Pre-Turn)
Everything looks as good as could be expected. Markh has left it all in good shape, move a rifle out of Ur to cover our exposed worker stack. Things look solid, steam in 4.
Whats my way of managing things? Goals of course!
Turnset Goals
- Resettle a dyes town.
- Either burn or recapture Teoutihuacan.
- Get another pillaging army
- Go a-pillagin
- Whatever else I can manage.
IBT- Kill a Greek Cav, a Greek Rifle and a Chinese Cav all at New Ganges. No losses. (3-0) A greek Hoplite pillages our road.
Karachi: Cavalry --> Cavalry
Dacca: Market --> Temple (it is size 11 and running 3 specialists. I want one of those citizens working!)
Turn 1) OK Lets see what I can do here!
uh... thats pathetic... our vaunted cannons cause a combined 2hp of damage... those little buggers couldnt hit a cows arse with a banjo! Thats really bad as I had to pull a lot of defensive cannons out of position so I could watch them fail utterly. Kill a Hoplite with an elite WE and then a rifle with an elite cav (5-0). Kill 2 Chinese Rifles, a chinese musket (capturing a settler and a catapult) and a Chinese Cav (9-0). Kill a trio of Persian Cavs the last one with an elite cav who wins flawlessly (still 5/5) and pops a leader! Huzzah! Pillaging army ho! Rename the Cav 'Booya!PowerBar!'
Instantly form an army. The hard bit seems to be finding rifles to fill it... Send the leader to New Indus and form the army, fill it with the vet rifle in the city and the one being used to cover the workers. Can only find 2 'free' rifles... Decide to use the previous defensive army as the pillagers (gotta find somethign to do with 2 muskets!). Kill a pair of rifles outside New Indus, but lack the troops to deal with the remaining rifle and cav (11-0).
Raise science to 100% to get Steam in 1 turn.
IBT- No attacks from Persians or Greeks although a LOT of guys show up. China attacks New Ganges with maybe a dozen cavalry. Every single one is redlined and retreats (not 1 kill!!!!!) but none of them even scratch our rifle. 3 Chinese Cavs get dropped off next to a city defended by a warrior... Steam comes in, set to electricity at 1 scientist, move lux slider back to 20% before any cities riot.
Teoutihuacan flips from Greece to Aztecs.
Delhi: cav-->cav
Jaipur: Cav-->cav
Lahore: rifle-->rifle
Turn 2) Ok lets lock and load, rock and roll. HOLY CRAP THERE ARE A LOT OF GUYS IN OUR TERRITORY!!!! I count 17 cavs, 3 spears, 4 settlers, 2 hoplites and 8 rifles. Youchies. Lets see what I can handle this turn. Start by killing the 3 chinese cavs on our mainland. Redline 2 cavs and a horse to be able to do it but no losses (14-0). To the main continent now. Well this time the cannons come up trumps (I scored 21 consecutive hits before the first 'artillery barrage failed'). Kill 12 of the cavs, 5 rifles and pop another leader (thats my 5th leader in my last 2 turnsets!) (31-0). Rename the cav 'TL's a lucky mofo'. Nothing to rush so it will form another army I suppose. As we will have cash soon (min sci run) we should be able to rush enough rifles to make it a pillaging army (only need 3 rifles). The area is cleared of anything that can attack this interturn.
IBT- Guys show up, no attacks. Karachi riots, dont bother with specialists as it will be fixed next turn.
Turn 3) Start by founding 'New Dye Town' To on the hill to claim a dyes source. Lucky us! Don't move the lux slider but fire a lot of specialists and get us up 2 +206gpt. Check diplo, we are down Communism on China and Persia, ahead of the Aztecs and level with Greece. Everyone with steam power has coal.

Lots more guys have moved in so its a killin-time again. Cannons fire, cavalry and elephants charge and we emerge, once again, victorious losing just 1 vet cav. (45-1) This killing business isnt so hard but that one lost cavalry hurt us more than the 45 guys I've killed hurt them.
IBT- The only attack is at New Dye Town where our rifle kills a cav. (46-1)
Turn 4) Turns are already same old same old. Just killing fields. The western front in WW1 has nothing on this. We have moved, in the last few hundred years, about as far as an asmatic ant with some heavy shopping. Kill 11 cavalry, a hoplite and 2 rifles this turn without losses (60-1). Lots of guys still in our territory but the rest of our guys are redlined or on 2hp. It didn't help that I had to divert 4 cavs off with our 2 pillaging armies, i used redlined guys wehre possible. Capture a chinese settler btw. 4 cavs will arive next turn to replace those used in pillaging duty but we are short on rifles. I will rush them as cash becomes available for it.
IBT- Retreat two cavs but no kills in the interturn.
So...many...cavalry

Couple of rifle builds finish, New Dye Town gets walls.
Turn 5) I'm going to take a break here (not handing the save over, just pausing). you guys can add your input but mostly this game is just exhausting. Its taken me close to 2 hours to play these 5 turns because of all the thinking and planning of my counters. Start clearing out guys. Have killed 4 rifles and 6 cavs when I pop my 3rd leader of the turnset. Name him 'U need leaders... just ask me!'. Not sure what to do with him. Kill another 6 cavs and a rifle lose a cav. (77-2)
Ack... heres the save, not passing it on but guys I'm on the back foot here. I keep popping leaders but I dont have enough guys to stick in the armies

. Maybe rush some troops with him? I want someone to make us a dotmap for our new core, the sooner we get a palace over here the better for everyone involved. McLman (or ne1) can you give me the Mapstat info for our empire with the palace in Babylon. yes thats right. babylon. That would make our first TWO rings around the FP ring 1, I want to know where that leaves us.
We have a spare leader in New Indus. Two pillaging armies in Persia but only 3 cavs (so 1 wont be able to handle railroaded stuff). I'm considering a defensive cavalry army (using the cavs taht have already popped leaders, at full health it would be a 20hp 6/3/3 unit. Thats not bad. Not sure if armies get bonus attack in vanilla although they do seem to win more battles losing less hp... dont know though....
Wish me luck when I continue. Holding the fort is easy and the only goal not yet acheived is Teoutihuacan but I don't see how I can go on the offensive without artillery and infantry but they are a way off yet.
For those interested heres the save. I havnt yet decided whether to rush another rifle or a cav on the new continent with our cash, I will do that before hitting enter. Also a trick I've been using to protect cities is to take the defender out of Ur. Cavalry cant reach it so they march across open land toward leaving them prime to be picked off by cavs. The greater range of artillery over cannons would make it even easier to deal with them then. Also I know, I know rifles are damn slow for pillaging but we already watched a cav army get attacked and killed, so far these guys have been given a wide berth so they are probalby safe until the arrival of tanks, probably not for many many years.