09-04-2004 23:13									#121
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I've built it. Had to trigger my GA to research fast enough and make sure I got the build before Egypt. They switched to JS Bachs (400 shields compared to 600) after I built it, and took 2 more turns to finish, so it wasn't necessary I guess. It cost me roughly 4k gold to research to, but with the numbers of units I'm pumping out now to upgrade it should pay off rather quickly.

I was able to successfully relocate Japan to a new island. I was going to settle it myself, but the Hittites kept sending units obviously meant to attack me. The first two went *poof* between turns, but then the third one forced me to gift the city to the Japanese. 2 turns later the Egyptians cleared the Japanese off their homeland, so it was good timing.

	09-04-2004 23:46									#122
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As soon as Egypt got Astronomy, they sent off some Caravels with Pikes/Med Inf/Knights. They landed on the NE island, I demanded they withdraw (wanted negative war weariness), they declared war, and I gifted both the cities there to the Zulu. Then I traded Engineering to the Zulu for an alliance vs the Egyptians, and kept building up units. The Egyptians took both island cities from the Zulu, and then I took them both back about 20 turns later, as part of positioning my forces for an invasion of the Zulu.

Here's the state of my empire at 580AD. The Egyptians already have Gunpowder, and all the 'top' techs too. They've finished Copernicus, Magellans, and Smiths. No one else has Monotheism or Invention yet... so the Egyptians are the only real competition. They will have Riflemen by the time I can even safely navigate to them, and maybe even Infantry. This game would be much easier if there had been another strong AI to make the Great Library more useful.

The Zulu are still at war with Egypt, as am I. The Egyptians are willing to pay me a bit for peace, but negative war weariness is too valuable at this point. Between the GA and WW, I've been able to drop my lux rate from 40% to 20%. The alliance with the Zulu has run out, and I have about 2/3rds of my non-Horse troops on the NE island ready for the invasion. I guess I will rely on Swiss Mercs, Med Inf, and Trebs until I can get to Cavalry, as a second AI doesn't look to be anywhere near getting Chivalry.

As you can see, researching Engineering, Invention, and now Gunpowder has really taken a bite out of my treasury, even with Egypt getting each a few turns ahead of me and lowering the cost a bit. Leo's effectively doubles my treasury for upgrading purposes though, and at 80% tax I pull in +438 gpt in my GA. All the cities producing units can produce that unit in 2 turns. I had set up 2 20 shield producers (Rotterdam, The Hague), and had most of the other main cities at 15, a few at 10. With the GA that bumped the two main producers to 30, and most of the others to 20+. Most of my builds are overbuilding quite a few shields sadly, but I need those Swiss Mercs.

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	09-04-2004 23:49									#123
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Oh yah, notice the cheesy coastal blockade I'm setting up with fortresses. I've easily repelled the few Egyptian landings so far, but it's annoying to have to be moving 'non invasion' forces around on top of the logistics of transporting all those units accross to the Zulu. So I set all the corrupt cities to building 10 turn Workers, and 2 2 turn Worker factories, and will block off my coasts till Marines with them.

	10-04-2004 00:06									#124
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Forgot to mention that I got Monarchy 4 turns into my Republic revolution (8 turns). So I never went to a Republic, just straight to Monarchy. Short term that means less gold and slower research for me, but I'm slightly past Monarchy's free support now, and my unit count is going to be climbing for the rest of the game (hopefully!). I think passing on Republic will have payed off on the first turn of warfare with the Zulu.

	10-04-2004 00:07									#125
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Do empty fortresses block invasions? If so, I need to start working on those myself because I'm tying up absurd numbers of troops making it impossible for Egypt to land. (They were acting like they wanted to invade, so I set up a blockade around my entire perimeter.

	10-04-2004 00:13									#126
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Oops, not Fortresses. They are Outposts, which do block landings. I don't think Fortresses do, but not sure.

	10-04-2004 00:47									#127
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Outposts block landings? News to me!

That's eating up a huge number of workers, though, obviously...

-Arrian

	10-04-2004 01:37									#128
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My story: From a Great Library perspective, I got lucky in having the Zulus beat Egypt to Sun Tsu's in spite of Egypt's huge head start. Since the Zulus had already built the Colossus, that triggered their GA, helping them research relatively quickly. Better, they prioritized the bottom of the tech tree.

When I was about three turns from finishing my research into Engineering, I suspended my research in order to build up cash for the run-up to Invention. (After researching Republic myself - unnecessarily, as it turned out - and then using most of my remaining cash rushing courthouses, my treasury was pretty thoroughly depleted.) In the meantime, the Zulus and Egypt got Engineering, so I ended up having to throw away the research I'd done. But at least I saved a little over if I'd done all the research myself. I tried to time Invention so I would waste as little research as possible if the AIs beat me there but still get Invention by the time my prebuild for Leo's was ready, and ended up only wasting a turn or two (and a few scientists at other times) researching it myself before I learned that I'd get it from the AIs.

While all this was going on, I signed a ROP with the Zulus and landed two Swiss Mercs as the beginning of staging a force to invade Egypt. But the Zulus apparently were itching to use their GA to do some fighting, and they attacked! That triggered my GA a bit ahead of schedule. I'd already had a few swordsmen near the Zulu city on my continent, mostly as MPs in my neighboring city, and was able to capture it almost immediately. Aside from that, the war just consisted of a few galley battles, all but one of which I won. (I lost a vet but had two vets promoted to elite.) With the help of trebuchets, I was able to rid myself of the second Zulu galley that had started the war on my side of the blockade, which had been sailing up my coast.

I seriously considered taking the Zulu islands in between our land masses, but I ultimately decided against it. With the Zulus' cultural advantage, I would have had to either raze and rebuild, making the Zulus angrier toward me, or tie up extra units to prevent flips. Since I was still hoping to target Egypt rather than the Zulus and to use Zulu lands as a staging area to do so, I decided against that course of action.

With my GA triggered, I started looking for places where I could plant forests to get better use from it. With where my palace and FP were located, I was able to get up to six cities that could produce a 30-shield unit every turn relatively quickly, and eventually to eight (one of them being the city that built Leo's and one of them requiring some tweaks I didn't see at first). My head start on Leo's proved sufficient, and I completed the wonder in 450 AD. (Officially, wonders complete at the end fo the old turn rather than the beginning of the new, something I didn't realize until I started matching dates on F7 against reports I was writing.)

The Zulu war ended just as Leo's was almost complete, and by that point, a trade route had opened with Egypt. I resumed trading horses and one of my luxuries for a Zulu luxury and discovered that I could give Egypt one of my luxuries, a world map, and a little gold for two of their luxuries. That, in a Republican GA, let me drop my luxury slider to 10%, letting me rake in over 700 gpt even after the cost of supporting my ever-growing military.

Since that time, I've been building up my forces and my treasury. Now, as of 530 AD, I have 10,682 gold and have gotten Gunpowder and and Monotheism from the Great Library. My forces consist of:

5 Settlers
56 Workers
5 Swordsmen (1 elite)
29 Horsemen
21 Galleys
23 MedInfs
56 Swiss Mercs
19 Trebuchets

Once my GA is over, I'll have the option of either pillaging my iron to continue building troops very quickly or proceeding at a slower pace and focusing more on mounted units.

Now I have to decide whether to make another attempt at staging through Zulu lands to attack Egypt or to take out the Zulus first. I probably need to go after the Zulus first and see if I can get both some armies to help in that war and some empty armies to send to Egypt; I can hope that even a Sid AI with a big tech lead will have some trouble against a mixture of Swiss Merc armies, cavalry armies, and cannons. But I haven't made my final decision yet.

Nathan

	10-04-2004 01:52									#129
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson Oops, not Fortresses. They are Outposts, which do block landings. I don't think Fortresses do, but not sure.

Considering how much gold my 56 workers are costing me every turn, and how long it will probably be before I can start work on a rail network, that outpost trick is starting to look pretty good. Thanks for the idea! It should stretch out the useful life of Republic considerably.

	10-04-2004 02:10									#130
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Just to elaborate on the "empty armies" invasion strategy for anyone who might not have caught what I'm talking about, it goes something like this:

Turn 0: Land a settler. The AI shouldn't force you to leave or declare war over just a settler.

Turn 1: Build a city, move galleys or caravels into the city, and unload. Armies unloaded in that process can then be populated with troops (or additional troops).

From there, proceed normally.

Obviously, that strategy involves holding back armies that could be used to reduce losses in an earlier war. But on the other hand, the more use is made of armies in the first war, the fewer leaders will be generated for additional armies. If, as in this case, the first target isn't nearly as tough as the second, making minimal use of armies against the first target in order to maximize the number of armies available to deal with the second might be a very good investment.

In the context of this particular game, the "empty armies" invasion technique could potentially allow Aeson or me to mount an army-heavy invasion of Egypt using caravels, or me (using the Great Lighthouse) even to do it with galleys. That would give Egypt a lot less time to get gobs of advanced troops than if we'd wait for galleons that can transport loaded 3-unit armies. The only catch is, the Zulus (or some other reasonably vulnerable target) would have to be defeated first, and defeated in a manner that generates some spare leaders to build spare armies.

Nathan

	10-04-2004 03:57									#131
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Does anyone have any idea how many attackers per turn the Zulus would be likely to be able to hit an invader with? I'm trying to figure out whether it would make more sense to land purely Swiss Mercs or to mix in some Trebuchets to ping down some of the attackers.

To go into more detail about what I'm planning if the Zulus cooperate, I'm thinking I'll borrow a page from Aeson's playbook. I should have a little over thrity galleys when I'm ready to strike. (Edit: I rearranged some production priorities to see if I can squeeze out a few more galleys.)

Turn 0: Land a settler.

Turn 1: Build a city (an act of war), rush a barracks (short rushing with a worker so I don't pay double cost on the full price), and unload and fortify my troops. Unfortunately, I'll be close enough to a Zulu city that there will be a direction the Zulus can attack from with slow-movers immediately before the walls are built, and that fast-movers can take advantage of to reach the city more quickly.

Turn 2: Rush a barracks to help units heal faster (again using a worker short rush to hold down the cost a little).

Unfortunately, since I didn't take the intermediate islands, I'm looking at about four or five turns between the landing and the time reinforcements arrive, so my initial stack has to hold out on its own for a while. Which raises the question of whether trebuchets would improve Swiss Merc survival enough to be worth displacing some of the Swiss Mercs in the stack, and I don't have Sid-level experience to know how quickly a healthy AI's counterattackers are likely to flow in.

There are also two ways the Zulus could mess up the battle plan. They could bop my settler before I can build my city, forcing me to use a conventional landing instead of having a ready-made city to unload in. (If that happens, I'll need to take the intermediate islands as a staging area assuming that's possible.) Or they could have troops on the hills where I want to land, forcing me to land and build my city on flat ground instead of on a hill (thereby greatly reducing my Swiss Mercs' defensive bonus).

Anyhow, I thought I'd see what Aeson and the other players with Sid-level experience think about an appropriate force mix for such an operation.

Last edited by nbarclay on 10-04-2004 at 04:06

	10-04-2004 04:34									#132
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I just landed on the Zulu mainland, and the first couple turns weren't very bad at all. My landing party was ~40 SM and 10 Trebs, with a few MI. Then the second turn another 10 SM and 30 MI.

First turn the Zulu hit me with about 30 units. I killed 12 MI, 4 Archers, 10 Swords. Losing 7 SM in the process. I couldn't build a city because of where I landed (on the Saltpeter), and had to take the city next to it first. Once I had an Elite SM fortified on the Hill they wouldn't attack me it seemed, and there were 2 almost peaceful turns as I landed the rest of my units building up to take the city. After taking the city (killed 3 Pikes, 4 Impi, 4 Swords, and 1 Archer to do so) I got a Leader from a MI attack, but the Zulu didn't attack me at all IIRC. Made a SM army with the Leader.

Then I founded the city and they all charged.

Turn 5 saw me kill 11 MI, 9 A, 19 S, and 49 Impi. Losing 5 SM behind my city walls. Gained a Leader on defense, made a SM army. Turn 6 was where the majority of the Zulu forces reached me, and I killed 23 MI, 16 A, 78 S, and 13 I. Lost 8 SM. Gained another Leader and created a MI Army because the Zulu had only a handful of MI and S left in range to attack.

Turned off battles at this point as it was taking forever. Got another Leader on defense the next turn and made another SM Army. That should pretty well keep the Zulu from ever threatening my city, but I need more attacking armies before really making a push anywhere. Still a long ways from Cavalry, but I might get Chivalry from the GL pretty soon. And the Zulu don't have any Saltpeter now, so they are pretty much dead (going to take a long time to kill though).

Last edited by Aeson on 10-04-2004 at 04:48

	10-04-2004 04:37									#133
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Your Zulu have/had Horses right? Do they have Chivalry yet? ALso, do they have Gunpowder? You may end up facing a lot more units the first couple turns because of Horsemen/Knights, so you may want to go with a larger landing force than I did.

	10-04-2004 05:06									#134
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So thats over 200 units you documented, not too bad. How many cities do the Zulu's have? How many turns into the game was the attack?

	10-04-2004 05:15									#135
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Nathan it is hard to say how many they will be kicking out, but if you are lucky they will have a few cities building structures and be reluctant to switch right away.

They will surely switch most cities to troops once the counter attack starts. I would expect half of their cites to switch. Then the question becomes how much production can they muster in those cities and what unit will they build.

The empty army for galley's and partial armies in caravels is what I use. In my invason of Germany I was able to get muskets over soon and fill out a 4 unit army. I had a pike army that I added a musket to and with Germans attacking over a river I took very few loses.

That did not goes as well against Chinas Riders and Calvs though. They just had too many.


I am enjoying the games gentlemen, thanks so posting your reports.

	10-04-2004 05:16									#136
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In my game I noticed that AI will basically never attack a "green" army in the field. They will attack a city with an army in it. It must be an AI programming thingy. No doubt each unit computes some sort of cost/benefit ratio and chooses an action that maximizes payoff. So when an army is guarding a city, high likelihood of losing is probably offset by small propability of winning a city, and they attack. But in the field, an attacking unit will die almost surely for (from AI perspective) basically nothing. and so they look for a way around it.

In my game on the conquest thread, that was a cornerstone of my military strategy. First, it allows to stay in war almost indefinitely while never leaving republic (since AI never attacks your units). Secondly, you do all the attacking, so there are much fewer nasty surprises. Third, with some luck landscape-wise, you can channel their forces towards a killing zone to reduce their numbers before making your move.

I did the same thing nbarclay suggested to prepare for an invasion. The only difference is that I played continents and did some fighting against ironless AIs on my continent, so I had a couple of armies which were loaded with only two units to make them fit into caravels. Finished assembling them after landing.

	10-04-2004 05:29									#137
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[Edit: this was aimed at Aeson, but there was some crossposting in between.]

Sounds like you're doing well. What year did your invasion force land?

I've been trading the Zulus horses for a long time, but they don't have Chivalry yet. If they get it in the ten turns before our current trade expires (which is also when my troops are scheduled to land if I can get them assembled in time to launch my invasion then), I might have to face a few knights, but they won't have time to build or upgrade a huge number. As for horsemen, I'm not too worried about them; a Swiss Merc has better odds against a horseman without walls than against a MedInf with.

Yes, my Zulus have Gunpowder. I'm tempted to try to go for their Saltpeter city first thing, and if I had the forward bases you do, that would be my strategy. But without forward bases, my Swiss Mercs would have to survive for a fair while in enemy territory before I could deliver MedInfs to support them, or else I'd have to cut back dramatically on my number of defenders. Either one of those options could get ugly. But if I build a city of my own on the Zulu continent, I'm hoping I can draw in most of the Zulus' offensive forces to wear them down and set up to hit their Saltpeter city once reinforcements arrive.

I've started using my gold surplus to pursue Military Tradition, but I don't know whether I'll get it in time to do much good in the Zulu war or not. I'll have to change from Republic to Monarchy, and as much as I hate the timing, I'll probably need to do that about as soon as my GA ends (in between now and the time I attack) so I can benefit from some luxury deals that won't be renewed. In Monarchy, with fewer luxuries, and with my GA over, research will slow down a lot.

Are you sure armies are so vital to an effective offensive? I'm thinking that even against musketmen, a MedInf stack with about 50 trebuchets in support and plenty of Swiss Mercs to defend it should be able to do some pretty nasty things. And once the trebuchets can be upgraded to cannons (and the Zulus can no longer build additional musketmen to replace losses), such tactics would be even more effective.

Nathan

Last edited by nbarclay on 10-04-2004 at 06:10

	10-04-2004 05:37									#138
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Vmxa1, just to be clear, it's the initial attacks with whatever reserves the Zulus have built up at the time I invade that really concern me. I'll have enough of an advantage in concentration of force to deal with units that trickle in later, even in a fast Sid-level trickle. But if I get pushed back into the sea before my reinforcements arrive, I'm in trouble - especially if I lose a lot of trebuchets in the process.

Nathan

	10-04-2004 05:45									#139
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Ok sorry I misunderstood. I guess if you use the 8 times cities plus 24 you have a base. I can only guess after that, but the more time that has gone by the larger the over the limit they will be.
Add at least 150 to the base.

The big issue is how many can be sent and in what time frame?
Figure 3 for defense in each city off the base should be close to what they have to send. If no horse types, you will probably see 20-25% coming. It depends on so many things, the size of the island and terrain, is it all roaded and so on.

Aeson had over 200 intially manage to reach him (first two turns).

	10-04-2004 05:45									#140
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The Zulu have 19 cities, and I'm guessing they all are going to be producing a unit every turn, or close to it. They got Monotheism recently, so some may build Cathedrals, but that will be a few turns at most. I would be very suprised if they haven't built every possible improvement other than that in every city by now. So even after beating down their reserves, there will be a constant flow of units streaming towards any attacking stack.

Eric's point about the AI not attacking healthy Armies in the field is the important thing. To go on the offensive you have to leave the city walls and hills behind, and losses would start to mount quickly. With Armies you can make it to each city without being attacked at all, and by leaving a good defense in your cities you still get to fight all your battles at best odds.

Given that I get a Leader on defense pretty much every turn, and can likely average around 1 every 3 turns on offense at this point (just don't have many Elite MI yet) it's just a matter of time till I can get the Armies necessary to go on the offensive. That also gives me time to get a good number of Trebs together and I could have Metallurgy in 10-15 turns if I choose to. With Cannons (or even just a bunch of Trebs as the Zulu don't have Muskets) things will definitely go smoother. I have every 15 shield city (GA just ended) currently building Trebs, so I should have a lot by the time my situation is ready to switch to offensive.

I can't get to anyone else safely for another 30-40 turns most likely. The Zulu lands won't be too productive, other than allowing me more city sites to raise unit support numbers. So no rush here. I want to farm as many armies as I can get, filling them up with 3 units, get to Galleons, and then try to beat down the Egyptians.

I landed in 640AD IIRC BTW.

	10-04-2004 05:47									#141
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Sounds like you're doing well. What year did your invasion force land?

It's not this start. See Your Sid level experiences thread on the conquest forum for a game log. It is currently on hold due to lack of time.

quote: Are you sure armies are so vital to an effective offensive? I'm thinking that even against musketmen, a MedInf stack with about 50 trebuchets in support and plenty of Swiss Mercs to defend it should be able to do some pretty nasty things. And once the trebuchets can be upgraded to cannons (and the Zulus can no longer build additional musketmen to replace losses), such tactics would be even more effective

Not so much that they are vital on the offensive but they are vital to block AI counterattacks.

	10-04-2004 05:56									#142
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I think that Aeson laid out the logic behind using armies. The extra moves can let you get in a city. I will sometimes send a few armies next to the city with no attacking that turn, especially if I get a terrain bonus. So I can attacking and leave one move left to get inside. Now I can hopefully send in backup using the roads.

Even superior units will take a pounding in the open as they cannot heal and the AI will send a lot of troops at them. The trickle in is more like a stream for awhile. The problem is that is will not be easy to replace large losses in a timely fashion, so I have to be more defensive.

I like to have a defensive army move with those stacks to absort most of the punishment, if they do attack it. Even a 4 man army of pikes can take down a bunch of troops as it will be able to fort up.

	10-04-2004 05:58									#143
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I've seen about 400 Zulu units in the first 7 turns. My kill counts don't take into account the 60 or so Impi which retreated from battle, or the 'defensive' Impi that don't attack. The 7th turn counts were somewhere inbetween the 5th and 6th turn counts, and the Zulu still have roughly 100 more units in view.

Just a guess, but I think they had around 800 units when I landed. 5-10 in each city, and at least a couple hundred non-Impi up N that I wouldn't have seen yet. They were at war with Egypt, and that may have drawn quite a few units to the N, and the turn they signed peace with Egypt I signed Egypt up against them again too. The slow units from furthest N would be showing up for another few turns.

	10-04-2004 06:07									#144
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ErikM, I was actually responding to Aeson in that message, but you posted in between. Thanks for your input, though.

Aeson, I'm definitely thinking a Swiss Merc army or two to protect the trebuchet/MedInf stack would be useful. But you already had that as of your status report, which left me wondering why you were so eager for additional armies to use in the war with the Zulus. My inclination would be to build the armies but not populate most of them (other than defensive ones) until I got cavalry. Cavalry armies would be vastly more powerful than MedInf or knight armies for the assault on Egypt, and if we attack the Zulus with individual units rather than with armies, we get more chances to generate leaders offensively.

By the way, how does your culture compare with that of the Zulus at this point, and are you capturing or razing cities? I suspect I'll be mostly razing in the early stages; I'll probably have over a third of the Zulus' culture when I attack, but not by much.

Nathan

	10-04-2004 06:54									#145
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My per turn culture is approaching that of the Zulu, but I will raze everything but the Wonder cities anyways. All those captured workers will make nice coastal blockades... and can be kept for rails later on without ruining my unit support costs.

The army thing is mainly "the more the merrier". I'd prefer to have most of the fighting be defensive on my part, and then have a giant nutcracker that takes no losses (or close to it) in pounding city after city into the dust. I like attacking Pikes in cities with Armies, even if I have them down to 1 hp. If you get hit by bombardment coming in, 3-4 vs 1 hp, with odds favoring the defender for each hp, isn't terribly efficient. 1 hp units in the open are good for the individual units, and there won't be any shortage of them. I'll probably hit the Army cap from defensive Leaders anyways. Then near the end of the war I can disband MI Armies as I get Leaders and save empty Armies for Cavalry.

You can also rush Armies from the Military Academy in C3C, so disbanding Armies to build new Armies will help keep the Armies you have as modern as possible.

	10-04-2004 07:45									#146
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That is about the size of it. You have so many battles that you can almost count on getting leaders for armies. The old ones can be disbanded to rush a struture or two if you get to the max for your city count.

Once you start using knights against those stragglers they get to popping leaders.

I had failed to mention that the AI often has large numbers of units that it will not attack with in the first phase and only used as defenders for its attackers. If you have two move units you can pick off a number of these after they get damaged.

	10-04-2004 10:08									#147
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In 650 AD, two landmark events occurred. First, the Dutch people emerged from anarchy into Monarchy. And second, Dutch forces landed in Zululand. The invasion force consisted of all twenty-six trebuchets currently available, the first seven knights upgraded from horsemen, five MedInfs, a settler to replace Swazi once it's razed or abandoned, an elite sword unit, and 32 Swiss Mercenaries - a total of 72 units. I decided to go after the Zulu saltpeter supply right away after all, since I had more galleys available for the operation than I'd originally been thinking in terms of. Even so, there is some risk that I might have to turn around and go home if I take too many losses the first turn. I checked into getting an alliance with Egypt, but it would have cost far more than I was willing to pay. I ended up able to trade one luxury for two to Egypt, so I ended up renewing that luxury deal after all. With the luxury slider at 20%, that put me at 11 turns to Metallurgy with a deficit of about 300 gpt.

Two Swiss Mercs were lost in the initial Zulu counterattack, several more injured, and about half a dozen promoted to elite (albeit all of them injured in the process). When it was my turn again, I started pounding the Zulu saltpeter city with trebuchets and got the three musketmen down to one hit point each, the pikeman to two, and the three or four impis and MedInf to three. There was also a longbowman defending the city. I lost one MedInf in the ensuing assault, but barely had enough offensive units to finish the job. A knight razed the city, and I then founded my own city of Saltpetersburgh on top of the saltpeter supply, moving the knight back along with the workers from the raze. I couldn't really have asked for the invasion to go more smoothly.

	10-04-2004 15:18									#148
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It took most of a century to beat off the Zulu reserves, but I finally did it. About three turns into the war, I enlisted Egypt as an ally hoping to keep the Zulus busy on their northern flank. Finally, on the one hundredth anniversery of the initial landing, Dutch forces celebrated by burning a second Zulu city to the ground.

I only got four leaders so far, three of them building armies and the fourth rushing a certain structure with five sides. Two of the armies are remaining unpopulated thus far; to build the Heroic Epic, I pinged a longbowman down to one hit point and attacked with a Swiss Merc army. I also just got Metallurgy, so I'll be upgrading my trebuchets to cannons before I continue my offensive.

	11-04-2004 08:18									#149
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What sort of numbers did you encounter?

	11-04-2004 10:01									#150
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When I thought I'd dealt with the initial counterattack, I was a bit too optimistic. I was able to raze a third Zulu city and replace it with one of my own, and then found a fourth city and a fifth pushing my borders forward. But then so many Impi started swarming, accompanying MedInfs and longbowmen and pillaging tiles, that my offensive forces and bombardment units were too busy dealing with intruders to push my borders forward.

That was complicated by another problem: the Zulu island cities controlled the sea lanes between our homelands. I'd forgotten that cannons require iron as well as saltpeter; it's never been an issue for me before that I recall, but it was this time. I was able to hook up an iron source on the Zulu continent briefly and upgrade a few of my trebuchets, but most of them were too busy. Then the Zulus cut the road, and later, my iron city of New Hague (one I'd built myself) flipped, costing me a 4x Swiss Merc army and a stand-alone elite Swiss Merc.

I could have lived with using trebuchets instead of cannons, but without a connection between the land mass with horses and the one with saltpeter, cavalry would be impossible. Since my forces on the Zulu homeland were busy, that meant my homeland had to build an entire second, separate invasion force to take the islands. Which, in turn, meant that my forces in Zululand would have to survive on their own without reinforcements for a while. With trebuchets and cannons to soften up the Zulu units, my knights and MedInfs could finish them off with minimal losses. But minimal losses are not the same as no losses, and over time, my units found themselves taking greater and greater chances attacking while injured rather than allow injured Zulu units to retreat and heal.

Finally, as the millennium drew to a close, I managed to concentrate enough healthy and almost-healthy offensive units to raze the Zulu city two tiles from where I'd earlier founded New Rotterdam, thereby taking control of most of the continent's wines. About the same time, my island invasion force started its work, capturing two cities and razing and replacing a third. At long last, thanks to the Great Lighthouse (since I still didn't have Astronomy), I was able to bring horses and saltpeter together to start upgrading knights to cavalry.

And that's where things stand as of 990 AD. I've started upgrading knights to cavalry, but with no more income than I have, upgrading the horsemen I've had blocking my homeland from invasion for centuries will take a lot longer. I finally got Education from the Great Library a few turns ago, but since I need gold for upgrades, I'm going to hope the Zulus research Astronomy for me and I can get it from them in peace negotiations.

Once my forces are consolidated, I'll have over ninety bombardment units in Zulu lands, enough to beat off Zulu counterattackers and push forward with offensive operations simultaneously. And I'll have over a dozen additional cavalry as well Maybe, at long last, I'll be able to make steady progress instead of just holding my own.

Egypt recently completed Newton's University but has not yet started on any industrial wonders, so I can hope there's still time to at least seriously prune them before they get infantry. Otherwise, I'm in trouble.

Nathan

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