Sid the Science Kid

[Cam_H]

OK, 'tis done:

I whipped pretty savagely as proposed, but couldn't help but try to leverage 15-19 2-pop whips as best I could, which I hoped led to an empire that's not gone to the dogs while still having a pretty respectable invasion force at hand. Toss in a few forest chops along the way. I think that there are ample troops to get this invasion underway, while there are a few ripe whipping opportunities next turn to add fuel to the fire.

Opening | 650BC

Whipped Gold City
Micro-ed Rice City to get the Granary next turn

Turn 1 | 625BC

Cherokee: Barracks > Archer
Gold City: Catapult > Archer
Fish City: Barracks > Catapult
Rice City: Granary > Catapult (note: this city does not have Barracks, but I pressed on with units nonetheless in light of 'urgency')

Victoria won't trade away Alphabet, although we've now spent a turn on it.

Turn 2 | 600BC

Cherokee: Archer > Catapult
Gold City: Catapult > Archer
2-pop whip Kebab Central

Turn 3 | 575BC

Victoria acquires Mathematics for herself, but is now prepared to offer Alphabet for Construction. I decline.

Kebab City: Catapult > Archer

Turn 4 | 550BC

Buddhism spreads into our empire.

Cherokee pops its Great Scientist, who's used to establish an Academy there.

Kashi Vishwanath is BIAFAL (Istanbul).

2-pop whip Cherokee, Gold City, Rice City.

We can trade our excess Sheep for Corn with a few tribes, but health isn't a concern for us right now.

Turn 5 | 525BC

Cherokee: Catapult > Catapult
Gold City: Catapult > Catapult
Rice City: Catapult > Archer

Roaming warrior meets Napoleon, who's far in the south east past the Ottomans.

Turn 6 | 500BC

Cherokee: Catapult > Archer
Rice City: Archer > Catapult
2-pop whip Kebab Central
Down to 50%

Turn 7 | 475BC

Alphabet > Currency

Cherokee: Archer > Catapult
Kebab Central: Catapult > Archer
2-pop whip Rice City, Fish City

Frederick: Writing <> Sailing

Turn 8 | 450BC

Gold City: Catapult > Archer
Rice City: Catapult > Archer
Kebab Central: Archer > Warrior
Fish City: Catapult > Catapult
2-pop whip Cherokee

Turn 9 | 425BC

Cherokee: Catapult > Warrior
Rice City: Archer > Catapult

The Temple of Artemis is BIAFAL (Istanbul).
Science down to 30%

Turn 10: 440BC

Cherokee: Warrior > Catapult
Gold City: Archer > Catapult​

Summary

We ended up building 2 Warriors (for city garrison in undefended cities), 7 Archers, and 13 Catapults. Kebab City, Rice City, and Cherokee are all ripe for whipping next turn. We're now #1 on the 'Soldiers' rankings, and have a 1.2:1 rating against America and Ethiopia. We could invade immediately, or wait a couple of turns for a few extra units to catch up.

Screenshots

Spoiler :

 

[vranasm]

^^ great TS Cam (from the SS's)

we should attack right away, no need to delay. the troops will catch up.

I think we could take 4 core Roos cities along the way towards city holding Mids (it's the farthest away from us) then peace out and attack Ethiopia if Zara still lacks LB's.

Currency is prio #1 obv.

edit:

Zara probably could be bribed against Roosy once we declare (can't now, but war dec would make it cheaper), but not sure if I want to send Zara in war mode.

Zara doesn't have PH yet, which is great. Roosy can tech Monarchy, so hopefully there will be no 1-T LB's.

Vicky could be on path towards feudalism though.

 

[Cam_H]

vran,

Thanks for the comment ...

I was really mindful of the point you were making before the TS, and I aimed to hit an acceptable balance between being pretty heavy-handed with the whip, while still being in some sort of position to get to Currency in fair time. As per my run-down, there's some good whips about to fall due next turn, but there's plenty of population otherwise to grind out a lot more troops if we were prepared to 'hit bottom' at home.

 

[Sengir]

Nice whipping Cam. Looks like we're ready for war.

 

[Killroyan]

Holy whipping moly Batman, we have ourselves an army. Great turnset Cam. But we are facing a buddhist block. We are talking about bribing Zara to go to war with Roosie but there is a big chance he and Vicky will be bribed in declaring on us. I think we need some guards in our cities. If we can bribe Zara into a war then still no problem. All he can do is throw a dozen archers against Roosies defenses. I am playing a game with only archers (no siege) but I can assure you 12 archers is not enough to conquer a 40% def cities with 3 protective archers.

 

[vranasm]

Holy whipping moly Batman, we have ourselves an army. Great turnset Cam. But we are facing a buddhist block. We are talking about bribing Zara to go to war with Roosie but there is a big chance he and Vicky will be bribed in declaring on us. I think we need some guards in our cities. If we can bribe Zara into a war then still no problem. All he can do is throw a dozen archers against Roosies defenses. I am playing a game with only archers (no siege) but I can assure you 12 archers is not enough to conquer a 40% def cities with 3 protective archers.

cats will bring archers to half strength and no cultural defense.

Tough to judge if we should promote archers along combat or drill line with cats siege. I am slightly in favor of drill.

 

[lymond]

Nice war prep, Cam. I say we hit now. We have plenty to get started and cats are the most powerful unit on the field....defensively as well.

Not sure about the Drill line, V. If we were protective, sure. Maybe a mix.

We'll want a scout at some point for a medic.

Torn on bringing Zara in. Main reason probably is so Roos doesn't do the same, but currently I don't think he can.

I'm thinking we run binary until we start pulling in gobs of gold from conquered cities. I think Ottos should be next to get their shinies...including the shrine.

Should we Feud beeline after currency?

 

[vranasm]

I am toying with the Eng idea (not from GS's, but more as game finisher)....

we need currency first though and most probably CoL if some AI doesn't land it first.

Interesting idea about Ottomans before zara...we will see after your TS I guess.

Imo we should launch second offensive against someone else after you get 4 cities from Roos.
Vicky is very small btw...

 

[nocho]

Yeah, nice prep Cam.

I wouldn't bother about bribing Zara, even if he'd declare I think he's a paper tiger.

Surely currency first. Feud and eng are both obvious targets. Maybe I'd give the nod to feud so we can cap some people too.

 

[lymond]

Oh yeah, Engineering would be sweet with Trebs

oh...am I up?

 

[vranasm]

Oh yeah, Engineering would be sweet with Trebs

oh...am I up?

yes indeed

 

[lymond]

Plan Summary:

Attack>Kill a bunch of stinkin' Americanos...those bahastahds!

Extended plan

Spoiler :

Attack now. Take Boston > Washington > Philly > New York. Not yet sure on order of Philly/NY, but will see once I get near. NY has Mids, ofc....we want that.

Hopefully Wash or Ottos will settle those juicy gems for us.

We can do a checkpoint once the 4 cities are down...probably end of my TS anyway.

Build wise...mainly focus on units, but try to finish Lib in Rice City and LH in Fish city. I will pull back on the whipping some just such that we continue to work good tiles. Whip the unhappies as we grow.

Ultimately we will want our forces to finish up near Otto to take them on next.

Should we continue cottages riverside tiles in Rice city or farm them?

I'll keep an eye on trades. IW has little value. I would like get the Myst line going soon as we need it for Feud. Currently, AIs will not trade cheap techs for it. I think we should go that route after Currency.

I will run binary for at least a few turns - we will probably get hit hard once we move our troops out - and then raise slider as we get chunks of gold from captured cities.

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for the PPP, lymond.

I left both Rice City and Kebab Central with 17 next turn for a Catapult > Archer 2-pop whip in mind for each. I'm not entirely convinced that our forces are sufficient yet, but I have 'issues' with the RNG Gods and tend to overcompensate. Far less masterful whipping in Cherokee; I envisaged putting just a into the Catapult build and 2-pop whipping it with less regard for overflow. It'll be coming out of one cycle of whip unhappiness in three turns from there.

I'd envisaged Rice City would ultimately Farm those Grasslands and work the Mines, and do not terribly much having grown those Floodplain Cottages into Towns other than churning out the occasional unit. I thought/assumed that Gold City would typically work the Rice tile and become the stronger city of the two (this was just my assumption - I'm not pushing for this as 'policy' or anything).

I'm happy with your proposal on running binary with the view of fueling our research on the from captured cities. I thought from there; Code of Laws > Civil Service and just work toward developing a technologically strong empire, but 'no objection' from me if the roster would prefer to go after Feudalism more directly.

Best of luck!

For the record;

lymond << Up
vranasm << On Deck
Killroyan
nocho
Sengir
Cam​

 

[lymond]

Yep, I envisage what you are doing with the hammer OF. Cats whips are good for getting out archers in 1 turn. I actually do that in other games to get backup MP.

Actually, farming makes even more sense to irrigate the rice and all tiles around Gold city later anyway. Rice would have trouble really growing anyway to use those mines.

I think the "hesitance" on the current army is due to us being so used to fighting metal units. Cats will rule the day here and we have plenty...they should have a high survival rate too. You only need a few offensive archers and mainly just MP for capture cities. We are more than fine to start. That's a pretty awesome stack as is given the variant.

CoL>CS is always good, but Feud would allow us to remain militarily viable even with the AIs having it themselves. I'm not opposed to it though.

I'm interested if anyone has any input on the Drill vs. Combat debate on the Attack Archers.

 

[Killroyan]

The drill line should now be more usefull then the combat line. We will be attacking with siege and reducing the enemy archers to well below 50% health. That means that having more first strikes will reduce the damage our archers will take and the faster we can move on. I would mix in at least 1 medic archer. We can even think about upgrading our archers to longbows/X-bows in the long run.

 

[vranasm]

drill line is better in situation where you have power advantage already since you have less losses, should speed progress if you have healthy stack of cats going on.

combat is better to get you into winning odds in fair game or better behind on power.

thus I slightly prefer drill, but could imagine healthy mixture of combat and drills, where combat archers go on heaviest defenders after cats and drill one mop up.

edit:

@Killroyan we won't build xbows - no iron, but we could longbows of course.

 

[Killroyan]

Arf, forgot about the iron, lol. Longbows here we come. And muskets. And riflemen. etc....

Why I prefer drill a little more too is because it is not often used and in this case suits it purpose much more.

 

[Sengir]

I'd go for mostly Drill, with some Combat mixed in for the strongest defenders.

 

[nocho]

Just wanted to note that for our combat archers cover would be a very useful promo after combat 1.

 

[lymond]

Good point on Cover, Nocho. Probably a reason to promote several up the Combat line. I'm hearing yall on the Drill stuff too. Maybe a mix of Combat/Cover and Drill archers for clean-up. Will make for powerful LBs later.

Yep, well need a medic Archer as well until we get our GG.

Edit: I just tested and you can give Cover promo to Drill Archers. However, if we go Drill on some archers, I'd rather stay on the Drill path for them.