Yurn 143, 270AD

[notyoueither]

Use mi's from barca 4 4 2 to kill the rider at 4 4 4 1 (it should take 3). The workers and cats are 4 from the proposed site of FL.

[asleepathewheel]

I take it that Panzer's comment is eluding to the iron trade/cut we have going with RP.

What a jackass. Good restraint thus far.

[Theseus]

I may have mentioned this before...

Amy's sister's husband, my future brother-in-law, is Geoffrey Horne, and was the young British commando in "Bridge Over the River Kwai."

If you remember the end of the movie, he was stealthily swimming across the river to the detonator when Alec Guiness uncovered the cord, and was pulling it up out of the river bed. William Holden stood up, and started yelling "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!"

Ahem.

Yes, take the Worker and Cat stack.

[notyoueither]

g 2 2 2 1 1 1 of barca moves 4 2 1

2k fm g unload 2 of Murcia

g fortifies

k 4 4 1 of Barca moves 9 8, attacks rider at 4. 1 pip damage, promoted to elite

3 wo 4 4 1 of barca move 4

We now have 4mi, 3kn, 5p in range of 'the hill'. Should we move a kn to support the new elite, or preserve everything else for the trials that come at the hill?

We are landing 2 kn, moving them and the reserve to be within 2/3rds of a mp of the hill. That is 8 additional kn who could use the instant road to attack out of the position.

[notyoueither]

I think we should concentrate everything we have on the hill, save a few pikes left to hold tiles.

[Theseus]

I don't think an extra Knight will protect the elite, nor deal sufficient damage.

Consolidate.

[notyoueither]

OK. Consolidating.

Barca 4 4 4 1: 3k, 5p, 5mi (1 x 1/4) 3 wo

Barca 4 4: 2p, 2k, 1c

Barca 4 1 1: 6k, 1p, 4 mir

Barca 4 4 1: 2p

Barca 4 4 2: 1p

[notyoueither]

mi 6 9 of Tole attacks ND mi at 8. 2 pips damage taken.

Moving p fm 8 9 to support

[notyoueither]

We currently have 3wa, 6sp, 13wc, 6ho needing upg.

Our workers are now out of position for cutting road and rebuilding 2 turns from now. However, we have 2 workers on an iron. If we set 1 to road this turn, that is 5 turns. If we have the other join in next turn, that cuts it to 3 turns total to have iron hooked up again. We can stop the workers at any time before the final turn of roading to prevent iron if we wish. Therefore, I will set the workers to 5 turn roads, and we can stop them if desired.

[notyoueither]

Arashi changed to Colosseum

Monsoon changed wf to 9, 3, 2, 7, 8 7

Whirlwind changed wf to 9, 8 9, 6 9, 6 3

Sandstorm changed wf to 3, 1, 4, 8, 9. Gov set to emphasise production

[notyoueither]

Shots

[vulture]

More post-fight analysis. The fact that GoW had three injured riders (and one healthy one) tells us that they won 3 (possibly 4) victories - I'd guess 3, since that rider on the hill south of pamplona is doing useful intelligence work and wouldn't be moved unless they'd run out of other riders to carry the assault. So ND killed all but 3 units. This gives us more information to work with.

We can see 9 ansars. 6 are injured (won a battle, or retreated), 2 are elite (likely won and got promoted) and one is an uninjured vet. Since they can only retreat against the pikes, the number of retreats is likely quite low. So it looks like ND had 1 retreat, won 8 battles, and moved all those units onto the hills where they couldn't be reached - it leaves them just as safe as if they'd moved back into GoW territory, but gives them the option of using them in a desperation attack somewhere next turn should it be needed.


With 14 Ansars, they have a 5% chance of leaving 3 or fewer units alive. It is most likely they'd kill 4. If they did managed to kill 8 units, they'd most likely take 5 losses (40% chance), leaving them with 9 units, which we see. So this is a self-consistent scenario, but one in which we have terrible luck.

To have a 25% chance of killing 8 units, they'd need 17 ansars (suffering 8 dead, 1 retreat, 8 victories, which also matches what we see). For a 50% chance they need 19 ansars, with 9 dead, 2 retreats, 8 victories. This isn't exactly what we see, but is close enough given the random nature of the beast.

So if our luck was average, ND had 19-20 Ansars in the area, and lost around 9 of them. Our worst case scenario is they had only the 14 that have been mentioned (where did that number come from anyway), and lost only 5 of them. Their units can't have come from further away than Alamo 1 - if we know for certain that they can't have had more than 14 ansars in the area, then that's grim news. If there is a chance they have more, then it is almost certain they needed them.

GoW were faced with 3 injured knights, most likely on 1 or 2 hp (they'd be the last ones to defend against the ND attack). It is quite plausible they won all 3 fights - about 60% chance. So it is most likely that they have 7 fresh riders that we haven't seen this turn.

Will get on to analysing what we can do against Alamo with the forces available - don't expect good news.

[vulture]

Just some numbers re Alamo - with 4 RP Knights, 3 RP MI and 6 of our Knights in the attack (RP attacking first, us going second). Defenders are fortified on a hill behind walls. list is for no. of defenders, and chance that our stacks would take the town:

2 99.9%
3 98.6%
4 90.2%
5 66.2%
6 34.6%
7 12.4%

I'd say that with 5 or more defenders it just isn't worth the attack. 4 would be marginal - given that we'd need our knights to finish the job, giving us just a few (probably injured) unfortified knights to defend the town next turn (RP can't move in until after ND and GoW have a shot at retaking the town). With units than can move 8 tiles along roads and then attack, there is a good chance they could have a substantial counterattack able to reach us. In every event we are likely to lose more units than them, and our injured knights that win battles will be stuck on plains - i.e. they'd be dead. The attack would only be worth it IMHO if there were 2 or 3 riders defending it. There could be up to 7. Not worth the risk...

[OPD]

Originally posted by vulture
The attack would only be worth it IMHO if there were 2 or 3 riders defending it. There could be up to 7. Not worth the risk...

I still think we should have kept the option of attacking it open. If upon seeing four knights threatening the catapult stack they had moved four riders to protect the stack it would have left Alamo with a probable 4 riders and the two injured riders. Which I'm guessing would have been a 60% chance of taking the town, with an option of backing out if early attacks aren't favourable and not lossing any units our selves.

Thats probably as badly defended as the city is going to be especially with Gunpowder soon. There were also pikemen around Pamp that could have moved in the turn we took the city to stave off a counter attack. As it is now I don't think it will ever be liberated.

We could have split the rider stack, either they properly defend the Alamo or properly defend the cat stack but not both. It'll be interesting to see what they. They may give the units to ND before we can attack.

[vulture]

60% is about right for the possible forces attacking Alamo, but if you are willing to abandon the assault if it doesn't go too well at first, then it's going to be more like 40-50% (quite a few wins come from starting off badly but getting better luck at the end). RP would still lose some units in the first attacks anyway - probably all of their MI (assuming they attack with them first, since they are more expendable and retreat isn't an option against Riders). With average luck they'd lose all 3 MI, and kill no Riders (injured on 2 or 3 hp, ignoring promotions). So what is about 80% likely to happen is they attack with MI, lose all 3, and decide that the luck has been too bad to continue with the assault. This basically amounts to throwing 3 MI away to no benefit.

I'll agree that that's the worst defended we are going to find the city. But taking gambles at around the 50% mark too often is just going to cost us a lot more units than it costs GoW/ND. We need to hit with overwhelming force on one point (like ND did). If that means we delay hitting Alamo unitl we can get 20 knights there, then that works out better for us than throwing units at it now which don't have a real chance of taking the town.

And I don't see how we could move any pikes into the town, unless RP won the battles themselves (0.8% chance). The only pikes there are RP. If RP fail to take the town (needing our knights to finish the job), which they will, then they never get the chance to move those pikes in, and we have no pikes to move into the town AFAICS. Did I miss something? We'll only have the knights that survived the assault (or were unnecessary), which won't be fortified. Do we get the city wall defensive bonus if the town has resistors (since you don't get the normal city defense bonuses then)?

EDIT I've just seen how the pikes would get there - I assume you mean the ones from the mountains east of Pamplona, which could have moved to the border this turn, and into the town on the roads next turn if it fell.