FFH -- We don't betray or kill all of our allies

[UnforcedError]

I do not see us ever agreeing on this. Guess this is a problem with have only two people in the succession game.

As you did start up the game I will surrender my will.

So let us evacuate the second continent and send all our units west.

I just don't see any need spending time with razing pop 5 unimproved cities. They won't be of too much use to Arendel anyway, exept for the TR income. We want to limit their production but not necessarily their income as they don't know how to use it effectively.
I don't want you to surrender your will I'd want you to present arguments for your suggestion about razing the ones on Garrim's island. i already presented my counter arguments

 

[Folket]

My arguments is a follows.

1. Leaving them an entire continent will increase their strength. They will have it very soon if we do not kill their armies.
2. High mobility behind Garrim we will be able to kill units very efficiently. i.e. We get more units killed per turn.
3. We will be able to start razing cities to our west before our army in Luchuirp is able to reposition. All we need to do is continue to reinforce our fleet. We will soon have enough fireballs to let priest of leaves attack.

btw, I do not think we should build assassins for raiding the coastal cities. Without experience the -50% city attack is going to hurt. Priest and later rangers should work way better.

 

[UnforcedError]

Garrim will declare on us if we kill off Arendel from his island unless we gift him his cities back instead of just razing them. Do we want to do that? (IMO this wouldn't take us closer to our goal. Arendel will not grow an army in those spots anytime soon, that's for sure.)

Attacking with assassins is usually done in reverse order: attack with the least experienced ones first and work from there. I'm not sure rangers would do all that well. They have a city attack penalty too and don't have marksman. If we want to have stronger units let's tech up the metal line, those techs are cheaper and more efficient. But to be honest, we should rather work with what we got. As I said, as soon as we can start building the ToM we could as well have pretty strong spectres as well. Priests of Leaves are pretty much past their time, I'm afraid (they did great against Auric, though), but we could still use the more experienced ones.

Do we want to consider adopting Conquest, at least for a short while? (This would hurt the ToM as well but not as much as teching expensive stuff instead of Arcane Lore).

 

[Folket]

How can you say that metal line is cheaper and has stronger units?

For 2800 beakers we can have 9/8 rangers with 2 move. While in the metal line we would have to spend 6500 beakers to get a 8/8 unit with 1 move but without penalty to cities and enchanted weapons. To me they are about equal but champions cost twice as much to research.

For 9000 beakers we can get 16/15 beastmasters. While we get mithril after 18000 beakers in the metal line. I do not think we will build enough champions to make that invest worth it.

As for Garrim. We have much larger army then him. So I expect him to be less psychopathic now. But razing the cities makes sense to me.

 

[UnforcedError]

How can you say that metal line is cheaper and has stronger units?

For 2800 beakers we can have 9/8 rangers with 2 move. While in the metal line we would have to spend 6500 beakers to get a 8/8 unit with 1 move but without penalty to cities and enchanted weapons. To me they are about equal but champions cost twice as much to research.

Naval attacks are as always the most mobile attack types in civ 4 so in this case the two moves are almost irrelevant. What matters is the city attack penalty. Rangers have an effective atck str of ~6 against cities depending on who they target. They will fall like flies against their knights and such, even with tsunamis and fireballs. Beastmasters are definitely a bit more useful but even they will suffer the attack penalty and they are much more expensive than champs. Assassins are better in that regard as they always target the weakest unit and can therefore gain lots of xp on those damaged tigers etc. I don't insist on the metal line but if we want to get stronger units they are more cost effective than the recon line for us. What we want is raze some cities. In order to do that we have to be able to kill the defending forces.

 

[UnforcedError]

So the main question is:
tech Arcane Lore and focus on the ToM for now (SoW will eventually get us stronger units as well)
tech for better military (--> Rangers, Beatmasters? --> Champs?)...
tech utilities (Construction? Warfare?)...
... and then go for Arcane Lore?

 

[Folket]

I would say rangers then ToM. Stack units in our fleet and travel to Evermore to see how welldefended it is.

 

[UnforcedError]

I would say rangers then ToM. Stack units in our fleet and travel to Evermore to see how welldefended it is.

Tbh I don't really care how well defended it is atm. We have to raze most of the coastal cities before getting to Evermore, but then again it's OK if we conquer it last turn.

 

[UnforcedError]

OK. I guess teching to rangers shouldn't be a big deal. One last question: do we want to switch to Conquest? (Our eco can bear it, we don't really need GoN for happy anymore.)

 

[Folket]

I would prefer GoN. We will get more and more war unhappiness.

 

[UnforcedError]

I would prefer GoN. We will get more and more war unhappiness.

We will also drop our slider so we would get +10 from our gambling houses.

 

[Folket]

Good point.

I think I could go either way here. If we decide to stay out of GoN we should just stay in OO. Possibly get stygian guards.

 

[UnforcedError]

That's an interesting idea. Stygian guards would be better than rangers in combat but they are not affected by Haste or Regeneration, and I would have based our whole attack strategy around these spells. But still: do we want rangers or Fanaticism?

(I was about to suggest we should adopt RoK later on to speed up the towers, but there's still time.)

 

[Folket]

I like rangers better but Stygian guards look strong. I'm ok with whatever you choose here.

 

[Folket]

Wait, we are 7k beakers from iron working. Stygian guards will only have 8 in attack against rangers 9 before iron. But then not having the amphibious penalty is quite good.

 

[UnforcedError]

They also have no city attack penalty. Teching up to IW is no solution if we also need other support techs. With stygian guards we'd have to get a few techs for CR and Mobility, otherwise they're incredibly slow. Fanaticism will cost us about the same as AH. We probably don't have time for both tech lines, do we?

 

[Folket]

Let us get rangers then. Before iron they are pretty even in battle.

 

[UnforcedError]

Let us get rangers then. Before iron they are pretty even in battle.

OK. Should we stay in OO nevertheless? I think we have enough cultists for starters.

 

[Folket]

If we do not change to GoN OO will allow us to rebuild cultists or just add more raiding fleets. 3-4 cultists per fleet is needed.

 

[UnforcedError]

If we do not change to GoN OO will allow us to rebuild cultists or just add more raiding fleets. 3-4 cultists per fleet is needed.

Yep, probably three. OK, we better stay in OO then. We'll see what I can make of this.