Rush a cavalry and a musket in the north. I switch two cities from cavalry to cannon, and I decide to go after Portugal instead.
We are wasting time with besieging Gibraltar. Hopefully we will have enough cannon to make a dent when we return after touring Portugal.
I want to take Gibraltar both because it gets us some VPs, but also in order to use it to extort a tech from the brits.
Nationalism costs us about 600 gold to buy, or 500 gold to research in four. Mobilization looks tempting, the only building we might want are hospitals.
I also happen to agree that we need more workers to get our production up. We have food and money galore, but when those hills are mined we will get some monster cities.
IBT: SIlent except for the ships moving about.
I slip in a worker build in Zaragoza. ( Size 12 and full with food. ) Valencia at seventeen gets a musket,
Jul 1803(1) I decide to quit the fruitless siege of Gibraltar, leave a sizeable garrison in Seville, and go after the POrtugese.
We are at 2185 vps, and France is at 6000
Lagos sports four muskets, all of whom are redlined by ten cannon. Four cavalry later, Lagos is ours.
Since there is no risk of flipping in this scenario, I do not starve Lagos at all.
It will take two turns for our cannon to arrive at Lisbon, so it will be a temporary lull in fighting now.
AFter capturing Lagos, a size 6 city, we have
2915 vps.
IBT: Ottoman agrees to sign a trade embargo against us.
Woa, Portugal live, they send a cavalry out to be squashed by our brave musketmen. Also a lone pillager is seen to leave the portugese mountains.
The british fleet seems to be heading to Gibraltar, as they pass our northern cities. Hope they intend to lift out a couple of lifeguards.
Madrid Cannon->Musket, Seville Musket->Musket ( Want to have three defenders in case the brits rush some cavalry in gibraltar. ) Zaragoze riots
Must be some other lux we lost by the trade embargo, as I am fairly certain I looked through all cities.
Sep 1803 (2):
The pillager proves stubborn, and kills one of our cavalry after our cannon miss his mark. ( Only one cannon in range. )
I send Prussia 51 gpt for
Code civil Too bad I didn't do that before I did my worker moves.
Code civil + 66 gold gets us
Nationalism and two workers from Denmark
Code civil gets us
Advanced tactics and 61 gold from France.
It doesn't look like Artillery Tactics is known anywhere, so I decide to grab Espionage while I can, and
Code civil + 1 gpt gets us
Espionage from Prussia.
France economy is shot, he has no gpt to offer.
Since we are building military everywhere, I now mobilize before optiomizing in our cities.
IBT: Prussia and Denmark signs peace. Prussia and France signs peace, Ottoman and France signs peace, And Denmark and Ottoman sign peace.
Barcelona completes a cavalry, sneaks in a worker, Medina completes cavalry, starts another, Zaragoza completes a worker, starts a Soldato.
Oviedo completes cannon, Uses a policeman and starts another cannon, Corunna completes a cavalry and starts another,
Nov 1803 (3): Lots of positioning. No battles. With the absense of fleets to our north, I decide to send a small sod southwards towards Porto,
leaving our northern garrisons somewhat light.
OUr stack of artillery reaches Lisbon, and hopefully this siege will be somewhat shorter.
During the IBT, France apparently researched something, as they now have 1500 gold, and both Military logistics and Artillery tactics as well as some 1500 gold.
Gold most likely from the Ottomans who had such a bloated coffer last turn.
I will see if I can wring some deals out of this.
No good deals possible, so I just fork up 61 gpt to Prussia, and gets [Artillery Tactics[/b]
We can upgrade our cannon shortly, and return to Gibraltar.
IBT: A cavalry strikes out of Lisbon, but is defeated by our muskets defending our cannon. Madrid SOldato->Soldato, Valencia Soldato->Cavalry
Jan 1804 (4)
Discover there are six muskets in Lisbon. OUr cannon yellows most of them, but there is a three hitpoint one on top.
I rush a barracks in Lagos. I want to rush a soldier here, so it is not guarded by a valuable cavalry.
Cavalry goes
win + promotion
loss but redline
flawless retreat
retreat
loss
retreat
win
IBT: Ouch, the british fleet I assumed was empty, just landed four cavalry on our silks next to weakly defended Lagos.
Lagos Barracks->Soldato, Barcelona worker->Cavalry, Carthagena Battery->Soldato, Pamplona Cavalry->Cavalry, Merida Cavalry->Cavalry,
Mar 1804 (5) OO, discover that the batteries can shave two hitpoints off of a cavalry. This will surely help.
Not much help when I only hit with two of my three batteries, and my two cannon miss completely.
Not much better in the siege of Lisbon where I can only shave eight hitpoints from the four defenders.
Our first defending cavalry kills the top unwounded british cvalry. Our second defending cavalry defeats the second unwounded cavalry, and things look much brighter,
as we now only have two wounded british cavalry to deal with. We have three defenders and some artillery in Lagos.
I pull our wounded cavalry out of POrtugal, so that they have time to heal before we hit Gibraltar again.
I give Portugal no more than one or two turns of survival.
Porto is defended by only one veteran musket and an unknown number of conscrips. Our cannon just reached them, and they should fall next turn if you care to strike across the river.
Lisbon should have two muskets inside, and whatever they can rush this turn. I do not think they have conscripts, as those should be defenders before two HP muskets.
Our silks is likely to be disconnected, but I would prefer that to them striking out at Lagos, and kill our units in there.
Once we get peace, we ought to be able to get something for all our techs. Hospitals could be nice to have, but I doubt the AI will research those in time.
Go get them people.
You might wish to worker rush a Soldado in Lagos. We have the economy for it.
All in all, I am happy the Brits landed those cavalry by Lagos. If they had unloaded them in Gibraltar, we would have lost Seville and loads of artillery.
Zaragoza and Valencia ought to be able to reach 30 spt and spit out those cavalry during the next five turns, given the doubled capacity of our workers.
Corunna is a good city to rush in, as that is our shield poorest city. Do rush here if you do not rush in Lagos.
Madrid could perhaps reach 45 or 50 spt. I would however like to have us produce two soldados every three turns, given the likely losses in the next campaign.
If we want to go after Naples instead of France, then it is time to start building ships.
Grimjack
