Battles throughout the night.

We were on night watch for young Christopher's night feedings and since we have time, we launch a series of night attacks on the pirate invaders.

The first attack was a spearhead launched by the Babylonian army.  Despite their reputation of powerful cavalry with horse arcchers and chariots, I find the army quite weak.  Those devastating mounted units take up too much supplies and could only be used in small numbers as a mobile punch.  The bulk of the army continue to be infantry which is found to be lacking.  Even before the cavalry corps are ready, we were attacked and soundly thrashed by the Norse infantry.  Although it is true that Norse infantry were tough, the odds were not as bad when other armies were being used.  We lost many Babylonian soldiers and had to wage a war of attrition.  Slowly but surely we began to build more fortifications to even the odds (yes, we did not even get to launch our classic early raids on the enemy).  We also manage to build a horse archer-chariot force to help to even the odds but these were too few in number to be decisive.  Priests were sent to convert Norse warriors to our cause, and these converts helped a bit.  The tide only turn when we manage to amass resources to reach the Golden Age and enlist Royal guard.  The Royal Guard prove to be sufficient to stand their ground against the Norse berserkers and axemen of various sorts.  Slowly but surely a force of lancers, chariots, horse archers, infantry and siege engines made their way to the Norse camp.  The enemy were fierce and wipe out my infantry again, but the latter buy me time to send the cavalry and siege engines ahead to attack enemy camp.  We finally prevailed after great losses.  I think we need to train and gear up the Babylonians more next time.

We then launch a second attack on one of the enemy's cities with the objective of assassinating two of their generals.  The city was manned by dark elven and human mercenaries and the mission was undertaken by the Egyptian army on our side.  As mentioned early, the Egyptian elephant corps suffered great losses in the last battle but it turn out that the infantry were enough this time.  They launch a surprise attack by sneaking into the city and razing many towers and buildings.  Although the enemy take out many of our teams, we send even more troops and after a series of attacks, we wore the enemy down and slay their commanders.  We manage to also send a few Elephants to the battle.  There are some casualties but it's acceptable losses.

Our next plan will be to launch another attack to slay another enemy general with Egyptians again.  And finally, we intend to launch a devastating knockout blow with the Greek Army, which has not fought so far.