Andronicus said:
Interesting times - I think you did a great MM job with boosting of science
Thanks.
Andronicus said:
Do we really need 30 archers? The longer we delay attacking Greece the more vet hoplites they will have. The approach needs to be, I think, redlining them with trebs then using archers or horses to kill - horses have advantage of chance of retreating plus more usefullness if later upgraded to provide a mobile force to defend our shores
I initially thought of Horsemen over Archers too, but on further analysis, decided in favor of Archers for three reasons:
1.) They're cheaper (20 vs. 30 shields). We can crank out a lot more of them than we can Horsemen. Given Greece has Iron and therefore military superiority, we need as many units as we can get to take them down. Plus if our core goes back to Infrastructure and the North gets put on troops, those scientist farms can turn out Archers way easier than Horsemen.
2.) They're just as strong (2 Attack). Although they can't retreat, their defensive bombard will be useful on defense while advancing.
3.) Since we're going to need artillery (Trebuchets) to crack Greece, our movement is going to be limited to 1 Square/Turn inside their territory anyway, and Horsemen can't attack multiple times - their only strength is movement (negated by totting artillery) and retreating.
I think it's better to have 3x 2 Attack units for 60 shields than 2x 2 Attack units for 60 Shields when better movement will only be useful for getting to the front. Retreat is useful but it serves little purpose if we have too few units to win, and have to retreat only to be counterattacked by say, Knights, and annihilated.
I could go either way though depending on what the team thinks, but this was my logic at the time. When faced with a technologically (at least in units...) superior opponent, numbers is the way to go. Using cashflow to upgrade our existing Catapults to Trebuchets should likely be a high priority.
Abegweit said:
While I doubt that communism will pay, this is a long-term decision which does not have to be made now. At this point we need the scientists in the ISC region to help with our research while the core builds infrastructure. At this moment, we should be continuing to build more cities, not taking them down.
Considering Communism can make an entire continent productive as opposed to a mere region, I think it will pay for itself many, many times over. Having your whole empire be your "core" is terribly powerful if it's well developed. That said, it is a long term decision (but not
that long - a direct bee-line toward it (with 4 turns per tech, somewhat unreasonable) is 35 turns. More realistically it'll perhaps be 45 - we could reach it before I come up again if we dedicate ourselves), and not important to reach a decision on now. I do agree that for right now we should continue ICS in the north (all possible positions are taken though - so we're stockpiling Settlers at the moment), but would like to note the core is the only thing capable of building troops with any speed right now.
If we're going to beat klarius and Wacken, we need to kill Greece, ASAP. And that takes troops. If we're going to keep the core on infrastructure, and start shifting the north to military, then Archers are
definitely the way to go as the lower shields will definitely help given all the cities up there are irrigated.
Own said:
I agree for now, I'm saying we should disband some when we get to commie. Is everything over there irrigated? If not it should be for lots of scientists.
Pretty much the entire north is irrigated. Our workers will run out of things to do in the next turn set unless they go south and mine the mountains that divide the country or start fortressing the whole coast or something. Some still need to grow, but a lot have good scientist cadres.
On another note, anybody interested in putting up an entry for the spoiler page?
[EDIT] Once we get Invention, Longbowmen will be our most powerful attack unit. Getting a bunch of Archers and using our economy to then upgrade them would seem prudent considering Archers are really cheap...
). I suggest that if 24 hours have passed with no reply by next up then the turn is automatically skipped. Once next player has posted a "got it" it is expected they will have time to complete their turn set and posted report and save within 48 hours (even if this means playing less than 10 turns). If they can see they dont have time - either ask to be skipped or swapped.
, if all agree I hope our progression to world conquest will proceed smoothly 
the Greeks time?
