War with Spaniards

[YossarianLives]

2 cities in 2 turns ain't half bad. Great job General bistrita and general 2metraninja! Even if they concentrate all their forces to hit us before we take their capital, we should be able to survive all their cats+ axes+ impi no problem. If they wait to hit us until after we take their cap, well then they're screwed anyways.

All in all I'd say we're in pretty good shape.

 

[2metraninja]

Looking at the map I figured out how we capture Nobamba at t152 (in 3 turns) Good luck to French in being faster than that. We also capture next turn the city south-east in the fog. Maybe that is the barbarian Chinook?

 

[YossarianLives]

Based on unclaimed improvements we can see after we traded maps with CP, the city of Chinook must be about 5 tiles east (and maybe 1 tile south) of Nobamba.

The city to the southeast of Nobamba that appears to be coastal on the salt lake between CivFr and the Spaniards must be the third city that CivFr wants to take.

 

[2metraninja]

Aha, thanks, those were my thoughts too.

We need to finish our turn tomorrow. I did some units moving, city builds, etc, but we need to decide if we show our knights in the north (bistrita wanted them hidden) and try to capture Nobamba in 3 or maybe in 4 turns if we wait for other 2 knights to be just more sure we will take it.

We will wait also only to tomorrow for answer from Spaniards and if we get none or we get rejected, we will kill 2 catapults of theirs and capture anohter worker in the south.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Capturing the city with fast moving Knights is good, but we also need to be able to hold the cities against CivFr when they become enraged and DoW us to claim the cities that they told us they wanted... in advance.

Don't get me wrong, I am fine with starting a War with CivFr if we are ready to win it, but just don't think that they will just tuck tail and walk off when we capture "their" desired cities.

1 beer bet.

 

[Calis]

And what about capturing and razing "their cities"?

 

[2metraninja]

And what about capturing and razing "their cities"?

LOL, why would we do that? Way better to take those for us and keep them. They are making demands way beyond the "we will take whatever we can opportunistically". They demand not only cities, they demand that we keep off the free land between the cities they request and those who they allow us to keep for fighting this war.

 

[Maga_R]

LOL, why would we do that? Way better to take those for us and keep them. They are making demands way beyond the "we will take whatever we can opportunistically". They demand not only cities, they demand that we keep off the free land between the cities they request and those who they allow us to keep for fighting this war.

Let us not get too emotional here. No doubt they are acting very arrogant. But no reason to let them to manipulate us so easily - we do not have to answer with rage-DoWing them...

 

[YossarianLives]

Pictures for those of you without the TFW Dropbox folder!

Here's a composite shot of the armies on the Zulu front:

Spoiler :

Here's a cleaner picture of the area without all the jumble (and slightly to the north)

Spoiler :

And the southern front:

Spoiler :

For anyone who wants instant access online, on your home computer and/or on your phone to the dozens of screenshots that 2metra takes of every turn, simply register at Dropbox and tell me the email you used so I can share the folder with you. DropBox is absolutely, 100% free and easy to use.

 

[2metraninja]

Here is how the North looks. I want to move the spy to check this, but my guess is they moved their main army in their capitol direction, scared by the group which roads to the forests NE of KwaDukuza.

Spoiler :

In the South, just as expected, their Northern city is lightly defended and we can take it. Two things I did not expected. To have shot at both cities - left and right fork, because Spaniards decided to try to escape with their impi/chariot mini-stack. Way clever would have been to reinforce their southern city. Now those coward runners will die in vain in the woods pierced by bolts in the backs to death by our xbows and chopped by axes.

The southern city (right fork) is at size 1. Yossa, what is the chance that this city never grew to size 2 and will be auto-erased? Or the whip we saw this turn was this city whipping a spear/archer?

Spoiler :

 

[2metraninja]

So, Ondini is not the city they planted last turn (if they planted a city at all). Ondini was there at t148. Lets see if we can see when it was planted to make an educated guess if it will auto-raze or not.

 

[2metraninja]

I think Ondini was planted some 3-4 turns ago, so it will be razed. Too sad, but we cant leave it anyway.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You think maybe it was a ruse to get us to delay/split up our forces to keep them from reaching the good fat cities in time? There is a barb Axe Down there that will probably capture that city soon anyway. Do you think it is worth the trouble?

Or maybe it does not disturb our plans to beat the French to the good cities?

 

[2metraninja]

It is not a ruse, just overlooking by Spaniards. They did not knew we will see all cities and be so quick to hit them. They are collapsing uncontrolable.

 

[whb]

Beware of griefing strategies. I wouldn't be too surprised if they decided "stuff trying to defend an unwinnable war; let's just sneak the stack round another way and raise a few cities before we die"

 

[2metraninja]

Yes, we look and consider such possibilities too. Lucky for us, we have advantage in all spheres. Better units, more, faster moving and not at last place - visibility. We know where they are each turn.

 

[YossarianLives]

There is a beautiful picture tutorial on How to Wage War Like a Ninja in the TFW Dropbox folder. Unfortunately, the app is still down so I'm just going to post the highlights here:

Spoiler :

A brilliant use of Fast Workers allowed us to capture a city and raze another this turn in the south, as well as clean up all the loose troops and enslave all the Spanish workers down there. In the north, our Fast Workers continued to prove their worth with a road in a neutral forest and a chop in enemy territory, allowing us to fork their capital and the contested Nobambo. We could hit Nobambo with 5 Knights and 2 Chariots on T152, before their main stack can get up there, and way before the French can arrive.

The Spanish are keeping their main stack between Ulundi (capital) and Umgung (the city closest to our borders). Their stack consists of 4 Impi, 4 Axemen, 1 Chariot and 10 Cats. Interestingly, 9/10 of their cats are on a separate tile protected by only 1 Axe. A couple knights could do them a world of damage if we could catch them out of position. Meanwhile, with our 2-movers, fast workers, and Engineering road bonus, we seem to be moving around with a greater mobility advantage than the Spaniards in their own territory.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Dont for get that as SPI, we can switch to Serfdom for free at any time to give the FWs a surprise boost... Just some food for thought.

 

[2metraninja]

OK, here is plan for what we do this turn:

Spoiler :

We move our main slow-moving stack with all axes, maces, catapults, supported by 2 knights on the plain cottage NW of the gold tile. What we do is advancing towards Gold city and forcing Spaniards to choose what to do. They can hit us only with 1 of their stacks, which is closer and consists of their melee units + 1 chariot. But their catapults cant reach us there. So most probably they wont do that. They still can try to consolidate their army moving all on the gold hill, but then we simply attack, despite being across the river and them being on a hill. That is 50% defensive bonus for their melee units, and 25% defensive bonus for their siege. But it is not much to help them. And in the gold city, defense bonus would have been 40%. Yes, only for melee, but this is why it is called brute force.

Worst case scenario for us is they just retreat towards capitol, postponing their utter defeat.

 

[bistrita]

some more screenshotss war related