1208 AD : WAR with Germany

Germany declared war in 1208 AD after we refused their arrogant demand for Philosophy. Now what?

A short but eventful turnchat DS. I'm Civless at the moment, but it sounds like it give us a good reason to take the Pyramids if we want to.

What are our troop numbers and positions to counter the German threat? Do we have enough to go on the offensive or will we have to dig in and defend for a while?

shoot.as SoS I didnt see this coming..did anyone?

I am going to be out for a few days but...

We need units.(defensive first)
We need to consider the whip in front line cities.
We need to ask Russia for help.
We need to hit him back when we are able to drive him to the table.
We need to get peace and start preparing for a bigger war with them.

Personally I dont think we will see a concerted effort by Bismark in the next 5 turns unless he was planning war for a while. I think we can move all units towards the border and build units.

Research will be set to Civil Service IMO to make maceman.

To bad pres isn't here to declare mobolizastion... What are the chances of getting Russia against them?

I checked and if things get bad we can give Russia philosophy to go to war on Russia.

I'm guessing you meant if we give Russia philosophy they'll declare war on Germany. I think this is an important and good move to make, to secure our friendship with Russia and guarantee that they don't ally with Germany. It will also distract some of Germany's attacks.

Whoops, ment war on Germany.

(double post)

robboo said:

shoot.as SoS I didnt see this coming..did anyone?

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I posted this in the SoW thread on 20-Jun-06:

But the thing is, they are much more powerful than we are on paper (the power graph in the recent cartography update). Russia is the same. I'm a little concerned about security. Even though they probably won't attack us, our power chart is flat, while theirs keep growing. If we want attack Germany, wouldn't it be a good idea to start building some units and moving them to the south? We have a bit of ground to make up. What are our plans, Mr. SoW?

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I can't say I completely saw it comming, but I had an early concern.

Now to the matters at hand:

Russia:
I think we must involve the Russians, no matter what the cost. We must divert some of Germany's main attack force elsewhere. In this case, Germaniy will probably start an immediate defense of their cities in reaction to the Russian declaration. This will keep Bismark's units in his cities for a few extra turns, and will provide a window for us to whip some units and change civics. None of Bismark's units have crossed into our lands, so there's another delay for him. In Dortmund, he has only 2 weak, defensive units. His assult force will have to come from farther away (Berlin?).

Unit Makeup:
I notice he has a spear in Dortmund, he probably has more, since he fears our war chariots. We should build melee and archery units to take the spears out of the game.

Resources:
We have an iron mine SW of Basillica that borders German territory. No doubt this will be plundered first. Fortunately, we have a source of Iron in Old Sarai that is far from the front.

Basillica:
Because of this Iron resource near Basillica, it will certanly be the first city attacked. It is also very close to Bismark's core cities. Of course, this works both ways. We can take Berlin from Bismark relatively quickly since a seige position on it is only 2 tiles from our border. There is a hilll 3 tiles from our border that would be a great place to attack from, since counterattacks from the city will be weaker thanks to the hill's defensive bonus. Since we can almost see into Berlin, if we see a stack come from there immediately, we can conclude that is his production capital and should take all necessary steps to capture it. However, if we don't see a stack move from there, we know he probably doesn't have offensive units there, and we can capture it quickly then also.

Research:
We are 7 turns away from construction and that catapults it provides. Berlin is on a hill, and we'll need them to strip away any cultural defenses before we can realilistically expect good returns on any form of attack. I wouldn't go to CS (17 turns), since cats are effective at bombardment AND collateral damage. Macemen are just good at city attacking.

Strategy:
Basically, I believe we should do whatever we can to shore up our defenses until we can mount an offense and take Berlin. That will bring Bismark to the table and let us gather more troops so we can continue the push after the ceasefire.

I dont think we should go straight for CS, axes/swords can do the job right now and are quicker to produce.

axes and spears in cities and we should be ok.

I totally agree with Fetch. We need the cats to take Berlin. Also I am concerned about Basillica's saftey. (Also I find the nickname for catapults (cats) ironic, because it was Mansa Musa (or was it some other leader, who I am sure is in C4) who lit actual cats on fire, put them in a catapult and launched them over into castles.)

On another note, we should be offering anything we have to Russia for them to declare war on Germany. I don't have time to look at the save, but if they are currently trading with Germany, which I doubt, we should try and cut the roads connecting the two. That will make it a little easier for us to bribe them.

So then the priority is to get a few crossbows (whipped?) to the front so that we can hold off his ground troops, and considering his lack of cats and horses (they have the tech, but not the resourse iirc), we shouldn't have a huge problem defending until we can produce some cats. This is especially the case if we can involve Russia.

Hopefully there is no German SoD somwhere in the south.

Well... another war.

I think we should hold against the first wave of german troops and then try to take Berlin with our conterattack. To do that we will need some defensive units first. Longbows and Crosbows will do. Then some Swords+Cats+Crosbows will do the offence. This is my plan in the most simple form .

I will make the list of troops to build, and submit it to the governors council before the next turn chat. When do we plan to play it?

I believe Ice will decide when we play.

All of these plans sound good, but repeat after me. "We will not whip our citizens" "We will not whip our citizens"

Actually I believe I asked to be dropped out of the DP pool. Let me go post there again.

Anyway, I find that in most wars (especially the longer ones) the enemy sends its forces after you. If you defend sucessfully and begin to send units one by one into their territory the unit will try and attack those units. While they are there these units should be used strictly to pillage and "drain" the opponent of units.

The AI always feels they can attack your units (if theres only a few in their territory) by coming out of their cities as long as theres more than two units stationed in their city.

This effectivley allows us to slow downtheir production and begin to drain some of their exces units. Once we have successfully pillaged then we should plan to take Berlin and beg for peace.

So I'm up as DP then. I agree with George on whipping. It will help us iniltialy but hurt us in the long run. By the looks of it i will set the TC for Tuesday. Also seeing as my state, Auda Minor is on the border I'll have alot to do.

If Germany has swords, build some axes to counter them (I hope we have longbows by now). Cats are mightly powerful, too. Pump 'em out, and when we're done with the war of attrition, send them packing towards Berlin.

We can build crossbows, They get 50% vs melee

build a majinot line