So, why torturing yourself?
S-06 Guerrillas in the Mist
- Thread starter sooooo
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ThERat
Deity
I actually don't remember it being that bad. I opened the save and tried to pin it down to some reason, but couldn't find it. Maintenance isn't that terribly high. I think we lack silver and gold, that might keep us alive longer.Now, we just need to defend and hope for our economy too recover. We don't even need to dream about taking enemy cities for a good while unless we want to commit economy suicide.
I strongly suggest to go for CoL and currency asap to be able to support more troops. Feudalism still take ages to complete, I still think CoL first would have been wiser...
edit: went back to read a bit on our successful AWE continents game. Besides having superior praetorians, we had gold at the capital plus cottage flood plains...slow expansion with razing cities to fund research...this is the way to go. raze cities to fund research, so we need a razing party of maybe a few cats/GS...
Currency and markets should help but they need time to be effective. As for courts : we are paying 10 gold for city maintenance. Courthouses in all the cities would save us 5 gold, and cost a lot of hammers. Feudalism would save us the 7 coins (about to double quickly) we already are paying for troops for 0 hammers
I think we should have built that library though, some scientists here and there won't hurt. Capital and Tolosa should do that, when we have enough troops to defend.
I think we should have built that library though, some scientists here and there won't hurt. Capital and Tolosa should do that, when we have enough troops to defend.
We need more workers. 40% science is fine at this point. In most all my SP games at emp I purposely expand and crash my economy to 20-30%, then build non-stop workers until I have about 2 per city. OK, economy doesn't normally crash after only 4 cities, but here we have no trade routes. After some mass cottaging and some great people lightbulbing to keep afloat, things recover nicely and then you overtake the AI. But we don't have much cottagable land, so things could be tricky. We should consider cottaging a few grass hills.
ThERat - have you seen how much maintence we are paying for in our cities? It is tiny, courthouses would be a big waste of hammers. Vassalage and serfdom will be much better for our economy.
ThERat - have you seen how much maintence we are paying for in our cities? It is tiny, courthouses would be a big waste of hammers. Vassalage and serfdom will be much better for our economy.
ThERat
Deity
checked the save...city maintenance is truly not killing our finances, unit support is at the moment. Do we really need to keep that scout in the very south, he only costs us money for no value
If we can manage to raze a closeby AI city with maybe a force of 2 GS + 2 cats, his should provide some money to speed up feudalism.
We should try and get a prophet and get more money
Once we have feudalism, currency should help us
If we can manage to raze a closeby AI city with maybe a force of 2 GS + 2 cats, his should provide some money to speed up feudalism.
We should try and get a prophet and get more money
Once we have feudalism, currency should help us
pindicator
Emperor
lurker's comment:
If City Maintainence is small and unit upkeep is large, perhaps settling another city will pay for itself in keeping unit costs down. I don't have any hard figures to support that, just my experiences in playing. Either way, lurking with interest on this one!
If City Maintainence is small and unit upkeep is large, perhaps settling another city will pay for itself in keeping unit costs down. I don't have any hard figures to support that, just my experiences in playing. Either way, lurking with interest on this one!
r_rolo1
King of myself
Compromise
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I'm thinking we need to make money by razing AI cities, probably the flatlanders since they'll require fewer troops to take. Also, once we have CoL, we can run merchants in captured high-food cities to pay for maintenance. I don't think we need to found any more cities ourselves.
If an AI city doesn't have high food so that we can run caste specialists and whip it, it just won't be worth keeping right now. And we can't afford to wait until cottages mature before we get aggressive with the AI.
Quick thoughts: Ragnar and Isabella are being hindered nicely. Cyrus is close, has metal, and is building up troops. I think we need to take him out asap while trying to deny Ragnar his iron.
Also, I think the extra workers are a great idea, primarily for building roads since time is of the essence in getting our troops to the front lines.
Unless a city can be promptly whipped for troops or has enough tile improvements to be largely self-supporting, we can raze it. Maybe this will even distract the AI into building settlers to re-acquire the land.
If an AI city doesn't have high food so that we can run caste specialists and whip it, it just won't be worth keeping right now. And we can't afford to wait until cottages mature before we get aggressive with the AI.
Quick thoughts: Ragnar and Isabella are being hindered nicely. Cyrus is close, has metal, and is building up troops. I think we need to take him out asap while trying to deny Ragnar his iron.
Also, I think the extra workers are a great idea, primarily for building roads since time is of the essence in getting our troops to the front lines.
Unless a city can be promptly whipped for troops or has enough tile improvements to be largely self-supporting, we can raze it. Maybe this will even distract the AI into building settlers to re-acquire the land.
Compromise
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I just had a thought and need more rational minds to tell me that it's stupid. So, here it is:
What if we send an advance team consisting of 2-3 longbows and a settler toward an AI that we're planning to attack. We found a city in a crappy spot on a hill as close as we can get to the AIs borders. The point is not to keep the city, or to have it ever be profitable. The point is for the AI to waste its troops rushing up the hill to attack our Guerrilla/CG longbows in the high-ground city. With no improvements, the AI will likely attack it rather than pillage it. Lucky attackers can be counterattacked with our main stack which could also heal here.
The city could either be placed on the road to our core, or offset to deflect attention from our approaching SoD. If the city is lost, it will surely be at greater cost to the AI than to us. Settlers are easy to build in super-high food cities. When we're through with it, we just abandon it. The AI will capture it and either raze it or have a city with bad land to support and defend.
The question is whether such a technique is worth the 150H investment of the thus-disposed-of Settler.
Tactics are obviously open to further development and comment.
I'm not invested in this idea; I just thought of it. Ruthless opinions are welcome.
Edit: Such cities would, of course, be Cities With Aggressive Placement, or CWAP.
And, if all goes well, they would draw the military attention of the AI to themselves. This would leave a zone of relative safety which would need to be referred to as a "peace of CWAP."
What if we send an advance team consisting of 2-3 longbows and a settler toward an AI that we're planning to attack. We found a city in a crappy spot on a hill as close as we can get to the AIs borders. The point is not to keep the city, or to have it ever be profitable. The point is for the AI to waste its troops rushing up the hill to attack our Guerrilla/CG longbows in the high-ground city. With no improvements, the AI will likely attack it rather than pillage it. Lucky attackers can be counterattacked with our main stack which could also heal here.
The city could either be placed on the road to our core, or offset to deflect attention from our approaching SoD. If the city is lost, it will surely be at greater cost to the AI than to us. Settlers are easy to build in super-high food cities. When we're through with it, we just abandon it. The AI will capture it and either raze it or have a city with bad land to support and defend.
The question is whether such a technique is worth the 150H investment of the thus-disposed-of Settler.
Tactics are obviously open to further development and comment.
I'm not invested in this idea; I just thought of it. Ruthless opinions are welcome.
Edit: Such cities would, of course, be Cities With Aggressive Placement, or CWAP.
And, if all goes well, they would draw the military attention of the AI to themselves. This would leave a zone of relative safety which would need to be referred to as a "peace of CWAP."
Looks like troops upkeep depends on population. If we were thinking about making another city, then north of the capital (3N, 1W possibly) would get us marble to build the heroic epic with, and can use the capital's excess food. Though I don't think it is a priority right now.
But one thing I should stress when I opened the save is that the capital should have 3 more cottages on its flatlands. Also Vienne needs at least one, possibly we can put another on its second grass hill. But yeah, more workers. Workers will pay for their own hammer cost when they chop a forest and a half, so don't worry too much about wasting time building them.
But one thing I should stress when I opened the save is that the capital should have 3 more cottages on its flatlands. Also Vienne needs at least one, possibly we can put another on its second grass hill. But yeah, more workers. Workers will pay for their own hammer cost when they chop a forest and a half, so don't worry too much about wasting time building them.
Swiss Pauli
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note from lurkdom: The problem with CWAP cities is that 2.08 AI will bypass longbows on a hill and head through to your core, unlike the 1.61 AI who was quite happy to suicide units on 'lightning rod' cities.
Compromise
Emperor
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Ah. Thanks Swiss Pauli. This is where my lack of Warlords-specific experience shows.
IBT : Switch Tolosa to a library to hire scientists and Vienne to a worker. Swtch Bergovia to barracks to get the stone bonus later on the dun
Turn 1 :
Ragnar connected the iron and is defending it. Send the archer east to pillage roads.
Cyrus sends a sword south. We can say goodbye to the wine. There's no road to get in there in time.
Turn 2 : I whip the library in Tolosa for 2 pops. Some chopping done accelerating acqueduct in capital and worker from Vienne.
Kill a couple wandering viking archers.
Turn 3 : Recruit our first scientist in Tolosa. Loosing the wine hurts. We really need those roads and some axes.
Turn 4 : start two cottages in capital and Vienne. Capital starts axe.
Turn 5 : archer in viking lands dies to a spear after defeating an archer. We have an axe there for harassing duty.
Kill a viking warrior and our first general is born. I'm thinking about turning Diane Fossey into a medic III healer for our guerillas, just for the flavor. We can upgrade her to an explorer later.
Turn 6 : like it when the AI is helpless to defend its tiles.
Notice that new spanish city with access to horses. It is close to us, and should be pillaged when we can. It was still cultureless when I got there.
The perisan sword went the other way to attack the city after pillaging the wine. Odds cross rivers against horse archers were too low for him to attack. Warlords AI don't favour suicide indeed
Turn 7 : Kill the sword with combat I/shock horse archer. One spanish archer down and we get our first guerilla III gallic sword.
Turn 8 :
axe done in capital. Start worker. Cottage is up, start working it already.
Turn 9 :
Isa uses a scientist to pop taoism. She couldn't have lived a game without founding her own religion. She converts next turn or something like that.
Mansa musa is a turn too late with his scientist.
Our harassing axe fails to destroy the iron mine. Attacking the archer weakened him too much and the promotion wasn't enough. He died to a spear.
Turn 10 :
Mansa shows with the first real stack.
I don't have units to defend in the hill and in the city. So retreat to gain the defensive bonus.
Turn 11 :
zzzzz
Turn 12 :
worker done in capital. Send him to Tolosa. Start cat.
Mansa is bombing Vienne defenses. Hope he'll attack next turn.
Turn 13 :
Mansa still bombing. A gallic is built in Vienne and Tolosa. Start axe. Wine is connected back. Damn too long to hook stuff on epic speed with a single worker. His friend came to help with roads. We need to defend our tiles.
Turn 14 :
Mansa wants a city at 0 defense. Okay.
Turn 15 :
Mansa finally attacks. His first cat dies. His second retreats and the horse archer does the same. Mansa tries to flee with the wounded HA and the skirmisher. His spare HA pillages the sheep. The deer is safe.
I kill the fleeing units and block the HA with a guerilla II gallic sword on the hill. He can have mutton for his last meal.
We have here a potential of a 6 unit stack with two cats, a gallic sword, axe, spear and horse archer. And we keep two units to defend with a spear to be born soon.
We have another party heading for Cyrus lands. Persians already have longbows
I didn't burn the general on Fossey yet so do with him what you like. But this ain't much of an attacking party, flat land or not, thay are not a match for LBs. They can live a bit as pillagers though, especially with a medic III among them.
We have 6 workers total now. Still 20 turns to feudalism but our research rate is constant though we are paying more for units and maintenance. Capital fully cottaged, we need to make it grow. I ordered a library there, just 5 turns to finish it with an overflow. Any beakers are welcome in our situation. I just hope the civic upkeep for vassalage won't be equal to the savings we make on units.
save
Turn 1 :
Ragnar connected the iron and is defending it. Send the archer east to pillage roads.
Cyrus sends a sword south. We can say goodbye to the wine. There's no road to get in there in time.
Turn 2 : I whip the library in Tolosa for 2 pops. Some chopping done accelerating acqueduct in capital and worker from Vienne.
Kill a couple wandering viking archers.
Turn 3 : Recruit our first scientist in Tolosa. Loosing the wine hurts. We really need those roads and some axes.
Turn 4 : start two cottages in capital and Vienne. Capital starts axe.
Turn 5 : archer in viking lands dies to a spear after defeating an archer. We have an axe there for harassing duty.
Kill a viking warrior and our first general is born. I'm thinking about turning Diane Fossey into a medic III healer for our guerillas, just for the flavor. We can upgrade her to an explorer later.
Turn 6 : like it when the AI is helpless to defend its tiles.
Notice that new spanish city with access to horses. It is close to us, and should be pillaged when we can. It was still cultureless when I got there.
The perisan sword went the other way to attack the city after pillaging the wine. Odds cross rivers against horse archers were too low for him to attack. Warlords AI don't favour suicide indeed
Turn 7 : Kill the sword with combat I/shock horse archer. One spanish archer down and we get our first guerilla III gallic sword.
Turn 8 :
axe done in capital. Start worker. Cottage is up, start working it already.
Turn 9 :
Isa uses a scientist to pop taoism. She couldn't have lived a game without founding her own religion. She converts next turn or something like that.
Mansa musa is a turn too late with his scientist.
Our harassing axe fails to destroy the iron mine. Attacking the archer weakened him too much and the promotion wasn't enough. He died to a spear.
Turn 10 :
Mansa shows with the first real stack.
I don't have units to defend in the hill and in the city. So retreat to gain the defensive bonus.
Turn 11 :
zzzzz
Turn 12 :
worker done in capital. Send him to Tolosa. Start cat.
Mansa is bombing Vienne defenses. Hope he'll attack next turn.
Turn 13 :
Mansa still bombing. A gallic is built in Vienne and Tolosa. Start axe. Wine is connected back. Damn too long to hook stuff on epic speed with a single worker. His friend came to help with roads. We need to defend our tiles.
Turn 14 :
Mansa wants a city at 0 defense. Okay.
Turn 15 :
Mansa finally attacks. His first cat dies. His second retreats and the horse archer does the same. Mansa tries to flee with the wounded HA and the skirmisher. His spare HA pillages the sheep. The deer is safe.
I kill the fleeing units and block the HA with a guerilla II gallic sword on the hill. He can have mutton for his last meal.
We have here a potential of a 6 unit stack with two cats, a gallic sword, axe, spear and horse archer. And we keep two units to defend with a spear to be born soon.
We have another party heading for Cyrus lands. Persians already have longbows
I didn't burn the general on Fossey yet so do with him what you like. But this ain't much of an attacking party, flat land or not, thay are not a match for LBs. They can live a bit as pillagers though, especially with a medic III among them.
We have 6 workers total now. Still 20 turns to feudalism but our research rate is constant though we are paying more for units and maintenance. Capital fully cottaged, we need to make it grow. I ordered a library there, just 5 turns to finish it with an overflow. Any beakers are welcome in our situation. I just hope the civic upkeep for vassalage won't be equal to the savings we make on units.
save
Good, I like the look of that persian pillaging party (PPP?). Does Dian have enough XP to get a medic 3 promotion. ThERat is up now. I think we should send a party to pillage Mansa's copper, and leave a guerilla on the hill. In the mist. Also I does Bilbracte need a granary yet? It is only size 10.
ThERat
Deity
I was out last night...will play tonight.
So, do we all agree to make Diane the GG with a medic 3 promo? I don't know whether her experience is high enough. Else, we might want to use another of those 3 units. Actually if we promote one of the horses and go for +1 movement, pillaging could be that much easier...just a thought.
So, do we all agree to make Diane the GG with a medic 3 promo? I don't know whether her experience is high enough. Else, we might want to use another of those 3 units. Actually if we promote one of the horses and go for +1 movement, pillaging could be that much easier...just a thought.
Compromise
Emperor
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Regarding Dian the Medic, would it be: Combat I at 2xp, Medic I at 5xp, Medic II at 10xp, Medic III at 17xp? So it should be enough if she gets 20xp for being a guerrilla warlord.
ThERat
Deity
save
Pre-Turn
change citizen in Gergovia from a 1f 1h to a 4h tiles, I think that's better
1.455AD
we get another axe and a dun in Gergovia
sex change for Diane to Isoroku Yamamoto, which gets a whopping 5 promotions
gain 23 gold from pillaging -> science up to 50%
2.470AD
defeat a skirmisher without any damage, pillaging only nets 12gold this time
3. 485AD
lose a completely healthy horse to cat on defense..lovely
avenge the loss by killing the cat with a GS
defeat the trapped horse with our healed spear, pillaging nets a few cents
4.500AD
not very exciting turn really, besides getting a mere 4 gold for pillaging
5. 515AD
pillaging nets 19gold, we capture a Spanish worker near their capital
6.530AD
a horse of our pillaging party gets killed on defense, our capital grows to 11 and gets it's library finally
defeat cat and sword with pillaging army
7 545AD
2 Viking archers are closeby our territory now
eliminate one of them
[pillage Cyrus mine while the horse and sword heal
8.560AD
Ragnar brings in another archer/cat and sword
defeat the left over archer with an axe
pillage for 6 gold, it just keeps our research afloat at 50%, but we can now run positive cashflow at 40%
9.575AD
start a library in Vienne
our raiding party moves towards Susa, it's far more busy than the other city was
after spotting another Cyrus archer, decide to not build the library first, but go for more military
10.590AD
pillage 5 gold shifts units about to encounter the enemy
11.605AD
Cyrus horses are hopefully gone, but we get a mere 2 gold for that
the new units we produce also get us in the red yet again
12.620AD
we finally get feudalism, go for currency
revolt and don't really spot any difference though we get +8 unit support
suddenly spot this big stack from Cyrus, we're in trouble
defeat the archer in the north, now we face 2 stacks and need to split our troops
try my best to split them and face the enemy
take a break first before facing this threat
13.635AD
Cyrus stack moves towards Tolosa
Ragnar moves onto the hill near Gergovia
We will get pillaged but can't attack for now
since we will lose the sheep at Tolosa anyway, whip a cat there
14.650AD - stop here due to round number of turns left
Cyrus decided to pillage the cottage and not the sheep
suicide 2 cats against the stack and actually defeat a sword with the 2nd
we should withstand the enemy attack without too many problems for now, but the enemy is coming at 3 fronts now, which makes defending not so easy
our pillager stack did not move and we can decide where to go next turn
Pre-Turn
change citizen in Gergovia from a 1f 1h to a 4h tiles, I think that's better
1.455AD
we get another axe and a dun in Gergovia
sex change for Diane to Isoroku Yamamoto, which gets a whopping 5 promotions
gain 23 gold from pillaging -> science up to 50%
2.470AD
defeat a skirmisher without any damage, pillaging only nets 12gold this time
3. 485AD
lose a completely healthy horse to cat on defense..lovely
avenge the loss by killing the cat with a GS
defeat the trapped horse with our healed spear, pillaging nets a few cents
4.500AD
not very exciting turn really, besides getting a mere 4 gold for pillaging
5. 515AD
pillaging nets 19gold, we capture a Spanish worker near their capital
6.530AD
a horse of our pillaging party gets killed on defense, our capital grows to 11 and gets it's library finally
defeat cat and sword with pillaging army
7 545AD
2 Viking archers are closeby our territory now
eliminate one of them
[pillage Cyrus mine while the horse and sword heal
8.560AD
Ragnar brings in another archer/cat and sword
defeat the left over archer with an axe
pillage for 6 gold, it just keeps our research afloat at 50%, but we can now run positive cashflow at 40%
9.575AD
start a library in Vienne
our raiding party moves towards Susa, it's far more busy than the other city was
after spotting another Cyrus archer, decide to not build the library first, but go for more military
10.590AD
pillage 5 gold shifts units about to encounter the enemy
11.605AD
Cyrus horses are hopefully gone, but we get a mere 2 gold for that
the new units we produce also get us in the red yet again
12.620AD
we finally get feudalism, go for currency
revolt and don't really spot any difference though we get +8 unit support
suddenly spot this big stack from Cyrus, we're in trouble
defeat the archer in the north, now we face 2 stacks and need to split our troops
try my best to split them and face the enemy
take a break first before facing this threat
13.635AD
Cyrus stack moves towards Tolosa
Ragnar moves onto the hill near Gergovia
We will get pillaged but can't attack for now
since we will lose the sheep at Tolosa anyway, whip a cat there
14.650AD - stop here due to round number of turns left
Cyrus decided to pillage the cottage and not the sheep
suicide 2 cats against the stack and actually defeat a sword with the 2nd
we should withstand the enemy attack without too many problems for now, but the enemy is coming at 3 fronts now, which makes defending not so easy
our pillager stack did not move and we can decide where to go next turn
