PBEM - Dark Ages Always War [House of Valois]

[Dazz_G]

I've moved my Longbow and Explorer to the same spot as yours.

I think their land is supposed to be identical to ours ... if so, I would imagine the city is on the hills at the edge of the land bridge.

I too was wondering why Ruff left it so long to change civics.

 

[Mitchum]

No, their land isn't identical to ours. The map is generated randomly. The map created made sure that each side had about the same number of resources, but I don't think they are identical. I could be wrong...

 

[Mitchum]

OK. I just played my turn. Karhu's LB and Ruff's Explorer are on the same square.

I separated my Explorer and LB. I did this because if Karhu decides to attack my LB at 50% odds, if he wins, he would stay in the same square because my Explorer would still occupy the square he just attacked. By separating them, if he decides to attack either my LB or my Explorer, you'll be able to kill his wounded LB on your next turn.

Let's keep walking them back until we run into trouble. I assume that they are moving their other 3 LBs forward if they aren't waiting for us already. I've been probing with my Explorer first so that I can always bring him back with his 2nd movement point if there's trouble ahead...

I should be able to rush buy my Settler next turn. I'll settle city D and gift it to you. Are you planning to use your Jewish missionary in city D for the "free" culture?

 

[Dazz_G]

Forgot to get a screen shot ...

I've moved my Longbow south of yours and my Explorer to the West of my LB. No matter which of our units he may attack, there is always a LB there to mop up anything thats left over.

I can see his city ... two squares West of his LB / Explorer on Hills as I had thought. One Longbow present. No sign of anything else.

There is a strip of Forest running south from the city ... if I can reach it we may get through.

 

[Dazz_G]

Oh, and yes - the Jewish Missionary, when complete, is to pop the borders of city 'D' without having to increase the culture slider ... the more gold going into the coffers, the earlier I can rush my own settler.

 

[Mitchum]

You could lose your explorer. On Karhu's turn, he could attack your explorer. On your next turn, you could kill Karhu's wounded LB. Ruff could then kill your wounded LB and move his northern LB 1 tile south. If I then kill Ruff's wounded LB, Ruff could kill my wounded LB on his next turn. The net is that both teams lose 2 LBs and we lose an extra explorer. Of course, all of this assumes that all battles follow the odds and that your Explorer at least wounds Karhu's LB... Obviously, we can chose to not attack back if we wish.

We'll have to see what Karhu does to determine how we want to play it.

Note: My Explorer still has one movement point in this picture. I moved him back 1 tile north of my LB.

 

[Dazz_G]

This is the situation at the start of my turn.

Obviously they didn't attack my Explorer.

What I'm wondering is why ?

Only really two reasons I can think of ...

1. They would destroy my Explorer. But in doing so, their LB might be so badly beat up that our LB can destroy him for no loss. This means they either have to accept the fact they are a LB down or risk attacking our LB at 50% odds and run the risk of being 2 LB down.

2. They have something up their sleeves. We have been concentrating in developing land and rushing our builds to this end. What if one of them is working on Military ? You have just rushed a Settler at a total hammer cost of 90. Either of them could, for the same hammer and gold cost, have rushed 2 LBs. Or if they have horses hooked up, for 81 hammers / gold, they could have rushed a Knight complete with an attack of 10 and 2 movement ? If this is the path they are taking then they could be waiting for the new troops to arrive up front in order to have numerical superiority and if our LBs are still in the open .....

I am thinking that we should accept that, for the time being, we are not going to get our Explorers through and should withdraw our LBs back to the Forests and fortify.

I am also wondering if one of us should think about building a unit or two in one of our cities.

What do you think ?

 

[Mitchum]

I think it's more likely option 1. I've been watching the power graph and we've all been at the same level since turn 0. Also, all of their cities are still at pop 2, which implies that they're building settlers and workers like us. If they do start building units, we'll have at least 5 turns notice (more if it's not a mounted unit), so I'm not worried about that at the moment.

I agree that we won't get through. Let's pull back to the hills like you suggested.

I also agree that we should build a unit or two, but let's not go overboard. We'll just have to watch the power chart.

 

[Dazz_G]

I notice that Ruff, who already had a lead on Gold GNP, has just spiked further ... he may be intending to use his gold for domestic units but could easily be preparing to use them to rush military units.

Consider this ... had we continued our slow advance towards Rheims to try to get our Explorers through, at some point we would have had to break our line of troops. At the last moment they rush a Knight in Rheims and we would be pretty much powerless to stop them making a charge for our lines. They would outrun us on the land bridge and with only two LBs to cover 4 cities, we could easily loss a city.

That is why I think they may have been allowing us to advance with the intention of rushing a mounted unit.

Its also worth remembering that, should they rush a mounted unit in Rheims, we will have just 3 turns warning before they could reach our lines.

 

[Mitchum]

Let's just hope that they haven't hooked up horses yet. My guess is that hooking up horses would have been a second or third priority after getting food resources on line.

 

[Dazz_G]

If you flag the city location you want settled next, when I can rush my settler I will found the city for you.

 

[Mitchum]

I think your city location C is the next best city. We need to hook up our second source of Iron so that we both have access to it. I don't think it matters if you have 4 cities and I only have 2, right? What's important is that we settle the next best city in our lands.

 

[Dazz_G]

Rival Best soldier count has shot up at exactly the same time Rival Worst drops ... suggests that they may have gifted troops between themselves. This seems to be supported in the next shot ...



... as Karhu now has 3 LBs and no sign of Ruff's LB.

I'm fine with settling my city 'C' next.

 

[Mitchum]

I think we need to get Iron hooked up quickly. I would like to have a pike man rather than a spear to defend against possible Knights. Can you rush build your settler next turn? I will build another worker. We need at least 2 more to get our cities improved quickly.

 

[Dazz_G]

I'm not sure if I can rush it next turn or if it will be the following turn ... it will be close either way.

I'm starting to get a bit concerned militarily too ... if I'm right about Ruff gifting his LB to Karhu then he may be on the verge of building / rushing something along the lines of a Knight.

I think my next builds for 'A' and 'B' will be a military unit and a worker respectively.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm building an archer, for garrison, and a spear already. As soon as we have iron hooked up, I can upgrade the spear to a pike.

I should have given you all of my gold this turn so that you could rush your settler for sure this turn...

 

[Dazz_G]

Trading gold is a good idea we should bear in mind in the future ... especially for the settlers and workers.

 

[Dazz_G]

Another slight spike in Karhu's troop numbers and a slight drop in Ruff's. The shot above shows Karhu to have 4 LBs so I guess Ruff has gifted both his LBs.

I've managed to rush my Settler this turn so 'C' will be up and running shortly.

 

[Mitchum]

Where is your settler going? I though you were going to settle city C (Iron), but it looks like you're headed to city E (horses). I guess either is fine, but let's settle on our initial go-to-war strategy.

Do we want to build a knight or two and try to break through their defenses? Or do we want to build maces and cats and plod through one tile at a time?

Maybe we should build two knights and see if we can get one or both of our explorers through their defenses quickly before they have time to really build up. Even if we lose both knights, the information we get will be priceless.

 

[Dazz_G]

Unless I was sleeping at the time, I am pretty sure I sent the Settler towards 'C'. At least, that was the intention ...

I'm happy to go down the Knight route ... could be another stalemate though if that is the route the opposition choose to follow also.