Whether we like it or not, our Golden Age will be upon us the moment our first Legionnaire claims victory. We are obviously not maximized and ready for our GA, but the only way to put it off would be to delay having our legions attack Egypt.

What do you think?

I feel that since we will not get to speak to Cleo for 3-4 turns, we may have no choice but to strike. All we may be able to do is maximize our GA as best we can on the fly.

Against Sun Tzu's ancient advise (always fight on your terms, never on the enemy's) we are in a war we aren't really ready for. But on the positive side: better a golden age too soon than none at all !

O.k. it's stupid reasoning, but it just sounded nice.

We can delay our Golden Age if we want to. It is my understanding that we do not have enough gold to refit all our warriors as legionarries. Do the Egyptians have a strong enough force that we must use legions against them? Cannot our warriors and spearmen fend off the Egyptians? We have blundered into this war. Perhaps it would be best hold our legions in reserve and take a defensive posture. We could make peace as soon as possible and then when we are ready we will pay back the cursed Egyptians.

That sounds like an excellent plan to me, donsig. Let's shore up the perimeter while we strengthen our army.

I'd agree with donsig. At this stage, we want to put off this Golden Age for as long as possible.

I would almost tend to agree here, but can see the strategic benefits of engaging now. We have 360g in our treasury, so that would give us a good start. Also, keep in mind that if one of our Legions is victorious in defense, we would still be cast into our GA. Please correct me if I am wrong.

You should also know that I would not be willing to pay a big lump sum to get ourselves out of this war. It seems foolish for us to pay more to get out of a war than we declined to give in the first place. If Cleo feels she has the upper hand, she will ask way too much and the standoff will continue with us afraid of using our powerful legions.

It looks like this may have to go to vote, as the military faction is already assuming that a full-scale war is in order. The next few turns will determine Egypt's readiness. Please continue discussion on this matter.

Prudence and thought should caracherize our way of doing. We have a lot of time on our side so going for quick, distructive and aggressive ways will not get us very far. My opinion is to slow down a bit a hold back. Let's wait for the Queen of Egypt if she is interested without attacking with our Legionaries. A Golden Age now would be, without any doubt a wasted Golden Age....more like a Bronze Age....;)

Yes, I think we'd get a golden age even if our legions win when they are attacked. The idea would be to keep our legions away from the fight until we want a golden age.

This is not neccesarily a question of ending this war to avoid triggering our golden age. The key idea is to get the golden age when we want it. Apparently with some non-war related building we could better benefit from our golden age. How much more do we have to do to be in a position to have a good golden age? If we're close to what we need perhaps the best thing to do is take a defensive position for awhile and keep our legions back while we get into position for a nice golden age. Rather than going full tilt on war production now we can keep some focus on golden age preperations while still devoting some energy to building our armed forces. Perhaps in 10 or 20 turns we'll be far enough along to ensure a better golden age. The war can continue and when we're ready we strike the cursed Egyptians with the full might of our Golden Age powered military might! :)

Actually, I can see your point on engaging now. Although we have a good combo of troops on the way and cash on hand,we may need the Golden Age income to keep our upgrades coming. While still liking the idea of firming up our perimeter, I also like the idea of your two-pronged attack. We just have to make sure we always have more Legionaries coming up the road.

The ideal GA would be in monarchy or republic, and good infrastructure... but we're FAR from that. We could try to defend with spears, and attack with horsemen or archers (take a city or two), then see what Cleo has to say.

I am all for trying to make this war as short as possible without starting our golden age, though a golden age might allow us to build a wonder.

donsig's Ideas are perfect. We can't have our GA in despotism. It wouldn't help us any. We only get 1 GA, so we must use it wisely.

I have to agree with donsig on this. Every instinct is yelling attack and ifwe play our cards right, we could afew benefits from an early GA. The problem is those benefits are really short term. Lets hold the GA off as long as possible and harvest greater benefits later on.

There's already Egyptian units within our borders. Do we just have our legions stand on a mountain somewhere while our cities are taken?

CT, those units are camped outside Aureus, which contains 5 Legions and 2 Warriors to be upgraded next turn. The city that is being approached will not fall.

The reason that I camped all of these units inside the city was that I felt there was still need for more discussion on the matter of our Golden Age, and did not want to engage in battle. My hands were tied, as even General Falcon caved into pressure from the minority (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54957) in this poll, and told me not to use our Legions if at all possible.

So here is the situation we are in, Fanatica. We can sit here and pine for our Golden Age to come at a better time or we can fight and gain the upper hand now, GA be darned. There is only an archer and a few warriors in sight now, but are more units on the way? We are rapidly letting slip an opportunity to set Egypt on its heels.

Within 3 turns, we will have brought 10-12 Legions to the area to fight, and it seems we are still afraid to use them. Using these units now will allow us to take many a town from Egypt, and in turn will give us the foundation to begin a great civilization.

To me, this is much more appealing than the prospect of some distant Golden Age. Let us fight now.

did all the oposers keep in mind that egypt is, if i recap right, the #1 powerful nation at the moment? i wonder how many units they really have in their backhand.

Let's FIGHT! :goodjob:

Delaying a GA until out of Despotism does give it more bang, but since Legions are the best defenders the only way to avoid it would be to never stack Legions with other units and hope Egypt attacks the weak points. Not a recipe for military success...

I say it's too late to avoid the GA so make the best of it and at least get the GL started so it will benefit from the production boost. Who knows, maybe we'll get a Leader on defense if Egypt sends a big enough force and our Legions are strong enough.

A hope for a leader will neither bring it nor incentivate those who, as I, proposed to wait for Egypt and hold back our legions. A leader is, yes, a great thing but it will not come up easely but it might to a lot for us (a wonder, GL maybe or Piramids).
Now if all goes well in a hypothetic (is that spelled right?) war then a leader come up, e take 1-2 egyptian cities and then?...those cities will need units to keep quiet and Egypt with 1-2 less will be only more furios and just a little weaker, or do you really want to fight until they beg for peace? do you think we are capable of doing it?
Let's say we wait a bit: GA does not start and in a few turns (4-5-6?) we have once again peace. We build up, we grow in all of that free land and after reaching at least Monarchy we declare war on Egypt with all our Legionaries well placed on the field, activate GA and start kickin'...ehm....well, ya know ;)

Well, we're in a quandry as to what to do. I know I supported waiting, but realistically if the fighting starts, and the GA happens , then we should plan how to make the best of it.

Let me begin by saying I think it was downright stupid to refuse the tribute when we weren't ready to fight... but oh well.

If we didn't want an early golden age we might also have wanted to postpone hooking up that iron, until we had piles of warriors on our hands. It's quite possible to win a war against a warrior/archer mix using a supply of 4/4 warriors, fortifying against the warriors and attacking the archers. But oh well.

A lot will depend on the next few turns. Do we HAVE enough warriors and spearmen left to put up any kind of a front line?
If not ... plunge in with the legions, aim for taking one city from them then quickly making peace before they mass a big counterattack. An early golden age is not the end of the world. I have won at least one Monarch game without ever having a golden age at all (playing Germans and not building a scientific wonder.)

@Siegmund - I would like to take both El Armana and Byblos at the very least. And the time to decide is now. Egyptian troops are on our land.

Egypt has an Archer and a Warrior just outside Aureus, which currently has 5 Legions and 2 Warriors(one 3/3 and one 4/4, ready to upgrade next turn) inside. There is a chance that even if we don't attack, we will be attacked. Either one of these possibilities will give us the GA.

So once again, we need to decide before the next turnchat whether we go on the offensive or not. We cannot continue to tiptoe around this. My assessment is that we have enough manpower right now to take El Armana and Byblos with little or no incident. Get to the hills North of Byblos and our Legions will become even more formidable.

Let's do this. As you've said yourself, Siegmund, we are playing a Monarch game. So the challenge of a poorly timed GA will make the game much more interesting.

Ok, let's go for war then, I'm with you.

If we don't have a third warrior to put with the two defending vs archer+warrior, I agree we can't put off the GA. Might as well pluinge in with both feet.

Only one reminder to add about 3/3/1 legions: as they have the same attack and defence, but there are bonuses for defenders, given the choice of attacking a warrior or standing to defend, they would rather stand and defend; only against offensive units like archers should they attack immediately.

What is the mix of regular vs veteran legions, at this point, btw?

As for duration of war -- just enough to make Egypt give us techs to catch up sounds good... and this early in a game intended to be a nonconquest win, we do need to be careful to avoid autorazes and to be able to get Egypt back to merely-annoyed after this first war.

General Falcon has posted a poll regarding this discussion:

Golden Age or Not? - Using our Legions (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55238)