Soda I - Jumping to Monarch

[retro V]

Soda, update your first post with the complete roster, then we know for definite which of us are playing next.

 

[VeryApe]

Done and here is the save. Report on its way.

 

[VeryApe]

1060 BC (1): Worked builds road on the corn. Sign OB with Catherine and start scouting her.
1030 BC (2): Immortal and Warrior arrives in Pasgarade, scout found Moscow.

1000 BC (3): Susas borders expand.
985 BC (4): Find St. Petersburg.

970 BC (5): Immortal in Persepolis, stays there. Start a pasture at Susa.
955 BC (6): Warrior done and Granary started in Susa. Moves my scout next to a barbarian city but it's saved by Cathy's archer who moves in and protects the scout.
940 BC (7): Start farming the other fp at Pasgarade. Monty sends a settler down SE of Pasgarade.
880 BC (9): Complete pasture at Susa, going for the gold.
865 BC (10): Buddhism spreads to Pasgarade, didn't convert. Monty builds his new city.

850 BC (11): Barracks built in Pasgarade, start on Immortal.
790 BC (15): Granary done in Susa, start Barracks.
775 BC (16): Hatty wants OB, signed. A barbarian archer enter our borders near Susa. I send an Immortal to take care of it. Finnish the gold mine and start working it.
760 BC (17): Immortal attacks and kills the archer.
745 BC (18): Start building road between Susa and Persepolis to get horses.
730 BC (19): Immortal done in Pasgarade. Start and whips a granary.
715 BC (20): Library done in Persepolis, start Immortal in both Persepolis and Pasgarade.

 

[retro V]

Nice looking stuff How long's our military arm now? I wanna see some action

 

[VeryApe]

Need to hook up copper when the road to Susa is finnished. By the time we have copper we should have a good number of Immortals. Pasgarade should be able to whip some units quite fast with 2 farmed floodplains and the horses with its granary. Susa is stuck at size 3 if we work the gold and copper but it will have decent production while building axemen/immortals.

 

[SpriteSODA]

I think that we'll defedently have action soon ^^

The Roster:

SpriteSODA -- UP
retro V -- On Deck
aquar
rrau
AdamW81
VeryApe -- Just Played

 

[SpriteSODA]

Hmm, before I play I want to make some decisions - should I go to war? and secondly, If I declare on Monty, Should I raze Teo? it seems too close to Prasandage.

 

[retro V]

How about kicking off on Monty, but letting him keep his cities. He isn't as advanced as us, judging by the score, so he is no threat. Bag some promotions, ween down his military, and pillage any useful improvements he has.

I recommend all this on the assumption his cities don't include any vital resources for our empire. In which case, take them. But if we could go without, we probably don't need to commit so early when we have more powerful civs encroaching from the east.

AFAIK, Monty is a bit of a megalo. A semi-offensive will stunt his growth now, leaving him like a red-headed stepbrother we can pick on for the entire game, just for promo's and lunch money. We could always remove him later when we get bored.

Disclaimer: I've never tried this out before It's just a mad thought I had. Sounds like it could be a good strategy, though. From my own games I know that concentrating too much on what is essentially a weak neighbour (he's backed up to the coast, with another poor city on the other side of our borders) will only make us easier pickings for the stronger civs.

To summarise, reduce his cities to a small defence, then he can't surprise us later when his borders are getting tight. Taking cities now only reduces and stretches thin our armies, raises maintenance costs, and makes it harder for us in the long run.

Does that sound OK? There's probably flaws in my reasoning that I can't see

 

[SpriteSODA]

I wouldnt skip his cities cus he's crazy, and once you have the first war with him, he'll never leave you be and reattack you. We cant just pillage his resoruces cus we cant afford a long term war with him to keep the improvements down. Plus, our Immortals are best against cities.

 

[retro V]

At second glance, that new city of his is well worth having and turning into a gp farm. Should only need 2 immortals to take it.

 

[rrau]

I say take him out of the game. Then we won't have to worry about an attack from him in the future. The sneak attacks usually come at the worst possible time, too.

 

[retro V]

Well, that's decided then. Bring on El Nino.

 

[AdamW81]

I would definitely keep all his cities. Teo is very close but borders include a fish and clams. It will slow our research some until CoL but long run getting the extra cities is well worth it. Plus he founded buddhism which will lead to some nice gold. He is also the best first target because that gives our empire a corner with ocean on two sides, I hate getting surrounded by the AI.

 

[SpriteSODA]

OK, when i'll play (today) i'll check out our military status, and if its large enough I will begin the campain.

 

[AdamW81]

Without catapults his capital could be a pain to take. Depending on how things go you might want to quickly try to grab teo and that other new city then sue for peace for 10 turns (if we are lucky maybe alpha will be done and we can get a tech, but probably not if we cripple him that bad). That will give us time to consolidate our forces from taking both cities and get a few more units to take the capital. 3-4 horses and an axeman or two for each city I think (error higher on teo since it has cultural defense). With any luck, we can take both cities on the second turn of the war.

 

[retro V]

This early in the game, his capital is only gonna have 40% defence at most. Doable even without cats.

 

[AdamW81]

Definitely doable, but the amount of units required will be alot more than what we need for the other 2 cities. He is likely to have 2 archers in the other cities and at least 3 in the capital plus the 40% defense bonus. My point is better to get the war started quickly rather than wait until we have enough to take the capital.

If we take out his other two cities we can take our time to build up some more forces for the capital. We want to limit his production quickly before he gets iron working (I imagine he is getting very close since we are almost to alphabet).

 

[SpriteSODA]

Dont forget the Immortals got 50% against archers.

 

[retro V]

Can Immortals get shock promotions? I forgot they were fancy chariots. Do you realise how hard it will be to take a city with 1 spear and 1 archer?

Spear = 8 against immortals.
Archer = 3 against immortals. (Their city-defensive bonus is negated by the immortal's 'vs. archer' bonus)
All other factors considered equal, how many immortals does it take to knock spears down to 3/8 of their health.

Thinking about it, it would be better to have more axes than immortals, cos they are still stronger than archers even after the defence bonus in cities. Basically, if a city has one spearman in it, it's not worth sending any immortals at it. But if it's all bows, then immortals own.

 

[AdamW81]

He doesn't have spears yet, which is why I was saying we need to attack quickly. I would keep open borders and watch his capital, as soon as a spearman pops up in the capital we should immediately declare war and attack one of the other cities. In fact now that I think about it, I wouldnt wait for alot of forces to build up, I would attack his new city with 3-4 horses while we are building some axeman to defend our cities...probably gonna need to do some tree chopping!