Rp 90 Ad

[Shiber]

Would it be possible for RP to switch Barcelona to walls in pre-production (I think they already have enough shields for walls) and complete them on 90 AD and then hand over the city to us, in case they spot GoW moving in their direction?
That would make it a lot easier for us to defend the town in case we can't eliminate all the riders in time.

[DeepO]

Do we want to defend Barcelona? I suggested before that it could prove to be a nice bait for GoW... in which case a switch to a pike would be more worth it.

Other question: if GoW moves out of the way for NM, are we going to gift that city back to RP? If we don't give their cities back asap, they won't be very enthousiastic to remain in the war. The same applies to Toledo: if we take out the scouting ND MI, we should consider giving the city back to RP, so they can get some production out of it. It doesn't do much good for us anyways.

DeepO

[zeit]

I agree with DeepO- defending Barcelona is probably something we won't be able to do if GoW is determined enough to take the city, counter attacking it will have to do...

I also agree we should return the towns who are not threatened, Toledo will probably be back in their hands next turn, but those two Riders are something to be worried about- I suppose they'll move to P99 (which I still think we should have covered), so T will be out of the picture.

[Shiber]

Zeit: I agree, I think we should have covered P99 with a healthy vet knight (which had about a 50% chance of killing both the healthy and the wounded riders, otherwise he would have probably killed the first and rendered the second too wounded to risk attacking with). Sure, we would be leaving only 5 knights on P96, but that's still a force capable of destroying about 10 riders and GoW still wouldn't have attacked (or if they had - good! ~10 less riders to worry about). But it was too late to decide this during the chat, I'm afraid.

Defending Barcelona: we may be able to kill all of GoW's riders on the turn before they can hit Barcelona, but it's best if we also have good chances at defending it. If GoW remains with a good chunk of healthy riders to attack with but has to face our four fortified pikes behind walls with the GW bonus, they can probably take the town but at least the losses-in-shields ratio would be tremendously in our favor.

[DeepO]

The reason why I think leaving Barcelona to RP is better then defending it ourselves is that if it is still RP's, GoW will go for it. If we defend it, they know it will be heavily defended, and very likely don't fall for it, taking Southern cities instead. We could defend it if we at the same time are able to take out large part of their invasion force, so that the South is free from invaders. Otherwise, I would prefer them inside Barcelona, where we can wear them down over several turns, without reinforcements coming.

DeepO

[Shiber]

If I were GoW, I'd know that my riders perform best on the open and on the attack, where they can utilize their strong offensive power and fast movement, and are bad garrisons. If I saw that Barcelona is empty (no matter who owns it at the time) I'd send one rider to conquer it and immediately disband the city, and send the rest of the riders to do the same with the southern towns.

[notyoueither]

[notyoueither]

Session Start: Mon Aug 11 19:18:21 2003
Session Ident: Togas
[19:18] *nye* what's it look like?
[19:22] *nye* we killed a rider, 2 galleys, and a scout last turn btw. Have troops in position to defend Barca, but the team will want to discuss that before we would accept the city.
[19:26] *Togas* haven't opened the save yet. I'm working on dinner right now
[19:26] *Togas* has GoW made a move on Barcelona?
[19:28] *nye* we are assuming they did. either that, or there was a blood bath at Pamp 6 9
[19:29] *nye* enjoy dinner. i can wait
[20:10] *Togas* opened up the save
[20:10] *Togas* GoW ran their Riders away
[20:11] *Togas* they are on the southern road
[20:11] *Togas* 4 4 from Barcelona
[20:11] *Togas* looks like we give you guys BCN this turn
[20:11] *Togas* we will need a new road built to get iron and horses to Pamplona
[20:12] *Togas* ND has pounced on our southern horse city
[20:13] *Togas* and will take it next turn
[20:18] *nye* damn
[20:18] *nye* can i get shots?
[20:19] *nye* are all 11 riders at Barca 4 4?
[20:20] *nye* can you see 2 up north?
[20:21] *nye* did shiber send any gold back to you?
[20:22] *Togas* http://apolyton.net/upload/files/Togas/90east.jpg
[20:22] *Togas* http://apolyton.net/upload/files/Togas/90west.jpg
[20:22] *nye* thanks
[20:22] *Togas* no gold sent to us
[20:23] *nye* damn
[20:24] *nye* i thought we overlooked that
[20:24] *nye* can you break into the build sequence before Barca?
[20:24] *Togas* I'm going to wait for bigfree to arrive
[20:24] *Togas* barcelona would have horseman done next turn
[20:25] *nye* can you switch it to walls to complete this turn?
[20:25] *nye* we just completed great wall
[20:25] *nye* +100%
[20:25] *nye* those 4 pikes could make gow pay hard
[20:26] *nye* we are also discussing returning toledo and nm to you
[20:28] *nye* if there is no dnager to them, better you have the taxes
[20:29] *nye* i think nd has been bled a lot
[20:29] *nye* no sign of them attacking the army falling back to Pamplona?
[20:31] *Togas* Wow
[20:31] *Togas* they did not attack it
[20:32] *Togas* last turn they were mil ave to us
[20:32] *nye* like i said. they have been blooded
[20:32] *Togas* this turn we are weak to them again
[20:32] *nye* damn
[20:32] *nye* healing will effect that
[20:32] *Togas* we can switch to walls, but I don't know if the city will finish the walls in time.
[20:32] *Togas* since we'd give it to you between turns
[20:33] *nye* no. to finish the walls, you would need to be able to break into the build sequence
[20:33] *nye* to finish it this turn
[20:33] *Togas* explain what you mean.
[20:34] *Togas* we are 5 sheilds to horseman. I should change to walls? The walls will actually be done this turn?
[20:35] *nye* if pamplona, or another city before barca in the build order finished something this turn, then you can zoom into the city, use the arrows to move to barca and switch it to walls which wolud then complete at the start of this turn
[20:35] *nye* i doubt that anything finished this turn early enough though
[20:35] *Togas* I don't think any of our cities finished anything this turn
[20:35] *nye* *your cities
[20:35] *nye* that is as i expecte
[20:35] *nye* d
[20:36] *Togas* I'm considering sending our 5 knights to the south to destroy the 2 ND knights that are going after our horses
[20:36] *nye* that means we need to think on this, and coordinate
[20:36] *Togas* 4 knights
[20:36] *nye* 5 knights?
[20:37] *nye* you might get taken by the riders
[20:37] *Togas* true
[20:37] *Togas* those riders could come around and attack Pamplona from the south
[20:38] *nye* yes, they can take salamanca this next turn
[20:38] *nye* there are also those 2 riders 9 9 of P to take into account
[20:38] *Togas* yes
[20:39] *nye* it the army goes to p 7, that covers one road
[20:39] *Togas* p7 better than p4?
[20:39] *nye* we need to think what those 2 riders could do
Session Close: Mon Aug 11 23:04:59 2003

[DeepO]

It is as I feared... because RP didn't upgrade the knights the moment they received chivalry, but only after the build queue ended, they are now going to lose another city, which could have been avoided. Damn... I'm sorry about that, but we are not to blame, let's just hope they can catch the Ansars before these take a third city with them.

At least 3 knights of RP should go to the South, it's their only shot of keeping their territory. We can't reach them in time.

Further: what's the status of their stack at P47? If most of these have only lost 2 pips, it pays of to leave them in place to heal, instead of moving them into the city and back. If at all possible, add some offensive stuff to them, and pressure ND again at Vigo. If ND can be pushed into the defensive, we will have time to build up a bit, and come to their aid. We should seriously consider moving our knights at P69 towards ND for help: if this can coincide with an attack from RP, we might win.

2 riders: those are pillagers. They can take out the road at P9 and get back on the mountain. Further, they can go for the cow. especially P9 should be protected, or our reinforcements to the area would slow down considerably. We have 2 options: attack those riders ourselves, or defend the tiles which the riders can strike. I thought that after an attack, a rider can't pillage anymore, but maybe I'm wrong. In that case, 2 defenders on each tile (P9 and P8) should be enough to keep them from damaging. Together with a pike and what's beneath on P69, that leaves us 2 knights to go and help RP against ND.

Riders near Barcelona: how many knights do we have in range? everything in Sirocco can pound them, but those near NM and Toledo can't reach them. If we have 4-6 knights, we hit them now, protect the remains on the hill with everything which is coming down (don't know about the makeup of that stack), and leave Barcelona for RP. If we have less then 4 knights, or don't have enough troops for cover, RP better hand Barcelona over to us. It's the only city we can protect, the rest lays in rubble. And we will need to give NM and Toledo back immediately, otherwise RP can die in 2 turns.

Damn... last turn from RP was not well played. Not only the upgrade went wrong, but also some troop movement they did prevents them now from pillaging strategic roads, so that those riders can run along RP's roadnetwork. We can't catch them...

I hope for RP that both ND and GoW will try to keep onto their cities. Oh, and it's very calm with the reinforcements, it wouldn't surprise me if both teams are preparing an invasion of Stormia. We should get a galley scouting between Sirocco and PI, either one of us, or one of RP.

DeepO

[DeepO]

hey... RP already played? So how did they move their troops then? We need to know this, if we are to coordinate our movements. Did they give Barcelona to us, or not?

DeepO

[Shiber]

I think we have 4 knights in range of GoW's riders, and we can get two more knights this turn into Sirocco with movement left (which also puts them in range), so a total of 6 knights.
Maybe we can work out a way to transport more than just the two knights that are loaded on WW114 (I'm not entirely sure but I think we can bring two additional knights into Sirocco with movement).

[Shiber]

So we can attack with 8 knights (I think), and GoW has 11 riders on flats. We'll probably kill 5 riders and injure another one or two, I guesstimate.
We'll be attacking from Barcelona-4, and we can cover our knights with pikes and medinfs (but not attack with the slowmovers, I'm afraid). That should keep Barcelona safe, but Valencia, Salamanca and Merida can easily become GoW's next targets.
I hate riders and ansars!

[DeepO]

with 6 possible attacks, we should certainly go for it. This could be one of our best shots at damaging the rider stack. Shiber, do you know by heart what the slowmover stack exists off? I'll check the possible schemes for us loading more knights this evening. I was looking at it Saturday, but it wasn't clear at first glance... too far off to a city.

Oh, BTW, why would GoW choose the flat road over the hill? Sure, they can reach the other cities from here, but they must have anticipated that we could attack them. Or, would they have somehow spotted the slowmover stack, and moved their forces out of reach?

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and Murcia is also possible for GoW... by capturing Valencia first, they have movement enough remaining to go for that one too... Nice, those 3 moves

DeepO

[Shiber]

They couldn't have spotted the slowmovers stack and moved out. They could have moved into view of the slowmovers stack, realized their mistake and reloaded and moved again, but that's cheating.
IIRC we have 4 pikes in the stack. I think that we also have one cat, and around 3-4 medinfs.