OOC Thread and Chatroom 2

[Privateerkev]

If you guys had discussed this on the AHEM board I could've explained the way it would work to you. Personally I didn't imagine the Order would take those legions of peasants and go after the jihad armies anyway.

I hate to say it but the way things stand now if the AI attacks (retreat, attacks again) the battle should have to be fought.

I didn't think about the Jihad hitting Cecil twice in a turn.

I thought they would hit, Cecil would fight/retreat, and then they'd walk by. And we could then say IC that we tried. With the Germans sitting on a key river crossing, we had few options. Most of Mak's army don't have the MP to reach the Jihad this turn because of the blocked crossing.

For IC reasons, I didn't want us to just stand aside and let those Jihad armies through without at least trying something. We'd get barbecued at the next Senate session for doing nothing.

That's why we did what we did. I didn't think about exploiting the AI. Though in my defense, I have now proved that the AI is so stupid, that it can be exploited completely by accident.

[TinCow]

I didn't think about exploiting the AI.

Then I take you at your word and apologize if you were offended by my words. I will proceed exactly as I outlined in my initial post. I have to take control of Egypt this turn anyway, so I will park both armies right on top of Armatos and leave them there. If he remains blocking their path on the next AI turn, the battle will be autoresolved (because I cannot start a battle that can be fought by the Byzantine player - if I could, this wouldn't be an issue). As I understand it, this fits in perfectly with your plan anyway, so it shouldn't cause problems.

[Privateerkev]

Then I take you at your word and apologize if you were offended by my words. I will proceed exactly as I outlined in my initial post. I have to take control of Egypt this turn anyway, so I will park both armies right on top of Armatos and leave them there. If he remains blocking their path on the next AI turn, the battle will be autoresolved (because I cannot start a battle that can be fought by the Byzantine player - if I could, this wouldn't be an issue). As I understand it, this fits in perfectly with your plan anyway, so it shouldn't cause problems.

Ironically, if I was trying to exploit the AI, I would have really screwed up. Because I was operating off of faulty assumptions on the AI's behavior.

Plus, don't AI controlled Jihad/Crusader armies attack enemy armies in their way? They don't just wander like automatons towards the target do they?

Also, if Cecil was attacked, and lost the battle, wouldn't his army just run to Adana? So the fear of "obliteration" didn't make sense to me.

And yeah, what your outlining is very much in line with what we intended. Sounds good to us.

OOC I knew we were outnumbered and outgunned and we should just step aside. IC however, we couldn't do this. We're playing good brave Crusaders so Armatos and Mak wanted to at least try to make a dent in the evil armies.

[TinCow]

Plus, don't AI controlled Jihad/Crusader armies attack enemy armies in their way? They don't just wander like automatons towards the target do they?

Actually, yes. Anyone seen any news on the ETW AI?

For the record, since I had to take control of Egypt myself this turn to prevent them from walking into Russia, the game considered them player controlled and made 3 units desert from one of the armies (AI controlled Crusade/Jihad armies do not suffer desertion). If you aren't up for the battle in the current situation, you can RP it that you've managed to kill off those 3 units through skirmishing. That's at least helping somewhat. I wouldn't worry about the Jihad armies too much, though. Under AI control they are very unlikely to end their movement adjacent to one another, and those stacks are not of good enough quality to be too much of a threat individually.

[Privateerkev]

FRAPS is refusing to take screencaps for some reason. To summarize, it was a close defeat. They lost 48% of their army, we lost 2/3 of ours. (Not counting the ransom) They lost the general in their larger stack, we lost no avatars. (Although Armatos is the only one left in his bodyguard, and Nathanail only has one other guy left in his)

Also, after the battle the enemy Sultan offered to ransom away the soldiers. Since their's no mention of ransoming in the rules, and Armatos is a do-what-you-can-and-damn-the-consequences kind of guy, I accepted that. I hope that's not a problem OOC.

Love your work Cecil!

That was about as good of an outcome as we could expect.

I can't wait for a battle report.