Went with something between options 2 and 3... herein lies the tale... (see above post
for part A of this post actually, this below was too long
)
[0] 1107 - Build queue looks great. Norse Sage city is rather undefended, and will
need beefing up, but it had to be built in a coastal city (Uskudar). Suzdal gets MM
to finish the zerk in 2 not 3, but else is good.
I pull the trigger on buying in Poles vs Bulgars, and have to throw in horses for it.
I include an RoP to get them out of our land quicker.
IBT - Poles jumble around and are seeming to head... North?! Dane warr loses to warr.
Germany finishes Domesday Book. England swaps to Tapestry.
[1] 1110 - I like this new saga! Three elite attacks and the third one, on a German
settler pair, yields an leader! He awaits two more cities to found an army.
Peace with France, she pays almost 60g. IBT - Magyar sword beats zerk.
[2] 1113 - Perevaslavl is founded. That's enough cities for another zerk army.
We build it and fill it. One spear killed at Aarhus. Troops move into position.
Cordovans will pay 23g for peace, ok. IBT - Byz and Burgundy come to peace.
In good news, Byz declared war on Abbasids!
This is world war I! Alas, their
VP total will skyrocket if that's a real war.
[3] 1116 - Tmutorokan is founded. We capture Aarhus of the Danes defended by two spears.
We call for peace with Danes, though it costs us still a few gpt - for Norway was
on our northernmost, and allied with the Danes was too insulted to talk. Now that
Danes are clear, they'll take peace for free, in fact, will pay us WM+20g.
Must be a cascade, now Germany will talk, and will pay WM+5g for peace. Excellent,
we are now ONLY at war with those we want to be, Bulgars and Magyars, and I'm letting
them slide in a few turns after I raze their king city. We capture Pecs.
IBT - Beat two swords but lost a horse on defense. Cordoba joins Byz vs Abbys,
so does Norway.
[4] 1119 - Hmm, more worker turns lost?? Bah, in the preferences, please do
*TURN OFF "Cancel Orders for Friendly Unit" About a dozen worker turns just lost.
Belgorod takes hvy casualties, 4 spears, but still spear on top. We're doing piddling
around with them, two MORE armies move up, a total of four next to their city!
IBT - Bulgars offer peace, straight up? Hmmm... it's tempting to press on vs Magyars
instead, and I might still do that, but I'll look at situation on my turn.
(Wow though, he'll give a small city) IBT - Burgundy and Cordova come to peace.
Norway moves some units up next to Novgorod. Ruh roh... heading TOWARD someone, or
is this trouble? There is SO much troop movement and warfare it's impossible to tell.
[5] 1122 - The unhappiness in our land is extreme. I get Castillian wines from the
backward country for early siegecraft. Vezprem goes down! If they had not sent an
archer our way from there they could have been ignored, but no... rax intact.
At Belgorod, spear and sword are killed, revealing the king! The city can't
really be kept, and is razed. Our armies will have to heal next round though.
Ok, one Magyar king dead, the Magyars pretty gassed, and their second king is about
10 turns away if we're not distracted, through the heartland of the Bulgars. If
we turn on the Bulgars instead, their capital is so close we'll hit it on 3rd turn.
What could we get for Magyar peace? Just two cities. If they had masses on our doorstep
it would be one thing, but if they passively sit by, why take peace now? Likewise if
the Bulgars pull a dozen swords out of the woods around Kiev we'll chat but for now
I'm planning to torch their capital. IBT - You want the good news first, or the bad
news? Good news is that the Norway mini-SOD kept right on moving. They're heading SE.
The bad news... remember that fear about a green SOD moving out of the fog. Yup.
19 swords, 6 spears, 4 archers. Thankfully not Kiev, but Balatonboglar. They'll be
next to it next turn. We just plain have too few units. With 19 zerks in that city
it would be a slaughter. If the armies were fresh they could just reach the city
in time to defend it, then counter next turn. The best two are 9hp and 8hp. Would
the AI choose not to attack them AT ALL, or would it realize it could wipe two out?
That retreat also distracts our armies from king killing. What DO we have on hand?
The North army is in range, with time to heal. Also six zerks can reach in time.
At this point, fighting the incoming waves for leader generation seems best along
with no delay in killing the kings. It was time for bed anyway, so I posted the map
and question to the team, and that seemed the consensus too. If (but only if) the
Bulgar waves is too crushing, we'll take peace and wipe out Magyars. But I think if
we have a green army defending they may stay on the road.
So that I don't have to cave to Bulgars next round, I do pull one army back to
defend but the other three stay in place and heal. I can't afford to wait much more
for Bursa's blacksmith (what an odd choice for a small corrupt city, btw), so it's
rushed with 9 turns to go. Next up will be a quick town hall. Hmm, right next to the
stack is a sword-settler. If I let it live we won't be in neutral territory to heal.
One hurt army kills it then pulls back away from harm. The second hurt one kills a
spear, pillages, and moves to same place.
IBT - Wow, that's a lot of units moving up. They come in three squares, not one big
stack. The rampaging French have wiped out the Burgundians. Well, that's one more
civ down!
[7] 1128 - Eight swords killed in front of Balantonboglar. We took more dmg that I thought
and got one promotion, but no ldrs. It rushes its rax. A green army kills two and covers
the city with its fearsome presence. One spear also killed there. The returning
army, also green, enters the city and kills another sword.
IBT - Well, I didn't want them to attack the city, and indeed they did not, but
they did the next scariest thing, moved right next to Pereyaslavl, undefended.
13 units, more than we can kill, so an army will have to go over and hold it.
[8] 1131 - Still next to Batatonboglar are five swords.
With Heavy cav due in 4, I start a few horses, hoping for a quick upgrade and (if an MGL)
a Cataphract army. There are 11 Magyar swords now that have shown up right near where
the 'intermediate' armies were healing. They'll need to pull back to rax town.
Crud, lost a near-full health elite zerk at Balaton, but rng corrected itself by
coming up with Svyatoslav the next attack. We have 24 cities and *CAN* make an army.
Since we can not support any more, I leave him *EMPTY* to be filled with Cataphracts.
He's in Suzdal for now. We're able to shift the Balon army out of the city next to
the front SOD and with his cover kill four swords next to Pere.
Bursa's town hall it part rushed, to get this to be a contributing town quicker.
IBT - To my horror the Bulgar stack gets bold and attacks Pere anyway! The initially
10 hp army is fortunately able to hold off 4-5 attackers, and the city and army
hold. Are they getting smart, lucky, or simply more brazen. Be careful about letting
an army surrounded by several units even get as low as 10hp though. They could have
pressed south instead to poorly defended Pecs. In fact, that's what the 12 Magyars
swords are doing. The healing army went there where a rax was rushed though, so he'll
be full next turn. One other Bulgar pillages, and two spears move next to Suzdal.
But the stack is almost dissipated.
[9] 1134 - Our zerks and armies wipe out the Magyars around Batalon, there is not one of
that front wave left standing. An army heads over to Pecs to hold out. I hope they
move instead of attack. IBT - They move!
[10] 1137 - Two turns to hvy cav, and it should take these two turns to slaughter the
loose units, so for a much cleaner hand off and a good discussion point, I'm going to
do those two turns. Tech wise, it's been a while, but Abbasids and Byz have Divine
Right, as do France. Danes lack DivRight, have Polearms. Most others have neither
and are too broke to pay. It's an insult to even think of buying Divine Right, so
no two-fers here. Two elite horses attack hurt spears. One retreats, the second
brings home "Yaropolk of the Deadly Hooves"
Our next leader's agenda now includes
four more cities!
The smack down at Pecs is serious! Almost a dozen Magyar and Bulgar units lie dead
the the feet of our berzerkers (and new hooves - Kiev is 30spt after that settler
he kicked out first round
)
Our Pliska army finds out there is a catapult there and with a city founded east of
him realizes he is hopelessly alone. Ok, he never should have continued alone in the
first place. I thought the other two armies would be 1-2 turns behind, not in the
middle of a huge bloodbath! He returns to meet up with the other armies.
IBT - No counterattacks. Bulgars and Poles come to peace. Useless Poles.
There are *far* fewer now crossing our territory. Sweden completes Tapestry.
[11] 1140 - The poles are now cautious not gracious, as the RoP was included in the
alliance, so they've broken the RoP. IBT - No counters, small stacks move forward
toward the killing zone. HC comes in, must choose something new to research.
Franks are building Robin Hood, so they've got their first sheriff's office built.
[12] 1143 - Research is a tough choice. If we need anything, we need it in less than
40, and we can only spare one scientist. Defender of Europe (last in Byz tree) would
give Battlefield Med wonder, but expensive shields and not a great value. I start on
Middle Class min-sci, but it just started, so choose whatever you like instead.
On a lark, btw, I tried scrollahead to upgrade the horse to cataphract, and it worked
giving it a movement this turn, allowing the start of the army. Alas, wow, 120g per
upgrade. After the first one we're not only near 0 gold, but we have major income
problems.
With the need for cities and the Pecs delay, and army captures Szombathely, and a hurt
horses moves in to defend. Consider strong sending 1-2 zerks over that hill to also
capture Stara Zagora for another easy city (although tis size 1 right now)
The last defending spear almost went down in history as an uber spear, knocking off 6
pts from the army.
Ok, everything is cleaned up, armies are sitting about to heal, and the handoff and
situation are clean. The timing is also such now that Grimjack should either be right
at or just done with killing Pitesi and wiping out the Bulgars at the end of his turn.
(If it looks like you're a turn short in fact, press on and finish them. Even two,
but not past that.) Rock on, Grimjack!
Notes to next ldr (Grimjack):
- West of Balaton frontline city, in the tiny BG grass fog spot 3 SW of the city
is a stack of 6-7 Magyars. It had a hurt green spear on it that the Cataphract killed
and promoted on.
- Do wait for more cataphracts before using the army, we would hate to lose it.
- There's one unmoved zerk, and the two unmoved armies are fortified planning to heal.
- You are all set now to go king hunting in earnest, after 1-2 rounds of healing.
The units the green and yellow are sending are now EASILY faced by the zerks we have
on hand, which now total about 10 in the area. The unmoved zerk can hang, return to
Balaton, or go down to capture Stara Zagora.
- Send at least FOUR zerk armies west, to Pliska, then Pitesi, then finally Pest.
BE NOT DISTRACTED neither right nor left in thy killing. Strive greatly to keep one
army at full or near full strength and they should totally ignore you. There are two
other armies- the fast one waiting two more, and the red zerk army just SE of others.
You might keep them back, and when a third army is filled, send that trio on a separate
king hunt??!
- Kiev has a Cataphract due in 2, Pskov in 3. Two towns are working on settlers so we can
let our idle MGL make another army of CP's.
- Our biggest problem right now is the economy. We're at 52g, -18gpt. That's not QUITE
as bad as it looks, as I sold maps around for 15g this turn. You may have to do that
frequently unless you have some other cash trick up your sleave
- Choose a new tech. I just noticed Byz have Defender of Europe and Intel Ops.
- There is a zerk right next to Vacs, and one more next to him to take that Magyar city.
It's a newish city that recently sent out and lost a spear and archer and so has two
spears in it at most, one if we're lucky. An archer up north near Nagykanizsa just
killed an archer and is healing. He's toying with idea of attacking the city.
- Fight up coming miniSODs in OUR territory not theirs! By doing so I've kept zerk
losses to a bare minimum this turn, despite killing DOZENS of other units.
- Ignore any French, Polish, Swede or Dane units moving in our lands. Do NOT try to boot.
- PLEASE don't get into any new wars if at all possible!!! If someone demands 16g,
give it cheerfully and "add them to the list". It's taken this whole reign to get out
of a dogpile and to gas two civs, we just don't need any other grief besides the
nations whose kings we're hunting. But Grimjack knows that, he's a bounty hunter!
- What is the VP situation? Good question, I've avoided looking!
We have 14390, Byz have 8540, France 7230, Abbasids 6520, Sweden 4650. We are clearly
our own worst enemy as far as VP limit before conquest is concerned! Fighting two
nearest neighbors simultaneously and fishing we had no choice, but we really need to
move to assassin mode now. (Start of my turn, we had 9700 and Byz 5000).
It's rough, to be sure, but looking up!
A new look at the terrain...
Charis
Jabah <-- UP
Grimjack <-- on deck
Akots
RBC13D Rus 1143AD
Good luck!
Charis
Hope next leader will think of niceties like that better than I do.
Green? You mean yellow? The green Bulgars are gone, leaving now the Magyars, but them only for a few turns.
Just 20 turns ago we were at 35g-18gpt purely surviving on map sales hidden income, what a great job on the economy. Paying attention to the wool will be important. If a 'French' settler poaches it, all the better!! (They're our next target and we should have a mini-Sod ready to capture and keep that city right when we declare war on French)
