Operation "Backstab"

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok, so their mainy army moved onto the road to Damascus. They'll certainly get a revelation, but it's not likely to be a pleasant one

[mostly-harmless]

I think we can pick up the main stack, the sole Knight, the sole Musketman and then either Damaskus or the 2mace&3cat stack.

We should probably ignore taking Acre at the moment and concentrate on Damscus & Calakmul to prevent too much drafting & whipping.

Edit: This is getting really exciting now.
I hope the US wakes up soon.


mh

[regoarrarr]

I think I'd take Damascus and leave the 2 mace / 3 cat stack, since it's not on the road network and isn't going anywhere, so in theory it can be picked up by the remnants of our army the turn after (we should have enough healthy / promotable units to take it out, as well as Acre)

[Kodii]

I hope the US wakes up soon.

Me too, since it's 9:30 EST

Let the Games begin!

[Dreylin]

Hang the US waking up, what we really need is PAL to end turn ASAP so we can get on with the Imperio beatdown!

[mostly-harmless]

Hang the US waking up, what we really need is PAL to end turn ASAP so we can get on with the Imperio beatdown!

Well, since peace broke out, if PAL finishes now, Imperio can log in straight away and move their units.

mh

[Dreylin]

Can we declare war on Imperio now, even though we've ended our turn already, to lock in the turn order?

[T-hawk]

Even if we can, we should not. If we declare war now, Imperio can change build orders to units and start whipping.

[sunrise089]

Ok guys, here is what I think we want to do - as soon as anyone sees PAL end turn and the turn timer tick over, just log in and declare war. We shouldn't have any double-move issues, and as soon as we're back at war we go back to have the first 24 hours of the turn, right? After all we played first last turn and would be playing first this turn.

PS - Not in the game, but those Imperio moves look really good for us.

[Sullla]

Oh man, this could NOT have gone better for us! First of all, thanks to mh for grabbing such a beautiful screenshot. I didn't need to log into the game at all to see what happened. Now let's break down exactly what happened to Imperio's forces in the attack on Acre:

- No change in Damascus, same units there.
- Exploring knight moved SW (this unit is dead meat, moved right next to our pikes!)
- Musket moved out of the fog next to Constantinople. This unit must have been moving over the hill tiles east of Constantinople. (Good because it eats up another 9k of Soldier count that was unaccounted for!)
- A Combat II pike moved onto the hill E of Damascus. (Score another 6k Soldier points, leaving only 14k unaccounted for!)
- The main stack initially had 3 knights, 1 musket, 3 elephants, 6 maces, 3 longbows, 1 pike, and 9 catapults. Here's what happened to them:

- One of the knights was damaged from 7.3 to 5.1 strength. None died, all moved W onto the Damascus road.
- The musket didn't attack and moved W as well. (Not into the city, where its Guerilla promotion would have meant something!)
- None of the war elephants attacked, all moved W too.
- None of the maces died. Two stayed in place (presumably attacking and winning without taking damage) while the other four moved W as well.
- One longbow moved into Acre. The other two moved W, including the Guerilla II longbow, where its promotions are useless.
- The pike from the main stack moved into Acre.
- Out of Imperio's 9 cats, 3 remain on the staging tile and 5 moved west. One evidently died.

So overall, Imperio appears to have lost only one suicide cat. However, their units are spread out all over the place, virtually everything is injured, and we have free run on their entire armed forces. They could NOT have presented us with a better opportunity if they had tried!

There are too many units to try and sim everything out, but here are some early thoughts on attacking:

- Jamie Lynn Spears (pike) attacks the Imperio scouting knight.
- Carrie and Chloe, our cats furthest back from the action, hit the main Imperio stack on the road to Damascus. Maybe two more cats from the main stack follow, depending on our odds there.
- Save our City Raider maces for attacking into Damascus or Acre, where they get the combat bonus.
- We definitely want to concentrate on killing the main stack, the injured remnants located NW of Acre, and the defenders in Damascus. We won't have enough units to kill everything, so Acre itself can wait another turn or so. Those units aren't going anywhere!
- It's important to capture or raze Damascus, because otherwise it will expand borders on the following turn!
- Our Oromos should clean up against pretty much anything, with their first strikes against injured units. We should be able to kill about 25 Imperio units for the loss of ~5 cats and 2-3 real units. It's gonna be a total slaughter!

* * * * *

Two final points:

1) Definitely agree with sunrise - log into the game and declare war as soon as the turn rolls over. We don't have to do anything else, but that gets the clock rules in play.
2) CivStats shows that Imperio didn't whip anything on their turn. That means no extra defenders in Chichen Itza, and a guaranteed city capture or razing for us on our turn!

[timmy827]

Sulla's plan for the north sounds good. Hopefully we can lock in the turn order;
However knowing imperio, I really doubt they will log in immediately and double-move out of danger.

I'll trust sunrise to run things well, but since the Imperio stacks are pretty banged up I'll weigh in against using too many cats here.

Since we don't have any flanking, we will be using up most of our units on cleaning up the main stack, we may not have enough to take Damascus (are we keeping it?). I think it would make more sense to clean up the units 1NW of Acre, then hit Damascus when we can use the full army (although regorarr is right about them not likely to escape). Anyways, if we have the full 24 hours we can pause after the main stack is dead and post some screenshots to poll.

I would ignore the musket in the woods next turn. It could threaten Jerusalem so I suggest moving Liz (the musket in Sweet Tooth) in that direction.

And I hope PAL doesn't log in, because I just might be home in 14 hours and able to follow a battle live for once

[Sullla]

Indeed, definitely ignore that musket in the woods by Constantinople. It can't do anything threatening, so long as we have two defenders in the city. However, we do need to take down Damascus on the turn of the attack, because otherwise it expands borders on the following turn and will present all sorts of problems for our units in the area.

[mostly-harmless]

The lone musket does not really threaten Jerusalem, as it will pop borders next turn.

Small correction on Sullla's notes:
The single Pike 1E of Damascus was moved out of the city. Damscus had 6 units as garrison previously (incl. 2pikes) now it has only one pike left.

If we can kill off most of Imperio's units with small losses, then we definitely want to keep Chichen Itza.

I assume we will have a combat-chat again?

mh

[LiPing]

Agree with regoarrarr, pretty sure there isn't enough force to kill the main stack, Damascus and the small lot of Maces/Catapults all on the same turn, and I'm pretty the small stack can't get to any tile that isn't in range next turn, even with the two workers in Acre.

[Broker33]

Whens the battle I may be able to log into the chat also.