Operation "Backstab"

[Sullla]

EDIT: I simmed out a battle of a healthy southern RB army versus a healthy Imperio army, including all of Imperio's muskets and longbows, and none of RB's mounted units. In the first round we loose every catapult, but only three other units. Imperio looses every non-cat except for four units. In the second round, versus the AI, Imperio cats us but can only kill a single unit. After we promote our units we have 95%+ on the Imperio cats and wounded units.

Same sim but with 3 RB horse archers and without the Imperio longbows (probably the most likely scenario) sees us loose all but one cat, and 4 regular units, to win every other battle and kill a total of 6 Imperio cats. The second round has every remaining Imperio unit die to no RB losses.

Finally, same sim as above, but with all 5 HAs present for RB sees 9 Imperio cats die in the first round.

Based on this, it sounds like we should keep a couple of horse archers in the Constantinople area. Still, we can't weaken the striking arm heading for Mutal too much - that's the most critical force of all. I suspect we'll have to wait and see what Imperio does, and shift our forces around accordingly. At least this gives us a good idea of how things might play out.

[mostly-harmless]

I think Swiss is right. The winner will indeed move into the defender's square, but the galley needs to then move another square to be able to attack Chichen. I think it loses that last movement point.

Just checked this out in WorldBuilder. The galley keeps it 2nd movement point after sinking it's opponent with the 1st.(like cavalry on plains for example)
Otherwise it would have been just too counter-intuitive.

mh

[sunrise089]

@Sullla - Yes, not too surprisingly even our army isn't large enough to attack Chichen Itza, Mutal, the Imperio mega-stack, and cover our cities simultaneously with total safety

I agree the Mutal strike is critical. I think a compromise might be to keep the three Oromos not tasked with attacking Chichen Itza on hand at Constantinople. That will leave Cape Town almost totally undefended until it can build some more units itself during T164 onwards, but I think we can use Lady Godiva to make sure there isn't an Imperio stack of knights waiting to 1-move Cape Town as soon as peace expires.

EDIT: I think this compromise works out pretty well:

1) The 2-movers, workers, and ships are built and moved as planned.
2) Lady Godiva ends T163 2 tiles south of Mutal, and then proceeds to the the northern Imperio city with gold and marble on T164, checking for mounted units in the fog NW of Mutal. She then verifies Mutal's defenses on T165 and moves desert 1E of the Cape Town rice tile, where she will teleport back into our land during T166.
3) Assuming Lady Godiva doesn't find any mounted units, all of our Oromos except for three head into Templar land. The three that don't board the ships, along with an Oromo built in Cape Town that appears on T165. Cape Town then builds another defender that will appear on T166 or T167 depending on overflow.
4) The result is that our southern army has 8 Oromos by the time Imperio is able to attack Constantinople, which will probably make up for casualties even if we attack Constantinople ourselves and take some losses.

One hitch in this plan - what do we think the odds are that Imperio has 2 units on their galley that is inside Cape Town? And what are the odds they will declare war themselves on T164 or T165? If we think the odds are more than negligible than I should still divert an Oromo to Red Herring.

[regoarrarr]

Can Saxon the Beach be drafted to cover for Red Herring?

[sunrise089]

I don't think so - the Oromo ends up a tile short. It isn't the end of the world to keep the yellow dot Oromo heading to Red Herring, it just reduces the number of Oromos at Constantinople by 1 from T167 onwards. T167 is pretty far off, and may not matter if the Imperio stack roles in quickly.

[sooooo]

We still have a couple of hammers each into a longbow and a trireme at Red Herring and can upgrade the archer too if necessary. I wouldn't divert an oromo to the city.

[Sullla]

One hitch in this plan - what do we think the odds are that Imperio has 2 units on their galley that is inside Cape Town? And what are the odds they will declare war themselves on T164 or T165? If we think the odds are more than negligible than I should still divert an Oromo to Red Herring.

I rate this an extremely low probability based on reading the C&D numbers. Imperio is building a wonder in Lakamha right now, their #2 city, and I can't see them conducting a sneak-attack on us under those conditions. I believe that their offer of a 40-turn NAP was genuine, and (if we truly were willing to gift them all of the Templar cities) it would put them in a pretty competitive position in this game. Furthermore, even if they did declare war on us, their galley would be teleported back to their own borders, and we could sink it with our trireme before it got anywhere close to Red Herring. So no need to send an Oromo there - we even have the emergency options of whipping or upgrading the archer defender there, should all else fail.

sunrise's compromise posted above sound good to me. And since we have visibility on essentially all Imperio units, and C&D analysis to prove their are no hidden stacks, I rate the possibility of a surprise knight move against Cape Town as all but non-existant. We'll be OK to move just about everything forward.

[Zeviz]

The plan looks good, but I have a question: What do we do if Imperio's mega-stack stays put or moves north on turn 165? Will they be able to threaten Cape Town before we can reinforce it?

Also, if Imperio has a 1-turn warning before our attack on Mutal, will they be able to use their mounted units to reinforce the city? What other reinforcements can we expect? (1 whipped and 1 drafted musket. What else?)

[sunrise089]

The plan looks good, but I have a question: What do we do if Imperio's mega-stack stays put or moves north on turn 165? Will they be able to threaten Cape Town before we can reinforce it?

Also, if Imperio has a 1-turn warning before our attack on Mutal, will they be able to use their mounted units to reinforce the city? What other reinforcements can we expect? (1 whipped and 1 drafted musket. What else?)

Is Imperio in Nationhood? If not I would expect a whipped pike in Mutal and also possibly a whipped unit in Chichen Itza if they correctly interpret our galleys' movement.

If the mega stack stays put we capture Constantinople and heal up, while using any surviving 2 movers to pillage roads in the north. Without the culture of Mutal and Chichen Imperio won't have easy access to Cape Town. If the mega-stack moves north we basically can do the same thing as long as the stack isn't in position to intercept our units on T166.

As of T162 Imperio doesn't have any 2-movers that can cover any city we plan to hit.

[sooooo]

An update from Imperio:



That doesn't tell us where. I replied with "OK. At constantinople?"

Their muskets have joined their main stack which is now 1S of where it was before.

[MyOtherCar]

Seems to me they can't reach Constantinople on turn 164, only Damascus. They need 3 turns to move next to Constantinople, whereas they can move next to Damascus in 2.

[sooooo]

I assumed they meant that they'd declare war on T164, not necessarily be in a position to take a city on T164.

[Sullla]

I interpret their message as entering the war against Templars on T164, which means they could hit either city first. We can spin things in our favor either way:

- If they go for Constantinople, we follow our stated plan of backing away and letting them kill the garrison, then our troops pouncing on them. This is the best possible plan for us.

- If they go for Damascus, we take Constantinople ourselves and wait until Imperio bloodies themselves killing the Templar garrison in their #2 city. Then we hold up in neutral territory and wait for a chance to get their stack, pillaging as necessary to cut road links. They can't strike us at Constantinople without giving us a chance to hit them first. This is not as good of a scenario, but it still sees us take out two of their cities and gets Imperio to lose some units fighting the Templars.

[sooooo]

They can't actually see our troops at Constantinople so maybe we shouldn't bombard Constantinople next turn, as that would be the only way they could detect our presence (the defence going down).

If on T164 they declare and move onto the hill 2E of the city, can they see our stack 1S of it? If they can, then we move our stack to the tile 1SW of the city on T163 if we detect they are going for Constantinople and have 2 workers arrive too to road the tile. I doubt they would go onto the hill 1E of the city because that means attacking across a river. They'll probably attack from the flat copper tile 1NE, so unless they have a sentry they could simply not detect that we are even there.

[sunrise089]

Right - Imperio are fools if they attack any city on T164. They need next turn to move 1 tile S or SW (if SW is roaded) and then can declare and pop into Templar territory on T164. Lets all pray they go for Constantinople, because assuming they can bombard and attack the same turn they will be in the city after our moves on T165, which is absolutely perfect.

EDIT: Crosspost with Soooo. Imperio should land on the flat tile 1N 2E of Constantinople so they can take the copper tile without crossing a river.