Part 75: Lanka - Turn 20
Captain Bravo posted:
Also, how is lanka even still going? He's pulling income from what, two provinces at this point? How in the flying fuck is he able to fight two countries with dozens of territories using two regions worth of income?
Magic! And a careful doctrinal adherence to Defeat in Detail.
You can see my income every update too. I've carefully kept my capitol clear of unrest, and it's kept enough gold flowing to replace my Palankasha losses and recruit Raksharaja, albeit I have to skip them occasionally. Basically, I've sacrificed the future (recruit mages, keep researching) for the present (recruit replacements, mages in battle).
Turn 20 - Hey, it saves on upkeep
Hinnom pulls off his attack -> retreat tactic to withdraw his thugs, something I probably could have seen coming. A wasted opportunity on my part; a more aggressive counter-tactic could have caught all of the raiders. Overall, the raiding bought him & Sauro a turn where I can't go on a counteroffensive.
I retake the provinces.
Sauro's back! This is not ideal for me. I probably should have scripted retreat orders, or even fire and flee, but I didn't think of that. I've brought 78 Atavi Archers, 702 gold worth, and two crippled demons & two leftover Markata to absorb volleys.
In this case, the my Atavi are set up to counter a fire closest or fire largest with my PD as the decoy.
Which worked for the first round, and the second.
Dulicandra eliminates a Witch King
But all my melee has died or routed, so the skellies catch up to my archers, and they are routed by archer fire and chased by skellies. I also lose my Raksharaja as he is exhausted and can't rout.
edit: buildscharacter and I were having a discussion on IRC and I posited that I could probably have won this battle (or made it extremely close) if I had 12 healthy demons worth of sacreds, since they'd traverse the battlefield in 2 rounds and start fucking shit up. In this regard, BC caused me to lose by blocking my reinforcement routes with his raiders, which is what he meant to do. So good on him.
KILLCOUNT
pre:
Androphag Archer 16/67 @ 12g = 192 Witch King 1/6 @ 300g = 300 Battle Total 492 T'ien Ch'i Grand Total 905 Hinnom Grand Total 3521 Sauromatia Grand Total 6582
I'm setup to counter Sauro's advance with Sacreds and Mages this time, and I have a new toy specifically to fuck with him.
Next turn: objective-based gameplay