Turn 123, 175 AD

[UnOrthOdOx]

There are roads that are not followed.
There are armies that are not attacked.
There are fortified cities that are not assaulted.
There is terrain for which one does not contend.
- Sun Tzu

The East:

The units highlighted are our stack just north of foxtrot. This will play a key role in the proposed plan to ignore Anhinga.

I'll explain the lines and tags in a moment.



The South:

The horde flees with it's tail tucked. Still may be one Keshik unaccounted for...I've lost track how many we killed. Their stack consists of 3 archers, 1 of which is wounded, and 3 scouts. Our spear actually has odds on the archers in the jungle, but likely would be too wounded to defend a counter assault. Bad hammer investment to attack.



The Cities:

AB will grow next turn, cottage it's working grows as well. Will work the oasis with next citizen to further speed growth and open the possibility of a third specialist in AB.

Axe finishes next turn. foxtrot working more cavalry.

With chops, FS should finish the Heroic epic in 4-5 turns. Grows in 9, will be capable of 1 turning axes/spears and 2 turning crossbows (if we go with machinery on the engineer) or ponies.



Jump city nearing popability.


The Plan:

Ignoring Anhinga, our stack moves 3 next turn. As does the scout spear. The Horse archer from our other stack pictured above can also join this stack at this point next turn.

From here, this leaves us a couple options.

First, our scout spear will move to scout out the defenses south.

Our horses can then either move to attack there, or move northward towards their port.

Either is 2 turns from attack.

North is closer to the capital, and quite possibly a death knell for Sarantium. At the least, forcing some pop rushing.

South, is closer their troop producers. Also a deadly blow.

This plan is not without risk, for it leaves us 4 axe and 3 archers to defend the East with. Of course, Sarantium would need to abandon Anhinga to really threaten the East to begin with, and we would still have our foot soldiers near enough to destroy it if they do.



It's quite possible Sarantium withdraws from Anhinga as well, seeing this coming. Which is all good as well.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I meant to make this a poll whether to follow the ignoring Anhinga plan or not, so please manually post your vote.

[OzzyKP]

Have any trials been done to see what results we could expect from attacking Anhinga?

If it looks quite favorable, I'd suggest just taking out their army there. If not (as I'd expect) we should look for better chances of doing damage elsewhere. Move the scout spear if Ocala is lightly defended go after it. If not, then turn north and see if we can threaten their interior.

But you're a better strategist than I, so don't give my thoughts all that much credit, heh.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Straight up combat, we sacrifice a bunch of units the first turn, period. It's a question of what happens turns after that whether we could take anhinga.

Right now, both their axes and spears have odds on our horses. So that's 5 units. Their axes and archer have odds on our axes.

If we sacrificed 2 axes, sacrificed 3 horses, we could eliminate the archers with our remaining 3 ponies, and remaining axes should have odds on whatever remains. Depending on how their units heal over the off turn and etc would determine our ability to remove Anhinga. This makes trials rather difficult, since it's not a 1 turn scenario. I did run a couple trials with the current forces, and we would lose 2 axes and 3 horses, then it would depend on how damaged the Sarantium spears and axes were whether we could take many/any units. It weren't pretty, but with us capable of some good reinforcements this next turn that might change.

Ideally, this makes them split off some troops out of anhinga and we can take on smaller forces. (well, ideally their inards are completely unprotected and we catch them with their pants down to some degree, but I would suspect them to move to counter that first.)

[UnOrthOdOx]

They killed the scout spear with an axe.

Currently checking to see where that axe came from. If from Anhinga, might prove worthwhile to just attack it now.

If not, doesn't change the plan at all as a chariot can be the scout towards the south just fine.

We could also kill the offending axe with a chariot if we choose, but it would be open to being killed by a spear from Anhinga...which wouldn't be that bad a thing neccessarily, removing a spear from their defenses.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Alright.

Killed the axe as letting it get it's promo and stick around was not a wise move. I assume they'll divert a chariot of their own to kill our now wounded one.

Otherwise, moved the stack according to the plan. Moved 2 archers onto the hill 2 of Lima, left the other axes there hidden behind the mountain.

I'll get some pics up as soon as I'm able, but we're having power issues right now, and I'm posting this off a generator.