SGOTM3 Rome - Team Peanut

[civ_steve]

Keith: thanks! Regarding your post just before your turns - I understand what you are saying about the risk of attacking Marseilles; in my mind there are good arguments both ways. The point of attacking in my mind was to get some Elite Victories in an attempt to get a GL, and to remove a possible French base. The Elite Legion got two victories in two turns, and two more over the next few turns (but no luck with GL). And by leaving him on the space until England founded Liverpool, we kept the AI from founding on that good space (the AI wont found any cities there now, since they'd be adjacent to Liverpool's culture.) Liverpool's location is pretty marginal, and if England tries to hook up this iron, we can pillage their road through the desert with no loss of prestige and no need to declare.

In my mind the three things we haven't done well are: 1.) manage Antium for GLib pre-build; 2.) get Catapults built earlier to support our Legions; 3.) (most critical) didn't control the Mountains SE of Rome. It took us 20 turns to kick the Greeks out of those mountains; we can't move in force to Thermopylae until we assure that Greeks wont come out of the mountains and harass our cities. This delay will cut into the time we can use Legions effectively. As a critique, these are the things I would most like to have changed.

And regarding losing the Elite Legion - against 1 warrior, you have better odds of defeating him if he attacks you, but a smaller chance of getting a GL; not clear if he was moving past you (in which case you have to attack), but sometimes its worthwhile to just fortify on a hill and see if he suicides on you!

OK, I've loaded the file, and here are my suggestions and a screenshot (it's nice to see there's a Greek city that's NOT on the map anymore!) (and we're really taking turns quickly right now, too)

I'm really leary about sending stacks of Legions to impale themselves on Hoplite Spears without Catapult support. So, I recommend the 3 Workers move to the Forest labeled with a 'ROAD' on it (1 turn), road it (2 turns), move to one of the mountains with a 'ROAD' over them (1 turn), and road that mountain (3 turns). So in 7 turns we will have a road over a mountains space that will allow our catapults to follow the red trail to Athens. Meanwhile, our Catapults and Legions take out Mycanea (should take about the same amount of time as the 7 turns that the Workers need, to move up, Bombard and Assault, heal, and move into position.) Of course, be sure to protect the Workers while they build roads for us. Our easternmost Legion should scout a little bit to see if there's a Greek road through the mountains just out of our sight; it might make sense to use that more direct route, if we can secure it.

We have one more distance 3 city site, which I've noted with a red circle.

I think we need to have about 10 catapults or so initially. That would allow 2 stacks of Legions with 5 catapults supporting them. I'd start transitioning some of the larger secondary cities (Neopolis, Pompeii for example) to build Barracks, and either Legions/Warriors or Horsemen. We will need the Horsemen for Knight eventually, and they do make great fast defenders in the meantime. And after we upgrade a few more Warriors to Legions, I'd pillage the Iron again; following the advice in the next paragraph will build up our Treasury for more upgrades again.

Finally, Literature. None of the AI know it yet. I'm thinking we should get down to about 2 turns left, then minimize research on it. There's no point in us researching it first if we can't build the GreatLib; this will just make it easier for the AI to research it ahead of us. And if we don't get a GLeader soon, I'd like to see the GLight built before we learn Lit. Also, by leaving some turns left to research it, if the AI learns Lit we will know by the sudden drop in turns to finish it.

Have fun at the wedding!

 

[Keith Larson]

Finish of Turn 4
Thanks for the input Civ-steve. I was thinking along the same lines as you about Lit. It is very dangerous right now to learn Lit, as it might speed up one of our opponents. I am worried about America’s and England’s Colossus pre-builds. One will get the GLH, but the other might be able to switch to Lit. The GW build in London is not as much a concern. I don’t think that city can catch up with us. As for our next builds and disconnected iron. I am one mind with you there as well. I notice I are starting to garrison cities with offensive units. This is a waste of shields. Not only do we need more warriors for upgrading, but also as policemen. Warriors are always a good investment, but in this game they are even better. Because we will be constantly at war, we will be in governments that allow garrisons for happiness. The 10 shield warriors we build now will still be useful all the way to the end of the game. I too would like to have a few horsemen, but right now warriors upgraded to Legionaries is the “Best Buy.” Legionaries will be useful as offensive and/or defensive units all the way until the Industrial age and after that they will make fine policemen. I just can’t see us investing too many shield into horsemen right now. I am switching Neopolis to a barracks because we need more units. These seems to be the best choice because the land around it is most developed. I will continue with Cats in the other cities until they have a higher shield output.

I am sending one Legionary forward to pillage and explore. The AI tends to ignore high defensive units and the path to the horses is through mountains. Others move towards Mycenae.

IBT: French conscript warrior moves forward. English shift the GLH to York. Cumae completes warrior, starts Legionary (will switch this to warrior when the iron is disconnected.)

Turn 5: 650 BC
From F4 I learn that no one has Lit. Newly created warrior moves towards Veii to free the archer for more productive duties. Forces converging on Mycenae. The pillaging Legionary finds horseman fortified in Mt. next to horses. Legionary kills conscript French warrior. Because Veii grew to size 6 I had to use the slider. Through micromanagement I found just enough shields to complete the settler next turn.

IBT: Veii completes settler and start another. Two vet Russian archers show up two tiles NW of Veii. French spearmen looks to be moving toward us. Two Russian spearmen and one archer are seen N of Pompeii. The Greeks are sending a lone warrior at us N of Mycenae and an archer comes out of Athens to greet our pillaging Legionary. Dover founded next to fish to our south.

Turn 6: 630 BC
F4 still no one with Lit. Pillaging Legionary move to mountain W of horses and finds it undefended! Looks like Greek horse meat will not be on the menu much longer. Warriors move to hills N and NW of Veii to bait the Russian archers into the open tile W of city. The two legions in Rome move to Veii with one cat. Able to move units around to keep Rome happy. Workers start road NE of Ravenna. 6 cats and 7 Legions are next to Mycenae to attack next turn. We are at +27 gold. Rather than waiting for another turn I trade maps for gold. This is also the last turn we can trade with Babylon. Babylon give us 9 gold for our WM. Germany gives us 7 gold. America 3 gold and England 2 gold. With this money I upgrade a vet warrior at Cumae.

IBT: Rome builds Legionary and starts a worker. Pompeii completes cat and start another. Russians do not take the bait but attack regular warrior instead. The first Archer dies to Roman stone and the second is redlined as arrows overcome axes. The French continue to move forward, a horseman joins the spearman. The Northern Russians are now 2 tiles from Pompeii. Greek warrior moves S, looks like he has his eye on our three workers. The Greek AI not perceiving the danger to his horses moves the horseman and archer E to attack us.

Turn 7 610 BC
Newly created cat moves out of Pompeii and attack Russian archer. And takes him down a notch. The six cats next to Mycenea take both spearmen down one. One of the spearmen must have just been created. Mycenea is razed with 0 gold. One Legionary dies. Pillaging Legionary is now on the Greek horses. Legionary in Veii kills the redlined Russian archer. The cat and the other Legionary join him. The warrior goes into Veii to be upgraded, next turn. Units in Rome move to block Russian spearmen, with our spearmen also protection settler. We are running short of units real fast. If the need to upgrade warriors was not so great I would disconnect the iron right now. We need warriors bad. F4 shows that no one has Lit, but England is in the Middle ages. I declare war on Babylon. I get 3 gold from selling world maps

IBT: Our elite archer dies to a French horseman. The French spearman seems to be moving towards our kill zone.

Turn 8 590 BC
Kill Greek horseman, and start road to Athens. Pillage horses. Move to attack wounded French horseman next turn. Redline Greek warrior with cats. Elite Legionary kills him. Pillage iron.

IBT: America demands TM and 19 gold. We give in. I got distracted by a child and Forgot to cover a worker and wounded French horseman captured him. Sorry team. Rome builds worker and starts warrior. French spearman moves into kill zone.


Turn 9: 570 BC
Cat hits French spearman and one Legionary dies trying to kill him, a second finishes him off and becomes elite in the process. Archer kills French horseman. Hispalis is founded and starts cat. 3 cats attack Greek archer taking it down one. Following Legionary kills archer and become elite.

IBT: Cumae builds warrior and starts another. Neopolis completes barracks and starts warrior. Russian spearmen reverse direction and we will match, their archer moves to join them. French warrior on our border, two horsemen approaching from the west. Samarra founded to our NW


Turn 10: 550 BC
F4 no one has Lit. Kill another Greek archer and pillage another tile.

Remember to micromanage the game tiles. Cumae is 6 from Rome and I think this would be a good distance for our second ring. We need numbers! We are having to use offensive units defensively which is not good. Pompeii should start a barracks soon. Again sorry about the worker. At least he had finished his job and we did not lose any worker turns.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC0550_01.SAV

 

[civ_steve]

Very Interesting stuff, Keith! I like the wall of Legions keeping the 'hordes' outside of our territory. The loss of the Worker hurts; we can not be too careful!

I see that England has founded Dover to our SW. There is room to our SE as well; this means that we will have to maintain a defense for our backside! Right now the only thing we have there is the 2 regular Warriors in Antium. Please be careful not to get in a situation where a Horseman or two shows up with not enough defenders around to handel them!!

Slow and steady has to be the theme. We have a wonderful offensive/defensive unit with the Legion! I think the only way to keep up our defenses and still push on is to constantly pillage our Iron, build Warriors and Treasury, reconnect and upgrade; Repeat. Catapults will be the friendly companion to the Legion; they get a defensive shot, and can counter the advances of AI offensive units by shooting at them as they advance, then getting a defensive shot if we are attacked. I can not stress this enough - proper positioning of units EVERY TURN is critical. We can not leave Workers or Catapults undefended, and especially cities! If you are contemplating an attack, first consider what units are required to defend and where they need to be. Whatever is left over can be used for attack, not one unit more! We can not afford to be sloppy, and we will need defensive units, and catapults to support them, on every front where an AI can come at us.

We are also VERY SHORT on Workers. Except for Antium, which is our GLib city (hopefully), no city should ever be above size5. This means 1 MP for our distance3 cities will be enough to keep the city in order (probably need 2 MPs for distance 6 cities). (Eventually we will get Greece's Incense hooked up). Plan for the shields they need - if Rome is building Warriors, they don't need more than 5 shields/turn. Shift the citizens around so that other towns can get the shields. Rome should kick out a Worker when it gets to size 6. Our distance 3 cities seem to get 4 shields before Waste takes the 5th. So if they can't get to 6 shields, there's not much reason to be producing 5; consider building a Worker. As cities get to size 2 or 3, build a Barracks if they don't have on already. We will need a constant stream of Vet Units (mostly Warriors for upgrade). Cities without a Barracks should build Catapults, occasionally a Worker.

I like distance 6 for the next ring. The former Marseilles site is distance 6, and should be our next city, with appropriate Legion and Catapult protection.

Learning Literature is another tricky subject. We can turn research off entirely, and will still get credit for the research already done on Literature. This may need to be done to prevent Literature from being researched too soon. However, watch the Palace pre-build in Antium; we don't want to build it! At some point the value of the Palace will increase, which will give us more time to delay the Literature research. It would be so much easier if the AI would just finish off the other Wonders so we wouldn't have to micro-manage this so much!!

Veii need precise micro-management to generate a Settler every 5 turns. After kicking out a Settler and being size4 with no food stored:
Turn1 Use 1 Irrigated Games space; generate +4 food
Turn2 Use 2 Irrigated Games Spaces; generate +6 food; grow to size5
Turn3 Use 2 Irrigated Games Spaces and Forest; generate +5 Food
Turn4 Move 1 Games Space citizen to BG; generate +3 food for 2 turns
Turn5 Repeat for Turn4; this should build a Settler as Veii grows to size6
We have to keep the Settlers coming. (Edit - this is critical; if Veii needs to borrow a space from an adjacent city, it should get priority!)

It's late; there are several distance6 city sites, but the key one is the former Marseilles site. After that, maybe near Thermoplyes site. Anywhere else is getting close to the AI, so we need to be prepared to project power. At least a couple of the AI don't have Iron (I think Babylon and England fall into this category), so they should be easier to combat when the time comes.

Good Luck General Peanut!! You don't have to declare any wars during your turn, but you will have lots of units coming your way to beat up on. Be careful and marshall your resources! You should be able to block those Russian Spears until you can get some HPs off with Catapults and finish them off. Otherwise, keep roading, and pushing on to Athens I think, while building up for the former Marseilles site.

bigchief
civ_steve
Keith Larson -- Just Played
Peanut <--- UP!!!
Peglegasus

Russia contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Greece contact in 2270bc, at WAR
France contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Babylon contact in 2230bc, at WAR
England contact in 2190bc, at war by 210bc
Germany contact in 1475bc, at war by 190ad
America contact in 1475bc, at war by 420ad

 

[Peanut]

Goodness me ! Around to me again already ? Ok, here's the "got it", I should be able to post by this time tomorrow - after I digest recent events and the large amount of good advice. This is turning out to be an interesting game.

 

[civ_steve]

I knew I'd forget something! (I did say it was late) Luxuries are at 20%; looking at the F1 screen and lowering them to 10%, the only city that would go into CD is Rome. I'd recommend lowering Lux to 10% and moving the 4/5 Elite Legion in Ravenna to Rome. This leaves Ravenna open, but there is no AI unit that can reach Ravenna this turn, and Rome pops out a Warrior next turn so it can be covered and Lux left at 10%.

 

[bigchief]

I don't think we need to worry too much about the Great Library. 3 are building the Great Lighthouse. Berlin did not start building it until it completed the Colossus. Abe did not start building a wonder until later into my set of turns. We already had a shield lead on him when he started, and we went through 20 turns of Golden Age. Boston is the 3rd American city. Boston must be on the coast because it's building the Lighthouse, and probably doesn't have that many shield producing tiles. York switched to the Lighthouse when the Colossus was built by Germany. London did not start on the Great Wall until recently.

York should build the Lighthouse, given it's headstart. Unless there is something very strange going on, there is no way that any of the other wonder producing towns have as many shields stored as us.

Antium is already size 6. We need to move the citizen worker from the game tile to the forest tile. This will net 9 shields per turn. If my count is correct, we have 210 shields stored. At 9 shields per turn we will build it in 22 turns.

 

[civ_steve]

I hope you're right, bigchief! Still, there's little point to completing our research of Lit until our pre-build is ready, or we're going to be forced to build Palace if we don't have GLib available, or the AI has it already, or we get a GLeader.

Two small tactical items that may be of use soon:

1.) I talked about being sure we have defensive troops available to protect Workers, Catapults and cities. In general, they should just defend. However, if they are adjacent to a red-lined stack of AI units (assume the Catapults have done their job), then defensive units can be used to pick off some of these 1 hit point AI units, and not be moved out of their defensive position as long as at least 1 AI unit remains. (By defensive unit, I'm mainly referring to Legion(s) assigned to protect Catapults, Workers or cities.) I'd be sure there's a back up defender, just in case that 1 hp Archer gets really lucky!

2.) If an attacking AI moves a Horseman forward such that it threatens a city from 2 spaces away and we only have 1 unit to counter it but more are 2 turns away, AND the Horseman has only one way to attack the city, through a grassland or plains perhaps (maybe there are hills, forest, mountain, or other units, that block any other way for it to attack), there is some risk to place our 1 unit in the city. If the Horseman attacks and wins, the city falls. In this case, if possible, the unit can be placed in the intervening plains or grasslands space; the Horseman can not attack the city directly. If it goes around our unit, the reinforcements can help dispose of it, and if it attacks our 1 intervening unit, it will either fail (saving the city) or succeed, in which case it can't attack the undefended city because that would be a 2nd attack. This is most useful when the only defender is a Warrior; we may be encountering choices like this when our main force of Legions is out on the frontlines, and a Horseman comes at us from the side.

 

[Peanut]

A very quick post describing a mixed result from General Peanut's tour of duty. The save (see below) will tell more, and I will post a fuller account in a day or so (it's my son's 6th birthday party tomorrow).

Firstly, my mistakes. I messed up production timing on Veii's settlers, and did the first in five turns. I also forgot to check happiness and both Rome and Veii rioted. What's worse it was on separate turns. Oops. Serves me right for playing when tired but I wanted to pass the game on.

I also lost one warrior to enemy attack, and lost two elite legions due to my less than outstanding warmongering efforts. However no workers, cats or cities were lost. Fortunately.

On the more cheerful side, we now have :
1) About 360 gold in treasury and a swarm of warriors (17 actually) ready to upgrade when the iron is reconnected.
2) Our southern strike force of 6 cats and 5 legions is sitting outside Athens ready to attack.
3) We have a northern strike force of 5 cats, 3 legions and 2 road building workers just north of the old Marseilles (now Viroconium). With reinforcement these can start to seriously annoy the French and/or the Babs.
4) We researched Literature and now own the Great Library in Rome courtesy of Trajan.
5) We know Monarchy, are in the Middle Ages, and we know Feudalism, and Engineering.
6) We are 2 turns away from the Lighthouse in Antium, and we could switch it to the HG if we want to.
7) Hadrian is heading back from Greece to Rome under escort and we could rush SunTzu's next turn if we wanted to. Or maybe build an army so we can build the Epic ? Should we dive into Monarchy soon ? Hmmm ... decisions, decisions ...

So, fellow Generals, a mixed bag of tasty nuts for you all to chew on. Think hard and then flood General Peglegasus with your excellent advice. I'm off to bed and then to party 6-year-old style tomorrow night.

The 350BC Save

 

[Keith Larson]

Peanut,

Thanks for the quick report. Don't feel too bad about the oversights. Who knows if those two events were the very things that made the GL's possible. I replayed my moves yesterday to see what would have happened if I reversed the series of events that led to the loss of the archer and worker. Interesting enough it resulted in France forming an allience with Germany against us and the loss of two additional Legionaries. The nice thing about these game logs is they provide an opportunity to compare results of a different course of action. What came out loud and clear to me is reloading is not worth it. There can be a silver lining even in our mistakes!

Now for my input on the next few turns. Because of the varient rules the GLH is not as valuable as it normally would be. Early contact will only get us into war sooner. By the time we find the other continent we will not have anyone no our to trade contacts with. Since we are on the continent with the most civ's I doubt the other continents will be more advanced. My vote goes to the HG. The happiness is great to have and we are on a large continent so the effect will be widely felt. My vote is also for SunTau's. We are no such a large continent, in time we will have lots of cities. Not only will it be helpful to have all of our cities with barracks, it will save us a ton of gold. Until I look at the save I can't say if we should go to monarcy. Unless we have enough workers to improve tiles, it probably is not worth it right now.

 

[civ_steve]

Wow!! 2 GL's!! (I usually plan not to get any; this is really great news!) I'm very much looking forward to your post, but I totally empathize: your son's birthday party is much, much more important. (I have a 3 year old, so I'm in the same boat )

I think SunTzu's is the right choice for the Leader; and I'd vote for Hanging Gardens to be finished in Antium. I don't think we'd want GLight anyway; our continent is quite big, we have most if not all the contacts here, and I'm pretty sure we're not going exploring for other continents anytime soon.

Changing to Monarchy would allow faster growth at Veii and Rome, and decrease our overall Corruption, but we'd probably earn less gpt (less support at Monarchy until cities are size7) and lose several turns during the Anarchy period. With GLib in our hands, we don't want anyone on our continent learning Education, so I don't think we can delay at all. We must strive on and prevent the AI from getting Education, so I'd recommend staying in Despotism for now. Also, with Feudalism out, we'll have to target Iron sources to limit the amount of Pikemen and MedInf we will be facing.

Great Job, Peanut!

 

[civ_steve]

OK, I took a quick look at the Save file. There is a Russian Vet Spear adjacent to Pompeii, which has only a Regular Warrior defending. I'd suggest moving the Legion from Veii, or a Warrior from Rome, over to bolster the defence, just in case the Spear attacks. And there's a Greek Archer 2 spaces North of Lugdunum; if it decides to move South and be Adjacent to Lug, there's only a 3/5 Elite Legion available to defend it; I'd suggest moving a Warrior over from Ravenna to provide additional defense.

Checked our opponents: France is MidAges but doesn't have Feudalism yet; might be nice to deprive her of her Iron before she gets Pikes and MedInf. However, we will be declaring on England in 210 BC (take note, General Peglegasus), and they already have Feudalism, and have gotten a source of Iron. Elizabeth will be tough. Babylon also has Iron and Feudalism, so we will have one, and shortly two, opponents with that potent combination. Thankfully the AI doesn't have Monotheism, so that puts Education further away; however, Russia and Germany are still Ancient Age so that could change at any time!

One other comment: we have 4 Workers on the Iron space. Either 3 or 4 will make the connection in 2 turns, so the 4th Worker would be better off doing something else.

And I like the Legion keeping watch over Dover! He's ready to serve notice (probably should get a buddy or two and take it out soon after the war is declared). Just noticed the cultural boundary on Dover; looks like the English have another town further South in the Tundra! We should take out Dover, and put a couple cities down there, but I think I'd leave the far South cities for a later time and leave a defense in place.

 

[Peglegasus]

We researched Literature and now own the Great Library in Rome courtesy of Trajan

What a relief! Great news indeed. "mixed results"? I don't think so. I'd say that's a huge bag of primo cashews right there. Nice work, mate.

So... Peglegasus' pre-flight check, phase 1:

-Remain in despotism for time being.
-Rush Sun-Tzu's with our great leader.
-Adjust defensive units per civ steve's suggestions.
-Give new work orders to 1 worker on road-to-iron crew.
-Switch Antium to spearman *cough* I mean Hanging Gardens.

I can play either tonight or tomorrow morning, so chime in if you've got anything to add. I'll wait until we are satisfied with my flight check before proceeding.

Questions: Any ideas about future city sites? Suggestions about how to deploy the legions we are about to upgrade?

 

[civ_steve]

Regarding the leader: I had a potentially evil thought! I don't usually make many armies so my experience with them is limited. What if we made an army, loaded it up with 3 Legions, and sent it Northward. If it stayed primarily on Hills/Mountains its virtually untouchable. The intent would be to work behind the enemy lines, pillage roads so their reinforcements to the front are delayed, and I think the PTW Army has Zone of Control which would inflict some damage upon occasion. I wouldn't use it to do too much attacking because of how long it would take to heal (being far from a friendly city.) Once we had a victory, Antium could make Heroic Epic which should make Leaders occur more often. And after we've peeled back a city or two, the Army could make a dash for France's Iron, denying Joan that critical resource. That would probably be the best use of the Army; delay reinforcements, pillage roads and deny Iron to our enemy.

The C3C army gets a +1 movement, which I don't think the PTW army gets. What if we made an army with 2 Legions and a Horseman, what would its movement be? Just a thought.

Peglegasus: just a cautionary note; Athens probably has 4 or 5 Hoplites in it, and we only have about that many Legions near it. I'd say we need about 10 Legions to even think about attacking. And ideally our assault should wait until that magic moment when we get several Catapult hits on Athens' Hoplites, 3 or 4 or so. These units are all by themselves, several turns away from friendly territory; a failed assault means we might lose everybody and that would be the end of our attempt on Greece. I'd dedicate several of our upgrades to taking Athens; we've got to be sure Greece is done before we can fully concentrate on the North.

City sites: after you declare on England (Turn 7) and remove Dover (plan for this; move some Legions down to join the one down there), there's room for 2 or 3 cities down here; at least 2 at the distance 6 ring from Rome. If we can clear the area between France, England and ourselves, I'm sure there's some nice sites there. And if we can destroy Athens, I'd like to claim the Incense as soon as possible.

It occurs to me that we're kind of flying blind here; see if you can get anybody's maps, maybe TM for TM if we're not at war. (Or WM for TM and whatever Gold they wish to offer; I'm not too picky). Don't put out too much gold for this; we need the upgrades. I don't know if I'd trade any Techs right now; certainly not any required Techs, but some of the civs don't have Literature which might get us a WM or two. We're about to go to war with England; it might be a good time to spoil our reputation by doing a gpt for Gold, or gpt for WM, or some such. I think we'd have to ask what they want for X, to be consistent with the trading rules. Since they'd probably ask for Gold before gpt, we'd have to do our upgrades before trying this and be down close to 0 gold.

 

[bigchief]

NOTE: Some of this was written before Steve posted.

I agree with building the HG in Antium instead of the Lighthouse.

I would rather use the new leader to form an army. We can build the HE and will get more leaders. We are militaristic, so barracks are cheap to build, and Sun Tzu's won't help us that much. If we do build Sun Tzu's, we need to sell all our barracks on the turn before, unless it will put us in a bind in a town that is about to be attacked.

I have never had the AI attack an army in the open. They will attack an army in a city. The army can protect artillery, workers, and injured units, and can go deep into enemy territory and pillage without fear of attack.

Steve: IIRC it won't matter if we put a horse in the army. It depends on the slowest unit in the army.

I think we should trade with England, America and Russia. We are up Lit on England, and up a few techs on the other two. Hopefully we can get all their gold, but I would also like to get some maps. It would be nice to see what is hidden, and what we will soon be up against.

We really need to start building some horses. Chivalry will be coming up before long, and we will need knights to help deal with Pikes and Longbows, not to mention cavs when they are available.

And, we need to be thinking about our defenses in the future. IIRC, Legions upgrade to Med Inf. I would hate to be using them to defend against knights and later cavs, and scrambling to build muskets and rifles when the time comes. We may want to start building some pikes.

Also, we do need to keep with settling our rings, but we should settle on the site of Athens after we destroy it to get the incense, and getting the silks city would be good too. We will need the happiness as we grow and expand.

 

[Keith Larson]

Until the AI gets knights we can pillage just as effectively with Legionaries. The AI will rarely attack a 3 defense unit. In fact, the three units in an army could pillage 3 times as fast as an army could. If this was C3C, the pillaging army would be a no brainer. The Epic would be nice, but I still think the Art of War is better.

As for pillaging I was going to suggest it anyway. Just not with an Army.

 

[Peglegasus]

The pillaging army is an interesting idea. If it were coupled with some catapults they could bombard the surrounding squares after the army has pillaged a tile. Or would the "artillery bombardment failed" make it too inconsistent to be worth it? I'm no expert with catapults so I'm not sure.

 

[bigchief]

We are in the Middle Ages now. One of us needs to post a summary in the spoiler thread. This time it doesn't have to be the team leader. It can be anyone nominated by the team. Peanut certainly is very good at the story telling, and my vote would be for him to do it, but if he lacks the time, does anyone else want to do it?

 

[civ_steve]

bigchief: after your post I feel pretty good about building the Army; resource denial and pillaging will really help out in our future battles; this first army should only attack once, just to get an Army win, and its off to harm the enemy's war potential. And no Horseman.

I think a better solution than building Pikes is to not upgrade all our Legions. They have the same defense as a Pike, have 3 times the attack, and use 1/3 the shields to produce (building a Warrior and upgrading to Legion). We are at +30 gpt, so we can almost upgrade a Legion every turn; we can't say the same for building Pikes!

I agree about getting some Horsemen built. As newer cities can take on the task of building Vet Warriors, and we get more Luxuries, the older cities that can be put up to 8 shields/turn (10 is better) should start building our future Knight force. Rome should be able to switch to this task. (BTW, we need more Workers to start building Mines in hills, too.)

(I see Keith's post: I still like the Army build; we gain little immediate benefit from SunTzu's - most unit building cities have barracks already, and we can't keep the enemy's cities to gain a forward Barracks capability. The Army allows HE, hopefully more GL's to gain SunTzu's at a later date, and provides a dominating unit with ZOC.)

 

[civ_steve]

More posts!!

It is frustrating to bombard with catapults, and keep getting the 'bombardment failed' message. It would be interesting to see if that worked well enough to do: imagine an army with several Catapults under it, bombarding everything that went by! (and trying to pillage when nothing is available.) If the AI doesn't attack that army (and even if it did, the catapult throws in a defensive shot), that could be decimating to any reinforcements trying to sneak by. Quite intriguing, Peglegasus; I'd vote to try it (we'll need more catapults). (Edit - this stack would not be able to enter unroaded mountains, however.)

I (and many others) like Peanut's style. I'd vote for Peanut first, but if he's unavailable, I could do it.

 

[bigchief]

I think a better solution than building Pikes is to not upgrade all our Legions. They have the same defense as a Pike, have 3 times the attack, and use 1/3 the shields to produce (building a Warrior and upgrading to Legion). We are at +30 gpt, so we can almost upgrade a Legion every turn; we can't say the same for building Pikes!

What I was getting at with the Pikes is that they will upgrade to muskets - rifles - infantry, and the legions will be stuck at med inf. and then guerillas. If we stick with building warriors - legions, we will have lots of obsolete units, and will have to build the other defensive units from scratch.

I'm not suggesting that we build a bunch of them, but if we build enough to have at least one in our border towns, we will be able to upgrade them to the best defensive unit when the time comes.