Phaedo02- Rage_Against_The_Machine

[Phaedo]

Looking at the save, there's not really much we can do. I can build an embassy and be left with 27g and +13gpt. Not quite sure what Willie will need for an alliance. The dyes will help but I have feeling we will need some cash too.

We currently have 4 vSwords and 4 vArchers with 2 more swords coming out next turn. What are the team's thoughts about changing the Edo build from a rax to a dinghy? I think that as much as we are heading to war, we really need to make contact with the other continent as quickly as we can.

I also wonder about new cities. We could get a couple in although they would get a fair bit of cultural pressure. I think it's best to wait but it wouldn't hurt considering it.

Finally, I was wondering what the team's thought are about walls. As we push East with our main force, Edo and Tokyo will be a bit vulnerable. Walls might help hold them. Of course the units are a more flexible investment. I forsee Edo taking some heat from the Celts though so a build there might be worth it.

Willie and Brennus have a pile of cash, Willie with 118g and Brennus with 448. The lux will help get Willie in the war but are we ever going to have enough cash?

 

[Bucephalus]

Looking at the save, there's not really much we can do. I can build an embassy and be left with 27g and +13gpt. Not quite sure what Willie will need for an alliance. The dyes will help but I have feeling we will need some cash too.

Build the Embassy first, then see what Willie wants for a MA against Hittites; there's no point in DOW Celts when we are already at war with the Hittites, is there? It's usually fairly cheap to get someone in to a dogpile - or at least it seems that way, and there are good reasons to MA Hittites - it takes Dutch horses even further from our territory, and the Hittites might cause some casualties if they hook up that Iron.

We currently have 4 vSwords and 4 vArchers with 2 more swords coming out next turn. What are the team's thoughts about changing the Edo build from a rax to a dinghy? I think that as much as we are heading to war, we really need to make contact with the other continent as quickly as we can.

I think Swords are the best investment right now, surely? It's going to take a good while to build up enough to give us a good chance of victory.

I also wonder about new cities. We could get a couple in although they would get a fair bit of cultural pressure. I think it's best to wait but it wouldn't hurt considering it.

The unit support would be nice, but it's also one more to defend.

Finally, I was wondering what the team's thought are about walls. As we push East with our main force, Edo and Tokyo will be a bit vulnerable. Walls might help hold them. Of course the units are a more flexible investment. I forsee Edo taking some heat from the Celts though so a build there might be worth it.

I think they would be a good investment if we can't get Willie's horses away to the North; if they won't MA, we will need to do this the hard way, and walls then would be good.

If Willie does send his horses North though, I'd say not.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: It seems to me that the team could change Operation Irish Spring to Operation (3-Man) Chariots of Fire, and let Murray take the heat from Willie's horses. BTW, does he have horses to build his fearsome chariots? If Willie does what the AI always does once they get into a fight, he'll send his horses in scattered groups of ones and twos up north to be slaughtered and never stop until peace comes. Once you all pull the okey-dokey on him and turn traitor (after the 20 turn alliance is up, of course), he'll be way out of position. You'll probably never see a single Hittite archer.

My thought is that a dinky boat would be a good investment, however much a priority vet swords are. Contacts would help a lot with techs.

I'd personally avoid walls unless the enemy is approaching the gates.

 

[Norton II]

Well. I guess it looks like I got it. I'll look at the save and try to post some thoughts tonight.

I think we might need some extra players too so I'm going to invite some people. If any of you guys have suggestions PM me

If your initial invitation still stands, I'll be happy to join.

 

[Phaedo]

That's great! I was actually going to PM you but the fact that you've been lurking makes it that much easier. Weclome aboard. The only thing that you relly need to know that's not in the posts is that we are hoping for lots of participation. Care to take the next 10?

 

[Norton II]

Thanks! You might be able to take this set before I can--I still have to play my set in CBob01, which I'll do tomorrow afternoon. I can get this one Tuesday or Wednesday, so if you can play before that, go ahead, and I'll take the one after that.

 

[Phaedo]

Although i could take it tomorrow, I'd rather you take it Norton. However, before you do, check out the save and weigh in on the dinghy build vs. rax in Edo. We are looking more for participation and reliability than speed here.

Personally, although I agree in principal that that the more swords the better, I wonder if an 8ish turn delay on one of them isn't a bad chance to take for a boat. My success at DG has always been by making early contact. Assuming our plan works and we make a good dent on the Dutch and work our way up tech-wise, it would be nice to have trade options rather than find ourselves still behind with no options. Is 1/3 of a sword going to overcome that? I truely don't know.

@Simp, thanks for keeping in on the discussion. Stay involved and there will always be a place for you in this game

 

[Norton II]

All right, I'll take it either tomorrow or Thursday--which is what I meant in my previous post since I had yesterday off and was thinking that it was Sunday.

As for curragh vs. rax in Edo, how about we build one in Tokyo after the sword finishes instead? That'll take 6 turns total vs. 7 in Edo. Also, it might not hurt to have a couple more workers, especially since all our cities are working at least one unimproved tile right now. In fact, maybe we should switch the rax in Edo to a worker and maybe pump a worker out of Kyoto so we don't have to raise the lux slider yet.

It also looks like we can get masonry from Willie for 8 gpt and 7 gold or from Brennus for 8 gpt and 13 gold. The plan right now is to try to get an alliance with the Dutch against the Hittites, right? Once the embassy's set up, I'll see what Willie needs for that. If we can't get one, should we buy masonry from Brennus? It'll let us build walls and put us on track toward cats. It's a little cheaper from Willie, but without an alliance, we might not want to be locked into 20 turns of peace. Also, how many swords do we want for the war? I'd say 15 minimum--20 would be better, of course, but unit support might become a problem at that point.

 

[Phaedo]

I was thinking Edo because Tokyo already has a rax and Edo is yet to get one. I don't think we actually have a consensus on a boat build yet. Thinking about the number of swords we want is a good way to resolve it though. I would guess 15 would be minimum and enough if there was about 4:1 sword to archers in the mix. I like the archers for that defensive shot to protect the stack.

The masonary option is an interesting one. I think it is probably worth getting if only so we can get Math rather than masonary once we eventually sue for peace. The more 1st tier techs we get, the more 2nd tier ones we can get in the war. Assuming of course that we will be successful.

 

[Phaedo]

Before we go further, I'd like to get a consensus on boats. I don't have incredibly strong feelings but these are my thoughts.

I was thinking that as a boat is pretty cheap, I didn't see how an 8ish turn delay on a final sword could make or break our plan. Perhaps an immediate boat isn't necessarily the proper call, but getting one out there to explore the West coast of the continent and possible make a suicide run west could help us significantly.

We are obviously quite a bit behind on techs and assuming everything comes off, we'll catch up quite a bit on tech with a smack-down on Willie. However, once we do that, we'll only get the techs next in line and the civs we know already know each other so there won't really be any trading opportunities. I thought that if we could make contact while we were setting up and implimenting the paln, we could be in a position to really take advantage of the tech winfall that comes with peace. Even if we couldn't take advantage of it immediately, we would know which techs to pay a premium for and get our money back.

Against this I see a number of arguments.
1) A suicide run will fail as often as not with one boat and maybe more often than not depending on the distance.
2) I don't really know what to expect war-wise so I don't have a good sense to know how many units we need, meaning that the 8-turn lag could make the difference between success and failure.
3) the boat will hurt our unit support and could take valuable gold away from an offensive unit.

Despite, these concens, my gut feel is that we should try to squeeze at least one outwhile we are building up our forces.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: I'd build the boat for all the reasons that Phaedo lists. There are too many second tier techs to miss out on when peace does come around. The offensive against Willie is going to have its most decisive action at the start, with the assault on Horsetown. With that accomplished, and the last of his horsemen slaughtered, you can take a more leisurely approach to expanding your real estate holdings.

Assume victory.

 

[Elephantium]

Let's build the boat. We need those contacts.

 

[Phaedo]

Thanks for the input. I feel we are back into it

The next set is Norton's. and here's the revised roster:
We are on 10-turn sets now

Phaedo on deck
Bucephalus
Elephantium
NortonIIup
Smart skipping

@Norton: you just finished a very successful set in Cbob's game so I'd like to give you a bit of time. If you don't think you can take it soon we can switch this round

 

[Bucephalus]

I'm not convinced about building boats but I'll go with the majority view; I feel that 1 Curragh - and surely that's all we can afford to build - will have less impact at this stage than an extra Sword, bearing in mind that we are lacking Artillery.

If we lose the upcoming war, then what use will contacts be?

 

[Norton II]

All right, then; I'll play it tomorrow. I'll build the boat in Edo, swords everywhere else, and sneak in a worker or two (more workers=more roads=more money). Probably won't be ready for war after 10 turns, but we will be closer.

 

[Phaedo]

I saw your post this morning and have thought about it all day Norton. I'm inclined to think you are right about a worker. In fact, when it comes down to it, although I started the discussion about a boat, if we are all comfortable with a short postponment in a sword, the worker probably should be a much higher priority than a boat. Although I am still for squeezing out a boat, why don't you just go for 1 worker in addition to swords in your set. Willie could turn on us at any moment and if he does, a set of worker/boat builds might do us in. Knowing that we have a consensus on boats is great and if we get chance to build one we should take it, but I don't think we should ever have more than one city on non-sword builds until we have Willie under control (mening that we have deprived him of horses). If our goal is 15-20 swords (which I think is a good one) remember that we only have 6 swords right now. If you build the worker before the boat, maybe Tokyo is the best place as it will recover relatively quickly and Edo can continue on the rax.

Also keep in mind that we are a 3-turn road away from offering Willie a spice (or was it a dye?) to sweeten the war deal. The down side is that if he doesn't take it, he will probably demand it or declare war. I think once you build the embassy we will only have 27g in the bank with 13gpt. Maybe that wourker should get out and start increasing our cash before we connect.

For the record, I played a couple of shadow sets from Simp's save and while I could take the horses, I always lost Tokyo. I never played more than 5 turns and didn't get any spoiler info but he has A LOT of units. We will need to keep some units back for defense before we send all our units in a stack anywhere.

As a final note: I'm really glad to have you aboard. I respect both your playing and your insight. I learned a lot from you in the Cbob game. Although this game has a definate strategy, we have had some early shake ups in the roster so the current team is still feeling each other out. I don't think we are all thinking the same way about achieving our goal yet so just be aware of that in your set. We are not rushing towards a goal so if a decesion comes up that commits the game to a course, I'd appreciate it if you could pause to test the waters of the team. I ask this because we haven't really gelled yet as a team so until we are all on the same page, let's not assume what other members would want.

 

[Norton II]

OK then, maybe a worker in Edo first, followed by a curragh, swords in the other cities.

Now, what are the priorities for spending our money? As I understand it, we'll want an embassy first, followed by an alliance with the Dutch vs. the Hittites if we can afford it, then a tech (preferably masonry). When I start my set in a couple of hours, I'll build the embassy, then find out what an alliance costs and post it.

 

[Phaedo]

I think those priorities are right on target. Good luck with the aliance though

 

[Norton II]

Well, I set up the embassy, and an alliance vs. the Hittites isn't even an option--they haven't met yet! (@Phaedo: Is that what you meant by "good luck"?) This being the case, I think our best move is to buy masonry from Brennus and keep pumping out swords (I haven't done anything else yet, though). Also, this is what the embassy revealed in Amsterdam:

Capturing the Great Lighthouse might be nice, but the Colossus won't be much use to us that far from Kyoto.

 

[Bucephalus]

but the Colossus won't be much use to us that far from Kyoto.

It would be perfect if it had the FP though, especially if we get a MGL.