Discussion time.....Fight or wait.

Last Turnchat presented us with a few interesting developments and was halted at turn 7. First I will give a bit background and then the problem that needs discussion and ultimately a decision before next Turnchat.

According to the diplo screen Mongolia has 3 cities. One of which we scouted last night. If you look at the screenshots from last night you will see that the Mongolian borders south of abydos jut out 1 or 2 squares..that indicates a city or two south of Abydos and near enough to the horse resource to be of concern. However we have not seen any units except for archers which could mean he might not have the horses linked up to his cities yet.





Now on to the real interesting thing that will no doubtedly shape our game for many turns to come. Mongolia is sending a settler to the East of Abydos. This was completely unavoidable since Open borders would not have stopped this. No mongolian has yet to enter into our borders.


This leaves us with 3 choices.
1. Do nothing and keep playing. Gather more intel on the southern Mongolian cities to determine if we need spearmen or just axes/archers. We would attack Mongolia at a later date. This option would require no special troop movements or deployments..play as normal

2. Attack the Settler now using an ax from Abydos and the ax on the outside of Abydos. There is no danger presented to Abydos since Mongolia does not have any units capable of reaching Abydos in 2 or 3 turns. the ax from Abydos would be the "mop up" ax since 1 ax should be enough to kill or significantly weaken the archer. Since we do not have teh trrops for a large scale city attak we do not push into Mongolian territory except to cut roads and pillage.

3. Let the mongolians build our city for us. We wait until the city grows to size 2 or 3 and/or until he has completed a mine on the iron. As long as we cut his roads in open territory...only that city would be able to use the iron. We then can build our forces, continue to explore his southern cities and maybe pre-position a small attack force outside of his southern borders to remove the horse resource from production.

If anyone has any comments or opinions please feel free to voice them. Depending on what option is deemed the best choice, I may need to reposition some units and ask for production of others. Also if we are going to declare war, the Censor as head of the citizens assembly must put forth a vote to the citizens assmebly( or can I do it).

I will hold off on voicing my opinion until I hear other opinions and other options which I may have over looked. I would like to add we can protect all of our cities with very little problem in the present situation.

We should not let them settle east of Abydos. But how prepared are we for war? It's quite difficult to follow this in the forums. We're building an obelisk in Abydos and I thought discussion on that had come to the point where a consensus was reached that we didn't need it. Not knowing the plans we've already laid it's really difficult to know which way to turn. Have we decided on the obelisk now that we have IW and there is iron nearby? If so, how long before we'll have the horses and iron available? It seems to me we're not ready for an offensive war. It's hard to tell if we can defend ourselves should we take out this settler.

well if were going to go to war we should switch the obelisk to something else, i believe that if we were to go to war we do have an ability to fight a defensive war because the mongolians wouldnt have any hugely strong attacking units, having not got the horses or iron connected yet, if we were to attack as well we should move a couple of units to intercept as well just incase we lose and they can always move back.

donsig...I have no idea why the obelisk was continued..not my call. Check with governor those were his orders. In his defnse, we did not have any idea about the settler when teh oblisk was started. Now in hindsight, we should have switched to archers until the horses or road were completed to release the ax from garrsion duty.

Are we prepared for war:
Offensive war of capturing cities..nope not a chance. Mongolia had 3 archers in its nearest city...it would take about 6 to 8 axes( or alot more 40% city defensive bonus) to kill them.

Can we stop the settler..yep. 2 axes will make short work of the settler. No problem there at all. This would lead us to a war where we wait for Mongolia to decide he wants to make peace--a defensive war. Where all we do is counter any threat whihc i think we are capable of doing. We have 3 axes within 4 turns of Abydos and in addition 1 or 2 within 8 turns..not counting anythign built. Mongolia has no units in any of his lands West of Abydos..he could whip a few. So we are safe for a few turns before he can mount a attack

BCLG..yeah it should be changed and would be if we go to war(I hope-not my call). Its approx 10 turns form finishing and we are about 19 turns from a cultural expansion. These numbers are rough due to population growth decreasing the built time.

We stopped last night because I would have to move many units South if we go with either of the agressive options and the Citizens need to look at this and decide before the next TC.

I am going get you a troop roster off the save.

One thing to note the archer is on a wooded hill so that archer is 7 strength (4*(1+0.50+0.25). It appears as though the settler will be well protected against our attacks on it until it gets out of the forest/jungle. We might have to wait until it is settled or risk losing axemen.

Even if you assume they plan to settle there they'd need to beeline making roads to the site. Assuming they beeline it will take over 40 turns before any iron would be hooked up by the Mongols. I doubt they'd settle on the spot since it would be a very aggressive settlement so they'll probably move 1 or 2 more spots, if at all. By the time they get iron hooked up the city would undoubtedly be size 2 and we could take the city by force.

Another strategy would be to simply cut off those roads and force them to take more worker turns while we develop our offensive capabilties. IMO the obelisk should not stop being built until they make their settlement decision.

We don't have the military to take Karakorum, but if we let the new Mongolian city grow to size two, do you think we'll have the forces to take that city? It would be the same result as declaring war and destroying his settler, except we would gain a city out of it instead of some slave workers.

What about option 4? We keep pumping Abydos with culture and hopefully the iron falls under our boarders before Mongolia can build many units.

Just throwing ideas out now, not sure which way I want to go at this point.


edit: it seems Whomp and I were thinking along the same lines.

After the Library finishes in BW, it can spit out just axes/spears. Whatever is needed. So I am with WhomperRoom and George here on waiting and cutting roads and such

screenie of troops not very good..but it gets a general idea.





spearmen..8 turns to Abydos
Ax NW of BW 9 turns to abydos
Ax near worker 4 turns to abydos
Ax hill East of abydos..4 turns to Abydos

6 turns from BW to Abydos( will drop..with road)
8 turns from MG to Abydos( will drop with road)

OK here is my feelings.

We dont attack but rather let the settler go. If he builds 1 square away from the iron. We need to take care of the problem sooner than later--ditch teh obelisk and build units. If he settles and the iron is not in his borders..we need the obelisk and we need to prepare for a city attack.

I too like option 3.... waiting and delivering a crushing blow to both his "iron" city and his capitol. All of our cities have barracks and we can produce lots of troops quickly. I would like Catapult to become a research priority due to the large city defense bonus he has in his capitol. I also want to continue exploring his territory and maybe send a small group of units to attack his horse resource if he has it.

Do we need to poll? Or continue with the status quo.

Tubby Rower said:

One thing to note the archer is on a wooded hill so that archer is 7 strength (4*(1+0.50+0.25). It appears as though the settler will be well protected against our attacks on it until it gets out of the forest/jungle. We might have to wait until it is settled or risk losing axemen.

Click to expand...

Tubby..archer are 3 not 4. One ax has about 50% to 60% chance with first strike making the differnece. 2 axes win 100% of the time but you lose one. This is based of a simulation I created a while back in the World Builder for my own games.....

my bad . .

I agree robboo. Let's see how aggressively he settles. If he covers the iron we have no choice but to prepare for the inevitable war. I also agree that cats are critical in this mission if that iron is covered.

I'm going to bring this up here just becuase I can't think of a better place to put it. Everytime I see robboo, I read it as if it said (row-bo-bo). I can't seem to help it and I find it kinda funny. (stupidity out of the way now)

I can't see the settler stopping anywhere short of the iron-pig city site. Surely he isn't going to settle in the middle of the jungle. And maybe this is proof that he couldn't get his horses and is desperate for iron/copper, or maybe just be cause he is Genghis he places really high priority on aggressive/military resources. Either way I think we end up with a Mongol city encrouching on our territory and we take it as soon as it gets to size 2.

So my advice is start preping for war now. Finish the obelisk and start pumping spearmen/horse archers as soon as we can. Have BW pump units as hard as it can and get ready to reduce our competition by 1 civ.

Re: my name..Rob-Boo First name and first part how last names sounds.

I agree I dont think he will go for a bad site. He will make it a iron-pig city. He sees us as buddies right now. He has no other source of iron or copper so he has to go for this..just as we would do.

I wish more people would join this discussion..this will set the tone for a long time especially if Russia continues to view us as unfavorable.

I am not going to call for a poll..unless I see negative views on waiting. Lets just prepare.

robboo said:

Re: my name..Rob-Boo First name and first part how last names sounds.

Click to expand...

Ha, I made my forum name the same way!

If we are going to let the Mongols build a city do you all think we should at least be walking right along side that settler with an axe or tow?

Donsig..great minds..lol

Yeah the ax that is nearest it will follow it till it makes a city. Then it will move to a good spot where we can moniter the iron and the city.

If you look on the statistics page, power on the pulldown, how far above them do we show on the graph? We can probably estimate an upper bound on the number of archers they have this way.

Taking the settler right away (when it steps on ground that doesn't have a defense bonus) gives us a worker that we don't need to build ourselves, and sets them back because they will have to switch production back to another settler and stifle their population growth. If we are ahead in power I'd say we should really consider going ahead with the capture.

Wars tend to be shorter than in civ3 and we would have a distinct advantage as the defender (after the initial raid).

Certanly the City of Abydos would be willing to produce any sourt of military stock pile the Defense ministry may need.

DaveShack said:

If you look on the statistics page, power on the pulldown, how far above them do we show on the graph? We can probably estimate an upper bound on the number of archers they have this way.

Taking the settler right away (when it steps on ground that doesn't have a defense bonus) gives us a worker that we don't need to build ourselves, and sets them back because they will have to switch production back to another settler and stifle their population growth. If we are ahead in power I'd say we should really consider going ahead with the capture.

Wars tend to be shorter than in civ3 and we would have a distinct advantage as the defender (after the initial raid).

Click to expand...

We are equal or very slighly ahead in power. I do think we can win a defensive war also. I just like the idea of letting them build our city

CivGeneral said:

Certanly the City of Abydos would be willing to produce any sourt of military stock pile the Defense ministry may need.

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I never expected that from afront line city.