Pink Dot Theatre Command

[mostly-harmless]

Yet to give coordinates.
So here the enemy troops at the T132 tick over from N to S

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Imperio has scouted out PD's defenses in T132 with a chariot from the north. Imperio further moved a chariot and HA in the direction Jericho / PD.

The combined 2movers of Imp and Tem heading for PD are at least (we don't see what comes through the Templars fog from the east coast):
Chariots: 2x Imp + 3x Tem
HA: 1x Imp + 3x Tem

Not enough to overwhelm PD's defenses but enough to do serious damage on cottages and improvements.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

Update T132/T133.
Templars have DoWed and moved one of their stack onto that grass hill.
Field Marshall sunrise has attacked, despite somewhat shaky odds (~65%) and has relieved Templars of the burden to feed 2 HA in enemy lands.
Both Maces are injured and therefore covered by a Pike.
That should keep them save. I still suggest to promo the Pike.
PD is fine as the Archer Athena(?) gets some ~200% defense bonus or such. Nothing the Templars can break through.
Reinforcements on the road should stay there to see what Imperio is up to.

mh

[ruff_hi]

Templars have moved their units into 1 stack ...

[Dreylin]

Imperio have pillaged our desert road, and moved all three horses into pillaging position. They are clearly trying to isolate Cape Town.

We really should consider pre-emtpively declaring to get the drop on these units.

[T-hawk]

Unfortunately, pre-emptive declaration costs us about 50 income per turn in lost trade routes, plus iron and gems and ivory. That's quite a price.

[ruff_hi]

I really think we should consider a galley out of Saxon so that they cannot isolate The Cape.

[mostly-harmless]

We have two workers at PD that could easily rebuild that road under pike cover.
I don't think Cape Town needs a galley. This is our city that can stand alone and isolated. Besides we are not building lots of units in the NW anyway.
Preemptive attack is not an option in my book for the reasons T-Hawk mentioned.

By pillaging that road N of PD, Imperio basically lost the chance to scout PD and provide Templars with info about it's defenses.

Are we moving everything into PD next turn to lure Templars across the river?

What about moving a mace and pike south out of Cape Town next turn?

mh

[sooooo]

At Pink Dot we should simply retreat into our city next turn. The maceman in the queue should be whipped next turn IMO.

[sunrise089]

Thoughts:

We should NOT declare on Imperio under almost any circumstances. Not only are there economic considerations, but we have a great deal to gain by hoping Imperio will move their main stack into our land unprompted.

I don't think we should divert hammers in Cape Town towards building a galley. That city is still producing units fine relative to Imperio, and if it ceases to do so we can always upgrade the three archers there to keep pace for a while (not that I want to now, but in an emergency...). Likewise I don't think we need to be moving any units out of Cape Town and weakening our ability to hit the main Imperio stack. Imperio is actually hurting themselves by this pillaging, since they're keeping their horse units tied down and therefore likely delaying their DOW.

We can retreat at Pink, but I'm worried we'll miss an opportunity. I mean, unless Templars think we're the AI and going to randomly move our units out of Pink they can't really think they can successfully hit the city, can they?

[sooooo]

If they are not going to advance as a stack on Pink Dot, what else do you think they will do?

You're the boss, and if the odds of attacking that stack across the river on the hill are still good then go with your gut feeling, but I think that if we retreat they will move in on Pink Dot. If they don't, then I think they will just camp out on that hill waiting for reinforcements and then we can still hit them the turn after if we want.

[mostly-harmless]

I agree with soooo here, our single cat cannot hit the stack this turn, so I thought to draw Templars nearer to PD.

mh

[Sullla]

Assuming sunrise has the chance to read this before playing, I would also pull our units back into Pink Dot. Attacking across the river and onto a hill gives the defending units a +50% advantage, which is too high for comfort. We gambled a bit and got lucky with our maces last turn, but there's no need to push our luck any further. Besides, more time in the south is to our advantage! If the Templars vacillate and refuse to move in, that's probably to our advantage. And if they do move in, we'll slaughter them at much better odds.

I just don't see where else they can go, to be honest. It would take three turns just to retreat back to their own road network from that hill tile. Plus, Templars haven't exactly shown themselves to be expert tacticians as yet.

I'm more worried about Cape Town getting cut off from our road network. We are definitely going to want to pull those workers in Pink up to start fixing the damage, guarded by pikes. That seems like a much better option than building a galley at the Cape. Anyway, so long as Imperio is dicking around with pillaging our roads, they aren't attacking us, and that's inherently a good thing. Plus, if we can smash Templars' stack quickly, we may be able to intimidate them into signing peace, and thus keeping our trade routes alive when Imperio declares war. (These two do not seem to be coordinating their moves very well, to put it lightly!) In fact, we could even start emailing Templars along these lines, with messages like "hey, Imperio sent you out to die for them, and they haven't even done any fighting yet - how gullible are you guys?"

So long as the other teams don't move a large stack straight for Airstrip One (our only glaring weakness) we'll be OK.

[ruff_hi]

I don't think we should divert hammers in Cape Town towards building a galley.

... seems like a much better option than building a galley at the Cape.

I, too, don't think we should build a galley at Cape. We can whip it out of Saxon when it grows to size 4.

I really think we should consider a galley out of Saxon so that they cannot isolate The Cape.

[Sullla]

Nah, Saxon's busy building Moai, and doing a good job of it. If I were still playing the turns, you would definitely not see Saxon whipping a galley. As it is now, I'll simply have to argue against it, unless someone proves a dire military need.

If we want to reinforce Cape Town, we're going to have to rebuild the road there. Fortunately, we can and do have the workers to do this quickly.