summary
it was time to teach xerxes the story about marathon...
a two front war right from the start was unavoidable, but we made good progress against Iros and Persians.
total 5 cities razed, 5 cities settled.
further progress prepared, next player should make us owner of the nice Persepolis wonders.
start conditions
everything looks great, thanks DWetzel.
reduce research to 0%, lone scientist in amsterdam. mm amsterdam for +2 gold. income jumps to +57, feudalism in 47.
press enter and wait full of excitement for my very first ibt in a succession game... and
ibt
Inca want us out of their territory say sorry
Iros take Arbela!
disease strikes Arnheim argh
Haarlem settler - cat
turn 1 530BC
move the sod towards arbela and only now see that the Iros have taken it. stupid me!
somehow i did not see any animation in the ibt!?! i think over and over but do not see any chance but leave their borders again and then declare i think declaring with troops inside their borders would trash our rep and we sure do not want that. sorry for that delay of our attack.
change Utrecht from cat barracks and buy them (need another city to produce veteran units)
buy settler in Groningen and mm it to grow next turn
employ taxman in The Hague
change Maastricht to complete cat in 1 turn
Incas should get Lit in the next one or two turns so i do this:
trade Lit to France for 10gpt and 8gp (everything they have)
trade Lit to Incas for 16 gp (eveything they have and they would never give even 1gpt), the sucker stays annoyed
trade Writ to Yanks for 50 gp (pretty sure they´ll have it in a turn or two, too), Abe is still annoyed
ibt
Persia advances two bows
Iros kill one and move two bows to the hill next to Arbela (good as no road on it)
then the Iros ask us out (that´s the good in the bad, this way we lose only 1 round, again sorry)
Groningen settler worker
Utrecht barracks sword
Anrhem cat cat (for now)
Maastricht cat settler
Yanks are building the Great Wall
Scandinavia now has Mono too!
turn 2 510BC
i demand feud from the Iros and sure they don´t give it to us. do not say they did not have their chance i DOW them.
and finally and honorably move the SOD towards Arbela
i too used the last turn (my only possible excuse) to have one more sword in the north. now i move three swords in towards Akwewhatever.
we see that france has iron connected.
i am really crossing fingers the lux deal holds ragnar off...
1 MP in Amsterdam missing now switch scientist to clown
The Hague taxman to scientist
make Utrecht produce 5t vet swords
buy pult in Holwerd
ibt
France does not like us in her waters either say sorry
then: Scandinavia+Persia ally vs Iros!!!
Vikings build Sun Tzus
all the fighting between Iros and Persians
, Xerxes now having horses
Amsterdam sword sword
Rotterdam sword sword
The Hague sword sword (not skimming the worker as i need the 7th guy as the lone scientist now)
Holwerd cat cat (for now)
turn 3 490BC
start attack on Akwe
vet sword kills reg spear flawless, no prom
vet sword kills reg spear, 2hp left, no prom
3rd vet sword kills reg spear flawless and razes city, no prom, but 2 workers and 2 slaves from city
this gives no immediate relieve to the flip risk off Holverd (still 3%), the cp still coming from Oslo
settle Delft on red dot closest to Amsterdam, don´t see much
attack on Arbela (now down to 6, maybe making up for another excuse for my delay since no def bonus any more)
first cat misses
second cat hits and there´s only one 3/3 spear in the city
vet sword kills spear, gets promoted to elite 3/5
vet sword kills 1hp archer flawless, no prom, razes Arbela for 5 slaves from 3 nations
vet sword kills last 2hp Iro archer around flawless, no prom
attack on Tyre
only cat hits, unveils 2nd 3/3 spear
vet sword killed by Iro cat and 3/3 spear, spear promoting 4/4 attack wasn´t wise, but i didn´t expect a cat in Tyre
vet sword kills reg Persian archer at Samaria, shows Persian 4/4 horse and two 3/3 horses stack
cat from Delft going there takes -1hp from horse
1st vet sword attacks 3/3 horse and kills it, -1hp, no prom
2nd vet sword attacks 3/3 horse and kills it flawless, no prom
3rd vet sword attacks ¾ horse and retreats it, flawless
bring the other two settlers in position (f***, what did i smoke here?
one stays undefended for i forgot that my new sword can´t reach it because we do not have yet bridges. hope the same applies to whatever comes out of Tyre)
Groningen set and hurried to build another settler with growth
flip risk of Holwerd now nearly cut in half
ibt
Vikes have iron, for i see a pike
vet sword kills one Persian horse on def and promotes, but then dies to 2nd horse leaving it 1/5 :-(
Persian horse kills last Iro archer around
Iros leave my undefended settler alone huh, i am lucky here
Groningen settler settler
Vikes are building Sun Tzu´s, again?
turn 4 470BC
Breda founded on red dot closest to Rotterdam
Leiden founded on red dot on hill
road built to connect the new cities to our empire
cat @ Tyre fails
vet sword fortifies, enforcements come in @ Tyre
vet sword kills Persian ¼ horse @ Samaria, flawless, no prom
[getting myself a Stella Artois at this point Belgian reinforcements just in time]
Amsterdam grew and now needs two clowns
i sell the granary in Amsterdam because we cannot make use of the further growth anymore
hurry settler in Maastricht to produce with growth
some healing
i find that ragnar would not give us a per turn deal and already fear that anything could have broken our rep, but have no idea what. then i check with portugal and france on both continents no, our rep is intact. is it with the vikes because we are at war with one of their allies?
ibt
a few Viking troops head through Persian territory, hopefully towards their own lands
Persians bring quite a few horses against us, but only one attacks on of our healing swords, our sword killing the horse and barely surviving ¼, no prom
Maastricht settler settler
the Iros are now building Sun Tzu´s as well
nothing else
France now has Feud as well!
turn 5 450BC
battle of Tyre (hopefully the last one), we have 3 pults and 4 swords in position
all three rocks hit that really rocks
vet sword killed by cat and 2/3 spear
vet sword kills 2/3 spear flawless, no prom
vet sword kill 2/4 spear with 2 hp left, no prom, razes the city and gains 3 slaves and a slave pult
vet sword killed by Persian ¾ horse on grass argh
vet sword kills Persian ¼ horse flawless, no prom
vet sword retreat Persian 4/4 horse -1hp
vet sword kills 3/3 archer on hill @ Samaria -1hp
position siege force on hill @ Samaria
north front:
vet sword kills single counterattacking archer @ the site of the raced city
mini-SOD progresses north
join worker to Delft
mm a little
ibt
not the luckiest PRNG,
Persian 4/4 horse attacks archer+vet sword, killing the sword with 1 hp left
Persian 3/3 horse kills vet archer with 1 hp left
Vikes move a mace towards our borders
Scandinavia and Portugal sign peace treaty
barb galley sinks our fortified galley in french waters
Amsterdam sword sword
Rotterdam sword sword
The Hague sword sword
Vikes are building Sun Tzu´s
turn 6 430BC
siege of Samaria
1 cat hits, 2 miss
vet sword killed by archer+reg spear left 1/3
vet sword kills 2/3 spear, flawless, no prom
vet sword kills 3/3 archer, -1hp, turns elite
vet sword kills 1/3 spear, -1hp, razes the city for 3 slaves
vet ¾ sword kills 3/3 archer, flawless, no prom
moving my cats to the front and making major impact, 4 rocks out of 4 hit!
attacking a redlined spear with the only available and healed elite sword gains us a Great Leader, say hello to Abel Tasman!
we agreed to turn the first GL into an army, and that´s what happens in Leiden
adding two vet swords and attacking the 2nd redlined spear gives us our first army victory. place the army to take up the elite* unit next turn. no enemy troops within our borders now.
join another worker to Delft
rush sword in Utrecht for the extremely light troop situation in the north
mm a bit
renegotiate peace with Incas, but no trade possible (obviously no spare gpt), so we take peace again and their 16 gold
do the same for the Yankees´ few pieces of gold
the trade with the Vikes has ended so i check on the Iros, they would accept straight up peace and would even throw a bit into it, but not much (def. not tech); i fear ragnar could attack but don´t make a deal with him because we may want to change sides soon and go after him. his cultural pressure on our cities is a pita.
ibt
the Viking mace disappears again
a Persian 3/5 elite horse attacks our ¾ sword, kills him -1hp and gains a GL (runs away towards Bactra)
get the Heroic Epic message, our ppl want to build it yes i want to build that too
Utrecht sword sword
Halwerd cat cat
Inca in the MA
turn 7 410BC
south front
our second elite sword kills the Persian elite* horse, -1hp, no leader
position the next settler to replace the last razed town
position army next to Bactra, no sign of the Iro GL yet
north front
a few Iro archers appear in the ibt, thus i retreat my mini SOD. there is no real defense up there yet.
vet sword kills reg archer, flawless, no prom
move settler on place of razed Iro city
siege of cattasomething will be another day
rush settler in Groningen with growth
rush cat in Eindhoven
remember i had seen an Iro galley coming south, so rush one in Arnheim to stop it
ibt
2 Persian horses attack the stack on our positioned settler and die to cats and swords
reg Persian archer attacks cat-vet sword and kills vet sword, 1 hp left argh
Vikes move north
Groningen settler settler
Einhoven cat cat (for now)
Arnhem galley cat (for now)
Inca building GW
Iros have settled Chondote on that wee island NW of us
turn 8 390BC
found Den Helder in the newly conquered south. i really wanted to get a city down there with good defense against anything the Persians might send. most of their troops came from that direction. disband slave and rush walls.
found Harlingen in the very north. this is a settling place and a very strategic battle town as well. gives us much more flexibility against the Iros either on offense or defense. MUST kill Cattadada now though, as the cp is enormous. but i planned to do that anyway.
north front
2 cats take each on hp down of two Iro archer mini-SOD
vet sword kills 2/3 archer flawless, no prom
vet sword kills 2/3 archer, -1hp, no prom
south front
12/13 army attacks Bactra
def cat hits, army kills vet spear, 8 hp left, no further attack
retreat army one NE to cover SOD with settler coming in there next turn and in order not to face rock attacks from city. will have a healing round next turn (well, i hope. who knows, the AI might build an army from the MGL?!? - nah). this tile shuts the Persians fast lane for their horses into our territory as well.
change Amsterdam to settler ready on growth (next citizen being unhappy again)
Persia now is willing to talk. they have lots of money and are willing to either give us quite a bit of it (about 250) or a small city. Iros would give a city as well, not much else. sure no techs, Persia having Mono and Feud. I like them not having iron or this could get ugly...
ibt
vet Persian horse attacks Den Helden, killed by cat and vet sword, -1hp
other Persian units retreat
single Iro archer appears (they really make life easy up there with our min troops, approaching only one at a time
)
Iro galley heads back to their lands
Amsterdam settler archer (we really need a 2nd MP there again and i feel you guys dislike spears)
Rotterdam sword sword
The Hagues sword sword
Den Helder walls cat (for now)
Palace expansion for a 2nd floor
turn 9 370BC
mostly moving and preparation
add worker to Utrecht for size 6 and 6 turn sword again (corruption went up)
what is strange is that France ssems doing well on the other continent, they are leading in points as well, but our military is supposed to be strong compared to them. only to the ports on our continent, average to everyone else.
north front
move SOD of 5 swords and 4 cats again Catta, Iros have a 3 reg archer stack next to it, but i decide now it is the time and we have lots of rockthrowers to support our swords on defense
south front
not much, army healing, troops advancing
buy rax in Delfts
mm
ibt
Persians move 3 reg archers and 2 horses (1 vet 1 reg) S of Den Helder, good we have the walls there now
Iros move stack of archers AWAY plus one archer OUT of town
Delft rax spear (for now) @ 4fpt + 5spt
French building Sun Tzu´s
turn 10 350BC
everyone else on our continent knows feud. persia and scandinavia know mono.
north front
cats on Catta: 3 rocks hit, 1 misses, there are 3 insured spears inside
vet sword kills 2/3 spear, flawless no prom
vet sword barely kills 2/3 spear, prom to elite 2/5
razes Catta for 0 gold and 5 slaves, ship killed
south front
cats out of Dan Helden miss
vet sword retreats vet horse, 2hp left
vet sword kills reg horse, 3 hp left
elite sword kills reg archer, fishing for leader, but none, 4hp left
big stack including army moves 1 tile W of Bactra. army destroyed road NE of stack with 1st movement so there are no fast troops passing by towards our weakly garrisoned cities in the back. (Bactra slaves are to rebuild the connection)
by all means, you should be able to take the city next turn. settler is on spot to resettle. slave to disband and enough money earned ibt in case you want/need to rush anything. i´d probably build walls for all those annoying horses running around. i haven´t seen the Persian horse source yet but our intelligence is not really up to date.
i went a bit into detail because i´m interested on your opinions on the moves. well, i guess i know the thoughts on the obviously weed ones. sorry for that again, but we were lucky and nothing turned out to seriously damage us.
will post save as well as thoughts and instructions for the next player in a minute
tt is up
