AG12 - Space Race (Sid)
- Thread starter Aggie
- Start date
Aggie
Deity
We DO have horses, but couldn't see them because we didn't have The Wheel 
I think it is indeed a good idea to go for Knights. Could we discuss the pros and cons a bit?
What about a well-timed ROP? We get just outside the Aztec seas with a ROP (about 6 tiles NE of the capital) and declare war before we enter their territory to attack. It then would take 2 turns to land the units... We would also need ROP's with Germany and Babylon.
The AI still isn't building an IA wonder yet, which isn't saying everything. But is is comforting. The Germans and Inca still don't have Navigations and can't trade maps. Especially the Inca are a glimmer of hope to get a few techs. The Aztecs are still Medieval. The Ottomans don't have twice the culture of number 2.
I wasn't suggesting to attack the Germans now, but there may come such a time. They DO lack horses. Once we have knights we should seriously think about this option imho. It is another way to get techs, maybe around the end of the Middle Ages?
We are making progress now and we are getting richer. Imho the situation is not as desperate anymore as 30 turns ago. Remember to renegiote peace when making deals.
I assume that the only pre-industrial improvements we want to build are markets, courthouse, aquaducts, harbors and banks?
EDIT: Is is really worth it to buy HBR? We get this tech in 3 with 20% science.
ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed-----up
Mark1031---on deck
Aggie
Yom
I think it is indeed a good idea to go for Knights. Could we discuss the pros and cons a bit?What about a well-timed ROP? We get just outside the Aztec seas with a ROP (about 6 tiles NE of the capital) and declare war before we enter their territory to attack. It then would take 2 turns to land the units... We would also need ROP's with Germany and Babylon.
The AI still isn't building an IA wonder yet, which isn't saying everything. But is is comforting. The Germans and Inca still don't have Navigations and can't trade maps. Especially the Inca are a glimmer of hope to get a few techs. The Aztecs are still Medieval. The Ottomans don't have twice the culture of number 2.
I wasn't suggesting to attack the Germans now, but there may come such a time. They DO lack horses. Once we have knights we should seriously think about this option imho. It is another way to get techs, maybe around the end of the Middle Ages?
We are making progress now and we are getting richer. Imho the situation is not as desperate anymore as 30 turns ago. Remember to renegiote peace when making deals.
I assume that the only pre-industrial improvements we want to build are markets, courthouse, aquaducts, harbors and banks?
EDIT: Is is really worth it to buy HBR? We get this tech in 3 with 20% science.
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Aggie
Yom
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Pre turn: I am not sure we want to do min research to HBR. It seems to me that the sooner we get to the middle ages the better. So I start HBR at 20% science running a loss of 4gpt. HBR now due in 6
460 AD: Sardis Aqueduct -> Market. WM nets us 6 G.
IBT: Otto starts Universal Suffrage.
470 AD: zzz... Nobody wants to buy our map.
480 AD: Why are we building a granary in Antioch? Switch that to a courthoouse.
490 AD: I start a suicide run with a curragh.
500 AD: Reduce science to get HBR next turn. I start a Colloseum in our capital. With this when the capital grows to size 12 we do not have to increase lux.
510 AD: We get HBR. Our curragh dies.
Start Polytheism at 20%. Due in 15.
IBT: Viking demands TM and 19G. Obviously I acquiesce.
520 AD: MM cities that have grown in the last few turns so that I can hire a few scientists. Poly now due in 9 turns.
530 AD: Two cities riot.
Some more mm.
540 AD: Our WM again nets us 6 G.
550 AD: Poly now due in 6. Scandinivia is sending some troops to Otto territory. Looks like there is going to be a war.
460 AD: Sardis Aqueduct -> Market. WM nets us 6 G.
IBT: Otto starts Universal Suffrage.
470 AD: zzz... Nobody wants to buy our map.
480 AD: Why are we building a granary in Antioch? Switch that to a courthoouse.
490 AD: I start a suicide run with a curragh.
500 AD: Reduce science to get HBR next turn. I start a Colloseum in our capital. With this when the capital grows to size 12 we do not have to increase lux.
510 AD: We get HBR. Our curragh dies.
Start Polytheism at 20%. Due in 15. IBT: Viking demands TM and 19G. Obviously I acquiesce.
520 AD: MM cities that have grown in the last few turns so that I can hire a few scientists. Poly now due in 9 turns.
530 AD: Two cities riot.
Some more mm. 540 AD: Our WM again nets us 6 G.
550 AD: Poly now due in 6. Scandinivia is sending some troops to Otto territory. Looks like there is going to be a war.
Researching HBR is probably a decent idea. I am not sure our ratio of Markets to Libraries, but they are probably fairly even right now making resarch still worthwhile.
Note that I chose the Incas for our tech purchase in the hopes they may get in a war and pay the ultimate price for their folly. We don't take a rep hit for gpt deals when a civ dies (and our rep is bad anyway).
I think I would prefer to wait until after we get the GLib before Germany. The assault will take a lot of resources and a war would slow down our build up.
I agree on the ROP idea. We can even get a pure per-turn ROP with the Aztecs so we can break it just outside their territory even if 20 turns isn't up.
Questions for the assault:
How many knights and galleys? For this I say we get "a whole lot" and then investigate the capitol/establish a embassy and see how many rifle/infantry we are talking about. I would say 10 galleys and 20 knights may be a minimum with 15 or 20 galleys and 30 or 40 units probably necessary.
Do we want to take pikes? They would keep any counter attack vs the stack to be against cheaper pikes rather than our expensive knights. I would say yes to this.
Are artillery units worthwhile? They would be hard to use as they require galley space and only move at speed 1 so are limited to attacking the second round. They also cannot land on the mountains, so would probably be dropped off only after the first round of attacks.
I think the artillery (and immortals) should only be used if we feel the number of knights needed is prohibitive AND the counter from the Aztecs would be reasonable. Since they own the whole continent, I think they will attack us with what they have got.
Some artillery units might help the round after we take the city.
If they are not completely railed it might even make sense to drop units on away from the capitol first; give them a turn to move toward those and then land. The AI will move more than it needs to kill the few knights and without rails, fewer units may be able to reach us. If they have rails then this is less useful, though it could be a use for knights produced while sailing our main fleet to the right spot. They may absorb attacks that are then not on our main force.
Note that I chose the Incas for our tech purchase in the hopes they may get in a war and pay the ultimate price for their folly. We don't take a rep hit for gpt deals when a civ dies (and our rep is bad anyway).
I think I would prefer to wait until after we get the GLib before Germany. The assault will take a lot of resources and a war would slow down our build up.
I agree on the ROP idea. We can even get a pure per-turn ROP with the Aztecs so we can break it just outside their territory even if 20 turns isn't up.
Questions for the assault:
How many knights and galleys? For this I say we get "a whole lot" and then investigate the capitol/establish a embassy and see how many rifle/infantry we are talking about. I would say 10 galleys and 20 knights may be a minimum with 15 or 20 galleys and 30 or 40 units probably necessary.
Do we want to take pikes? They would keep any counter attack vs the stack to be against cheaper pikes rather than our expensive knights. I would say yes to this.
Are artillery units worthwhile? They would be hard to use as they require galley space and only move at speed 1 so are limited to attacking the second round. They also cannot land on the mountains, so would probably be dropped off only after the first round of attacks.
I think the artillery (and immortals) should only be used if we feel the number of knights needed is prohibitive AND the counter from the Aztecs would be reasonable. Since they own the whole continent, I think they will attack us with what they have got.
Some artillery units might help the round after we take the city.
If they are not completely railed it might even make sense to drop units on away from the capitol first; give them a turn to move toward those and then land. The AI will move more than it needs to kill the few knights and without rails, fewer units may be able to reach us. If they have rails then this is less useful, though it could be a use for knights produced while sailing our main fleet to the right spot. They may absorb attacks that are then not on our main force.
I would say they might have 10 rifles fortified in a size 12 city. I think that would mean we lose approximately two knights for every rifle we take down plus a few longbows to take out. So I would say we need 30 healthy knights attacking on the second move after landing. Now how many cavs will they bring at our landing force? Maybe 20? I'd say we land 40 knights and 10-20 pikes on the mountain where we will be 50-50 vs. Cavs. Then attack from the mountain and move all the injured retreated knights into the city and hope they don't have enough of a counter to take them out. Definately also do diversion force if they are not well railed. Forget immortals/arty
I think artillery will be crucial. If we get to Feudalism, we'll be able to build some trebuchets and pikes. All we have to do is land a huge force of Trebuchets/immortals and pikeman one tile away. The defensive bombard will help in the initial counterattack (though not as much as landing on a mountain). I'm just wary of attacking riflemen with Knights, no matter how huge the force. 10 rifles in Tenochtitlan is definitely an understatement. I've seen Sid capitals with 20+ spearmen before. We should bring 30 Trebuchets, 50 Immortals and 20 Pikemen to be safe. Getting that many units is going to be tough and we'll realistically only get about 20 trebuchets, 40 Immortals and 15 pikemen, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. I don't much trust the RNG anymore (after HNDY04 and my most recent turn in Bugs2.0). Plus, we have to hold the city for one turn to get the techs. We can't afford failure. Let us make sure the invasion is successful and uses too much force rather than too little.
Edit:If we are to go the Knight route. I would suggest 70 knights (or even more). Artillery will be useless, as will pikemen. Pikemen have the same amount of defense, plus they won't be able to make it to Tenochtitlan the turn after the landing. When we take Tenoch., the other Aztec cities' borders will surely cover Tenoch.'s 2nd ring, leaving our pikemen stranded and useless.
The problem with knights is that we can't build as many of them for two reasons: They cost more, and we have to wait till chivalry (upgrading horsemen at 120 a pop is basically out of the question in large numbers).
Actually, I would see if we can establish an embassy to get some feel for how many units the Aztec capital has. We don't want to take a shot in the dark and miss completely.
BTW, are the Aztecs even industrial yet? I was the impression they were only slightly more advanced than Germany (late MA with Navigation, but not yet in IA).
Also, I think I read somewhere that there's a program that tells you how far ahead a civilization is in techs (specifically). Are we allowed to use that?
Edit:If we are to go the Knight route. I would suggest 70 knights (or even more). Artillery will be useless, as will pikemen. Pikemen have the same amount of defense, plus they won't be able to make it to Tenochtitlan the turn after the landing. When we take Tenoch., the other Aztec cities' borders will surely cover Tenoch.'s 2nd ring, leaving our pikemen stranded and useless.
The problem with knights is that we can't build as many of them for two reasons: They cost more, and we have to wait till chivalry (upgrading horsemen at 120 a pop is basically out of the question in large numbers).
Actually, I would see if we can establish an embassy to get some feel for how many units the Aztec capital has. We don't want to take a shot in the dark and miss completely.
BTW, are the Aztecs even industrial yet? I was the impression they were only slightly more advanced than Germany (late MA with Navigation, but not yet in IA).
Also, I think I read somewhere that there's a program that tells you how far ahead a civilization is in techs (specifically). Are we allowed to use that?
Aggie
Deity
I have to read up a bit here. I can give my input in about 5 hours.
ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031---up
Aggie-------on deck
Yom
ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031---up
Aggie-------on deck
Yom
Its not too hard to calculate how many knights we would need. A rifle in a size 13+city fortified on flat has a defense of 6*2.35 = aprox 14 defense. 4 attack vs 16 defense means you take 4 hit points for every 1 you do, so you need 4 times the number of knights as rifles. You can add a few for the RNG gods to munch (we actually already did by rounding up to 4 knights instead of 3.75 knights)
If we are talking infantry then we get 23.5 defense or 6 knights per infantry.
One reason I think we should ally the world vs the Aztecs is that they will use some of the 20+ units they might have lolling around in peace time and their cavalry as well. The AI is not totally incompetent at invasions now, so some landings will ocur on Aztec shores using their units with extras being landed on other shores. Yom's non-knight idea would absolutely require it IMHO as sufficient cavalry could kill off our attack force before it could attack. (they may be more reluctant to attack a SOD of knights in the mountain)
The problem I see with this is floating our fleet of galleys past enemy territory. Maybe we should fight, make peace, launch and set up, declare war, land.
Might as well establish embassy now to get a baseline estimate.
============================================
Writing this I thought of a cool way to figure how many units you need. What you do is multiply hit points and attack for the attacker and hit points and defense for the defender. If the numbers are the same, then you have a 50% chance of winning in 1 turn (it does not take into account troops that survive to attack again).
So if there were 2 regular infanty, one vet infantry and 5 vet rifles you get
23.5* (3+3+4) + 14.1 * (4 * 5) = 517 Vet knights are 16 each so 33 would be 33*16 = 528 and your chances of winning taking the city is greater than 50%, for 32 knights you get 32*16 is 512 so your chances of losing is greater.
So the formula is 23.5 * (sum of all the infantry HP) + 14.1 * (sum of all the riflemen hp). If there were cavalry as well, their defense is half a rifle, so you would add 7.05 * (sum of all the hit points of the cavalry), etc. Once you have this sum you divide by 16 to give you the number of knights.
I think this all works.
If we are talking infantry then we get 23.5 defense or 6 knights per infantry.
One reason I think we should ally the world vs the Aztecs is that they will use some of the 20+ units they might have lolling around in peace time and their cavalry as well. The AI is not totally incompetent at invasions now, so some landings will ocur on Aztec shores using their units with extras being landed on other shores. Yom's non-knight idea would absolutely require it IMHO as sufficient cavalry could kill off our attack force before it could attack. (they may be more reluctant to attack a SOD of knights in the mountain)
The problem I see with this is floating our fleet of galleys past enemy territory. Maybe we should fight, make peace, launch and set up, declare war, land.
Might as well establish embassy now to get a baseline estimate.
============================================
Writing this I thought of a cool way to figure how many units you need. What you do is multiply hit points and attack for the attacker and hit points and defense for the defender. If the numbers are the same, then you have a 50% chance of winning in 1 turn (it does not take into account troops that survive to attack again).
So if there were 2 regular infanty, one vet infantry and 5 vet rifles you get
23.5* (3+3+4) + 14.1 * (4 * 5) = 517 Vet knights are 16 each so 33 would be 33*16 = 528 and your chances of winning taking the city is greater than 50%, for 32 knights you get 32*16 is 512 so your chances of losing is greater.
So the formula is 23.5 * (sum of all the infantry HP) + 14.1 * (sum of all the riflemen hp). If there were cavalry as well, their defense is half a rifle, so you would add 7.05 * (sum of all the hit points of the cavalry), etc. Once you have this sum you divide by 16 to give you the number of knights.
I think this all works.
Got it but there are a number of things I would like to discuss first. I'd say that looking over the situation I would change my view of what the plan should be. First I would like to disband all reg warriors and maybe chariots. When markets finish go with pure military of immortals, galleys, pults and spears to be upgraded to pikes. after poly go for Feudalism at a modest rate to build some cash. When Feud comes in upgrade where possible, build pikes and turn off research. Aztecs are still in MA so no RR for them for a while. I'd say we land about 10 pikes on the mountain farthest from capitol. Next turn land a force of about 15 pikes, 15 trebs and 40 immortals next the capitol and try to take it. This will require 40 galleys and the assorted troops. Just want to get a consensus. I think knights will be too expensive and take too long. Also best thing abouts knights is upgrade and retreat ability but this is a suicide mission so not really important there and attack is same as immortals. Maybe more troops depending on what's in the capitol. We can check when we are about ready to launch our ships and adjust accordingly. Let me know what you think.
The thing about putting the Aztecs in war mode now is that they will build up huge numbers of troops. More I think than they lose to sea invasions making our invasion more difficult. As they are still in the MA we may get to them before RR and certainly before sanitation. Also we have nothing to offer the world to start this war.
We can't really decide whether or not to ally the world against them now. Once we build an embassy we'll have an idea of how many units they have and if we can handle it or not. If they have 30+ units, then maybe we want a global alliance. If they have fewer units in their capital (10-20) then we definitely don't want them in war mode producing nothing but riflemen.
Aggie
Deity
I agree with the general direction of the discussion. An embassy definately is needed. I also agree that we probably don't have the money to MA the world vs the Aztecs. The big drawbck of immortal is that the are slow and take two turns after our landing to attack the capital. Knights do it in 1. I understand that knights are expensive and postpone the invasion though.
I agree that we can sign pure gpt rop with the Aztecs, like Greebley suggests. Landing a distraction force is a great idea as well.
I have read a lot of great ideas, but we have to agree upon an approach. My idea at this moment:
-30 Immortals, 20 knights, 20 pikes pikes
-gpt ROP with the Aztecs that we break when we are outside of their territory and ready to attack (we could include a peace deal here)
-send in a distraction force to lure the Aztecs to the other side of their empire
-attack within 30 turns. We might be too late otherwise (when they have rails).
I like to discuss it however. I can imagine that there are a lot of pros and cons and I like us to all agree.
I agree that we can sign pure gpt rop with the Aztecs, like Greebley suggests. Landing a distraction force is a great idea as well.
I have read a lot of great ideas, but we have to agree upon an approach. My idea at this moment:
-30 Immortals, 20 knights, 20 pikes pikes
-gpt ROP with the Aztecs that we break when we are outside of their territory and ready to attack (we could include a peace deal here)
-send in a distraction force to lure the Aztecs to the other side of their empire
-attack within 30 turns. We might be too late otherwise (when they have rails).
I like to discuss it however. I can imagine that there are a lot of pros and cons and I like us to all agree.
betazed
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I agree with the overall plan, Aggie. Sounds good. Only thing is that within 30 turns we will not have 20 knights. IMO, We will not have chivalry in 30 turns or have the money to upgrade all the horses.
Hence, lets attack with Immortals and pikes. All we need to do is hold teh city for 1 turn. 20 pikes should be able to do that.
Hence, lets attack with Immortals and pikes. All we need to do is hold teh city for 1 turn. 20 pikes should be able to do that.
I agree with Betazed. You said that Immortals need 2 turns to attack while knights only need 1. This is not true. The point of using immortals instead of knights is their cheapness. We can build a ton of Immortals/pikeman/artillery (it will be a strain on our economy but necessary) land them 1 tile away from tenochtitlan. Lose maybe 8 Pikemen and then take the city with our huge force. The artillery will mean we lose all the units that bombard that turn, but I don't want to attack a fortified vet. rifleman with an immortal only to promote it. We need to injure the defenders as much as possible.
Aggie
Deity
Sorry for myYom said:
comment. I agree with a fairly swift war and therefore agree with betazed and you.
Aggie
Deity
Mark1031, I agree with your approach, but don't forget aquaducts. They net us a lot of money as well when cities grow > size 6.
I agree as well if they don't have rails yet. If we see signs of rails though we may have to rethink. The problem with rails is that luring away military won't work. We may need a substantial number of knights and pike in that case.
I would trade territory maps now and then to look for rails (once they are industrial that is).
I would trade territory maps now and then to look for rails (once they are industrial that is).
