nero03 SID

[Own]

Meh, I don't really know why either, I mentioned it cause I was afraid we were thinking of switching to some sorta "representative" govenment.

 

[Whomp]

OK monarchy it is. I will revolt asap and I got it.

 

[Pentium]

I will revolt asap

We're in anarchy atm

 

[Own]

I think there's nothing more to discuss, except possible military plans. Archers, NM's, and cats sound good?

 

[Pentium]

Sure. Not Horses, they're expensive and week. After we get Iron, Swords.

 

[Own]

Not Horses,

Definately no horses. Expensive, and pointless, since they have to wait for catapults to bomb.

 

[Obormot]

I think that horses are much better then swords in the long run. I think that when we grow stronger and generate some armies we'll be able to beat them without artillery support. Also horses upgrade all the way to cavalry.

And do you really want to bombard all units in all cities down to 1hp by slow-moving, short-range catapults? Then maybe we'll conquer one civ by the end of the game, but that will not help us much. I think we should bombard only major cities so that we don't waste time on moving cat stack all around the territory so horses are much more efficent because they have a higher survival rate.

 

[Own]

I don't want to bombard every unit to one hp, just take off one or two. But I see your point about the horses. It's just that defending spears are more likely to win over a horse, and we can't hope to outnumber sid.

I have never like the horse upgrade path becuase horse to knight/cav is so expensive.

 

[Obormot]

It's just that defending spears are more likely to win over a horse, and we can't hope to outnumber sid.

They are more likely to win, but horses retreat often and the survival ratio is better for horses (at least when dealing with completely healed spears). The upgrade is expensive indeed, but if we manage to pull of a nice trading round we can upgrade some of them. And if we capture Leo's... .
And later upgrade of knights to cavalry is very cheap and very powerfull. After upgrading all your knights instantly your power growth so rapidly that i think you can blitz even on sid, especially if you get some armies.

About bombardment: it is actually a matter of balancing kill ratio vs speed. I don't have much sid experience and so i cannot tell which is more important (on non-AW deity speed is much more important ), but i have noticed that in my games on tiny maps AI had about 2 usual spears per city except capital and some core cities. This may not be true in this game, but byz and america are at war and propably throw all they have at each other (the AI moves out some spears too, for pillaging). So i propose that we move catapults straight towards the capital (with bombarding other cities that get in our way) and use just horses to get other cities.

Another question is capturing vs razing&resettling. I vote for capturing and leaving some horses nearby to recapture in case of a flip.

 

[Own]

I'm for capturing, and having the captured city build workers and settlers to reduce flip risk.

I forgot Byzantium and americium were at war. This is a great opportunity, let's pounce on it. 10 horses enough for an invasion?

 

[nerovats]

I prefer horse to because casulties are low, and upgrade better. Just remember they'll only retriet if they've got movement left after attack. so move next to city attack next turn. It's proabaly a goo idea to have a couple of NM's for defence. Byzantines should be weak now, so get 10 horses 2 NM's and attack.

 

[Own]

Just remember they'll only retriet if they've got movement left after attack.

Not true. There's a chance they will retreat, and there's a chance they won't.

 

[soul_warrior]

10 ponies + 2-3 NMs should be ok.
speed here is more powerful than bombards.
im for a raze - replace. or we can keep some to rush settlers out of. probably a 50-50 ratio here, depending on the situation.

 

[Own]

In BNH4, just on deity we got 5 flips from captured cities, so I'm all for razing and replacing, despite what I may have said before.

 

[Obormot]

10 horses seems to little for a good invasion. To reliably capture a town protected by 2 spears you need to attack it with 5-7 horses depending on size/walls. Some of them will be lost/injured, and the war will be progressing slow. I suspect that to destroy a civ quickly you would need 40 or so. I don't like capturing just 1 or 2 towns and then making peace, but this time maybe we should go for it to grab the iron source so that we can build knights later. If we upgrade those 10 ponies to knights and build 10 more we can attack again. In a big war capturing is better, in a small war if we just want to grab the iron resettling is better to secure the iron.

 

[Own]

We need spears, definately. Some will yell "NO DEFENSIVE UNITS" but defending with ponies, via conterattack or plain defending won't work. We need at least two spears per captured city and possibly rush a walls.

 

[Pentium]

Horses are be good for capturing a couple of cities and then sign peace. But if we want longer war (and we do, since we're in Monarchy), then Cats are the way. We'll simply run out of units otherwise.

 

[Own]

Not if we're constantly sending reinforcements. We need lots of spears to defend our newly conquered cities. Cats are simply way too slow, but will definately be used on defense/leaderfishing.

IMO we should treat this like an AW game, since one sid opponent will probably throw as many units at us as 4 emperor AIs.

 

[Heroes]

Definately no horses. Expensive, and pointless, since they have to wait for catapults to bomb.

Horse has the same shield cost as sword. Although horses' attack is weaker, they can retreat, so have the same or even higher chance of survival. I think building at least some horses is necessary. One aspect where they are definitely better than foot troops is waiting for AI landing

 

[Heroes]

I prefer horse to because casulties are low, and upgrade better. Just remember they'll only retriet if they've got movement left after attack. so move next to city attack next turn. It's proabaly a goo idea to have a couple of NM's for defence. Byzantines should be weak now, so get 10 horses 2 NM's and attack.

Sorry, but in my memory fast units can retreat no matter whether they have movement to spare, so you can attack at any time you want But anyway, I really doubt 10 horses without artillery can be a good force vs. 2 or 3 defending spears In the 1st round, yes, but many of them will drop HP and wait for several turns to heal, -- dare you put them into cities with flip risk? Then quickly it's not blitz at all