Yeah, that German Axeman looks like it will maul our Warrior 1, so we probably want to retreat our Warrior 1 to 1 SW G Riv
It looks as though one of London's build items was a Lighthouse.
There is a risk that England might whip a Spearman or an Archer.
I'd be far less concerned about an Axeman or a Swordsman being whipped.
One challenge with declaring war, landing, then performing the Espionage Mission is that the Espionage Mission would likely cost more in total due to missing out on the 20% Open Borders discount, even though we would get an extra 10% stationary bonus.
So, I'm also okay with trying the Espionage Mission now.
If it's successful, then we'd want to:
1. Not move at least one of our other Units (say, the Scout) so that we don't accidentally end the turn midway through our attacking
2. Declare War on Churchill
3. Amphibiously attack with the 2 Unpromoted Horse Archers
4. Amphibiously attack with the Combat 1 Horse Archer
5. Promote Axemen one at a time and attack with them--I haven't tested to see which would give us better results, Combat I or City Raider I, although by default I tend to favour Combat I for Axemen. Don't use promotions that we don't have to use, as a Woodsman Axeman would also be nice to have
I'd also suggest that after we capture London, we don't move other Units and stop play there. We may want to think about how best to deal with what we see remaining... would we try to stop Frederick's Axeman with a Chariot? Would we advance on York? Would we sail toward Hamburg? Would we sail toward Lisbon? Would we Pillage Churchill's improvements? Let's leave our options open for now.
If the Espionage Mission fails, I'd vote for declaring war and landing our troops on the G For that is 1 W of London, giving us likely +1 City Defender to face but better odds of winning battles (relative to attacking from a Galley with 60% Cultural Defences) and having actual chances of our mounted Units being able to retreat.
Since it's such a crucial decision, please wait until we hear from others before proceeding.
It might also help to write yourself a mini-PPP just so that the steps are easy to remember, and to give others a chance to comment on exactly what you plan to do.
Also, while you have some time, you might run some scenarios with the test game to see whether City Raider I versus Combat I would make a difference for our Axemen; if there is no difference in the number of hits for various scenarios of facing off against wounded Archers, I'd suggest taking Combat I, so that we can have a decent City Defender to help hold London.
It's unfortunate that Churchill hasn't met Frederick yet, so we can't bribe Churchill to attack Frederick.
Nice work on throwing together our army on such a tight schedule! Excellently played!
