HNDY01 Babylonian Rampage (AWE C3C)

[T_McC]

In peeking at the save:

Only Portugal (that we know of) is building a Wonder. If they truly are the only ones working on a project, we can still build Sistines, as there will be no cascade from any other AI city. We will have Theology before a new pre-build runs out, and Nineveh should still pull ~18 shields out of the GA. We'll have about 17 turns of pre-build to work with before Theology would have to appear.

The argument against this is that by trying for a Wonder, we would be forgoing about 20 units out of Nineveh.

 

[Greebley]

Sistines is 600 shields so at this point it would be 30 units.

I don't think it is worth the amount of effort it would be. I also think the chances are decent that there is another civ working on Leos. We just haven't met them yet. Civs don't often get 2 techs ahead all by themselves that often this early in the game. I would guess that there is another strong civ that also has engineering and could easily have invention as well.

So no more wonders for us for a long while. One nice thing is that of the two wonders on our continent, one is pyramids.

BTW, I am suspecting that the Arabs are the other strong civ I mentioned as they have 2 wonders. Do we know where the Portuguese are coming across? I would like to meet these Arabs (and chinese too) in the hopes of getting longbows

 

[handy900]

The war begins, and it's leader time

Pre-turn
Decide to move some units on the tile where we need to start a road. The only Spanish units that can attack next turn are spears; the swords are in the jungle.
I turned off animate moves. Turn it back on if it bugs you

We could be sinking a lot of galleys that we have redlined if we had some galleys over in the harbor city of

Babylon – bow – bow
Nineveh – spear – spear
Ashur – cat – cat
N Gap – settler – warrior
Samara – cat – cat
Elubar – cat – galley

Turn 1 350 AD
Build a road N of the mountain
I see two Spanish swords that are yellow lined. They are at war with someone, perhaps the Hittites
Elite kills the Spanish spear and move into position to build our first city north of the mountain.

IBT
I was expecting Spanish swords to attack our little stack, but they retreated into Pamplona. They must be heading to war up north.
GA ends.
Portugal is building Sistine.
Carthage building knights Templar.

Turn 2 370 AD
Cats redline 2 swords in the jungle.
Elite bowman kills swordsman.
Cultured vet bowman kills fortified redlined sword in the jungle, barely.
We could sink 3 red lined Spanish galleys if we had a boat. I’ll move Evening cloud up & over through n Gap.
Since the GA is over – 37 GPT and Theology in 37.
Babylon nets 15 shields and +3 FPT to build a few of galleys in 2.
Ashur nets 11 shields with growth.
Uruk – 4 shields & growth.
Samarra – 4s & G
Eridu – 3s & G
Nineveh – 14 & G
Nineveh goes to palace (Leo’s)
Elubar hires a scientist so the slider can go to zero/zero losing 11 GPT. –39GPT on units costs. Maybe Spain will kill some

I think I’ll build a settler in Babylon to help with the unit costs.

IBT
Babylon – bow – Galley (2) – I want to sink some redlined ships
Nineveh – spear – bow (2)
Ashur – cat – cat (2)
Eridu – cat –cat (7)
Shur – warrior – warrior
Sippar founded Set to walls

Turn 3 380 AD
Elite bow kills a redlined spear.
I guess all the swords moved north. This may be the time to go ahead & take Pamplona
Then again, all the swords may be in the 8 Spanish Galleys on the E side of out lands.
Ashur and Eridu swap some tiles to go net 10 and net 4 SPT. I should have done that last turn.

IBT
Portugal drops off an MI and Warrior near Eridu
Bowman kills the MI, and the regular warrior kills a vet bowman.
Another bowman finishes him off.
I’m a little worried about what Spain may have inside the 8 galleys next to the coast. 16 units to defend against would be overwhelming.

Turn 4 390 AD
Here we go, workers move next to Pamplona to road so the cats can move.
Rush walls in Sippar
Hittites show up with an 8-stack. 4 swords, 3 spears, 1 archer

IBT
Nineveh – bow – bow
Babylon – boat – boat
Ashur – cat – cat
Sippar – walls - barracks

Turn 5 400 AD
Our galley sinks a red line, then fortifies. The nearby Spanish galleys are yellow lined. Two Spanish Swords drown. (we can dream, right)
Evening Cloud sinks another Spanish galley. Now Spain is down to 6 galleys.
Well, so much for the “Road to Pamplona”. The stack retreats back to the safety of the walled city.
Cats hit the 8 stack and wound 5 of the 8 Hittites.
I like our odds much better on defense behind the walls, so instead of attacking the Hittites, I just fortify.

IBT
One Hittite sword attacks & dies. Our only loss so far was to a lowly regular warrior.
Samarra – cat – cat
The wounded Spanish galleys are going home. Were they empty? I’ll sink as many as I can just to be sure.

Turn 6 410 AD
This feels more like AW
Another Hittite spear shows up.
Bomb the Hittite stack
BSS Babylon sinks another Spanish Galley
Still 3 swords that are not red lined, I think I’ll play defense until the next wave of cats gets here.
Rush the barracks in Sippar.

IBT
We lose a spear on defense (so much for playing the odds).
Spain shows up in force. A 10-stack of 3 warriors, 1 sword, 1 archer, 5 spears.
Hittites shuffle and now have a 15-stack. 6 spear, 4 archers, 5 swords.
Engineering comes in
Babylon galley – galley (last one)
Nineveh – bowman – bowman
Ellipi – spear – bow
Sippar – barracks - temple

Turn 7 420 AD
10 cats versus 25 units.
I was building a fortress on the tile SE of Sippar, but have to move all workers back to the mountain where they begin a fortress.
If Spain blocks the road we will not be able to reinforce.
Cats go 5 for 10.
We have 12 units versus 25, but only 11 of the 25 have an attack of more than 1.
We need a good RNG on the IBT.

IBT
DWH elite gets a leader on Defense. Thank you RNG!
We kill 8 and lose zero on defense IBT. Spain selects an interesting strategy, and insists on attacking spears behinds walls with warriors.
Hittites lost 4 swords.
But reinforcements arrive and the current stacks are
Hittites: 18 in the stack. 1 warrior, 3 archers, 7 spear, 7 swords mostly regulars
Spain: 7 in the stack 5 archers, 1 spear, 1 sword (4 spears moves SE of Sippar).
Spain moves onto the tile SE of Sippar with 4 spears. They’ll try to pillage to road.
Ashur – treb – treb
Uruk – harbor- bowman

Turn 8 430 AD
Spain and the Hittites are standing next to each other, so they are obviously not at war with each other. Maybe Spain was at war with the Zulu.
We are down to 430 gold losing 17 per turn with the sliders @ zero / zero.
Babylon switches to Setter.
The situation in Sippar:
We have walls and barracks; 1 leader, 2 warriors, 10 cats, 5 spears, 6 bowmen and 10 cats.
It is crowded. There is no way the army can get through unless someone moves. I considered loading it onto a boat even. I built an army and filled it with 3 spears. I considered bowmen, but felt we needed the extra defensive bombardment. An attack army of Bowmen didn’t seem like a very potent force either. Hopefully someone will move & the army can squeeze through and get to the iron.

IBT
Engineering comes in.
Babylon – settler – bowman
Nineveh – bowman - Palace pre-build for Leo’s Portugal is building it also.
Portugal sinks our galley
Kill 10, lose 2. We killed 5 Spanish & 5 Hittites. They were swords & archers.
Spain pillages the road SE of Sippar.


Turn 9 440 AD
Cats on mountain go 1 for freaking 5!
Cats in Sippar go 5 for 10.
I put 2 bowmen in evening Cloud to move up to Sippar. We can reinforce by sea.
I’m moving another galley up to N Gap to use as a shuttle for reinforcements also.
Sippar is down to 5 bowmen, 1 spear and 2 warriors.
Hunker down for defense.
2 Bowmen arrive by boat next turn.
If we have a bad IBT, I can move the spear army back towards Sippar.
360 Gold losing 22 GPT

IBT
Another leader on Defense
We killed 4 Hittites swords on defense, no land attacks from Spain
but Spain sunk the galley with the 2 bowmen in it. Stupid-Head should have sent it the long way to the west, not to the east near Pamplona
Eridu – treb – treb
2 Portuguese MI get off a boat S of Eridu
Spain pillages our other road square.

Turn 10 450 AD
Bomb & kill the 2 MI near Eridu
I’ll leave a cat & Treb down here, these pairs come frequently. Could uses a spare Bowman also.
Now that they have pillaged, they appear to be leaving. We can move up and road again. Meanwhile we can reinforce Sippar by boat via the western side of the continent.
The spear army is blocked and cannot get through. I’m sending it back to Sippar, and will take the bowman army out and fight our way through.
Stacks are don a good bit. Some from kills & some from retreats.
Hittite stack is at 8 – 4 spears & 4 swords
Spain has a 5-stack of 3 archers, 1 spear & 1 sword

Notes:
I think the Spanish spears will leave, allowing you to re-road. The zone was so hot when the two big stacks were there, I had to leave to road open for pillaging.
Next turn the spear army gets back to Sippar. When it gets back, you can take the bowman army up the western coast and fight your way out. Perhaps raze Adana, of go through the spear & sword in the Jungle.
You can use the galley E of Northern gap to shuttle units up to Sippar. Don’t be a knucklehead like me, go via the western route.
We are doing really well playing defense in Sippar. I don’t see any need to attack unless you can attack redlined units in the jungle.
Unless I missed some, we killed 30 and lost 6, including the two that were lost at sea.
With a spear army in Sippar I feel pretty good about holding the city as long as we can boat some reserves in.
If we can break out with the bowman army and begin to pillage we can even the odds a little bit.
I started Leo’s in Nineveh. If that’s a pipe dream, switch it.
Portugal is turning into a bear. I think we need a couple of bows down south, one day soon they will show up with 4 MI (or knights) not 2.
There is a settler heading south.
We are losing 20 GPT


>> SAVE 450 AD <<

 

[handy900]

450 BC - The hot zone

 

[Greebley]

I guess I am up now.

I am unsure if I will be able to make forward progress. The initial Zulu assault will be showing up at some point - although maybe not if they are at war.

I will try to build the rest of the towns to ease our GPT a bit. I may also try to get some over size 7.

I am going to try to get the army out so I can pillage. Have we seen knights yet? I know spain had the resources last I checked.

[Edit: What do ppl feel about filling 6 or 7 of the 9 remaining city spots? Some were on DotMaps, with some considered crowded. They will probably never grow, just build workers when needed and provide support. That is +12-14 gpt with a short term hit when we lose 10 citizens from the settlers. Add 2 more when Babylon grows to size 7. I may also need to slow unit production to build aquaducts.

The city spots are the 2 in the N, the one on the peninsula down south and 2 in the southernmost tundra, and the forest between ellipi and Nineveh on the coast (This last one is within Bablon's radius, but Babylon will not need to work it as it can only work 4 plains until Electricity.

The final one of the 7 spots do not hurt production would block the AI from attacking the mountain and be on the neck. It might not be worth it for that reason

We could settle the last two as well but switch to taxmen so they stay at size 1 until we no longer need their +8 gold. They are located between Ashur and Nineveh for the first and Ashur and Babylon for the second. They would cost 4 shields which is not worth it in my opinion (unless we get really desperate).

We are in a funny position where many towns can only work 2 land tiles, so we can build quite tightly and not lower production.

I guess the other option would be to go on the offensive. I am positive I could get unit cost down doing that

 

[handy900]

Wow Greebley, that was fast. Yes, you are up. I doub't you will be able to move North much in the next 10 turns. It's hard to know how many units are still on their way south and are under the fog.

Here's one plan:

1. Kill all units in the square next to Pamplona with cats + the bowman army.
2. Move onto the square using one army as cover. The AI won't attack an army in the field.
3. Build a road in the jungle, move the cats on the road and raze Pamplona.

This would give you a break out for the army to go pillage, and kill Pamplona at the same time.

The downside to this is it will take a few turns, and we are a little thin on defense to resettle on the hill next to Pamplona right now.

I did not see any knights on my turns. Swords in the north. MI off boats from Portugal

 

[T_McC]

Haven't looked at the save, but a couple of things:

All three civs on our continent have the resources to build Knights. The city we had targeted to get our Iron/Horses, if captured, would likely be the end of the Hittites ability to build Knights. Of the other two, Shaka is so backwards that he probably won't know how to build Knights for quite a while.

Greebley suggested turning our tundra cities into all scientists, the same trick would work with taxmen. If it hasn't already been done it should cut our deficit at least in half.

 

[Greebley]

Since two of you are here, I edited my message up above. I don't think you will get a report of that fact though on;y this new message. It is about settling more towns than you can shake a stick at.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Attack the 1 hp spear off mountain. I also attack a sword with the army, which probably wasn't the best idea as I take a few more hp than I planned.

IBT: A bunch of attacks. Army is pretty damaged. We win all battles. I will cover with the other army next turn.
We get Invention. People want a heroic epic. I guess the army hadn't attacked before? Handy was probably more sensiblethan me. Things could have gone badly. I will try to do no more weeds.
We get invention from the GLib.
Ashur: Trebuchet->Heroic Epic
Northern Gap: Warrior-> Courthouse (I probably should have changed this warrior due to lack of funds. Warriors are not immediately useful so I scroll ahead and change another one we were making.

460 AD: The Bowman to Longbow is 60 gold BTW. No upgrades until we fix our finances though.
Found Izibia with the one settler we have. Switch some towns to settlers.
I turn off science. Either we will get it from the GLib, or we will want to research at full. In either case, we are unlikely to want to wait for a min science run.

IBT: We are attacked by spain and win.
Nineveh: Longbow->Galley

470 AD: Bombard a stack of Spanish. Kill off some archers. Risk and lose 1 of 2 warriors so I can grab the square that connects the town with our main forces (that was pillaged)

IBT: The Hittites forces are all retreating. They either don't want to attack our army, or they have a war going on, or both. Spain lands a sword and archer.
Samarra: Settler-> Aquaduct
China builds the Knights Templar.

480 AD: Kill the sword and Archer that landed. We lose a regular warrior doing so. Bowman army kills 2 injured spear in spanish town. An additional Spanish archer is killed. Ashur needs a taxman as it grows to size 9.

IBT: Fairly eventful. It appears Spanish MDI are now showing up. Two 2 sword are landed on our continent. More boats show up. And the Big One: We learn Education from the Great Library (I was really hoping for Gunpowder first).
Ashur: Settler->Galley

490 AD:
Our first longbow attack is a win vs one landed sword and the Longbow promotes!
Attack the other sword with a Bowman, we win and also promote.
Kill a spear and a warrior in the Spanish town.

IBT: Two Eventful IBT's in a row. China contacts us offering Contact with the Arabs, I hold off to do any trading on my turn.

500 AD: Elite bow attacks an injured sword, but gets unlucky and loses.
Attack Pamplona and decide to keep it for now. I don't have a setter up yet. We can always turn it into a worker later, and the support is useful at the moment. Don't be shy to abandon it later though.
Build the city of Carchemish. Build the city of Mari. Merge a few workers to replace lost ones.
Diplo: Establish Chinese Embassy. MA's are per turn commitments, so not allowed under AW rules. Too bad.

IBT: Boats move. Some forward. Some Back.
Uruk: Settler->Aquaduct
Eridu: Settler->Aquaduct
Portuguese start Copernicus

510 AD: Attack and sink a boat. Kill a spear. Bow army heals.

IBT: Our Galley is sunk even though it is fortified.
Several swords attack our spear army.
Portugal lands an MDI and warrior.

520 AD: Aargh! Our Elite Bow cannot kill a regular warrior and dies. Elite longbow wins.

IBT: The AI seems willing to attack the armies. Interesting.
Nineveh: Galley->University
Ellipi: Settler->Worker

530 AD: Build Larsa

IBT: Ye Gods that was close. I thought our army was doomed. It was attacked by several units and got to 1 hp
Ashur: Galley->Longbow.

540 AD: Build Nimrud. Build Itswaytocrowdedforatown. One error on my part. We don't have any gold and so are essentially forced to run min science I should have seen that.

IBT: Everyone attacked last round so our Army goes back to full HP.

550 AD: Bombard a galley to 1 hp and a 4 hp galley can't kill it. That seems to happen alot with boats for me. Not sure why. Also lose 2 bow trying to kill a nearly dead sword. It is not a good round. I change 2 town.

Notes:
Trying to keep Pamplona was probably not the best move. For some reason, they will happily attack it even with an army in it. I am not sure why they don't go after the easier town. A resource like rubber? However, we will finish the road next turn which means we could put the spear army in the town as well. I leave it to the next player to decide if they want to keep it. I suspect if we rushed the walls, they would stop attacking. Better might be to build a settler and go for the hills instead. Sorry to have risked our army that way. It would have been a bad blow if they had won. I really didn't think they would attack the army in the town, but rather go after the lighter defended town.

I got our situation in terms of gold slightly better, but the lack of irrigation is really starting to take its toll. Currently with scientists and 20% science we are at -8 gpt, but get Gunpowder in 33 instead of 47. I think we want to go for Muskets and pray for Saltpeter. It would really help.

Our unit costs is down to 26 now.

We really need a third army to pillage. Our current defense does better with 2. One interesting thing to try might be to put both armies in Pamplona. If they continue to attack with 2 armies over anything else, then we will probably never lose a unit on defense.

This is my densest build ever. Funny thing is we still can't use a good number of squares even with this dense build so in a sense it is not dense enough. I don't think we want to build any more towns south of Sippar

My plan was to give some of the towns harbors and then switch to workers. I merged some in to lower unit cost and to compensate for pop drop due to settlers.

Towns that can only get to size 2 are probably better off at size 1 with a scientist until the get the harbor built.

I really wish we had cheap aquaducts.

Important:

Arabia now appears in Diplomacy. Next player must declare war in the Preturn.

I had a faint hope of not contacting them until map trading, but since they could buy contact with us from China it was not likely. We can do two things before declaring war. Sell education for 38 gold or get an embassy. I recently realized that getting an embassy does tell us where their capitol is, but is otherwise useless when at war. You cannot use it to tell you if they are at war or not.

Good luck to the next player. I got several elite victories, but no leader and several bad RNG leaving us with very few Elite units. Hopefully the Heroic Epic will help.

After Gunpowder, maybe we should go for banking??? Though once we work most of the sea tiles, we will be much better off.

The Save

 

[barbslinger]

First off I am currently having trouble with my CR-ROM but will be swapping it out tomorrow. Fingers crossed that is the problem.

If we don't have enough units to continue to the irontown why don't we retreat a bit. Send the armies out to pillage iron and wait for them to waste the iron units against us. Then go and take the city. They undoubtably already have pikes. Also is it possible to trade for iron on the inter-turn and then blow our rep but upgrading. Isn't this the last civ. Looking forward to seeing the save.

 

[handy900]

Nice Job Greebley.

I had not attacked with the army since There were very few units in the town other than the army to defend with. I was thinking I should wait until the spear Army returned. With hindsight I wish I had made the bowman army first to use to breakout of the log jam near Sippar.

It occurs to me that perhaps we should not have fortified on the mountain and let the AI stockpile units. Maybe we should have built a fortification 1 tile N of the mountain and allowed the AI to attack from the non jungle tile. Oh well, live & learn.

Army attacks Did the army attack the spear army in a city, or out in the open?

I’ve noticed in other games that the AI will attack an army in a city but will not typically attack an army in the open. The AI will go for a redlined army in the open with strong units. This can be used to great advantage. In one solo game I would attack with cavalry armies in the field. The AI would never counter attack these units even when the cavalry armies were yellow lined (they were stacked). They AI would however attack my rifle army fortified in a city with walls because it was a choke point and also had a luxury. It guess the AI decided it was their only target. When I founded another city nearby, they quit attacking the army and went for the new city. When I noticed this, I abandoned the new city, they went back to attacking the rifle army in the walled city. This whole time the better targets would have been my yellow lined cavalry armies razing their cities, but they ignored these. Bottom line, they will attack an army in a city, and lose a lot of units in the process. They will likely ignore our pillaging army as long as it stays at full strength. Don’t attack with the pillaging army, it is too valuable.

After reading your post more fully, I’d guess Pamplona must have rubber. I don’t see how you could avoid keeping it. I would have.

Now let’s get a settler to the hills E of Pamplona, rush walls, and see if the AI will attack an army behind walls on a hill. This will kill a lot of AI units. If they quit attacking after walls come in, then so be it, we can move the spear army back to Sippar. The other army needs to somehow break out and move north & pillage.

Remember, when you raze Pamplona you will have to build a road on the ruins, so make sure you have 3 workers on that tile before you raze the city.

I'm typing this at work without looking at the save, so if anyone has other ideas, speak up.


No iron, no horses, no more GL, no problem.

 

[Greebley]

Right now the spear army is in the jungle guarding the workers building the road between Sippar and Pamplona, and the Bow army is in Pamplona itself. There are 2 spears also in Pamplona I believe. The bow army in Pamplona was the one at 1 hp 2 turns ago, but has fully recovered. now.

Next turn the road finishes and the spear army need not guard the workers. It can move to Sippar or Pamplona as needed.

Sippar was more lightly guarded (no army, lots of Cats, 4-5 Spear+Bow). and maybe a warrior or two. The really suprising thing was that they attacked Pamplona rather than Sippar. Both were reachable, though the troops were closer to Pamplona.

Handy, I completely agree on the move to the hill. I am not sure if I am still building a settler. A city may need to be switched.

Now that we have longbow, we will want to build some more. It is harder to get victories with bows as they have a tendency to lose even when elite vs damaged foes. With armies defending you don't get the leaders on defense either. I would love to update our existing bows, but don't want to slow down gunpowder research.

 

[barbslinger]

Had a quick look at the save this morning before coming to work. I'm going to try and get the bowman army moving once and send the spear army to Pampalona after I build a fortress on the road. If I move that spear army they can get through to our inside so it is still really dicey. Ideally I would like to get a settler, none being built, and have the army escort him to the horses to set up a city with a harbor. Then from there we can hopefully build enough galleys and get another leader or two to run escorts of longbows and a settler to take the iron city. It really looks rough right now. I also have to declare on both China and Arabia with no deals available. I think we need to fall back to our jungle choke and perhaps give up on Pampalona. Once we have 4 armies to run escorts to raze towns and also defense I think we have to concentrate on getting iron and horses, especially iron. With out that it is just a matter of time before we are overwhelmed from both sea invasion and a gaggle of knights taking the choke and busting through.

 

[Greebley]

If you can get the army out and pillaging, things will improve due to the fact the AI can only send lesser units. I would definitely try this.

The problem at the moment is our unit support is pretty low. This is primarily due to the slow growth of our cities. We needed harbors in most towns and are still building them in several. As these towns grow and they will start working all those water tiles and we will be able to support a big army. Until then, I think the assault you describe will not work due to too few units.

One thing I have been rethinking is the FP. It would have been nice to build it on the iron, but we may need it now to raise our gold to support units. So I am going to do an about face on my previous stand on not building the FP yet. I didn't realize we would have to wait on the iron assault due to lack of funds.

So my recommendation is to:

[edit: 0) Build the FP]

1) Pillage to stop the knights and MDI as much as possible.

2) Build Harbor, Aquaduct, Market in as many towns as possible.

2a) actually granaries might be a good build as well.

2b) another possibility would be to have our high food capitol drop below size 6 and pump out workers to merge into slower growing towns.

3) For now keep unit counts low enough to continue research. If we get lucky we can go for the Iron with Muskets in 33 odd turns.

4) Upgrade our army. We need more Longbows and fewer Bows. This may mean disbanding them or using them on attack. Same with Warriors - we probably won't have the funds to upgrade any. I already got rid of most of the regular ones.

5) Build workers on an "as needed basis" I got rid of some to lower unit cost. We have only a few, but only a few things they can work on.

I may be wrong. If you think you can dredge up a big enough force to go for it, then do so.

The timing might be after we get gunpowder. In 33 turns our economy should be much better.

 

[barbslinger]

I f I only have to guard 2 tiles things will be easier and we can use the cats to drop them to redline and then hope for a leader.

I really like 2b. Using workers to up the growth in harbor towns will add 2 gold to the ones near the capital. I will be battoning down the hatches and going out to pillage. If I get a thrid army I may then go get the horses with a settler in tow and then work for harbor. I'm thinking that since we have no updated maps of horse area they may have already settled it. Would you see a new city throgh the fog of war? If there is no city I'll settle right on the horses.
Going to focus on LB's in a couple cities to replace warriors and markets, harbors in others. A few scientists would help the cause but I'm pretty sure we already have them in tundra pop 1 towns.

 

[handy900]

I'm not sure a city with a harbor can be defended right now.

I think the current plan should be to pillage asap, and then slowly move our front forward.


I may be missing something, but if you settle a coastal city, the AI will surely send boats to blockade it. They have blockaded me in other games where I had a lousy navy. That means you’ll need cats in the city coastal city to hit blockade boats and then a galley to sink them. Spain has a ton of boats they can stack on the coast tile. Is the AI smart enough to stack boats in a blockade?

And we really don’t need horses as much as Iron right now. The jungle tile movement would reduce the horsemen's effectiveness down south.

If we get a city up north we'll be in a two front war against all civs on both continents. I don't see how we could hold an isolated city we cannot reinforce by land.

I also like Greebley's plan of building workers to bump up harbor town pop.

 

[Greebley]

Abandoning Pamplona is fine with me. Look over the situation and decide. I do think that pillaging is more important than keeping that lousy city (which we plan to replace anyway).

Ya, 2b was my favorite as well.

 

[barbslinger]

I also think that the slow push through the marsh will not make it in time. If we can get 2-3 more armies, 1@ for iron and horse harbor, 1 for escorting troops to those cities and 1 or 2 for pillaging, then I think we can turn the tide. Otherwise we will soon be facing cavalry coming at us, and soon. We NEED iron badly and I'm just trying to think outside the box at how to get it fastest. If we can pull it off then all we need 1 turn unblockaded and we can upgrade all iron units and set builds to horses/cavs.

OTOH, we can regroup at our jungle choke and send spear army pillaging with the bowman army defending. Hope for more armies to pillage remaining iron on our continent and hope that they don't trade for some overseas. Then when we defensively kill the iron units on our continent we can BEGIN to slog through the marsh towards the iron, building a road and hopefully getting there before infantry.

 

[Greebley]

We now have an attack 4 unit - the longbow. This will help us greatly - that attack is as good as the MDI and knight. When piled with spear they are very decent.

What we don't have is a defense 3 unit, though if we have saltpeter, we get a defense 4 in 30 odd turns.

The only thing we definitely lack is the speed 2 unit which does make things harderm, but I still think we can manage forward creepage.

If we get another army we could consider 2 armies, longbows and spears going out and trying for the horses. I don't think I would want to try it with 1 army though. At first I included cats, but then I remembered the jungle. We settle right on the horses.

Iron is tricky and may require a third army to defend the road. We also have to destroy the Hittite city.

 

[barbslinger]

I'm just looking at a plan. I'm not hoping to do it all during my ten turns, unless I pop 3 leaders and probably not even then. But when we get a LB/spear army he can be used to escort a group of LB's/bowmen/settler to our target cities. I just think the slog creating roads will take too long and that we need to look at taking the the iron city and setting up the harbor city. They may blockade, in fact it is a likelihood, but I would much rather be facing a blockade than trying to defense, what is it, 6-9 tiles of hard to dig road. We will break the blockade and when we do we can upgrade and then move from there. Meanwhile, we're pillaging the bejeezuz out of them.