RFSTL-01: Got Change?

[Trynthlas]

lurker's comment: Ouch. Been watching, since this is a bit above my level of play, and thought things were going to turn around for a while there...but meeting Runaway Rameses and both Alex AND SB about to DoW you guys...ouch.

Best of luck pulling something out! If it goes the way it looks (badly) and you decide to try again I'd be interested in joining the team at perhaps Monarch instead of Emperor?

 

[radiofreestl]

Sorry I've been MIA for a few days, RL has whacked me over the head. Go ahead and take it from here, yena. I should be able to do my next turnset, if we get there. Good luck keeping it together.

 

[radiofreestl]

At this point, I'm considering this game open to the first of the three of us that posts a got it. It looks bleak, but I still want to play it out.

Ralph, if you want it, go for it. Haven't seen yena around in a couple of days, but you can grab it too if/when you can. At the very latest, I'll take it when my end-of-semester nightmare ends later this week.

 

[radiofreestl]

I have it and have played 4 turns. Alex declared, and we lost Hastings, but got a boost in the last turn as SB finally declared on Alex and took Sparta. We have a stack of Maces, Muskets, and Trebs across the river to stop Alex's advance. He has a token force moving on London, but we should have enough to fight that off. Hope to finish later tonight.

 

[radiofreestl]

We're still alive, but can't say we're much better off than when we started:

1480- All hands on deck. Whipping, maneuvering, etc.

Hey, guess what? Ramsses has vassalized Hannibal, and they both love us to death.

SB offers Compass + 220 gold for Phil, which we take for the gold.

1490- As expected:

As Trebs come in:

There's no way we're going to keep Hastings, though I'll whip as much as possible out of it before we lose it. Going to set up a stack across the river to stop the advance.

Also, we get Emancipation unhappiness this turn. Neato.

1500- Alex bombards Hastings. Gives us more time to set up our defensive stack. He's also sending a token force toward London.

1505- Hastings falls. But we get a boost from this:

As you can see from the pic, his mini-stack in the west is going for Coventry, but we've whipped Muskets there and should hold that off.

1510- We hit his stack in Hastings with 3 Cats and a Treb. Makes a dent, but not much damage. Only 1 Cat survives. Again, more time. He bombards Coventry again. Still no sign of pulling back due to the war with SB.

1515- No advance, but he's reinforcing and we're out of Cats and Trebs for now. Whipped troops are still streaming toward the front.

1520- Alex loses his western stack, thanks to the defenders in Coventry and a cleanup Musket out of London. Only 2 Cats remaining over there.

He's reinforced and healed in Hastings. This is what he has:

And this is what we have across the river. Really nothing in reserve:

Ralph or yena, see what you can do.

 

[radiofreestl]

Save.......

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK Got it might be for a last stand but lets go down fighting!!

ralph

 

[W|M]

Good luck...

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well a slightly short set and we didn’t get by Alex so seemed a good place to stop.
Now Radiofreestl had cleverly put our stack in a tempting cross river situation for Alex to see if he would sacrifice his stack..

But it would need a large sacrifice before we could retake Hastings.

But then the Cavalry turn up in the form of Sitting Bull, now his stack was good enough to take Hastings in a couple of turns so we take the risk of crossing to be ready take it ourselves if desired... and lo and behold a few turns later ti does and I feel rather pleased to have take our city back off Dear Alex.

Our troops need to heal a bit but then rapidly advance on Corinth to see if we can hurt him some more. But SB’s Faster stack beats us too it leaving us with the consolation prize off Pillaging a town...

Meanwhile SB has been showing he is no great war ally as even refuse to give us 1 of his 3 spices whilst we are fighting a mutual war...

Now this war has weirdly turned into one that we want to continue because it would be nice to retake York and we have the troops to do it but unfortunately Alexander vassalizes to SB causing peace.... Didn’t expect to be irritated by Peace with Alex during my set.

So progress but in some ways a step backwards as there is no way we can tackle SB and Alex as a team.

Our economy is dire but we can delete troops to reduce our support costs which are so high as we are in pacifism..

But what then?? our tech position is exceptionally weak and we can’t war our way out of it anymore.

So I vote for claiming a moral victory by putting Alex into his place and rethink the variant... but happy to keep the team company and play my rounds if we want to watch Ramesses launch

Ralph

 

[radiofreestl]

Too bad...things were going nicely for a while. If we had York and Corinth, this might be a different game.

As is, though, we're clearly treading water. I vote for one of the following:

1) Re-roll on Emperor, perhaps on more water-based map, minus the deleting GP rule. No cottages is tough enough as is, and no Redcoat rush on top of that is plenty challenging. Plus, I think we had a lot go wrong in this game that was out of our control (poor land, aggressive neighbor, runaway Ramesses).

2) Re-roll on Monarch, including GP rule. With yena missing, we're only down to 2 players, so if there are more lurkers out there like Try who'd consider joining if we went down a level, that might be more fun.

 

[radiofreestl]

Too bad...things were going nicely for a while. If we had York and Corinth, this might be a different game.

As is, though, we're clearly treading water. I vote for one of the following:

1) Re-roll on Emperor, perhaps on more water-based map, minus the deleting GP rule. No cottages is tough enough as is, and no Redcoat rush on top of that is plenty challenging. Plus, I think we had a lot go wrong in this game that was out of our control (poor land, aggressive neighbor, runaway Ramesses).

2) Re-roll on Monarch, including GP rule. With yena missing, we're only down to 2 players, so if there are more lurkers out there like Try who'd consider joining if we went down a level, that might be more fun.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Definitely want to come back to this one. I would lean more towards 1) but would be happy with 2).

You could try starting a new thread to drum up interest over the festive season..

Ralph

 

[radiofreestl]

I plan to pick up this variant again next week or the week after. I'll post here once I have the new thread going.