The Height of Level 9 - Songhai, Asia map, mod Marathon, mod difficulty

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018. Finall there Ramky's unit coming! But they are not from the south, but from the east.
That's very strange... Easy to deal with while outnumbering it 2:1, though.
It turned out that there is another Siam warrior in the shadow to the east. It will soon show up.

 

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019. Gandhi wants Songhai to attack Japan together! We can't do that. We need Japan to fight Siam for us.

 

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020. Now Gandhi wants to befriend Askia! But I am not stupid - I am not going to ally with a peace lover (who invites us to war just now?) who never hesitate to denounce his friend.

 

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021. Here comes 2 more Siam Warriors (one of them was in the shadow in the east). I was training the 4th warrior at home, and my 2nd warrior was on their way back. Until then I have to be very careful and conserve some strength.
Strangely, Siam warriors did not active attack. Instead, they tried to slowly pass through Songhai's territory to get to the south. It seems that they were going home...
My guess is that Ramky's AI was trying to pool together enough strength to launch an attack on Songhai.
However, since Himalayas had a very narrow opening (1 tile), Ramky probably have blocked his own way, so the rest of his units had to walk a huge circle INCLUDING the enemy's territory in order to be ready to attack the enemy. That's... very good pathfinding.

 

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022. Here comes Ramky's units in the middle of their tour. I was able to trap the one on the east. And it didn't end well for that one. The unit on the left passed by, totally ignoring their comrades' SOS signal.

 

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023. Here comes the first policy. I was still thinking about Meritocracy for some instant key military tech. So here comes Liberty!

 

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024. I was just thinking that I had not yet busted a Barbarian camp, which would be really nice since Songhai receives 3X gold from it... and here comes lady luck. Songhai's Scout encountered a dying (1/30HP) warrior barely holding on a camp. 225 Gold!

 

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025. The lucky Scout kept exploring and found England, very northwest in present-day Central Asia. That river is probably Amu Darya (Amu River) flowing west to the Aral Sea, only partially showing on this Asia map. By Turn 900 or so (Year 2010), that Aral sea will almost dry up! But at Turn 68 it should be a very nice fresh water source.

 

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026. Ramky was quiet after only 1 out of 2 of his Warriors safely passed Askia's territory. But then a Barbarian archer visited. Nice try!

 

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027. Harvested Ivory #1! Sold to the Great Khan for full price!

 

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028. Very soon I had my second Ivory, but was holding on it since no AI I have met so far could afford full price. Then suddenly Bismark declared war on Askia - I don't even know where he is!

Of course I loaded to the previous turn to get something nice from him. This time it is war declaration to Iroquois + City State Warsaw. The CS gave the mission to kill 5 German soldiers (for 100 points of influence).

 

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029. Thanks to a very friendly suggestion in my last story, I realized there is a very good mod called InfoAddict. I am making a good use of it to monitor the AI's behavior so I can tune my 9th-level MOD better. From the military power historical curve, I can see that all AIs, including Bismark who just declared war on Aksia, have a large army, and Askia with 4 Warriors stand at the very bottom.

Siam actually had the greatest army very early on - that's when Ramky declared war on Askia and then on Japan. Soon his army got killed off a bit and fall to the 9th-level AI average.

 

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030. Since I couldn't see anymore Siamese Warriors and all my 4 Warriors were ready to fight, I moved them out a bit to see whether Bismark is coming. And he is!
The exciting battle of the 9th difficulty starts! It has been a long time since I was invaded the last time.
I can see 3 German Warriors - not sure how many of them are in the fog of war.

Bismark did a very poor job at preparing for battle. He sent a lone Warrior first. Guess who is going down...
But in this 30HP mod, in early game no one goes down in one turn. So that Germany Warrior will survive this turn with some heavy damage

 

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031. Picking the right unit for the right terrain is always important. In this picture, I sticked out my rough-terrain specialist (just level 1 - not really a very good specialist) on a Hill. The two German units that attacked it in the end-turn suffered great losses. Now I can easily finish off the Warrior on the South.

I also decided to pull back the two units to the north, thinking I can lure the attackers to advance further, and then I will be able to wrap them up from the southeast. But Bismark instead decides to back off. So that plan didn't work.

Also, my first Great General is born thanks to all the fighting so far. That will make things a lot easier.

 

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032. Bismark has largely retreated into the Ffog of war. As my men were still in good shape, I decided to move forward to fight more of them. Suddenly there is a barbarian warrior joining the melee...

The news comes that Genghis Khan has declared war on Bismark! This is geat news for us!

 

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033. After discovering England, I know I have hit the west end of the map. So I pulled back my Scout back to start some tour to the east side. Now the Scout ended his turn in a large group of Japanese soldiers close to Siam. I don't want to wait for Japan to collect a huge army, or they might actually overpower Siam and take the city (and grow to a superpower).

So I bribed Oda to attack right away. This way they both will lose a large number of units without really accomplishing anything.

 

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034. More battle with Bismark! It turned out that Bismark had 5 Warrios in total. Now it is 4 vs. 4. But the AI again has a poor taste in tactics, allowing its units to be attacked by multiple units at the same time. This incurs a +10% flanking bonus with each additional unit.

 

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035. The Scout followed the Japanese units to see how things are going. Indeed there is some fierce fighting happening up there.

 

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036. Now that all but one of Bismark's units are heavily wounded. It is time for a frontal advance! The number shows the order of movement. The central-left warrior unit goes first to provide flanking bonus for no.2 and no.3. Two more Germany units down!

 

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037. Another one gets surrounded and bites dust! I also have a heavily wounded unit, but since it is a Rough-terrainer and is resting on Hill, I can simply keep it healing and keep it alive. Things are looking bad for Bismark!