The War for Saltpeter

Fellow citizens,

It is with grave concern that I see no discussion about Saltpeter.

A critical resource, it is mixed with several other common elements to create gunpowder. A board of scientists that met with my staff recently assured me that we can create excellent defensive troops, and probably some powerful offensive units with this new type of weapon.

After scouring our land, the Fanatikos survey team determined that we have no known sources of Saltpeter within our lands. Further review of lands outside our control reveal that the Romans have 2 sources of Saltpeter. One is fairly close to their capital, Rome. The other is next to Neapolis, a smaller city west of Rome.

I have not, and will not, support war soley for the sake of conflict. This, however, is a battle that we need to fight. This resource, saltpeter, is critical to our national security, and strengthens our enemies.

I propose that immediately upon the conclusion of the French War, as we transition towards Democracy, we shift our forces to our Northern border, and capture the city of Neopolis. We then continue on to Rome, razing the capital and sowing salt in her fields. We then call a halt to our forces, and settle a peaceful border with the Romans, keeping our new city of Neapolis.

These battles will be difficult, as the Roman Legions are renowned for their ability to fight. Our knights are only slightly more powerful. We will need more Crusaders from the Knights Templar, and a few seige weapons to batter Rome before we attack. These preperations should begin now, as we conduct the war with France, to get us ready for a conflict of need, not a conflict of want.

This is not a battle that can wait. We need to begin this soon, as Rome will only grow stronger.

-- Ravensfire, President of Fanatikos

Alternatively we capture Rome itself. As Rome's border expands it will cover both the Saltpetre to the SW of the city and the Incense to East, we just have to raze the other towns that stand in the way

We are advancing quickly now in terms of research, we soon gain Democracy, and could quickly research to Military Tradition. If the French War starts our Golden Age (likely) it will get even quicker. An alternative for timing would be to use the period following the French war to consolidate our grounds and expand our new borders whilst building Knights for upgrade. Trade Saltpetre from Rome for 20 turns only timed to allow us to upgrade all our Cavalry just before the deal expires. The we will have a large force of Cavs to take Rome, raze the cities and what's more keep the land clear so our new city of Rome claims those resources.

Late for work so more will have to wait

This proposed war should have two objectives, to obtain saltpeter for ourselves, but also to deny it to as many neighbors as we can. The timing is also critical, if we're going to do this we should start before Rome has muskets as defenders, or at least before they have a lot of them.

DaveShack said:

This proposed war should have two objectives, to obtain saltpeter for ourselves, but also to deny it to as many neighbors as we can. The timing is also critical, if we're going to do this we should start before Rome has muskets as defenders, or at least before they have a lot of them.

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I suspect it's keep them from having too many, not if they have them. From my memory of looking into this, Rome controls two sources, and that's it. Persia might have one. Germany does not. France does not. both of the Roman sources are fairly close to each other.

I'm leery about trying to capture Rome. Just from the usual AI tendancies, it's going to be extremely well defended. It's a large city, and so will have defensive bonuses. Even with just Legions, only our Crusaders will have a good chance of success. Heck, even with Cavalry, it's going to be a tough, tough nut to crack.

Neapolis, plus the two cities to our North East should be far, far easier to conquer. Indeed, I would suggest adding those cities to the destruction list just to prevent a counter-attack by Rome from them.

I don't know if Rome will trade us Saltpeter. I hope so, but will plan for no such luck. I would like to see us build a nice, large stack of siege engines for the Roman war. If we get the needed resources, we can upgrade them to a more powerful unit. If we don't, we rely on the numbers to give us a strong attack force.

I'd like to see a shift in military production away from Knights to siege weapons. Priapos, of course, would be exempt from this. We'll use the time to pacify the French to build for the harder battle ahead.

-- Ravensfire, President of Fanatikos

Note that Rome doesn't have saltpeter connected to the capital yet (nor does it seem either is hooked up at all). I'd go for capturing Rome (Leo's would be nice too). I'll open a discussion on that some time later. Berlin could add some trebuchets before a university.

Here's what Rome looked like in 560 AD:

Right-cliking on the tiles connecting the saltpetre to Rome indicates that the closest one is now connected to Rome. Looking at what they have to trade though shows they have none spare so we can't trade at the moment. We will be facing Muskets in Rome.

Neapolis and the smaller cities may be easier to conquer, but Rome would be a great asset to us (Saltpetre, Incense and Silks once it expands (silks are under Cumae)), plus we really can't afford to bypass it and leave it to the Romans. Rome has to go, so it might as well go to us.

We need to capture Rome, raze the new city the Romans are about to found near the ruins of Rouen, Neapolis, Veii and preferrably Cumae to get the Silks. We will then have broken the Romans on this Continent and will need to keep the exposed territory clear of Settlers whilst building Culture in Rome to expand the borders as fast as we possibly can.

With Germay knocked back, and France and Rome broken, that will leave the Persians as the other main force on the continent. Time to pay the X-man back for those demands

Certanly we must be cautious when dealing with nations with saltpeter.

Although saltpeter is a valuable resource, I rather not make Rome the city we capture from the Romans. I rather it be one of their eastern cities near our border. (forgot their names) Those cities sit on, IMO, the best 10-20 squares in the game. Those 2 cities are on nothing but grass, forest, and hills. There is no desert, jungle, or marshland. whichever city we choose of the two, it would blossom into a huge production powerhouse. i rather we not take Rome as our city to keep.

Citizens,

We are now at peace with the French, having captured the city of Besancon and (eventually) the furs that city is known for. We are also nearly done researching Democracy, giving us a new form of Government.

Our next research goal is the army of mounted troops with these new "guns" that we have heard about. The speed of these units gives a huge advantage in offense. Unfortunately, the use of these new weapons requires a resource that we do not have - saltpeter.

Some covert requests of the Roman government reveal that they will not trade the Saltpeter for anything we currently have - tech, money or a residual income (gold per turn). They have at least two source, and it's reasonable to suspect that both are in use. One is certainly for themselves, the other is being traded to someone.

For the remainder of this term, and early in the next term, we need to determine if we want to go to war with Rome, and when. The conclusion of the war with France makes this discussion timely, and needed.

I feel that we need to go to war soon. Very soon. Rome will not trade Saltpeter with us, so we need to take it. I sincerely doubt we'll be able to take the largest Roman cities if they have several units of Musketmen in them without large numbers of Trebuchet siege weapons. We can, however, take the smaller cities (Lugdunum and Neapolis) quickly. From counting the Roman cities we know of, and the cities their diplomats speak of, we cannot see ever city. I suspect that there is another city, and knowing how the Roman government (AI) thinks, it's probably close to the Saltpeter SW pf Rome.

Let's do some scouting from Besancon, and see what's out there. We need to work quickly though, before Rome continues to build more defensive troops.

-- Ravensfire

We should delay only as long as necessary, and possibly even launch the offensive when we're mostly ready instead of waiting to be completely ready.

As soon as we have 7-10 trebuchets and the majority of our troops are repositioned would be just right in my opinion. Any longer and we risk the Romans building a lot of musketmen, or even upgrading.

In the meantime, I'd like to do some scouting. I looked at the save a bit more last night, and I've got a strong suspicion that there's a Roman city NW of Besancon, and using the eastern Saltpeter source. I suggest using a Knight to scout that terrain out, and leave only when the AI kicks us out.

Your numbers for Trebuchet's seems about right, although I'd like more on the top end of that range given the strength of those units. I strongly suspect that we'll rely on them for most of the tough work - getting those stinking Mustketmen down to at most yellow strength.

Suggested immediate goals:
-- Scout near Besancon
-- Build up Trebuchet strength
-- Reposition units into 2 or 3 strike forces
- 1 for western Saltpeter
- 1 for eastern Saltpeter
- 1 for eastern cities (even just for interdiction)

We can't build up a huge force, like DS said, that just going to give Rome time to build up THEIR forces. I think that spending 10 - 12 turns on building and positioning is about right.

-- Ravensfire

We have 14 turns left of a lux deal with Rome, but we can declare war if we want without a rep hit since it was a straight deal, and happiness would only possibly be a problem in Besancon.

Yes, it looks like there's a city N-NW-NW-NW-NW of Besancon.

greekguy said:

Although saltpeter is a valuable resource, I rather not make Rome the city we capture from the Romans. I rather it be one of their eastern cities near our border. (forgot their names) Those cities sit on, IMO, the best 10-20 squares in the game. Those 2 cities are on nothing but grass, forest, and hills. There is no desert, jungle, or marshland. whichever city we choose of the two, it would blossom into a huge production powerhouse. i rather we not take Rome as our city to keep.

Click to expand...

It turns out the hills of Rome are better than the food-rich lands of Hispalis (at size 12 it would have a surplus of 5fpt). I didn't work it out for Ravenna, but it looks like less shields than Hispalis and it overlaps Besancon. Rome would have 25spt and 37gpt at size 12 before corruption (corruption in Rome is slightly lower than in Hispalis), compared to 17spt and 34gpt for Hispalis. (It's interesting that mining everything still leaves a food surplus at Hispalis, while everything at Rome that is irrigatible should be irrigated (other than the unworked deserts, no need to improve them).)

Ah, I've been intending to do those calculations, but just have not had time. It confirms what I felt to be the case.

There is also the strategic implications. Both Ravenna and Hispalis will not gain us anything strategically. They are on land that will already be claimed by our borders as soon as Beasancon expands enough. We will soon be able to prevent settling there. Rome however will claim us vast tracts of land, containing resources in abundance. We will get another source of iron of iron immediately then 2 luxuries (incense and later silks) as the culture expands. We will also of course gain Saltpetre. The land we claim with Rome is the Central part of the continent. With expansion it will join with our existing territory expanding it greatly and also claiming desert that may well contain oil for the future. Taking Rome from Rome and destroying the surrounding cities will devastate the Roman empire from which they will never recover (if we do it properly). Taking Hispalis and Ravena will lose them little, not gain us Saltpetre or much at all come to that and if we are to devastate the Romans in the same way as capturing Rome would, leave us with a vast area of unclaimed territory that every man and his dog will be trying to settle. We would consume our resources just keeping the vast area clear.

Capture Rome.

I wish I could access the save and get all the details, but...

After reading what has been posted, and remembering what I could from the last full map I looked at, I would have to agree with capturing the city of Rome.

Here's a current map of our continent. Warning 750k file!

There is something else that does not appear to have been mentioned in favour of Rome. In the above screenie Rome was building Sun Tzu, due in 3. They were not successful in this but the build was not wasted.....



edit: I believe the Romans are trading their Saltpetre to the Persians, there is an active trade indicated between them on the foreign advisor. The Persians will have their own source on the island to the North of our continent, as soon as their borders expand or they build a colony. This will free the source for us, but we will have to keep checking for availibility. If we want to wait that long....

We aren't sure if Rome has Muskets yet but that if they do we have a problem. That would make the war that much harder. I'm not sure how much money Rome has, but muskets are quite expensive. They might exhaust all their gold on muskets before they upgrade cities we want to take.

We should be able to do some city investigations just before the war to get up to date information on what they have. I think it would be safest to assume for the calculations now that all the Pikes (3) in the screenie above have been upgraded to Muskets by the time we attack (upgrades will be cheaper as they have Leos), plus possibly one more making a total of 4 Muskets in Rome. We are less likely to find Muskets in outlying cities.

Looking at Rome and the Number of Knights needed to capture without Bombarding first. Assume 4 Muskets plus 2 MI in Rome, all Veteran. With a Barracks the troops will heal between turns so we need to try and take it in 1 turn. Using Offa's Town Capture Utility to avoid having to make a lot of calculations myself gives:

6 Knights = 0% chance of capture.
7 Knights = 0.2%
8 Knights = 1.4%
9 Knigths = 3.6%
10 Knights = 8%
11 Knights = 17%
12 Knights = 26%
13 Knigths = 40%
14 Knights = 52%
15 Knights = 64%
16 Knights = 74%
17 Knights = 82%

That's a lot of Knights so we need to bombard the city before we attack.

If we take just 1 hit point of each unit we get:

11 Knights = 49%
12 Knights = 64%
13 Knigths = 75%
14 Knights = 83%
15 Knights = 90%
16 Knights = 94%
17 Knights = 97%

which is still alot of Knights so we're going to need lots of Trebuchets. If we are taking Trebuchets we can take our slower units and the Crusaders with their attack strength of 5 will come in very useful.

With 5 Crusaders and enough trebuchets we get:

5 Crusaders + 6 Knights (11 troops) = 68%
5 Crusaders + 7 Knights = 79%
5 Crusaders + 8 Knights = 87%
5 Crusaders + 9 Knights = 93%
5 Crusaders + 10 Knights (15 troops) = 96%

This is obviously a very quick look, I can't remember how many Crusaders we actually have but they'll make a big difference against Rome. This needs to be looked at in more detail in the formulation of the attack plan.

We also need to watch the trade screen every turn and trade for that Saltpetre ourselves if we can.

I have opened a poll on the Timing of War with Rome.