Maybe not that long after killing Hammies stack of Doom. I have a feeling MP and CP did some of that. Hammy do not have that many cities, 6 on conti and 2 away. He is not going to last. Your great confidence greatly concerns me. I did do some damage -- destroyed all of Hams stack outside of Pat (3 knights, 4 maces, two cats, and 2 chariots), losing 6 cats and 3 crosses in the process -So basically you did not kill his main stack. That is fine. I am not a monger but the stack we have at hand in west is about 3 times bigger stack than any stack I've ever used. Maybe that explain why I am always number 3 or 4 in xOTM. But I am quite confident that we have what it takes to do the job once we get phants involved. That is my ace in the hole.- but our units are just not that powerful against an appropriate defender (unless it has been BADLY hurt by collateral damage). WEs are needed to deal with knight/mace combo and wished I had had HAs to go after cats once Hams other units were maximally damaged (his cats probably wouldnt have defended against the HAs, allowing them to eliminate other units). We need a few flanking 2 units to neutralize their seigeThen Ham showed up with another even larger stack just as AP peace was declared, including 7 more cats and more knights with at least two trebs. (Fortunately, most of those units retreated to Babylon our caravel can check -- and most would be advanced only 3 tiles at a time.) Moreover, the roaded terrain in Bab gives the defender with siege weapons and flanking attack great advantage. Plus, Ham has naval superiority with numerous caravels. He can have his naval superiority and i hope he build more naval units. Not saying it cant or shouldnt be done, just that it will not be simple and easy.I definately agree with this. But once the first on slaught is over the game changes. This is Emperor.
If Persians attack the deer tile accross water and into a forest, then our losses will be minimum as long as the collateral is split amung many units. Cats can not kill and has CR2 promos mainly. Only the 3 HA will be able to do any real harm. All others will be dead meat. Think this is all probably academic, but Ham has 10 cats, 2 crosses, 2 swords, 3 axes, and 3 immortals, as well as 3 HAs. Are you sure we have enough units to spread the damage thinly? 10 cats will do about 40 rounds of collateral. Our cats will suffer no collateral. Only HA and to an extent the immortals are the danger, but they do not have flanking. So the damage is going to be minimal to cats. So if we have 40 non seige units the collateral will be minimum. I have yet to add up all we have but I am guesing that there are about 30 or more units there.
ESP: I played MadScientists Julian Assange roleplaying game. Once we get some CH's going we can do some shocking tech stealing. As for now, we should split between the two Ai and steal Monarchy from Toku and Vassalage from Hammy. We need to infect the two cities with Hindu for best affect. How can we infect a Bab city when we have no open borders?Just like Toku, he will ask for open borders. If were confident spy tech stealing will work in a reasonable time frame, then Im on board for fast-teching CoL and building CHs. The other reasons are not that compelling for doing it ASAP, though it certainly should be part of the eventual plan.We have to agree to disagree on this. CH's are the way out of this hole we are in, with or w/o espy points. I regret not pushing for it.
Thebes and Kyoto both have Academies. I think we should build/whip a library in each and then run 2 scientist. It hurts to delay building units in Thebes with its military specialists, but I think we need to make use of the academy. Not sure about Kyoto, but question this for Thebes. Thebes has many excellent tiles to use, and it is near the front. We need a breathing room, we have been stagnated all this time and both of these cities are part of the solution and specialists are needed. It needs to complete the forge, grow, and produce units right now (still like a double-hill cross to prepare the route to Giza, which is a one-lane hill road easily blocked). Whipping a library will mean fewer citizens, plus we would have to take citizens off of productive tiles to run scientists to make use of the library. Especially if we fast-tech CoL, we are then going to be running 0% science for a while, so a lib will have limited short-term value compare to units. Cant believe its optimal to build one there now. What i am proposing is city specialization and it just happens that two of the best preoduction cities we got has academies and thus are better science cities when needed. With food these cities will grow fast. We do not need to work mines. two scientist with 1.75 multi is great right now. rep (21bpt) or not (10 bpt).
The problem is we are in such deep deficit that we can't build units everywhere (need to build wealth). CH's should add ~45 gpt, that equates to 45 more hammers going to units instead of covering maintenance. Ignoring the spy/tech aspect, would point out that we wont be producing either units or wealth while building CHs. The short-term loss of wealth is particularly problematic if we fast-tech CoL, and I doubt that we can take Hams big cities without producing many more units.