Grandpa... tell us about the war

Deranzin wrote: Cilcain wrote: Well written Deranzin - in the spirit of the OP.  And well played. Although your 'victory' at Xarva was a little Pyrrhic to say the least. Considering the odds I do not think that there was ever even an option for any other kind of victory  at least the city was so thoroughly destroyed that there weren't any rooftops left, so I was safe (sorry bad historical joke, but I couldn't resist)   Btw, I forgot to write that I'd be glad to hear the other side of the story as well.

Deranzin wrote: Cilcain wrote: Well written Deranzin - in the spirit of the OP.  And well played. Although your 'victory' at Xarva was a little Pyrrhic to say the least. Considering the odds I do not think that there was ever even an option for any other kind of victory  at least the city was so thoroughly destroyed that there weren't any rooftops left, so I was safe (sorry bad historical joke, but I couldn't resist)   Btw, I forgot to write that I'd be glad to hear the other side of the story as well.

Deranzin wrote: ... I expect this to be my last victory of that kind

Well now that I have an interesting tale to share, I might as well record it ... let us name it :

One+ alliance vs one player

Anyone looking at the war map will notice how good and obvious target I am atm ... anticipating such an eventuality I had all my cities surrounded by plains, but against overwhelming odds that doesn't really mean anything in the end, other than some good k/d ratios ... so it was not long since an operation was organized by the the nearby powerhouse of VICX to attack two of my cities at the same time.

Of course, before that, they thoroughly scouted my cities and after analyzing the data they decided to attack the cities of 3. Xarvanthor and 8. Lar Toribar, which contained 24K pikemen and almost 8K knights respectively, with THREE sieges for each city.

Their general plan was like that as it unfolded :

• Send occupying forces to the spots to work as lightning rods (which is a good tactic even if those forces are attacked or not)
• Then land the sieges with 2 of them having modest defenses and 1 of them have over a million troops to defend itm to be on the safe side
• Then flood the place with direct attacks to kill the armies within along with blockades
  
• Wait for the population to drop and raze the city

And here the tale splits because the two cities had a different fate, because of a slight mistake in step two ... out of miscalculation or confidence, I know not, but out of the 6 sieges that landed around my cities, only two had troops other than siege weapons within them ... which meant that unless their direct hits struck, then they couldn't storm the city.

So let us take the faster tale first : Lar Toribar

The sieges contained a lot of siege weapons and were well protected and myzel's siege contained 42K pikemen within it so the situation was dire indeed ... I prestige builded the city a bit to move the raze moment to a more convenient time for my RL schedule and then left the town to de-level while only killing blockades.

In this case I miscalculated and wasted my knights on the totally wrong siege, so the city was empty of troops as well, not that knights were any good in defending, but anyway ... so, I thought of something else ... since I was the one actually timing the moment the city would hit the raze population, I sent some pikemen on my own inside the city in the hope that they would hit the raze button immediately. So, in went 50K pikemen, awaiting Myzel's hit ... but it never came ... they saw the armies coming and wisely kept their hands away from the "storm and raze" button

So after two hours, in lew of another incoming attack, I withdrew my pikemen to be used for later battles and proclaimed the city lost.

But that didn't happen as soon as I thought either ... because VICX saw my armies go in, but they didn't seem to notice them going out or they didn't believe that all of them where out ... so when that incoming turned out to be a blockade they were left with a town with unknown defenders and since I had killed my knights early on, they had been sending only blockades  ... so they had to wait for many hours (around 10) for Myzel to send another attack to confirm that the city was indeed empty and then hit the raze button.

And thus Lar Toribar fell, but not without quite some fun involved as you just read.

Now the other, longer, tale for the "happy end" : Xarvanthor

• One siege there had 1 million+ defenders, but only siege weapons in its composition
• The other siege also had no troops in it and it had around 40000 defenders
• The last siege HAD troops in it and it had around 65000 defenders

I could have taken siege 2 first, but that would be pointless because I was fast coming to the decision that with my meager prestige points left, three sieges would need a better plan to be faced ... so I killed the THIRD siege instead

The reason for this was my belief that I could dodge with my armies at any time of the day (I am usually around the computer) and at night I could get a sitter to help me with that task and the existence of an army inside the city would deter them for a longer time if they were bereft of the siege that had troops, than losing the siege without troops ...

So, down siege three went, to a significant cost of my forces, but it was worth it ... because now they were left with two sieges that couldn't storm the city so we entered the dodge-dance while I kept most blockades down (more for fun, than to ship resources since I wasn't building anything anymore at that moment) and the city went to zero population and stayed there for many many many hours ... and the sieges were ticking away, because thinking of the whole matter as a normal 3 siege procedure they correctly assumed that 2-3 days would be more than enough to flatten the city ... and the city was flat indeed ... flatter than a pancake pressed by a bulldozer ... but it still had 24000 pikemen in it

Somewhere in these hours of zero population, Geofrey (who was owner of the 1 million + protected siege) must have thought that he could make the raze call between my dodges (or so I think. I do not really believe that he accidentally hit the button, though that can happen as well) so he tried this out in the premise of "we have another active siege anyway and the town is zero pop as well, so any more bombardment is useless" ... and WHAM he landed on my spearmen and siege one was down 

Unbeknownst to me my neighbor Keaves[BANE] after sending a couple of hits and blockades, was sending a siege of his own, a fourth siege (which now resides in my signature) containing this time ONLY troops (15000 knights in particular) and also provided occupying forces on another square along with Rathgore[vCrow] (another neighbor)  ...

So, what I thought was a direct hit, I was amazed (and, sorry VICX, also hugely amuzed ) to find it was another siege ... they had asked literally for the cavalry to arrive and with their siege have 1d and half left, they had asked for other allies to chip in and make things even more harder for me ...

Well I was flattered, but my city was also flattened at the same time ...

I considered destroying Keave's siege before too many occupationaly forces reinforced it, but it would be futile as I knew that he had another cavalry city nearby ... 
I thought that I could keep dodging till the time Keave's siege activates and hope he'd be offline (he had timed it only for 15h, so he had only 3h to hit raze) or that somehow I could reinforce the city right at that moment with the forces I saved from Lar Toribar ... now THAT would have worked, but it would need THE timing and uber careful planning ... but it was a surefire victory if I could pull it off ...

So I set to planning that arduous task and then it hit me ! ... or actually something ELSE hit the last siege ... it was a messenger recalling one of their armies within ... I scouted the square and it turned out that the most massive force defending it had just GONE and now I could take it out even with my leftover forces !

So, why hit Keaves and his rising occupation force .?. It was no longer relevant in my plans ... now I could take out siege 2 which I had left alone and so noone else though of reinforcing further and then drop as many blockades as possible and sneak in one caravan ... so, with the catapults gone, if I build up to ANY amount of population Keaves and his forces would be unable to storm my hut  (it was no longer a city  )

I scrambled to send scouts to the blockades, do the calculations and lo and behold reserving troops instead of just whacking them on their massive forces paid off ... I had the forces needed ! In fact I could have taken it down even without that recall, but it would have been a close shot and I might not have thought of it had I not seen that messenger going in and making my life easier.

• Out went my knights
• In went the caravan
• Down went the last siege
• Up went Xarvanthor's population

VICTORY !!!

and the One+ Alliance Vs one player tale, ended with the score 1-1 ... for now ... I expect this to be my last victory of that kind (I most certainly not have the troops for another feat like that, nor will they make the same overconfident mistakes that made everything actually possible), but that is indeed a good way to go down ... by having fun at it

So, last but not least, as I said in GC yesterday, a big thank you to VICX el al for providing the excitement and the thrill of making me do all those close calls and quick decisions and a big thank you to my alliance who help me implement my plans by keeping my troops alive while I slept.


Edited by Deranzin - 28 Feb 2014 at 09:41

About derailing the thread...