10-12-2003 04:54									#1
	Turn 390AD Tired of ads?

No gunpowder from Lego - but 15 riders and eight catapults sit on Barca-441. Our stranded stack is gone - expected. By comparing the names of the knights with the previous turn we might get an idea of who came and who went.

	10-12-2003 05:16									#2
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not even a rejection note? even GoW would have given us that. Perhaps they didn't like being called on things, or perhaps we are on a deposit. God, we need to hold out a little longer...

	10-12-2003 05:26									#3
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I wish we could attack that stack, but those...8 cats (of ours!) would eat any attack alive, not to mention that we don't have the military available to finish off all the attackers...

using a galley chain, we can get 3 more knights and one pike into action, so add three attackers, that....12 knights, 2 cats, 3 mi's against...15 riders and 8 cats. yuck.

	10-12-2003 05:28									#4
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On a deposit?

	10-12-2003 05:31									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus On a deposit?

sorry, on a saltpeter deposit

	10-12-2003 05:37									#6
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THere's no way we're going to hold this for three turns and be able to get any SP out.

The odds on attacking their stack are grim - many of those could be fortified from the previous turn. It certainly looks like GoW are leaving Pamp for now and finishing us off.

We can get approx 2 stacks of 10 units - at Barca-4 and Barca-87. The latter would include the Knights at Pamp-332, but only 1 pike there would be true-fortfied.

Ii also looks like the Barca stack has to pull back into town. Otherwise the cats'll make it easy for them. I wonder if the odds are better being on the hill and getting pinged by 8 cats, or going into town and 'just' getting the 15 riders?

	10-12-2003 05:41									#7
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Once they take Barca they just fly up the road and whack New Madrid & Sirocco too. No-one wants to talk peace with us because they want to kill all our units so we've none left to defend Stormia - which is what it's looking like to me now.

	10-12-2003 05:43									#8
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why don't we pillage the road barca 4-4, would buy us another turn. Maybe send the knight then disband it? I wouldn't want one of their elites to get a crack at a leader. We could also move the stack between pamplona and barca to barca 7-8 (the road hill) which would let them be used against the stack if need be next turn. I'm not concerned about exposing P's south, as GoW could have sacked them by now, anyhow. I think its clear GoW is coming at us now.

	10-12-2003 05:49									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Once they take Barca they just fly up the road and whack New Madrid & Sirocco too. No-one wants to talk peace with us because they want to kill all our units so we've none left to defend Stormia - which is what it's looking like to me now.

I agree. hmm what to do...

Here's a plan:

Cut the road to Barca (as I suggested above)
Withdraw all units to Barca, move the knights near pamplona to the hill road near barca.
Move as many galleys into the area as possible. We are going to Dunkirk the knights.

See if GoW advances on Barca this next turn. If so, burn down barca and retreat as far as possible north.

We need those knights alive.

	10-12-2003 05:50									#10
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Do you mean pillage with the wounded knight? It could jump in the galley after. Before pillaging the others withdraw into barca, but can't get hit this turn becasue of the pillage! Sounds good.

	10-12-2003 05:52									#11
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I don't think we can pillage the road and save the knight But that would be a good sacrifice for a near dead knight

	10-12-2003 05:56									#12
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I think we should evacuate the 5 galleys next to sirocco, fill up the empty ones with workers and pikes, and send them off. Luckily, its a 2 turn round trip, they can be filled up again next turn. I think we can salvage nearly every unit...

	10-12-2003 06:02									#13
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Hang on, the Riders will only use 2 moves getting onto the hill. THey'll still have a third left to clunk Barca

	10-12-2003 06:05									#14
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you misunderstand pillage the road on the plain next to the hill. one move to the plain, 2 to the hill

	10-12-2003 06:07									#15
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Now I understand

	10-12-2003 06:32									#16
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I wonder if Lego supply intelligence too - they could spy on our cities.

And the Knights on the boat and the ones in Barca? - get em all back top Stormia this go if possible, then bring the boats back next turn for another load?

	10-12-2003 06:39									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus I wonder if Lego supply intelligence too - they could spy on our cities. And the Knights on the boat and the ones in Barca? - get em all back top Stormia this go if possible, then bring the boats back next turn for another load?

Thats what I was thinking about the knights.


And I'm 99% sure that lego has been spying on us for GoW and ND. Not a doubt in my mind. But what were we to do? declare war on lego and vox and be at war with everyone? pr nightmare. plus, since most of our units are always outside cities, not entirely useful, unless a siege, ala pamplona.

	10-12-2003 07:04									#18
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At least Lego's turn is after after GoW, so intel on Barca would come too late.

This looks an excellent plan, sleepy you're on top form today
As you say, we can get all knights off this way and many of the other units - depending what GoW do. With that road cut, they can't charge up the desert to Barca-87 where our knights are.

The boats that were following the coast north and south could both head back, and the southern one could pick up the cats in Barca. the northern was going to reinforce the northern fleet and would take three tirns to get there - that might be too late.

	10-12-2003 08:11									#19
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great.

hopefully Theseus or Arrian will be able to check on these plans and add to them if needed. We can hold the save for about the 24 hours, or until some others check in.

Also, we need time for RP to respond, want some input from them on our abandoning their old cities, would hate for some confusion from them to interefere....

	10-12-2003 08:31									#20
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How about the Barca stack goes not into town but to Barca-89. That's two tiles from Sirocco, Barca and NM and they could jump into boats from there too.

We can pull off 16 units this turn, and 12 off the following turn. That's 28 units including all 12 knights safe for certain, and enough to line our beautiful west coast from Typhoon to Eliopolis. Priceless.

The turn after that Gow can have hit us, but we'll have galleys available for another 6 units, with 10 berths for any survivors who got to kiss our possibly-only-saltpeter away on the following turn, when we get gunpowder.

We tried, we came close, but we can't get the SP out, even if it is there. At least we can get out more or less intact

	10-12-2003 08:39									#21
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Sounds good to me.

There's even the possibity that GoW will delay a turn or two, perhaps they are moving those cats in to attack us in Barca...

	10-12-2003 09:14									#22
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Proposed evacuation.

Dunkirk Day 390AD:
5 knights
4 pikes
3 cats
3 settlers
1 worker

Dk-Day +1 (400AD)

7 knights
2 workers
3 MI


Remainder (9 pikes, 2 MI) can hole up in NM (better defence) or Sirocco (easier escape) and take a beating if GoW want to spend some riders.

Dk-Day +2 (400AD)

If they survive they could be joined by 2 more pikes and 1 MI coming in from Pamp & Toledo, and on the following turn

Dk-Day +3 (410AD) or Gunpowder-day

8 galleys would be in position to evacuate any survivors.

	10-12-2003 09:16									#23
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I just got on... can;t stay up too late.

You guys see the news about the patch?

	10-12-2003 09:26									#24
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wimp.

yes, great news about the patch.


Do you have time to examine what CH and I have been discussing, before we have to send the turn?

	10-12-2003 09:30									#25
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CH

I was thinking that we could evacuate everything but the knights. My thoughts are, if they do a slower advance (for the cats) we might be in position to hurt them. I think we could evacuate all the knights anyway, but it might be more flexible. Do you follow me? hmm, need more thought. maybe it would be best just to pull everything out asap.

	10-12-2003 09:42									#26
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I'm not loading the save, just working from the 380AD screenshots... (and coming from an Xmas party)

Is there more pillaging that we should do to slow GoW down? I'm thinking Barc8 and Barc 87. Further, if we are ultimately abandoning Bob, part of the strategy is to make re-settlement as tough as possible for ND and GoW... shouldn't we be pillaging everything possible, especially high value tiles?

Are there any improvements we should sell?

Do we need to be thinking about the loss of the Barc spices?

Do we need to inform RP that we are Dunkirking off of Bob? Are we expecting them to defend at Pamp and let it be taken? Or should they abandon Pamp and thus teleport to N. Stormia (I don't remember the turn order)? Should some of their low value units (I remember an Archer or Spear) be used for pillaging? Are there improvements they need to sell?

Do we have the capacity / excess in southern Galleys to send at least a couple south as a picket?

What is our thinking re the vast number of luxuries that ND and GoW will now control?

We need a publicity plan re our defeat on Bob (god that pains me to say out loud).

In terms of S. Stormian defense, we should start to look at having sufficient units to at least occupy the dangerous landing tiles, and our Knights (good recovery plan, sleepy!) to roam for the rest. I LOVED Arrian's thought re using Cats as coastal defense... perhaps we could focus our good cities on GWs / economic / scientific builds, and our less productive cities on re-building the Cat Corps. On that note, we will soon want to upgrade to Cannons, so let's start saving shekels.

There is jam on the friggin' magnet.

	10-12-2003 09:48									#27
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel CH I was thinking that we could evacuate everything but the knights. My thoughts are, if they do a slower advance (for the cats) we might be in position to hurt them. I think we could evacuate all the knights anyway, but it might be more flexible. Do you follow me? hmm, need more thought. maybe it would be best just to pull everything out asap.

CH has gotta be needing sleep, so I assume the turn will be played tomorrow.

What did you mean by the above quote? If we follow your pillaging plan at Barc 44, I would assume GoW will be coming in at Barc 41... no use attacking them there. Do I have it wrong?

	10-12-2003 12:15									#28
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If you want to slow down the rampage of the riders...

use pikes to pillage roads. I pike per road every second road tile. Bye bye road bonus. Or a combo of pikes/knights, just keep the knights out of range of the bad guys.

	10-12-2003 12:31									#29
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The patch looks very promising.

I asked Vondrack to send me the save, who knows when.

I seem to remember some exports of luxs, are any coming from Bob? If so will we have some to fullfill any trades?

	10-12-2003 15:24									#30
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Our only lux on Bob is a single silks at Barcelona, so we'll be losing 1-2 happies per city depending on whether or not a mkt is present. This could prompt the current mkt build at Bolderburg to go to a library, as there is less lux benefit.

If however we can make peace with the Bobian powers there's every reason to think that they might want our incense & furs as much as we'd like their lux - so trade is a reaslistic possibility - especially with ND.

Alternative plans for the endgame on Bob may therefore be to either pillage heavily with Pikes or somehow to use our knights to
inflict some damage. If we try the latter we just lose all our knights. The former would have better value, but gives them good chance of leaders.

On the pillaging - yes, of course it would be nice to have a fully scorched earth exit - but how could we have done that when we're trying to hold the land for possible saltpeter and defensive maneuverability? These contradictions abound - and having this unknown resource factor causing headaches with our entire "should we stay or should we go" policy has made clarity of direction impossible and compounded problems for us.

Every time we admit to ourselves that we've lost on Bob we try to hold out for something and get further punished for it.

We cannot retreat, fight, pillage, defend pamplona and get out alive. At some point we have to cut our losses and GO, or have nothing left. That point is now, I fear. Alternative plans would need fleshing out.

Last edited by Cort Haus on 10-12-2003 at 16:04