Epic 6, Part II

The Fighting Begins

In 260AD, the first enemy offensive stack arrived. Well, if you can call two axemen and one chariot "offensive stack", that is... They posed no real problem to my shock axemen and formation spears. Numbers increased, as more AIs sent some of these mini-stacks now, mainly near Hamburg:


Still, this could be handled easily. I had macemen and crossbowmen now, and Berlin could churn out a spearman per turn if needed. This was needed actually in 395AD, when Saladin landed two chariots at Essen:


The AIs would make several landing attempts there throughout the next centuries, although they never landed more than four units at a time, so all was well. But they also blockaded the ocean at Essen with their galleys, and since I wanted to connect the seafood resources there finally, I researched Compass and Optics next for caravels. With sea combat so dependant on luck and the AIs building so many galleys, I saw no reason to build galleys on my own and waited until I would have stronger ships instead.

Essen was the only site where the AIs tried to land units. Dortmund for example, on the far southern end of my lands, was never threatened to be attacked because there was some ice blocking the path to the AIs there, so no galleys could threaten me in the south. Very convenient!

While some AIs tried to attack Hamburg with small SoDs, and some AIs sent landing parties to Essen, Munich became a hot spot too.


While the city never really was in danger, the chariots (and later horse archers) trying to pillage the road and the wheat resource were a bit annoying. I lost both the farm and the road leading to the city a couple of times simply because I did not have enough units to attack there, and so had to produce some extra spearmen.

Meanwhile, I waited for either a Great Prophet to appear to construct the Confucian shrine, or a Great Scientist for an Academy in Hamburg, which had lots of cottages now. Instead, I got a Great Engineer in 35AD thanks to the Pyramids, and another Great Engineer in 560AD. Argh!

So while I wanted to keep one of the GEs around for later use, I had the second to spend for...yes, what for? First I wanted to rush the Hanging Gardens with him, but then found out Berlin could build it by hand in only 6 turns! I did so, finishing the Gardens in 695AD, and rushed another wonder with the Great Engineer instead.


More happiness for my cities to grow!

Boot Camp

I built up an offensive stack of myself now, and gave them some training on the front to prepare them for the upcoming assault on Indian cities. Here's another SoD from Tokugawa trying to reach Hamburg:


Since all enemy stacks came along same route (thanks to the fixed and predictable pathfinding AI), I had positioned my macemen and crossbowmen who needed some training on the hill near Hamburg, together with a medic unit. There, they slaughtered any incoming units easily. Macemen got promoted to City Raiders, and crossbowmen received Drill promotions. While my macemen could attack anything that came along with their 8 strength and 50% bonus against melee units, I had to take more care whom to attack with my crossbowmen who only had 6 strength. Why I did this is illustrated in the following shot...


Once the crossbowmen had reached Drill IV, they were unstoppable monsters! Drill I-III are not that great, but with Drill IV they had 4-7 first strikes, which meant they could often kill the enemy before it had a chance to strike back! At one point later in the game, a defending Combat I/Drill IV crossbowmen on a hill successfully managed to kill 10 attacking units, and came out of that bloodbath unharmed - scary. I specifically trained them to protect my upcoming attack stacks, and to protect newly captured cities on the first turn before the rest of my stack could move in.

I managed to breed four of these guys throughout the game, and had big plans for them. Unfortunately, there's an annoying bug in the game that in the end reduced their long-term life expectancy to almost zero, but more on that later.

Expanding My Empire

In 950AD, I finally had assembled my own Stack of Doom at Gandhi's borders. Time to test the AI's defenses!


Err...only two archers and a sword? In a border city? That's all?!? Again, I had overestimated the Noble AIs. I'm used to face more resistance than that! The city was razed next turn (too near to Bombay; I wanted my city count to be low), then I advanced on Bombay. Again, the garrison was laughable, and I captured the city with no losses.


Er...what's that Spanish unit behind the city?!?


Whoops! I hadn't seen that stack when attacking Bombay from the other side, and most of my units had no movement points left! Well, that's what I've brought my Drill IV crossbowman for. Thanks to him, the city held. He single-handedly defeated the complete Spanish stack.

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