The first few landings turned out to be on islands and required the galleons to do a lot of shuttling of forces between the theatres of war. Here is a picture of some early successes.
The Indians did sail a significant force to our shores but luckily, it turns out that not having enough galleons is a good thing and we were able to move some units that where staging for deployment to India up to help with the defense of Novgorod. It seems that a design has achieved perfection, not when there are troops that can be added, but when there are no galleons that can take the troops away.
We lost a good number of people on that day but, in the end, one of our scouting Keshik was able to kill off the last wounded knight leaving some Indian catapults to be cleaned up the next day.
With that thread neutralized, and once the forces found the mainland, the real battle started as India had developed advanced defensive units that threw explosive bombs. These units had to hold a fairly defensive position while they weighted for cavalry support. Most of them moved off to slow down the Indian nation with some pillaging.
When the battle did begin, the first real encounter was Private Guthie (maceman) against an Indian Grenadier. According to our intelligences, this was going to be a blood path with the Private having a 1% chance of victory. It turns out that he did manage to defeat the defender. The commanders promoted him to Corporal and sent him home to promote the war effort back home. The troops hoped to 'do a Guthie' in all future battles.
We later found out from N'uncle what really happened on that day. Apparently, Guthie was charging up the hill to attack the Indian city when he saw the Grenadier defender light the fuse on the bomb and prepare to throw in at Guthie. Guthie panicked and started to run in circles whirling his mace around his head. The Grenadier lobbed the bomb at the madly circling Guthie and, as luck would have it, just as the bomb arrived, Guthie's mace swung round and connected with it - thus sending is sailing back at the unlucky defender. Imagine being blown up by your own bomb.
At about this time, Persia decided to get in on the invading act and sent 6 units (3 cats, 2 gren and 1 knight) to our Japanese holdings. Unfortunately for them, they landed within 2 tiles of Kyoto - our military production centre with Heroic Epic and Iron works AND we hadn't got around to getting any galleons over there yet. So, several decades of production that had been waiting to get in on the action got its chance - splat invasion force!
Back on the Indian mainland, once we had overcome Bombay, it was fairly easy sailing / riding and the balance of the land was over-run fairly easy. Another trading block removed from the economic battle. It would be much easier if they just traded with us on our terms and didn't try to force their terms so much.
Jr had been working on the problem of our wooden catapults - they didn't seem to be much of a match against the modern units we would probably be facing against the Persians and Chinese. He left the camp saying "before I return for another drink, I shall die with my hammer in my hand". We were not sure what he meant, but we didn't see him for a while. However, we heard about new units on the battle fields ... cannons! As a side benefit, we also heard that Kyoto had build a drydock that enabled it to start producing battle ready navel units much faster.
The initial engagements with the Chinese were navel. They were sending some invasion forces and our Frigates (retro-fitted galleys) were having a field day. We also used the Frigates as scouts to find the Chinese cities. Here is their capital defended by only 3(!) units.
The whole economy was bent towards the war effort, no money was being spent on entertainment or research. We had decided that if they wouldn't trade with us, then we would just have to dominate them by force of numbers. The new cities we were acquiring were a drain on our finances, but nothing that the banking establishments couldn't handle - the banks ended up being more dangerous than our armies. And finally, the Chinese and the Persians decided that they would trade with us - they decided that on the world stage, the players have their exits and their entrances and that this was a time for them to play the part of our vassal. We heard of one final battle between N'Uncle and one of the Chinese Generals - I will not spoil it, but will leave it to you to determine how N'Uncle outwitted his opponent (see below - green to play and win in 3, settlers are Kings, warriors are pawns).
Someone (Raven) from Thunder School started to quibble that there is no solution to the game as shown. N'uncle just shook his head and walked off muttering "what are they teaching these young people". Jr took pity on Raven and pointed out the following:
1. gh1 ... f43 (Bishop to h1, pawn on f4 to f3)
2. Bxe ... f32 (Bishop takes pawn on e4, pawn on f3 to f2)
3. Bxb# (Bishop takes pawn on b7 - checkmate)
