Nobles' Club CXLI: Augustus of Rome

[krikav]

Wonderful thing with siege is that they hurt many units.
I often end up with a bunch of CR3 guys (sometimes sword/axes, but more often maces) that tag along and get upgraded to rifles then infantry.
They do sometimes get much better odds than the siege (CR cannon gets 29% chance, CR3 infantry gets 97%) then I go with them.
So, instead of suiciding 4 cannons, I can first attack with the tough city raiders, then just suicide a single cannon before the normal units can mop up the weaker defenders. Saves 3 cannons for the price of risking the elite city raiders.

And it depends on a whole lot of other things too... But magical thing with siege is that it softens up units by dealing collateral damage, and normal units can't really fill in that role.
Getting that longbow which might get +300% defense or something absurd down from 5 to 3.8 makes it's fightstrengh drop from 20 to 15.2, huge difference!

 

[Excal]

Turn 186 1260AD

Spoiler :

Sully dead and Shaka vassal (at last)

IIRC an AI wont cap while they have a vassal ?
so I decide to take out Sully first who has become Shakas vassal now (previously was Napol)

Experiment:

Sully has only two cities, so I try to take them both out on the same turn with two stacks (just in case Sully jumps ship and peace vassal to some other AI - which I have seen before)
all goes well until I move both stacks into position for bombardment/attack - and then this triggers Sully peace vassal to Catherine (which I definitely dont want) even before I attack. so I reload and try again in different order - same thing happens, so I guess in this case for Sully the threat of imminent destruction triggers this ?

Plan B - reload and beg 10g from Catherine which of course stops the Sully peace vassal - and in one turn Sully is dead - and now Shaka will cap

gift Nodwengu back to Shaka
Ulundi has 3 settled GGens (will build HeroicEpic here) and he also built The Colossus

Next target ideally is Boudica, but she is vassal to Catherine
also Boudica was subject to "Stop Trading" AP vote, so I cant get through her border to Izzy or Napol

so no choice but to DoW Catherine (I think naval would take unecessarily long time)
will try to tie her up while taking out Boudica, then take peace

Tech Path: set to Cavs (with Shakas help)

 

[Excal]

Turn 237 1635AD

Spoiler :

DoW on Catherine and take out Boudica with Pinch Cavs/Rifles

Catherines main army is in a captured Boudica city (Vienne) near my main army in Shakas captured territory
meanwhile another army of Cavs attacks Catherine border city on the other side of the map to confuse her
this border city is junk (no buildings) so I raise it then capture adjacent city Rostov which has Parthenon - so I keep this because it will help GP production get me a third GAge
her main army suicides most units against my stack and I capture all Boudica and Vienne before making peace
takes a while because AIs have rifles now

next step tech Steel for Cannons and attack Izzy / Napol which hopefully will be enough for Domination victory

 

[Excal]

Turn 289 1838AD
Domination Victory

Spoiler :

after Boudica is dead, I DoW Izzy who is fairly weak, but she bribes in Napol who has a sizable regiment of rifles and he just made it to infantry (so it truly is the age of cannons now)
fortunately I am able to take these on in one of Izzy citites (no culture defence to Napol)
so I need to ceasefire on Izzy to deal with the greater threat of Napol, which slows things down

capture 3 of Napols cities but he wont cap yet, so take cease fire and move back to Izzy to cap her first because she has planted a junk city (probably Oil/Uranium) that cuts off my supply line through her territory to Napol

cap Izzy fairly easily and pickup Sistine in Barcelona which might help in the culture war being waged by Catherine
with open borders again I can resupply the advance on Napol and after taking Paris he caps

at this stage I am very close to Domination but Catherine is going culture and I need to take a few of her border cities to get the 64%
so overall took longer than expected to rap this up

guess whos going Culture ?