Operation "Backstab"

[sooooo]

Here's a sandbox save of the troops that can attack Constantinople next turn. The defenders all have 25% fortify bonus and our troops are promoted to what I presume they will be when they attack.

[sunrise089]

How does the sandbox battle go Sooooo?

[sooooo]

From that sim it didn't look too great. We certainly don't have the troops to both attack constantinople and move the other troops towards Damascus on the same turn.

I attacked with 7 catapults and still lost 2 oromos, 2 macemen and 6 cats. That's quite a lot of troops for a city that Imperio pledged to capture.

Ah well, think of the upkeep savings.

[sunrise089]

10 lost units is a lot, but it's only 4 "real units." I mean, I know cats cost hammers, but we have to consider them pretty expendable in order to save other units. Does it do any good to sacrifice more cats? Also, what was your attack order? Can we loose more macemen to loose fewer Oromos?

[Sullla]

That's right around what I expected. Templars have a lot of units in there, and we're going to take losses. If events play out the way the sim worked, we would be losing 66k of units to kill 101k. For attacking into a city, that's pretty good overall.

Depending on how many losses we take at Constantinople, we may want to wait a little longer before going in against Imperio, in order to let us get another ~10 Oromos drafted and into position on the front lines.

[sooooo]

I just attacked with all the oromos first then all the macemen. I didn't think about it too much so there's presumably room for improvement.

[sunrise089]

Well in a vacuum I'd attack the same way Soooo, but if a pitched battle versus the Imperio stack obviously the CR Maces are much less valuable compared to CI maces, much less Oromos, so that may influence our decision. I'll play with the sim myself when I get home.

[dsplaisted]

Is the sim set to use a new random seed on reload? IMO it should be so you can try several times and get an idea of what's likely to happen.

[sooooo]

No, unfortunately it is not. However, I think you can just get a different seed if you attack with, say, the barrage catapult instead of one of the city raider ones. Shouldn't affect the result too much but the important battles will be different. You can attack with the barrage cat in any of 7 positions in the cat order, giving 7 different battles.

[sooooo]

Have any opinions changed regarding operation backstab? Clearly we don't want to declare war on Imperio until we get MT (3 turns). But does the team still want to capture constantinople next turn or wait until the trade goes through? Personally I'm still in favour of taking the city. Imperio might be annoyed but they still want education so would still probably go through with it.

[darrelljs]

Have any opinions changed regarding operation backstab?

Not really...I would not delay it for a tech either assuming we get a clean shot at their stack. I assume you mean "delay" and not "abandon"?

does the team still want to capture constantinople next turn or wait until the trade goes through? Personally I'm still in favour of taking the city. Imperio might be annoyed but they still want education so would still probably go through with it

I don't care if they get annoyed, but I don't want to tip them off either. That said, if we do delay we should still take the city .

Darrell

[sooooo]

Their units are not accessible, being at Damascus. We don't have a clean shot at their stack and wouldn't do until around the time we get music anyway.

Another thought: the sooner we capture constantinople the sooner we get horses.

[Sullla]

Nothing has changed regarding Constantinople. The sooner we (and Imperio) can remove Templars from the game, the better. I want them good and dead before we start backstabbing Imperio.

[Zeviz]

We shouldn't road the rice and move units until the last possible moment. So if Operation is delayed, we should delay the preparations and unit movements as well to avoid tipping off Imperio.

[sunrise089]

Certainly - the galleys and trireme will sit on their current tile, and they need 2 turns to attack from there. So I'll hold the mounted units on their current tile (also 2 turns out) as well. Workers won't road until we've actually declared and attacked Chichen Itza.