ALC Game 16: Persia/Cyrus

[Sisiutil]

To my knwoledge it's not possible to draft Grenadiers. You are forced to draft Musketman until you have Rifling for Rifleman.

Can anyone give a definitive answer on this? It's pretty important!

 

[r_rolo1]

You can't draft grens:

Units you can draft

Warrior/Quechua: 1 population "You know how to use a club?" "I play paintclub on the weekends" "Good enough you're in"
Axeman: 1 population BW
Maceman/Samurai/Berserker: 1 population CS + Machinery
Musketman/Musketeer/Janissary: 1 population Gunpowder
Rifleman/Redcoat: 1 population Rifling
Infantry: 2 population Rifling + Assembly line
Mechanized Infantry: 3 population Rifling + Robotics

From vale's article Drafting for fun and profit ( reds are mine )

 

[Sisiutil]

Thanks, r_rolo1. I think that argues in favour of teching Reliable Parts -> Rifling and then back-tracking to Nationalism--or trading for it, which I think is another argument in favour of leaving it alone for now; I think there's a definite possibility that Ragnar will research it before Reliable Parts.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Thanks, r_rolo1. I think that argues in favour of teching Reliable Parts -> Rifling and then back-tracking to Nationalism--or trading for it, which I think is another argument in favour of leaving it alone for now; I think there's a definite possibility that Ragnar will research it before Reliable Parts.

There's also the possibility of sueing HC for it.

After you take Machu Picchu and crush Corihuayrachina, of course.

 

[ratrangerm]

Everyone else has pretty much covered what you need to do.

I'd make getting Machu Picchu a priority, given that it's Huayna's largest city. Obviously, you'll need to snare Ollan-however-you-spell-it to get your foot in the door to Machu (and Ollan is also your ticket to taking down Cuzco).

I'd just press on against Huayna until either (a) war weariness becomes a major problem or (b) your forces are taking too much of a beating. Preferably use (a) as your guideline.

 

[patagonia]

Oops

Apologies for the erroneous drafting info. Sticking with RP definitely makes sense in that case, but there's no reason why you shouldn't press on relentlessly with the war all the same.

 

[cabert]

War plan seems good.
I would consider a variant, not necessarily better, just another option to open the discussion :
- Go straight for Machu picchu then horse city with the first (red) stack,
- blue stack goes for vilcas, murcia (raze!), ollanthing
- both merge and go for cuzco if shrine built

What's better for this is cutting off the best city earlier and removing the threat of cavalry earlier.
What's not as good as your suggestion is the counterattack management.
I can't tell where the counteratteck will strike, and it's very likely to hurt more with this scenario than with yours.
Anyway, you should remove the grocer from the building list (or whip it now) and start going all out units.

 

[Kev]

I am still of the mind to take horses offline as early as possible. Don't know how far along things are to MT with the Incan, but even knights can cause you issues given their speed. You may find some within your lands doing some annoying pillaging as well. With that, I like Cabert's variant whereby Machu Picchu goes first and then beelining his horses. If the city actually IS built on the horses, then that's actually better since as long as you can hold the city he won't get them back. Once the current mounted population starts to dwindle, you can severely lessen the amount of pikes you make and concentrate on cannons/grens.

With teching, at first I thought to just turn it off altogether, but without the ability to buy units I suppose it's just as well to keep a level going and lowering it as needed to supply culture for WW. With that, replaceable parts followed by either rifling or railroad for me. Given the time frame involved, by the time you go RP, then rifling then Nationalism for drafting, you'll likely have hamstrung HC sufficiently anyway and end the need for drafting rifles. At that point, better to keep the population as you head for domination.

 

[Sisiutil]

I played part-way through the round last night and I'll try to finish and post it tonight. Huayna teched next not to Rifling, nor to Military Tradition--he went after Astronomy, of all things! Well, he does have a couple of Frigates that are now threatening my seafood tiles, which are protected only by suddenly-inadequate Caravels. Still, it seemed like an odd choice when he's being threatened with extinction.

 

[carl corey]

Move the caravels back in your cities and forget about defending the seafood. I imagine you don't have enough of them to defend anyway. Just be careful of any galleons trying to go on the counterattack. Good hunting!

 

[flamingzaroc121]

ignore the water tiles for now and focus on destroying him. when he is dead you can rebuild all of your fishing boats

 

[Kev]

Astronomy? Curious choice. It does open up resource trades and trade routes with the other AI's, I guess. I thought the AI REALLY prioritizes rifling, but perhaps that is overridden if there is no one on the home continent to set up trade routes with. Could that have been a "lightbulb" tech that he just got? I don't think your remaining rivals have astronomy, so it would not have been a trade.

Oh well, be glad now that you are taking advantage miliarily rather than waiting 10 more turns!

Still want those horses gone, but I guess now we have to worry about someone trading them to him....

 

[Gooblah]

Astronomy while running Mercantilism. Wow. The AI never ceases to amaze me. Grab Rifling, then use any newly upgraded units as first strike. Send in some cannons and other units to pound down chokepoints and strongholds until your primary units are ready for battle.

 

[r_rolo1]

Of all things, Astro ? .You are lucky, very lucky . It looks that HC decided to kill himself, so do his will. He has nothing substancial to put in the way of your armies, only medieval units.
And after HC and Isabella are history this game is basically over....

 

[Bhruic]

I don't know about "lucky", the game was over regardless - even Riflemen wouldn't have stood up to Cannons. But yeah, that fact will probably shorten the win time a little.

Bh

 

[uncarved block]

This is why I believe the power graph should be further subdivided or refined, to reflect power based on population and power based on units. Near as I can guess, Huayna does not believe he's facing extinction, because he's still above you- technically- in power, thanks to those huge cities you're about to take. It may be too hard to change the programming now (really, I have no idea), but IMO this one change would really help the AI respond to threats better.

Go blow down his house of cards. Should be a lot of fun.

 

[Sisiutil]

Another (albeit minor) annoyance: Huayna built a city on a single-tile island to my east. Which means in order to finish him off, I'll have to research Astronomy myself (no one else besides Huayna has it), build a couple of Galleons, and go get him. It might be easier to vassalize him at that point, especially if WW is getting problematic. Thoughts?

 

[r_rolo1]

Do you think that you'll need to conquer more land that one of your continent? If not, vassalising HC may be a option. If you need to invade Ragnar or Frederick, maybe finishing HC could be a better move because of the of "we yearn to ( blahblah ) " ( and you would need Astro the same way )

 

[Hero]

Forget Astronomy. Beeline nukes.

 

[Validator]

It might be easier to vassalize him at that point, especially if WW is getting problematic. Thoughts?

I don't think it will make a whole lot of difference at that point in the game, but vassalizing Huayna doesn't really do anything for you. AFAIK the AI will always accept a peace treaty if it's willing to capitulate, and that will end WW. The "We yearn to join our homeland" will still exist even if he capitulates. The only thing you'll gain from a capitulation is the 1 in each of your cities for "influencing others" (unless his island city has a resource that you need).

A possible drawback to capitulation is that it is possible that Huayna would put a settler on a galleon and settle a new city somewhere on the coast of the former Incan empire before your borders can expand to block all city sites. With the way culture works this new Incan city would immediately get control of the nearby tiles, and there would be nothing you could do about it. It looks like you're going to need just about all of the tiles on the continent to reach the domination limit, so losing some to a vassalized Huayna could force you into a naval invasion.