1350 (0)
Get a couple of vet cavs to try and protect the stack of undefended cannon.
Rush 3 ironclads.
Hired a stack of taxmen. (Tried policemen in a number of towns but only made a difference in towns like Thebes, Umtata, Isipezi and Tiensin.) Switched: Xinjian from aqueduct to settler; Harare to 'clad from Iron Works; New Ulundi from rax to settler; New Mpondo from rax to settler; Babanango from longbow(sic) tp settler; New Zunguin from rax to settler; Zimbabwe2 from rax to settler; Ulundi2 from rax to settler. That may prove to be too many settlers but the barracks will be of no use if we can finally finish this soon.
[IT]
French bombard our northern core and attack the cannon stack. Luckily they only had one cav free to do this. Germans attack Bergen and kill the defending elite cav. two more Germans also show up but run out of movement. Lucky for us as the other defenders were only on 1hp to start with. Vikings steal back those slaves that were, for some strange reason, cutting the forest on the front line.
1355 (1)
Our front lines are less than secure so the rifles from Molde and Hareid hop on the galleon waiting there and head for the front. They wont be able to defend until next turn though.
We kill the French cav and then bombard the viking rifle that has stolen our slaves and threatens to cut our lines to Bergen. The rifle is redlined and then an elite finishes him off. The remaining cannon Go to Bergen and deal with those Germans.
The army goes to Reykjavik to heal as mapstat tells me that'll be safe from flips with 6 units.
(so when you said no units on automove, what about that ironclad then?
)
I search around for our homebased cannon to bombard the French ironclads, hopefully encouraging them to go home again.
I rush a couple more galleons to set up a ship chain getting two boats/turn.
I steal the slaves backj and leave them in open ground in our territory. If they are going to be unprotected, they may as well be as easy as possible to steal back again.
I short rush some rifles to appear over the next few turns.
[IT]
The Germans send in another stack on Bergen and the Vikings send in one cav. We lose a cav and a rifle in the battles. The French meanwhile withdrew their 'clads but send in a rifle to join the party around Bergen.
1360 (2)
I deal with the Germans except the last one as they have retreated to a hill so our final cav would make it back to safety.
the ship chain is in half capacity this turn so a stack of cavs makes it all the way across. two galleons are waiting unprotected at the moment but they are empty.
Trondheim and Odense get rifle protection but I hold fire this turn on any attacks. If I can take Heidelberg next turn though our ship chain will be one leg shorter, hopefully speeding up our conquests.
[IT]
Each of our enemies send in two cavs apiece. luckiliy they are stupid and spread their efforts. We lose one reg rifle but our vet in Bergen (the main focus of attacks) is promoted to elite.
1365 (3)
Now onto the offensive. I use a settler to shorten the path to Heidelberg and a fully healed Dingane leads on. First vet rifle is killed for the loss of 3hps but the second vet is a much tougher nut to crack, taking 9hp from the army before falling. The next defender is a reg so I send in a vet cav after trying to deal with the 1hp French cav that might snipe along our rails. the first elite loses to the 1hp cav but the second does its job. back to Heidelberg then, the vet cav kills the reg rifle flawlessly, gets promoted and takes the town. Good as this will shorten our supply lines.
Stavenger is within easy reach of our spare cavs and we can ship over a stack of defenders so I decide to test the waters here with another vet. He knocks two hp off the vet rifle revealing a reg rifle. I smell blood so send in some more. The next three vets do nothing but at least they withdraw, as does the elite that follows. This is one tough reg rifle! I give it some thought and then decide to persue the attack. The next elite takes a few hits but wins, revealing a conscript. Another elite deals with him leaving the 2/4 back in the front line. the last elite is also victorious, taking Savanger with Newton's. All of our attackers then withdraw to the newly captured towns and Dingane is in a rax town so should be fresh after another turn.
I then ship some troops across and use a settler to close the railed 'back door' into our recently captured lands. Bergen, Odense and Trondheim are still pretty big so starving taxmen are in operation.
[IT]
Bad news. the Germans attack in force, hit a lucky streak and we lose Trondheim.
The Vikings exploit the gap and we lose one of our newly built ones. They also have a stack of 'clads with a galleon outside Aarhus.
1370 (4)
We retake Trondheim but not as easily as the Germans did.
[IT]
French send in a couple of cavs without success but the Germans kill our newly stationed rifle in Trondheim again. Lucky for us the Vikings are stupid. The galleon drops off a cav whilst a beserk walks into our territory.
1375 (5)
I lose another full health cav to a 1hp enemy cav but the lines are eventually cleared. Dingane has healed so Olso is our next target. A vet rifle is killed for the loss of 5hp but then it's a close run thing when attacking a reg. Dingane surves with 3hp. Phew! The next cav attcks another reg rifle but withdraws having done nothing. the next vet redlines the defender but loses and a conscript takes to their front line. The next cav defeats the conscript to reveal a beserk. An elite takes him out and another takes out the 1/3 rifle to walk into Oslo. (Viking capital moves to Copenhagen.)
[IT]
All civs attack Oslo, which is OK 'cos it's behind a river. Viking are walking their zerks across the border which is also fine by me. We also had a 'clad attack one of ours close to Aarhus and we won ( but only just).
1380 (6)
Firstly I clear up the redlined invaders that have been bombarded to pulp, hoping as I have done before for another MGL, but no luck here. I decide to use our growing strenth on the continent to step up the pace of the attack. Our army is healing and will be fit again next turn but our cavs take on the Vikings in Copenhagen. the first vet is killed and the second withdraws. The third and fourth also lose but it looks like there are no more fresh defenders. 5th loses (promoting the defender to 3/5) but the 6th beats a vet. another victory and another defeat leave a 3/5 defender. A withdrawing cav weakens the defender by a hp and then one more opens the city gates. The Vikings have stacks of cash at the moment and we take another 140g whilst sacking the city. The Viking capital moves to that well known centre of Scandinavian culture, Boston.
[IT]
Our 'clad in the seas West of Swazi fight off two attacks and gets promoted. The Vikings request an audience. Ha! The enemy are partially burnt out as no cav attacks and just a sole zerk comes across the border.
1385 (7)
Attack on zerk doesn't give an MGL. Dingane heads for Boston, losing 8hp to take out the first two rifles. Our vets then take over and Boston falls (plus 171gp). I use part of the proceeds to rush temples in Bergen and Oslo.
I then take Birka (gain another 121g-rush temple in Aarhus) with just 3 cavs but Miami costs us 3 cavs in the assault.
[IT]
We lose one cav in a counter attack but the Germans and French are sucked towards Miami. Vikings send one cav towards our back lines.
1390 (8)
I take things a bit easier this turn. Units heals, but we deal with the 6 enemy cavs and prepare for the next assualt. A few settlers are escorted into place to plug some gaps/claim some land.
[IT]
Only two enemy cavs show this time. The French one kills one of our cavs in Birka and the Germans still head for Miami.
1395 (9)
Dingane heads for Seattle and captures it with just two attacks. I WANT ANOTHER ARMY!!!!!
I was stupid in not checking the terrain-washington was on a hill and so was a much tougher nut to crack but it opened up the soft underbelly of San Francisco and New York, both of which fell easily and netted 196g.
[IT]
A few more cav/rifle incursions but they are now trying to bypass cities to get to the undefended rear.
1400 (10)
I attack and defeat the defenders in Stockholm. Not a lot else (apart from dealing with the enemy in our territory) as we have stacks of troops and an army healing. Settler heads to plug a big gap NW of Stockholm
Right at the end of my turn after I had saved, I noticed that I hadn't dealt with unhappiness in a Viking town and protected our new gain with a rifle. I meant to resave the 1400AD but I reloaded it. I hope that is not a problem but were so far behind the leaders that I guess no one would accuse me of cheating!
And now I'm not so sure that I actually dealt with the happiness issue in Bergen. Only a couple of things to redo and I forgot one of them! Oh well, there are probably lots of mm issues in our cities if we want to get a stack more taxmen. I'm too drained to do this now. Sorry, tao!
Notes:
We have about 170 tiles left to get so my money's on you to finish this off, tao! I've rushed a few temples on the new continent so this target should go down a bit. We might even be able to accept peace and fill in the gaps; I've not actually counted though as I suspect that we're better off steamrolling them.
I've not rushed anything this turn. If you want to rush a couple more settlers-look around old India and China. Some of our units benefit from short rushing, such as our capital which is on 30spt. A galleon rush after the first turn gives us a cav every other turn.
The ship chain in the north is well established. It needs 8 galleons as you can probably see, which leaves a spare one to go back and forth. I've just used it for a railroading gang. No attacks on the protective force of ironclads during my turn.
No attacks (or even landings) on the homeland during my 10 turns, as we've got them fully occupied in their lands, so I started to ship a few of the cavs in our homeland cities over in the last few turns.
See us home, chief!
tao (up next)
DBear
Furiey
Htadus
Tone (just played)
save file
; why didn't we do this earlier ?
Just realised that I posted here then forgot to sign up. Correcting that now.
