (had high attrition of medics ehm). I just spawned yet another GG.

The strategy was actually simple. The WK stack aimed for the upper city, but I didn't want to allow him to move on the hill so attacked next turn with not so fully healed troops. Caused heavy casualties. He then attacked us, making heavy casualties to ourselfs, I had enough to wipe his southern army though and still had around 8 cavs left....

Northern army was defensive, while amassing troops from our core.

Bismarck decided at 1450(?) he has enough and I took peace for some marginal gold.

WK came against north with ~8 units army which was bad, since at that point I didn't have consolidated north, but hold the land and slowly had upper hand.

After wiping his northern stack WK decides he has enough and capitulated without me taking ANY cities...

Then 6 turns of rebuild/heal and then it's declare on Bismarck, while farming our both horses to build BE's. at this point I realize I used all GG's... ehm... checked the gg points stats and saw 107/180... crossed fingers for Bismarck to have troops...

and well... he had... yet anoth ~15 troops stack luckilly totally outdated units... slowly grind through his land until the last city... there was no room for this on this map!

Then I switched culture slider to battle emancipation and general unhapiness + culture. We were pretty close to dom limit, but I thought let's attack Mayas to speed this up after south army healed up...

as you can see we could capitulate Maya now, but we are already over limits

Screens:








Adding save after victory (not sure if that safe is good enough for gettint the game into HoF)

Not the best date, but I think 1605 is still good considering all those complications and variant rules.

 

[vranasm]

I realize i didn't add SS with enemy losses... so checked it and as it seems we kill over 300 units...pretty good...

as usual with mounted 1:3 d:k ratio.

 

[nocho]

Nicely done, vra! At least a slightly more satisfactory end like this.