Pre-Flight -
Things look great! Micromanage a little for an extra 2gpt and some more shields here and there. Check trades and decide to buy Econ for 49gpt from India. Upgrade 5 pikes to muskets for 300gp.
IBT - First thing that happens is India signs a MA with Germany. Idiots! Oh well we ended up getting econ for free and India can't touch us. The bad news is we lose two luxuries and saltpeter. Hmmm... our income jumps by nearly +100gpt with all the Indian deals ending (+255gpt). Goodie!
Our elite sword in the open retreats a knight flawlessly, then kills another and then dies (1-1), Germany lose another knight flawlessly at Oodnadatta. (2-1)
Canberra riots so I scroll ahead and stop any other cities rioting.
Turn 1 - We get a couple of builds finishing, cairns goes to knights, Rockhampton goes to pikes.
Oh yeah and in the interturn someone made contact. Our monopoly is over forever

Greece has navigation and PP but not econ so I trade him econ for PP + WM, yes I know thats well below market value but we might as well get what we can anyway.
Set research to Mettalurgy at 1 scientist (could do 10 turns at 100% science but figure that we want to be shortrushing knights so the extra cash will be a boon)
We have an empty army, can't find any reference to it being saved for anything so I decide to make a second knight army, hope there are no objections.
Move our stack besides Nuremburg, move muskets and so forth around to better defend us. Now lests start the combat.
Well after our bombardment I realise I have no fast movers to pick off the redlined knights so I decide to play safety first and hold the attack for now.
IBT - I hadnt actually put the knights in the army yet as I hadn't noticed we had the army till after I moved the knights so they were all covered by a musket. He kills a LB, redlines a knight before dieing, then the first knights kills 2 knights on defence but is yellowlined (after promotion). (5-2)
Turn 2 - Kill a longbow in our territory. Our bombardment of Nurmeburg sees a whopping 1hp knocked off. Oh yay!

This was probably an omen but I decide to charge anyway.
Our new knight army kills the first musket but is yellowlined, this reveals the yellowlined reg musket. I figure our elite sword has at least a par chance of winning a fight against a 2hp musket so he attacks and wins but no leaders. Of course it means that Nuremburg is now a smoking rubble!
Use our original knight army to kill that fortified musket and is reduced to 3hp. Ouch! (9-2)
Capture a cat and decide to relocate our attack force toward Oodnadatta.
IBT - no attacks in the interturn
Turn 3 - switch rubyvale to a settler to claim the lands of nurmburg, won't leave our attack force there, instead abandon the area and will send muskets for escort when the time comes. Finally get our attack force on the road to Oodnatta for healing before attacking Berlin. Short rush some knights.
Kill a german settler pair and 2 german muskets in our territory (12-2)
IBT - retreat an elite knight at Oodnatta, kill a vet knight with a pike defending our cat stack. (13-2)
Turn 4 - Scrolling ahead I see that New Boston finishes its aqueduct this turn and now that I look at it, it seems like an awful waste. There are no free tiles for the new citizen to take and so the taxman that will be created, while paying for the aqueduct... well it means its just 100shields spent on nothing, i feel silly for not changing the build. Oh well, when we get rails there it will be 2 taxmen so we'll have +1gpt from that transaction. But 100shields for eventual 1gpt... I switch it to a bank.
Found Byron bay (set to walls) on the hill south of Oodnatta.
Kill the redlined elite knight but no leader. (14-2)
Reshuffling our cats into position will take some time.
IBT - Kill a knight on defence but lose an exposed LB and a musket in Byron. dang. (15-4)
Turn 5 - Kill two knights. The first was a simple redlined kill for no leader, the second was a full health vet knight vs full health vet knight.
Our mates health is on the left
4-4
3-4
2-4
1-4
1-3
1-2
1-1
1-0 we win. I was pretty stoked to be honest.
(17-4)
IBT - kill a knight on defence (18-4)
Turn 6 - kill 3 knights and a musket in our territory, but no leaders. (22-4) We can have 17 cats ready for the attack of berlin along with 2 knight armies and 11 knights so we should be set. Move our dudes out. They camp on the mountain near Berlin this turn, will be able to attack (with cat support) in 2 turns. Rubyvale finishes its settler and a musket and a pike are its escort.
IBT - lose a fortified musket in a forest (so defending at 6!) flawlessly to a lb, lose the elite sword it was covering to a knight and a lose a defender in rubyvale to another knight leaving just old *FP to defend it. No more attacks but i was not happy at all with those rolls. Really regretting taking the guys out of rubyvale for the escort... also 7 knights ride into our territory, the attack on Berlin might have to go on hold... (22-6)
Turn 7 - start bombarding everything in sight. Some creative work with the cats, some longbows and the few knights I can muster means that all cities are safe but our 2nd knight army is reduced to 1hp and in the open. That means I have to risk a musket to protect him. (25-6)
IBT - well my creative defensive placements stop us losing any big stacks of workers or cats but we lose a knight on defence (25-7). India starts newtons...
Turn 8 - check with Greece (india wont talk) and they are up democracy, mettalurgy and physics! Crap! Also with our killed rep I can't think how we are going to pry those techs away with no 2-fers available. Steals? Glad that problem will lie with Andronicus and not me. Start our defensive bombards around Oodnatta and Rubyvale. Well after a pitiful showing that failed to knock a single hp off anyone with our entire 24 cats I cry

Then on to takin risks (somethign I hate doing).
Well despite the horrific showing of our cats our actual troops perform amazingly. Our knights kill 5 german knights and 2 longbows for the combined loss of just 3hp! Magic stuff! The Aztec Gods (and the RNG ones too) are smiling on us!. (32-7) Our lands are clean save for one pike. However it will still be 2 turns till Berlin burns (well do we want leo's? Could be useful...)
Found Newcastle --> walls
IBT - Oh right, failed to notice that pike was on our 2nd gems. He pillages it, just lucky we werent trading any atm. Egypt and Greece make peace.
Turn 9 - Dunno what happened in the interturn but I take a look at F1 and see that we in fact need 20% lux to stop half our empire rioting! Last turn we were at 0%. Army moves next to Berlin. Clear 3 knights out (35-7)
IBT - Lose a musket on defence. We have precious few of those and while the war with Germany continues there are no more in sight as noone has ANY to trade and the source in our borders isnt secure enough to risk workers there. If berlin burns next turn tho, things could be a different story.
Turn 10 - well our might cat stack knocks a combined 3hp off the defenders of Berlin and destroys the Granary. Oh joy..
well lets hope the soldiers are up to the task, like before.
Grit my teeth and prepare for losses...
4/4 Vet knight wins against reg musket (1/4) (at least 5 defenders in there...)
4/4 vet knight loses against reg musket (2/3) (at least 6 defenders...)
4/4 vet knight retreats against reg musket (3/3)
4/4 vet knight retreats against reg musket (2/3)
4/4 vet knight retreats against vet musket (2/4)
4/4 vet knight wins against vet musket (3/4)
4/4 vet knight loses against reg musket (1/3) and promotes it (2/4)
4/5 elite knight retreats against reg musket (2/3)
4/5 elite knight retreats against reg musket (2/3)
4/5 elite knight retreats against reg musket (2/3)
Ummm... they have at least 4 more guys in there and we have an army... ahhh... this is not quite how I imagined the fight going...
I can just see our army losing this fight and then us losing every knight. I withhold the knight armies charge and decide to call off the attack. This was a disaster. Luckily only 2 knights died.
(37-9)
As well as the army we still have 1 4/5 elite left. As thats a combined 3 attacks and theres at least 4 dudes in there im not stupid enough to attack Berlin, however there is a redlined knight next to our stack. Decide 'what the hell?' and attack with the elite and finally pop a leader! Huzhuat will make us a trading company!
(38-9)
Rush Smiths in Cairns (city of culture

).
At least some good came from this crapfest of a turn.
With more shortrushed knights and some more cats we can probably take Berlin in another 4-5 turns. Germany won't speak so that call will go entirely to Andronicus.
We are running at 8.0.2 with Mettalurgy in 31, several civs have it so maybe we could buy it. There are 3 cats in Rubyvale, do what you will but id probably send them to Newcastle, we have 3 more cats heading toward Oodnatta. There are knights in Oodnatta n the reason they are there n not with the stack is that they were healing after clearing guys.
Oh well, wasn't too happy bout that turn, had some bad luck but I still feel I should have done much better with a turnset that promised so much at the start.
Here's a picture of the front.
Good luck Andronicus!
tupaclives - just played
Andronicus - UP
CommandoBob - On Deck
Merlin
and the save