Rat20 - Middle Age AWM - Byzantines

[ThERat]

I'd say at this point of the game, nothing is too cheesy.
You can use any tactic that brings us over 30000points. Actually, if we have 3 armies that could walk over to Jerusalem, get that stack moving including the treasure. This would be enough to get us the victory.

The Roster
TheRat
Doc T
empiremaker
pindicator
Greebley - up
pat4

 

[pindicator]

Well, if that's the case, victory is definitely within reach. Send a SOD with settler, one of our kings, and the treasure horse towards Jeruselum and we'll have Victory. We have plenty of catapults and soon we will have plenty of macemen for a nice SOD.

 

[Greebley]

I think I will be able to play this weekend. I am in the midst of GR17 which takes a while, but I hope to finish that Saturday.

 

[ThERat]

sounds fine, Greebley

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I sincerely apologize for my sudden absence. Workload...

On the game:
For my taste, the capture/recapture thingie is too cheesy. You can win this conquest with England on Sid around turn 100 that way.
And, with the treasure - we don't need that.

And here's the really important part: The Treasure Horse.
The AI assassins always attack that one unit in a stack with the least def value (could be there also is something like a shield cost/def ratio involved; sometimes they prefer Armies).
Now, if they kill that horse - not that much of a problem. But, if they retreat it...and finish it off with a fastmover...and pick up the treasure...and return it...

By all means, do not march the treasure bearer next to Jerusalem or any other possible place with Assassins around!

 

[Empiremaker]

We could load the horse on a Dromon and sail it in to Jersulam.

 

[choxorn]

lurker's comment: Or, you could research intelligence operations and get spies (they have detecet invisible), thus figuring out where the assassins are, and killing them.

 

[Greebley]

We also have a leader that detects invisible don't we?

I finished GR17 and will start playing this soon.

Given a vote for no cheese I will not intentionally give towns away. (I can see why you could win on SID with it).

 

[Greebley]

I hope I did what we had agreed to do....

Preturn: Attacked and killed an Ansar Spear. There were signs that another unit was there - it was 3 assassins which I killed.

IBT: Assassin grabs some Cats but we can get them back. Odd place for the Assassin I wasn't expecting it.

1191 AD: Start abandoning things north of Constantanople. There is a lot to move out.

I went for map making. Spies will take too many turns to get (23 for Heavy Horses). I am thinking that Inquisitors are easier to get to.

1203 AD: Going to stop at 5 turns. I have abandoned the north. I suggest we keep one Army in Constantanople and one next to it. That leaves several armies to head south (4 I think).

I put the treasure on an army instead of the Horse for the reasons DocT mentioned.

My suggestion is to only take the 4 armies to Jerusalem. We will get there twice as fast. The Army with the shroud can defend and the other 3 can attack. If there are only defense 2 defenders, then we can win eventually right?

This allows the rest of the units to keep our Empire alive.

The Save

 

[ThERat]

since pat4 has not told us his computer is back online, I take it. Hope I can execute that plan and take Jerusalem, I doubt it has a mere 2 units inside, there should be a king in there as well...

 

[Greebley]

If it has many units it will just take longer [taking Jerusalem]. I am guessing armies will have to heal for example

I suggest you start by cutting all roads around it - isolate it first.

I finally realized why a boat was suggested for our king - if it is in the stack the assassins will assinate it and we lose. So we should be prepared to launch our leader if we start getting overwhelmed (or if we create only a single SOD.

BTW we do no need a settler I don't think. We lose by losing the rulers - towns dont matter. I tested this and it seemed to be the case.

 

[ThERat]

turn before the win

Pre-Turn
I can see it will take a few turns to assemble that take Jerusalem party
but we're pretty much holed in and have 21k+ points, far ahead of anyone

IT lose a horse to an assassin and a slave to boot

1.1206AD
attack some turkish units and get a MGL, rush an improvement with it since we can't form armies
run into an assassin by chance

IT Vikings land 4 units, 2 assassins take out 2 units in Brusa

2.1209AD
defeat 3 assassins next to Brusa
try and decimate a huge stack next to New Sidon, but only manage to get rid of the spears, not the archers
3 armies now at Brusa

IT archers attack and take out 3 maces, but New Sidon holds, barely though
2 assassins attack, one retreats an exposed horse, he other loses against a spear on mountain
scary situations

3. 1212AD/B]
3 mdi armies start the march to Jerusalem and take out 4 assasins on the way
dang the big stack at New Sidon

IT no attacks for a change and relieve

4.1215AD
2 armies reach doorsteps of Antioch, 2 are close behind
defeat a few assorted units including 2 boats

IT lose a horse in Brusa to an assassin, we get map making

5.1218AD
with the new tech,we are at almost 22k
defeat 2 spears and take Antioch, will abandon after our armies travelled through it

3 armies travel through it and end up next to Damascus, 2 hills away from Jerusalem

defeat the imaginary assassin

IT lose another 2 maces to those darn assassins, we can't tell where they are and they seesm everywhere

6.1221AD
take out Plovdiv, that was founded right next to our capital
take out one of those assassins, we now have 22800points

3 armies next to Jerusalem, one 2 tiles behind

IT worker bait works as one assassins reveals the location

7.1224AD
take out that assassin

attack on Jerusalm to begin, take out 6 spears, still a spear showing up

IT no attacks, but again a big stack next to New Sidon

8.1227AD
my goodness, take out 7 more units in Jerusalem and now an Ansar shows up

IT you wouldn't believe it, 2 Ansars are coming and instead of attacking us, they actually attack the Turks

9.1230AD
take out 1 spear and 2 Ansars in Jerusalem and spot this

our victory points go up to 33900
cheesy but it worked

don't show the victory screen as there is some bug and I get congratulated the have won a humiliating domination loss, go figure

 

[ThERat]

was a pretty weird game I have to say. In hindsight, we might have been better off to just block the north of our capital and look for resources elsewhere and expand south. During my last turnset, we did not get attacked once in the north

 

[plarq]

Congratulation! But that's weird when a non-Catholic country returns relic to Jerusalem. It's almost an exploit of the original design of this scenario.

 

[Empiremaker]

Wow! I didn't actually think the treasure thing would work. Nice job Rat and team.

 

[choxorn]

don't show the victory screen as there is some bug and I get congratulated the have won a humiliating domination loss, go figure

That's very funny.

 

[Greebley]

I got the right victory. Here it is ThERat so you can see it too.

 

[pindicator]

Good job, guys. That was a rough one, so I don't feel bad even if we can call our victory cheesy.

And all those units in the north were probably tripping around themselves to go around the Black Sea to reach our east.

 

[ThERat]

thanks Greebley, I don't know why my scenarios are sort of screwed up. All the messages and text is wrong, what is the cause of that?

I like this scenario, but not as AW...this should be played as a normal game on higher difficulty, I am sure it's fun...

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I like this scenario, but not as AW...this should be played as a normal game on higher difficulty, I am sure it's fun...

You've nailed it.

This Scen is about trading and exploration (sic! You'll earn a lot more for the worldmap than for any tech). Also, invisible units + AW-SGs do not work well, IMHO.

Glad it is over, and even with a honorable victory.