AG12 - Space Race (Sid)

[Aggie]

An advantage of war now is that we can ask other tribes to join. Maybe the Babylonians can land a few troops?

EDIT: If nothing else I would not land that lure stack all at once. If we land a few every turn more forces may go to the west.

 

[Yom]

I doubt anything the Babylonians land in the next 2-3 turns will be helpful. They will most likely attack the colonies of the Aztecs. Remember, the Babylonian troops are still in Korea after whiping them out and now they are quelling resistors.

If we go to war next turn as opposed to 2 turns later, there are 2 advantages. For one, our ships (and therefore our immortals) are exposed less. Secondly, the Aztecs have less time to shuffle troops to Tenochtitlan in response to our naval threat. The first is rather important, but I feel the second is downright necessary. The more time the Aztecs have to move units to their capital, the harder it will be to take AND hold. My path simply makes the attack more of a 'sneak attack' and doesn't risk the immortals as much.

Alliances with Any civ may be able to draw attention from the battlefront, but do we really want to be at war for 20 turns? We are in a republic so War weariness will be substantial after capturing Tenochtitlan (especially with the high casualties, the fact that it is enemy soil, and the fact that a lot of our units will have to defend to hold the city). I think that peace ASAP will be in our best interests after we get the Great Library. We'll gain a lot of new techs and have a lot of infrastructure to build; thus, we won't be able to prosecute any war (even if we wanted to, there's no good land to be had and we would only be able to take the Aztec colony on our island).

 

[Aggie]

Your reasons for a sneak attack are strong. Regarding the MA's: I was thinking that any help we can get to distract the Aztec forces and capture the TGL outweighs the war weariness. I understand that this WW is a big issue however. We will be helped by the Golden Age though. The game is probably lost without TGL.

Mark1031: If you succeed in capturing and holding the Great Library (and get us level in tech), then I like you to stop and post the results and save for a discussion. We then have to come up with a plan to go to space Things that we haven't discussed will then be of the highest importance.

 

[Mark1031]

OK. I like Yoms view of the landing. I wouldn't declare just yet to minimize boat risk. As far as alliance I actually would like to ally with the Germans and maybe the Vikes. If the Aztecs buy Germans in we are finished and Zerks would be trouble too. In fact, if they buy almost anyone in it will be trouble. We have no home defenses and very little $$ for upgeades. I won't play tonight so post your thoughts.

 

[Aggie]

If you buy in one you just as well may buy in all of them. That would mean 20 turns of war anyway. And if you would choose to go for a dogpile on the Aztecs, then I think you should do it asap. Only then will there be an opportunity for the AI to land on Aztecs territory.

I'd say: either buy in all of them now or don't bother and make it a solo action now or within 2 turns.

 

[Foresight]

Whatever happens as long as you take the city you are fine. If Germany joins the war oh well. In one turn you can give the capital away to one of the civs that is against the aztecs, your men will all be warped back to the capital and you can fight on the home front while building up needed infrastructure. That is just my point of view. Oh almost forgot to say LURK DELURK hehe.

 

[Aggie]

Note that whatever happens, we will be in a GA. So money is less of an issue than it would be otherwise.

 

[Greebley]

I am unsure on an alliance. As Yom pointed out WW will be very large. Every unit we lose every time our lure is attacked (whether it wins or loses) increases WW. We could start with 50% WW.

 

[Mark1031]

Well I landed and did get an alliance with Germany and Babs. The stack survived with 27 immortals and one injured pike. The problem is we were attacked out of Teno with, if I counted correctly about 10 rifles and I saw a few more move in. There is no way we take the city. We had 1 immortal win so we are in a GA. This is looking very bleak. I would offer as plan B what someone previously suggested. Retreat, Get a dogpile against the Aztecs and hope someone else takes Teno and then move in. We could continue producing military and get a bigger stack overthere to be ready. The Ottomans have tanks btw I will wait for your responses.

 

[Aggie]

Well, I guess we have to go that route. Our chances of winning just were reduced from 10% to 1%.

 

[Foresight]

But think, if you manage to win, how much better it will be.

 

[Aggie]

There is a bright side to all of this mess. We will finish the game before Greebley's holiday

In hindsight it probably would have been best to buy ourselves a few more techs. We had the opportunity when Korea crumbled before our eyes, combined with the Inca peace renegotiation. We probably wouldn't have been able to get Mil. Tradition though.

 

[microbe]

immortals vs tanks, this is not going to win the game. Next time when you gather another stack, you'll face infantry.

 

[Aggie]

@microbe: indeed. And added to that we only have 9(!!) workers, because we were only building up military to capture the Great Library.

Well, it was always going to be a very difficult game. It was just very hard to send the invasion force in time. I don't think that we can blame ourselves of being to slow in the military build-up.

I went through the thread and this is what I think worked against us:

-We started without Alphabet and it took us very long to get it (1050 BC). At that point the AI already was in the Middle Ages, so we were too late to catch up with tech brokering.
-There were 4 AI tribes with the scientific trait
-We ended up with an archipelago map and every strong tribe could claim it's own island
-The Aztecs built their TGL in the capital. You can hardly find a point which would take us more turns to sail to. Added to that they owned their island.

I don't know how we could have done this differently. We came quite far but it just wasn't to be in the end. We could have waited until we had 60 immortals, but at that time the Aztec land would be railroaded. Tbh I don't give us a lot of chances with a plan B, especially now the Ottomans are (almost?) in the modern age. I don't mind to play on, but I also don't mind to start up a new one, even though I will be one a holiday in 1.5 months time.

EDIT: It has been a great experience and I have learned a lot in this game. When I start up my SG's I try to go for difficult variants with no assurance that you will win it. That gives me the biggest reward if it works out. And even if you are faced with an almost impossible task there's always something to get out of it.

 

[Mark1031]

Personally I think it's hopeless as even if we do take it in 20 turns or so we will have so little modern infra I don't know how we win. Anyway I would say we build up Trebs and Knights and try to get to cavs during our GA. I haven't checked tech issues/costs. But I wouldn't mind if people want to give this round to the AI.

 

[Yom]

Ouch.

I saw a new post by Mark, expecting to see victory and get this. Well, them's the breaks. Catching up the conventional way is definitely out of the question. We can't research 40 techs before the ottomans research 10.

The situation isn't completely hopeless, however. The deal with the Inca most likely still exists. We could buy Invention and trade for Monotheism and then buy/research Chivalry and try again, this time with knights. All the while, we have to get an alliance with the world against the Aztecs. We build up 80 knights and 40 boats (maybe more, but knights is all we need). Landing on the mountain tile will mean fewer casualties. Plus, the retreat ability will leave redlined knights outside of the city that the AI will be tempted to attack, instead of Tenochtitlan.

Though the strategy could work, it's at best a shot in the dark. Can we get to Cavs without getting Education (I think so, but I'm not sure)? If so, it's only 4 techs to get there, right? The alternative would be to mortgage our economy and our stockpile of gold (we had a goodly sum on my turns, is it still there?) to get Cavs and do nothing but building cavs and boats with just a few musketmen here and there. Cavs are much more effective than Knights, especially when you consider their costs. The only problem is that we need saltpeter. If we decide on this route and get gunpowder and find that we have no saltpeter, I would go for Chivalry instead. There's no way we can get Saltpeter AND Military Tradition with our gold.

If we go the cavalry route, a world alliance might help as well. If nothing else, it will distract Aztec forces from attacking us and will hopefully cause starvation due to a loss of luxuries.

Realistically, what we really need right about now is an army. If we could get one, we'd be able to pillage all the tiles leading up to Tenochtitlan and slowly wear it down...

 

[Aggie]

Yom, you are right. Let's go that route. The world vs the Aztecs. As long as we aren't out of options there's hope. We surely can get cavs without Education.

But right now we should indeed retreat. Unless we have an elite immortal to attack with.

 

[Arathorn]

[/lurk]

Whatever you do, don't quit! Give it a shot.

[lurk]

Arathorn

 

[Aggie]

Thanks Arathorn, Yom persuaded me to continue We can actually profit from the Ottoman tanks. They shouldn't have any problems to hurt the Aztecs.

 

[Greebley]

We have 27 immortals - how many units do you think moved in? What is the hit point total of our immortals (I assume some were injured?)

BTW did we do two turns of luring away before landing? I thought that was going to work better than it did. It must have been troops from other towns I guess.

if they are all healthy that is 432 strength. I assume the city is bigger than size 12? That makes defense 14.1. We might be able to kill 8 rifles.

Killing up to 10 rifles is probably better than 1%. If there is a chance of less than 10 rifles I think we should attack anyway. If it was clearly impossible, then I guess we can retreat. If we are spending gold on upkeep, maybe we shouldn't bother. The immortals don't have a whole lot of use.

The only strategies I can think of:

Stay at war with the Aztecs (we will probably have to switch to Monarchy) and try to keep others at war. Try to get to Cavalry and try again with Cav. If the Aztecs are continuously at war it may affect their unit counts to our advantage and also keep them from getting tanks.

Try to catch up in tech - I don't see this being possible

[Edit: It took a while to type so I crossposted. We can get cav or knights.

We want to attack:
1)Before the AI launches into space
2)Before the Aztecs get tanks.

2 is done by keeping them at war with all trading partners. 1 is impossible to avoid so we just have to try.