SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[ShannonCT]

It seemed to me in the test game that WW ramped up pretty quickly and caused me to stop building units to get Globe finished. As I had not planned for the WW, Globe took extra time because of all the red faces that showed.

Theater+Globe costs 163 base hammers.
Market costs 86 base hammers.

Do you think the 4 happiness from the market (plus 2 more from ivory and whale) will be enough to nullify the great majority of war weariness? What was the greatest number of unhappy faces from war weariness that you encountered?

It is not clear to me why this happened as, in prosecuting the strategy of wearing down a city's defenses to allow HC to take it, did not cause us to incur the highest WW values of capturing a city. I thought I would find some modifier for Deity that would explain the hit we took from WW. In actuality, it seems that the modifers work to reduce the Deity AI's WW more than increasing ours, if I read the above correctly. In addition, with a small number of cities per civ, the "wars" did not last that long.

I can't tell from reading the article how the battles of our new ally will affect our war weariness. Do we now get the 50% reduction as in a multiplayer game?

I guess the main cause of high war weariness is going to be the large population of Beijing. If we are at 25% WW, that's 4-5 unhappiness.

@SCT, in the save you posted, had you fought much earlier in the game? Could some of the WW we encountered have been latent from earlier campaigns?

Not likely. But if somehow the AI's past WW is getting tacked onto us, that could explain it.

The reason I am asking this is because I am trying to figure out how much of a problem this will be and how to effectively counter it as we are spending a great deal of discussion on this. Perhaps it would be helpful to figure out the magnitude of the problem before trying to develop a solution?

Yes, if we can just estimate the magnitude of the problem, we can choose the best solution. So if anyone who has been playing pratice games with the PA can find the highest WW they accumulated, we'll know approximately how much surplus happiness we need to have. If that number is 4-5, a market should suffice. If it's 7+, we might need the Globe.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, if we can just estimate the magnitude of the problem, we can choose the best solution. So if anyone who has been playing pratice games with the PA can find the highest WW they accumulated, we'll know approximately how much surplus happiness we need to have. If that number is 4-5, a market should suffice. If it's 7+, we might need the Globe.

Am messing around with your 1150 AD save (turn 175). There is no war weariness at the start and we are at war with Louis. I began bombarding in the second turn (took three turns with one or two Cannon) and began attacking on turn 181 when I had three Cannons available. The next turn we had 1 red face. The next turn I attacked again and it immediately showed two red faces.

I can't continue at the moment. I hope you can give it a try because it seems that red faces ramp up very quickly indeed. If this trend continues, it would seem to call for very violent and very short wars, or Globe?

I will try to play test a bit more this evening. I suggest that we all give it a try and note the effects of WW.

Also, in the turn that 2nd red face showed, HC captured Paris. So we may indeed pick up our partner's WW as well.
Team WW... ?

 

[rrau]

In my test games for war, I HAD to have Globe. I'd also like a bit bigger stack to start things off.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I had WW of 4 for one turn in my testing of SCT's game (used the culture slider).

I'm inclined to deal with a little WW problem and build a market, which Fred correctly points out will take four turns to build, even with micro-managing. Still think the time to build it (or the Globe) is before we can build HE. While immediate cats would certainly be helpful, we will need to upgrade them to maximize their benefit and insufficient upgrade money seems to be the argument against building an immediate happiness structure. We will be able to build cannons in two turns with HE. If upgrading all our available units looks like it's going to be a lasting problem, we can gift them.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I had WW of 4 for one turn in my testing of SCT's game (used the culture slider).

If we ask for Asokas ivory we only need 8 MP's to handle a WW of 4. And we have 14 right now (11 archers, 2 axes and 1 warrior).

I'm inclined to deal with a little WW problem and build a market, which Fred correctly points out will take four turns to build, even with micro-managing. Still think the time to build it (or the Globe) is before we can build HE.

I think the best way to look at this is as follows: Units built before the HE are more expensive, so the waste is proportional to the hammers invested in units before HE. The market or theater+Globe has the same price in hammers independent of the presence of the HE and since we are not likely to revert to OR there is no right time to build these - they can be built any time. If we already had the HE we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now, the only way to avoid the waste is not to build units. But that conflicts with the goal of starting the war as fast as possible and I wouldn't want that. So, as I see it, this the best solution is to build the HE as fast as possible. This can be obtained by attacking NY with a force consisting of 3 grenadiers/cannons including our 9/10 mace and 4 accuracy cats. When war breaks out the cats remove the cultural defense of NY in one go. Then the first two grens/cannons attack and kill or wound the longbows leaving only cats and wounded units in NY for our 9/10 grenadier to attack. With our last two forests pre-chopped we should be able to build the HE in one turn. So our goal should be to build/upgrade just enough units to achieve this scenario then we can build the HE and later decide if we need market or Globe to free some units from MP duty.

While immediate cats would certainly be helpful, we will need to upgrade them to maximize their benefit and insufficient upgrade money seems to be the argument against building an immediate happiness structure. We will be able to build cannons in two turns with HE. If upgrading all our available units looks like it's going to be a lasting problem, we can gift them.

Immediate cats are crucial to getting the HE fast with little risk of failure. We will get much more cash available when Asoka starts capturing cities. Then we can contemplate dealing with the WW in a more economical way i.e. by building the market or Globe.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think it might be easier to continue the discussion if I make a concrete suggestion for a path forward with the goal of getting the HE ASAP to minimize hammer waste from building units without HE:

Tech
Chemistry - Steel - Physics. Use the GS for Physics and remember to ask Asoka to research the same as we do.

Upgrades:

We currently have 495 gold and can get 273 from Asoka for a total of 768 gold.

9/10 mace -> gren 110
G2 archer -> longbow 95
Cat -> cannon 200
archer -> gren 225
--------------------------
Cost 630

This leaves a little for covering the deficit of ~ -15 gpt (with Theo).

Builds:

Next 4 turns we should be able to build 3 cats with a little MM'ing, then Steel is discovered around here and we build 2 cannons in 6 turns.

Military deployment:

All units are brought home to Beijing except the units that are fortified on the silver hill.

Attack stack: 3 cats, 3 canons, 2 grens
Fortified on Silver hill: Guerrilla 2 Longbow + Choko
MP's: 10 archers, 2 axes, 1 warrior.

The attack is carried out by bombarding cultural defenses to 3% using 2 accuracy cat's, one combat 1 cat and one accuracy cannon. Then we attack with two CR2 cannons that kill or wound the longbows - if one extra longbow is there we use the extra gren and finally our 9/10 gren attacks the cats. This ought to be a sure win and we can build the HE immediately by chopping our 2 (pre-chopped) forests. It would be more economical in terms of hammers if we attack with one less cannon and it might work but I believe that our 9/10 gren won't be fully healed by then.

With this approach we spend 320 hammers on units before the HE i.e. there is a waste of 160 hammers or 1.6 cannons. I think this is a reasonable price for getting the attack going sooner.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I'd rather build the market now and gain four units plus happiness protection, (gift units to Asoka if looks like we are not going to be able to upgrade them any time soon), but if the team decides not to build the market first, I'm in agrement with most of Fred's plan. The exception is waiting a full ten turns to fight. I think we can accelerate that a bit by trading maps and tech to upgrade a couple more units, attempting to lure Wash out into the open, and if that fails sacrificing a chok and/or cat.

Would also note that we need to put some units in India to help Asoka combat pillaging.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'd rather build the market now and gain four units plus happiness protection, (gift units to Asoka if looks like we are not going to be able to upgrade them any time soon)

With 13 MP's we have 26 (27 if we ask for Ivory). I think that will go a long way. The unit's liberated by building a market will be archers that are of no use in combat.

I'm in agreement with most of Fred's plan. The exception is waiting a full ten turns to fight. I think we can accelerate that a bit by trading maps and tech to upgrade a couple more units, attempting to lure Wash out into the open, and if that fails sacrificing a chok and/or cat.

Would also note that we need to put some units in India to help Asoka combat pillaging.

It would sure be nice to optimize the plan, I only offer this as a draft. The main problem I see in accelerating the attack is that our 9/10 mace must use 6 turns to get back and then some turns to heal. I believe upgrading also uses up a turn. Can we help Asoka defending his villages and towns by gifting a couple of archers on the most exposed tiles near Washington?

 

[Cactus Pete]

With 13 MP's we have 26 (27 if we ask for Ivory). I think that will go a long way. The unit's liberated by building a market will be archers that are of no use in combat. They would be of use to Asoka immediately, as you note below, and to us as we accumulate gold.

It would sure be nice to optimize the plan, I only offer this as a draft. The main problem I see in accelerating the attack is that our 9/10 mace must use 6 turns to get back and then some turns to heal. I believe upgrading also uses up a turn. Can we help Asoka defending his villages and towns by gifting a couple of archers on the most exposed tiles near Washington?

Our axes would be good defenders if we fortify them on the gold hills or other defensive tiles in India, whether we gift or not.

 

[leif erikson]

Just finished a more detailed test of WW using SCT's 1150 AD save file.

Against easy opponents, we go to the limit but didn't really have a serious problem. Against a tough opponent, we had up to seven red faces. More MP's would have helped. I also checked on HC's cities and found that he suffers as well. He gets 1 red face for attacking a brother or sister of faith!

I kept a log and will place it below. I noted the WW of Beijing and of HC's three main cities during each turn. It is as expected, the more units in combat, the greater the ww. It adds up fast. One major attack caused the red faces to go from 4 to 7. That was on Washington's capitol.

Spoiler :

Turn 175 – 1150 AD
Change research objective, for both us and HC, to Artillery.
Change civics to Theocracy.
Change turn.

Turn 176 – 1160 AD
Move three Grens and a Cannon into French territory at NY.
We have zero unhappy faces for war weariness.
HC has one an extra unhappy for “We will not fight with our Brothers and Sisters in the Faith” in Tiawanaku and Cuzco. Interestingly, this isn’t present in Machu Picchu.

Turn 177 – 1170 AD
Bombard NY from 20 to 16%.
No unhappy faces at home.
HC’s cities remain unchanged.

Turn 178 – 1180 AD
Beijing Cannon => Cannon.
Bombard NY down to 12%.
No change in unhappy faces.

Turn 179 – 1190 AD
NY’s culture jumped to 24%, reduce it back to 16% ??
Cities remain unchanged.

Turn 180 – 1200 AD
Cannon => Cannon
Bombard NY to 0% culture.
Cities remain unchanged.

Turn 181 – 1210 AD
Cannon => Cannon.
Attack Beijing with both Cannons and Grens, eliminate 5 units.
Cities remain unchanged.

Turn 182 – 1220 AD
HC takes NY with Archers!!
Beijing now has 1 red face for War Weariness.
Tiawanaku’s red face changes from “We will not fight our Brothers and Sisters of Faith” to “War, what’s it good for?”, but remains 1 red face. Cuzco and Machu Piccu remain unchanged.

Turn 183 – 1230 AD
Cannon => Cannon.
Units healing.
HC takes Paris and France is destroyed.
Beijing shows 3 red faces for WW!
All HC’s cities show no WW…
Visit HC and ask for half his gold.
Upgrade 2 Archers, one to Rifle and one to Gren.

Turn 184 – 1240 AD
We discover Artillery => Steam Power.
Upgrade 4 Cannons to Artillery.
Move to attack Bismarck.
All cities at zero War Weariness.

Turn 185 – 1250 AD
Declare War on Bismarck.
Capture a Worker.
Bombard Hamburg.
No red faces for WW. In Cuzco and Tiawanaku, one red face for “We will not fight our Brothers and Sisters of the Faith”.

Turn 186 – 1260 AD
Artillery => Artillery.
Bombard Hamburg.
No change in city status.

Turn 187 – 1270 AD
Bismarck counters with 2 Cats and a Mace. No problem.
HC comes by and gifts us Dyes.
Bombard Berlin to 0% culture.
Bombard Hamburg to 6% culture.
Attack with an Artillery unit, kills a LB.
Grenadier kills a LB.
Rifle kills a Spear, Hamburg auto-razes.
No changes in city status.

Turn 188 – 1280 AD
Bismarck counters and kills one Gren with a Xbow?
Another Xbow and a Pike die.
Artillery => Artillery.
Attack with an Artillery across the river and it is 94.6 versus a LB.
Heal survivors of Hamburg and await HC’s troops moving on Berlin.
Beijing has 2 red faces for WW.
HC’s cities remain unchanged.

Turn 189 – 1290 AD
Steam Power => Assembly Line. HC again joins us.
HC has moved units up to Berlin, so we attack.
We kill three LB’s and a Mace with our Artillery.
Our two Grens attack and kill a Mace and a Pike.
That leaves four units for HC’s three Rifles and two Grens.
Beijing remains at +2 red faces for WW.
Tiawanaku changes to one red face for WW while Cuzco has one red face for “Fighting Brothers and Sisters of the Faith” and Machu Piccu shows no effect.

Turn 190 – 1300 AD
Berlin falls to HC.
Start healing units.
Beijing shows 3 red faces for WW.
Tiawanaku shows 1 red face for WW.
Cuzco shows 2 red faces for WW.
Machu Piccu shows no effect.

Turn 191 – 1300 AD
WW returns to zero in all cities.
Artillery => Artillery.
Get an 800 Gold gift from HC.
Upgrade three Axes and an Archer to Rifles.
Begin moving troops to attack Washington, this should tell us more about WW.

Turn 192 – 1310 AD
Continue moving units.
All cities are free of WW.

Turn 193 – 1330 AD
Artillery – Rifle.
Positioning units.
Cities remain unchanged.

Turn 194 – 1340 AD
HC has moved a considerable army into NY, how nice.
Cities remain unchanged.

Turn 195 – 1350 AD
Mansa asks us to consider Free Market, so we change.
Rifle => Artillery.
Declare on Washington.
Ask HC to attack Washington.
Cuzco and Tiawanaku shows 2 red faces, one for “We will not fight our Brothers and Sisters of the Faith” and one for “We demand emancipation”.
Machu Piccu shows 1 red face for “We will not fight our Brothers and Sisters…”

Turn 196 – 1360 AD
Washington sends a stack towards NY.
Move units headed for Washington.
Beijing has 1 red face demanding emancipation.
HC’s cities are unchanged.

Turn 197 – 1370 AD
Washington’s stack near NY seems to have disappeared?
Move units on Washington.
Beijing has 1 red face and it changed from Emancipation to WW.
HC’s cities are unchanged in red faces but the reasons have changed. Emancipation has been replaced by WW.

Turn 198 – 1380 AD
Assembly Line completes => Democracy.
Washington counters and loses a Cat plus three Rifles to our stack.
We bombard Washington to 0% culture.
We then attack with Artillery to weaken his units so they can’t counter.
With 2 Artillery attacks, we kill two Rifles (one at 35%?)
There were two stacks because of his Cats and they arrived one turn apart.
HC has some units coming to help.
Beijing has 2 red faces for WW and one for Emancipation.
HC’s cities remain unchanged. They have started building Infantry.

Turn 199 – 1390 AD
Artillery => Infantry.
Sacrifice an Artillery.
Next ten Artillery all kill a unit, mostly Rifles.
A Rifle and a Gren each kill a Cat.
Washington has one Cat at 1.5/5 defending the capital.
Where is HC?
Beijing has a 4 red faces for WW and one for Emancipation.
HC’s cities remain unchanged, except for Machu Piccu which has 1 red face for “Brothers and Sisters” and one for Emancipation.

Turn 200 – 1400 AD
Washington was reinforced with a single Rifle. We kill him with an Artillery.
HC’s units have joined us in our stack.
Washington is defended by a single Cat at 1.6/5.
Beijing now has 7 red faces and nothing about Emancipation. It is about to starve.
Cuzco and Tiawanaku have added a third red face; one for “Brothers and Sisters”, one for WW and one for Emancipation.
Machu Piccu has one for “Brothers and Sisters” and one for WW.

Turn 210 – 1410 AD
We discover Democracy => Railroad.
We lose a pop point and change civics to Emancipation.
HC takes Washington and, on his own, Orleans.
Washington has the two island cities but refuses to talk for peace. We are stuck with WW.
Cuzco has three red faces, one for “Brothers and Sisters” and two fro WW.
Tiawanaku has three; one for “Brothers and Sisters”, one for WW and one for Emancipation.
Machu Piccu has 2 red faces, one for WW and one for Emancipation.

Conclude testing.

 

[leif erikson]

Been going over the save. Some of the civs will trade Gold for our Map, as CP pointed out. Elizabeth will give 60 Gold for it, Julius 50. Hattie, Cathy, Washington, Montie, and Toku will give 10 Gold each. We can trade Liberalism to Cyrus for 70 Gold and Guilds to Saladin for 50 more. Finally, Fred will take Divine Right for 70 Gold. That is 350 Gold more to upgrade with, another Archer to Gren and an Archer to Cho-Ko-Nu?

I don't know what Asoka's upgrade costs will be? I'm wondering if we should leave him some Gold in order to upgrade his LB's (he has 8), Maces (he has 3), X-Bows (he has 3) and Pikes (he has 2). 16 Grens is nothing to sneeze at! He also has 7 Cats that he would like to upgrade to Cannons.

Washington's force consists of 14 LB's and 11 Cats. The Military Advisor shows no offensive units for him! If Asoka has enough Grens, I'm not so sure we need to protect his Gold, or is the AI really bad at that? Of course, Washington could produce some units, although we just gave him Education, perhaps he will build Universities?

What is the minimum number of Archers we need to provide the Happy overhead we need? If we send the Axes south to protect Asoka's Gold, my estimate would be a total of 8 (perhaps 7?), plus the Warrior. That doesn't leave any to give to Asoka?

After razing NY, we should have a clear path to Washington as we'll need to get the Siege Weapons there as soon as we can to bombard the culture. The tile one NE of Washington looks to be the best place to set up.

This should be interesting!!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Our axes would be good defenders if we fortify them on the gold hills or other defensive tiles in India, whether we gift or not.

If we follow the plan as it is now, I would like to keep the axes in Beijing for the following reason: If the 2 cannons and 2 grens defeat the two longbows and two of the four cats in NY then our axes will have a reasonable chance to defeat the remaining two cats that have received collatteral damage (They can attack directly from inside Beijing!). We could even use archers against severely damaged units. So we have a reasonable chance of razing NY in the first turn of the war.

I'm not that worried about the gold hills - Asoka is not working these tiles anyway and they can be rebuilt fast (We can help!). It's worse if the villages and towns close to Washington are pillaged because it will take a long time to regrow.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Against easy opponents, we go to the limit but didn't really have a serious problem. Against a tough opponent, we had up to seven red faces. More MP's would have helped. I also checked on HC's cities and found that he suffers as well. He gets 1 red face for attacking a brother or sister of faith!

7 red faces from WW can be handled by the MP's we have available now so we should have free hands in determining when to build market or Globe. We should also expect to get wine when York is captured (next after Washington?).

I don't know what Asoka's upgrade costs will be? I'm wondering if we should leave him some Gold in order to upgrade his LB's (he has 8), Maces (he has 3), X-Bows (he has 3) and Pikes (he has 2). 16 Grens is nothing to sneeze at! He also has 7 Cats that he would like to upgrade to Cannons.

If we take all his gold now won't he save up some more quite fast? We really need some gold to start the war and after that we can let him keep his gold until he starts getting lot's of it from capturing cities.

Alternatively we can let him upgrade first before we ask for his gold. Drawback is that it makes the planning harder because we don't know how much gold we can get from him later.

What is the minimum number of Archers we need to provide the Happy overhead we need? If we send the Axes south to protect Asoka's Gold, my estimate would be a total of 8 (perhaps 7?), plus the Warrior. That doesn't leave any to give to Asoka?

From the description of the test games it sounds as if it's better to gift units close to the enemy cities in order to "motivate" Asoka to attack. So maybe we should hold on to our archers and only gift one or two at a time near a city where we are about to reduce the defense. We have 11 archers and one of them should be upgraded to longbow and used to defend the silver hill. If we keep 8 archers as MP's together with the axes and the warrior we still have 2 archers we can gift at the right moment.

 

[rrau]

One thing to consider: If we build globe, we can gift all our happy to Asoka to help his WW...It'll get severe in his cities.

 

[leif erikson]

7 red faces from WW can be handled by the MP's we have available now so we should have free hands in determining when to build market or Globe. We should also expect to get wine when York is captured (next after Washington?).

I think you are correct that we can handle immediate WW problems. As long as we can get Asoka to go for Washington's capitol at about the same time as our Siege units arrive, we should be fine. That is what the testing tells me. As long as Asoka has some units in the area of Washington when we are ready to strike, things should be OK.

If we take all his gold now won't he save up some more quite fast? We really need some gold to start the war and after that we can let him keep his gold until he starts getting lot's of it from capturing cities.

Alternatively we can let him upgrade first before we ask for his gold. Drawback is that it makes the planning harder because we don't know how much gold we can get from him later.

You may be right and, with the overflow of beakers, sooner may be better. If he draws down his research rate to make Gold, it would seem that the overflow would make up for that in the short term? Once the overflow is used up, then it would be better to have him research full speed ahead. With the capture of Washington, there should be enough Gold for him, I hope.

From the description of the test games it sounds as if it's better to gift units close to the enemy cities in order to "motivate" Asoka to attack. So maybe we should hold on to our archers and only gift one or two at a time near a city where we are about to reduce the defense. We have 11 archers and one of them should be upgraded to longbow and used to defend the silver hill. If we keep 8 archers as MP's together with the axes and the warrior we still have 2 archers we can gift at the right moment.

I think this is right. I'm not sure because I never gifted HC any units.

Let's see if we are ready to move ahead?

Research
Change research to Chemistry (ask Asoka to change too!) => Steel => Physics (using a Great Scientist and switching Asoka away with one turn left) => Beeline for Artillery.

Diplomacy
Sign Cease Fire agreements with all our warring neighbors that we can. Alex should be the only one we are at war with.
Trade around our Map and some lesser techs to raise Gold for upgrades.
Ask Asoka for all his Gold.

Civics
Make the change to Theocracy!

Builds
Cats until we get Steel, then Cannons.

Military
Bring all units home and heal the CR2 Mace.
Move at least 8 Archers into position in Beijing.
Upgrade at least the CR2 Mace and an Archer to Grenadiers.
Upgrade our Guerilla2 Archer to LB (or Cho-Ko-Nu?) for duty on the Silver.
As our units can attack NY from Beijing, check gold supply after priority upgrades and see if more units can be upgraded?
Assemble strike force for attack on NY.
Do we need to flesh this out a bit more?

Workers
Bring them home and pre-chop our remaining forests for Heroic Epic.

What else have I forgotten?

Once we have Washington, we can discuss further builds and strategy.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think upgrading our guerrilla archer to longbow is better than chok because the longbow gets extra 25% hills defense. We would want him to guard the silver hill during the wars against Washington and Elisabeth.

CP wanted to start the war earlier than 10 turns from now, but I'm not sure what the reasoning and plan behind is. Any plan has to take into account that our 9/10 mace has very few health points and won't be able to heal for the next 5 turns because he's moving to Beijing.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Only thing that I'm missing in the plan is some advice on when to attack. I suggest we attack when our 9/10 mace is upgraded to gren and at least close to healed say ~10 turns from now. But maybe we can do better than that?

 

[ShannonCT]

If we take all his gold now won't he save up some more quite fast? We really need some gold to start the war and after that we can let him keep his gold until he starts getting lot's of it from capturing cities.

Alternatively we can let him upgrade first before we ask for his gold. Drawback is that it makes the planning harder because we don't know how much gold we can get from him later.

If we take Asoka's gold now, he should reduce his research to accumulate more for upgrading. Let's take what we need to upgrade 4 units now.

From the description of the test games it sounds as if it's better to gift units close to the enemy cities in order to "motivate" Asoka to attack. So maybe we should hold on to our archers and only gift one or two at a time near a city where we are about to reduce the defense. We have 11 archers and one of them should be upgraded to longbow and used to defend the silver hill. If we keep 8 archers as MP's together with the axes and the warrior we still have 2 archers we can gift at the right moment.

Right now, Asoka has 7 cats, 3 elephants, and 7 units that he can upgrade to grens. Will that be enough to get him to attack Washington (the city) or will he just pillage? If gifting him 3-4 archers after Chem means he will take Washington right away instead of pillaging, wouldn't that be better than gifting them to him piecemeal? I haven't been play testing so I don't have as good a feel about how the AI will behave when it has overwhelming tech superiority.

Only thing that I'm missing in the plan is some advice on when to attack. I suggest we attack when our 9/10 mace is upgraded to gren and at least close to healed say ~10 turns from now. But maybe we can do better than that?

Should we upgrade one of the newly build cats to C1/Medic1? That new cat can help the 9/10 gren heal faster. Also, I guess we'll be attacking NY the turn after declaring war because we'll need one turn of bombardment from all our seige units? So that's one more turn for the gren to heal. Maybe we can start the war in ~8 turns. The partially healed gren is going to be taking on a cat that has been reduced by collateral damage. CR2 promo will reduce the the cat by another 45%. So at that point, the cat the gren will be fighting will be below strength 2. Should be an easy win if the gren is at more than half strength.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Diplomacy
Sign Cease Fire agreements with all our warring neighbors that we can. Alex should be the only one we are at war with."

Let's not sign a cease fire with HC for a few turns. Wash is sending his units there and he might be less likely to attack and more likely to pillage or to sign a peace treaty if he finds himself without allies.

I's consider a CR2 mace in addition to cats.

 

[Cactus Pete]

If we take Asoka's gold now, he should reduce his research to accumulate more for upgrading. Let's take what we need to upgrade 4 units now. Concur.

Right now, Asoka has 7 cats, 3 elephants, and 7 units that he can upgrade to grens. Will that be enough to get him to attack Washington (the city) or will he just pillage? If gifting him 3-4 archers after Chem means he will take Washington right away instead of pillaging, wouldn't that be better than gifting them to him piecemeal? I haven't been play testing so I don't have as good a feel about how the AI will behave when it has overwhelming tech superiority. When testing your game, I found HC was attacking cities without hesitation, but he had an abundance of superior units(a reason to have units to gift him).

Should we upgrade one of the newly build cats to C1/Medic1? That new cat can help the 9/10 gren heal faster. Also, I guess we'll be attacking NY the turn after declaring war because we'll need one turn of bombardment from all our seige units? So that's one more turn for the gren to heal. Maybe we can start the war in ~8 turns. The partially healed gren is going to be taking on a cat that has been reduced by collateral damage. CR2 promo will reduce the the cat by another 45%. So at that point, the cat the gren will be fighting will be below strength 2. Should be an easy win if the gren is at more than half strength.

Sounds sound.