War!!!

[dutchfire]

I've had another look at the save, and I noticed that we had a lot of units defending our cities. I'd even say too many. I propose this:

Move the cover axeman from Riversight SE-SE. When he arrives there, attack Lyons with him first (he has 60.8% chance to kill the archer, if memory serves me correctly). Then attack the remaining spearman with the shock axes, and if the archer survives the first attack, kill him too. We will now have Lyons!

At the same time, move the 8 (!) Keshiks from the south coast along the coast north west. Kill the axes and spears when they land. When they've done this, move at least 6 of them north towards the barbarian city, picking up the now healed chariot in Riversight along the way. Take this city when it has reached size 2. If we have more than enough Keshiks, we might want to send some to Orleans to help there.

Move 2 of our axes in Rheims towards Orleans. The chariot and 1 axeman can defend it for now. Also move the new units build in the cities and our catapult to Orleans. Take that city, and sue for peace.

 

[Falcon02]

Most of the Keshiks Near NotA should have active orders moving twoards EA in anticipation of the landing.

The reason there are so many Keshiks in the region is I was originally anticipating the landing near the silver and Iron again, which is why they were in the area. Prior to that they had also been building up for an assault on Lyons, just a few turns prior Lyons had 3 spears + 2 axemen + 1 archer or some large stack like that before the galleys were launched.

 

[dutchfire]

Okay

By the way, next time, try to avoid GoTo orders that reach over the end of your turnchat next time.

 

[Falcon02]

Sorry about that, as DP I tend to give commands as I normally would in one of my own games, though with a greater attention to detail, and of course, referancing the instruction thread. And I do tend to use GoTo fairly liberally like that... I'll try to be more aware of it next time...

That also goes for fixing city tiles worked after an enemy unit steps on one of its tiles.

 

[DaveShack]

We can cancel goto orders if needed during the preturn.

 

[Falcon02]

Upon reviewing the Save again, I agree with dutchfire's suggestion to move the Riversight Axeman to attack Lyons.

Also, sending 1 of the Keshiks defending the Silver up to support the Axeman stack already at Lyons. (this one was Grant not Dutchfire)

AND, with sending two of the Axemen to Orleans (if nothing else to figure out what it's defenses are like as we take Lyons.



Also, Depending on how things go, we may want to make connecting Lyons to our road network a priority once it falls. All those hills and forests between Lyons and NotA will really hurt the speed of our reinforcements.

 

[fed1943]

I think Falcon02 is absolutely right.

Best regards,

 

[Falcon02]

As for the spears and axemen the galley is bringing to our shores...

How exactly do we want to respond to them?

We could...

A.) Throw a bunch of our 8 Keshiks at them, and hope only a couple die to the Spearmen

B.) Recall some of our Axemen from the front to aid against the spearmen, thus delaying our offensives significantly, and probobly not getting there in time anyway.

C.) Have NotA and EA quickly pump out a few Axemen to take care of the spears, however again, may not be able to do it quick enough (don't have view at the save right now).

 

[Hyronymus]

How about upgrading our Warrior in NotA? Do we have money for an upgrade to Axeman and while doing so have NotA en EA build 2 more Axeman?!

 

[grant2004]

I don't' think you could turn out axemen fast enough in high enough numbers I believe the French axemen would be the first defenders if one of our axemen attacked so you'd need 3 before you could even touch a spearman. My favored strategy is to recall the catapult, possibly slowing the attack on Orleans, and use it to weaken the enemy by collateral damage, then use Keshiks to finish the job.

 

[ordinaryguy]

I don't' think you could turn out axemen fast enough in high enough numbers I believe the French axemen would be the first defenders if one of our axemen attacked so you'd need 3 before you could even touch a spearman. My favored strategy is to recall the catapult, possibly slowing the attack on Orleans, and use it to weaken the enemy by collateral damage, then use Keshiks to finish the job.

I was thinking the same too. But you just have to pray that the catapult will do enough damage to the rest of the stack as it would most likely die. Otherwise, it would be a waste and a free promotion for the axeman defending.

Barrage promotion and/or more catapults would increase the success rate. But I doubt that

1. our cities can churn them out fast enough
2. catapult would be eligible for a promotion as not all our cities have a barracks, if I recalled correctly

 

[Chieftess]

How many catapults do we have? We'd need atleast 3 (if they were promoted -- barracks + Vassalage + therocracy = more promotions), if not 5 without the promotions.

 

[Falcon02]

Right now we just have 1 Catapult, and I believe it has Collatoral Damage.

EA will take 4 turns to pump out 1 Axeman (About the same time for the French to get to the Horses)

 

[ordinaryguy]

Right now we just have 1 Catapult, and I believe it has Collatoral Damage.

EA will take 4 turns to pump out 1 Axeman (About the same time for the French to get to the Horses)

Sigh......then this idea just might not work. We wouldn't be able to kill the whole French stack in one turn unless we sacrifice a lot of units.

 

[Falcon02]

Also we can finish an Axeman in EA in 1 turn, it will take 3 turns for it to get to the Horses (Total of 4 turns).

EA can build an Axeman in 4 turns (mentioned earlier)

The Axeman in Riversight (currently intending to send him to Lyons) can get to the horses in 4 turns.

With about 4 turns until the French can land on the Horses, it would appear 4 turns is the key number.

Also upgrading an Warrior to Axeman (or spearman for that matter) costs 80 gold, we currently only have 72 gold with a loss of 2 gpt.

 

[grant2004]

the idea of the catapult is as a suicide mission, however if it saves one keshik I'd consider it worthwhile, collateral damage will be weak, but the difference in strength between a keshik and a spearman isn't that huge, and hopefully a collateral damage attack will be enough to reduce their advantage to a reasonable level.

as for the movement of the axemen, will that result in them arriving in the nick of time, or just a little to late?

 

[dutchfire]

Let the Keshiks cover the complete landing area, and hope that they suicide on one of them.

 

[ordinaryguy]

Let the Keshiks cover the complete landing area, and hope that they suicide on one of them.

Good point. Let's make use of the amphibious penalty for our benefit. Our Keshiks will be +50% which increases their strength to 9 without promotions.

Then Keshik vs Spearman (9 vs 8)
Keshik vs Axeman (9 vs 5)

We can win comfortably against the axemen but the fight with the spearmen would be in doubt, although we have the better odds.

 

[chessplayer]

It may be impossible to stop them from landing as we do not have enough keshiks. maybe hit them with cats then send in the keshiks.