Suggestions from CoMA

[rcoutme]

1. Build city on shielded grass nestled in the hills north of KD (this should force the C3B guys to commit to watching our east coast or retreating). Make sure to put the laborer to tax or research, we don't want this city large, we want it to stay at pop 1 in case C3B attacks it (it will then autoraze).

2. Move the AC in the woods sw and then east. Each successive turn move it west-east.

3. Get a horseman to replace the AC for coastal watch.

4. Use regular warriors to block coast, have them replace horses. Get some veteran warriors to KD for ultimate upgrading.

5. Change capital to building swordsmen until we have Feudalism, they will get built in 2 turns, but Med. Inf. require 40 shields and will take longer.

6. Build Akots' aqueduct in Savannah...keep build ships in Ryttyla.

7. Keep one or two cities on Iron Island NOT hooked up to the trade network so they can still build cheap warriors for mp duty.

8. Use the eastern ship to pick up either the JT, workers, or both and then move it back to Khazad Dum.

I will post more suggestions for Rik as time and thinking permits.

 

[Rik Meleet]

Thanks Rcoutme

 

[rcoutme]

I recommend these movements for the horses.

Dark blue indicates revised horseman movement, light blue indicates AC movement.

Also, it is time to have our fleet screw up the movement of C3B's fleets. So please send them out and mess up C3B's movement by occupying coastal waters that permit them to 'rest'.

 

[rcoutme]

Rik has suggested asking C3B if they are interested in buying horses. His plan is to find out if they are interested. There are various reasons for offering. Offer does not mean sell.

I would like to consider selling them...but at a high price. Perhaps a tech or two.

 

[RegentMan]

::shudders:: Give C3B a mobile unit that could pick off our injured ancient cavalry? No thanks.

 

[Provolution]

Terrible idea, this is the worst trade proposal I have heard for ages.
Should we just give away our only strategic advantage to some third world rabble bent on our destruction? Let us trade what impairs their military strength, nothing else.

 

[Rik Meleet]

You aren't listening.

My plan is to offer it to them ( but we never sign the deal !!!!!! ). If they aren't interested at all, they do have horses. If they show just a tiny bit of interest then we are sure they have no horses.

I was in my "sneaky bastard mode" when I thought of this plan. Rcoutme does want to sell them horses; I don't.

 

[Provolution]

Then I agree 100 % with Rik, and disagree with Rcoutme on this account sorry Rik, I was wrong about you. I am all sneaky bastard, which is one major reason I left DG5.

 

[magnusmarcus]

Lets not be close minded here.... a horse is just a horse ofcourse ...unless that horse is not a horse ofcourse but a bargaining chip to be used and abused. If a horse gets significant gains that outweigh negative consequences than so be it... Let us see how far a horse gets us

 

[RegentMan]

I like Rik's idea. Although they might turn the deal down just because it's us. Or perhaps they aren't stupid and know they we would never casually offer horses.

 

[Provolution]

I find it coarse to offer a horse without remorse of course, for the better or the worse, or we could wait for the skepticists in our nation and plot to run over them with a Porsche.

Finally, beyond the horse, we should not trade, but use brute force. Of course.

 

[Rik Meleet]

(..) Although they might turn the deal down just because it's us. Or perhaps they aren't stupid and know they we would never casually offer horses.

It depends on how it is presented to them. If we use diversion they still find it suspicious, but not more than that.

2 possibilities:
1: We say
We paid a lot of gold + gpt to CDZ for techs and now we don't receive the 18gpt we are nearly bankrupt (not true of course) and need a lot of cash and gpt. We can't trade with CDZ so it's C3B we want to sell Horses + Ivory to.
2: We say:
Our nation is dying from unhappyness and we need a luxury quick. We need your Incense. We are willing to pay for it with Horses and Ivory. Name your price.

 

[Goonie]

Do not tell them we traded with CDZ! They don't need to know!

What if we make the trade the turn before we land to burn Bracuza!?

 

[RegentMan]

What if we make the trade the turn before we land to burn Bracuza!?

Then we're labeled as deal breakers.

 

[rcoutme]

My idea is to offer horses only if we were to gain Monotheism and Engineering in the process (yes we might offer other things, but not Feudalism). A 20 turn deal will not give them enough time to get to Chivalry and we would be the only ones on the continent with Knights. Horsemen vs. knights is not a fair battle.

 

[RegentMan]

A 20 turn deal will not give them enough time to get to Chivalry and we would be the only ones on the continent with Knights. Horsemen vs. knights is not a fair battle.

But then we have horsemen attacking our exposed ancient cavalry. We'll need to devote troops to defending them, which means more units are needed, which translate to a longer wait of war. Plus they'll then finally have a mobile source of warfare. I do not want to give them any advantage; they already have 30 shield med. infantry.

 

[rcoutme]

The following are recommendations and observations:

Mayapan was put on research in order to get Feudalism faster...so it would actually (assuming the scientist is put onto a food-producing tile) waste only one turn.
Fantazuma: the jump in tech did not allow for the finish of the swordsman...therefore...switch a mined hill to irrigated grass (the city will finish the M.I. in one turn anyways).
Savannah: place the researcher to mined grass (to get the aqueduct faster)
Thunder falls: the FP comes in 5 turns. This will happen even if the mined plains (in the east on the river) are moved to mined grass (x2). This would be a better use as Cheetahpolis can use those mined plains.
Borodino: move irrigated grass to closer irrigated grass to allow Fantazuma to use it (in case it ever needs to)
Cheetapolis: move laborer to the mined plains that TF vacates...thus allowing the cities further east to obtain mined plains later.
Khazad Dum: we would finish the walls in 2 turns, however, we could finish an aqueduct in just 8 turns. This would allow the city to grow to size 7 and not need walls. In addition, we could then switch that city to a harbor and really grow it.
Kamina: move the laborer on the plains to a mined hill near the capital (there are extras)
Unlucky harbor: move the scientist to the coast. This will yield 1fpt/1gpt for the city (albeit losing 3 beakers)
Emp: move water to mined hills...switch worker to horse or Javelin Thrower (we lost one JT collecting slaves, so having one more will bring our total back to 4 for GA purposes)
Or: switch to horse, JT or some other combat unit, move scientist to mined plains on the river (that Cheetapolis vacates)
Ake: move scientist to grass...need the growth
Port on iron island (I forget the name of the city): move the laborer in the lake to the coast so that another city can get 2 food from lake (there is no reason to use the lake since coast will now also give 2 food)

Worker in Chrysanthamum: do NOT connect Uxmal...we need the cheap mp's.

In general: we are building a lot of workers on iron island. I don't think we need so many, I recommend switching some (or many) to units. This would be even more effective if we send a unit to cut some of our own roads so we could build warriors (for mp duty). Although cutting roads is not popular, I would like to at least switch to building units...

Fleet NW of KD: take up positions on both coastal squares south of the C3B galley. Next turn, take up all 3 coastal squares north of the C3B galley.

Horseman...until we move our fleet away...send the horseman to the trees due north (away from the coast)...he does not need to watch the coast at the moment.

Galley with workers: after dropping workers whereever...have the galley heal in KD.

Research: Place reasearch to 0 and scientists to taxmen or tile laborers. Just in case we can convince one of our opponents to sell Monarchy in the next round or two, we would not lose any beakers. We can always place the research such that we run a deficit if we need to. Meanwhile...we can use the cash for upgrades and rushes instead if we need to.

 

[rcoutme]

More suggestions (for 30 AD this time)

We currently have 561 gp, this could upgrade 6 warriors...I do not propose doing this, I only mention that it could be done. I noticed that there is now a C3B (I think) ship on the east coast neutral zone, near our healing JT.

Have the coastal horseman watcher go to the hill in the north...this will permit a good observation of most of C3B's southern activities.

Kamina-Khazad Dum-Fantazuma: move laborers around so that Fantazuma gets 15 spt, Kamina should get the mined plains near it, since Khazad Dum now has another mined plains that it can use. Have the worker located on the plains (now) with the game finish the mine to the east.

Fantazuma: switch to horsemen
We currently have a total of 13 galleys...I think that will be enough for now (although Unlucky Harbor can be left producing a galley). Switch Ryttyla and Charnel to horsemen or Med. Inf. We could use the horsemen for mp duty freeing up our AC's so that may be the best move currently.
Emp: move laborer from grass to trees -- adds 1spt and we don't really get anything from Emp increasing in pop, as the laborer would be forced to be an entertainer.
Or: move the warrior from Cheetahpolis to Or (Or will expand next turn and needs the extra mp). Have the AC that is near the capital (presumably on its way to KD) go back to Cheetahpolis for now.
Coba: switch to worker
Mayapan: switch to horseman
Zoi: do we switch to growth in 2?
Unlucky Harbor: move warrior to mined plains...take laborer from coast and make scientist.

Change all taxmen to scientists and raise science. My calculations suggest that along with UH's scientist we should be at -7gpt with Monotheism in 13 turns.

The C3B movements are suggesting to me that they are setting up for defense, not attack. This, if true, would work to our advantage as we could possibly research and build in peace for a while...getting closer to the all-important, Chivalric Knight.

I noticed that CDZ went from weak compared to us to strong compared to us, so they must have used cash to upgrade a lot. This is all the more interesting since they still do not have Feudalism...so why the sudden change? Could it be that all is not well over on the other continent?

 

[akots]

IIRC, CDZ has always been strong compared to us. They should have a decent number of mounted warriors, might be roughly close to +30 or something like that.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

The C3B movements are suggesting to me that they are setting up for defense, not attack. This, if true, would work to our advantage as we could possibly research and build in peace for a while...getting closer to the all-important, Chivalric Knight.

This is great news for those interested in a Feudal government. With C3B on a defensive stance, war does not have to be declared early and we can upgrade our motley crew of Warriors more quickly after a revolution to Feudalism.

Funny how this insight is kept from that discussion thread.

Also, while the rush to Chivalry is nice, I just see it as unveiling another batch of obsolete units that we cannot afford to upgrade. Still a tech to have though.

Hmmmm.....no Catapults still, I see. Useless as they may seem, there is no denying their effect on C3B ships that pass north of Khazad Dhum. When placed along a coastal road and protected, Cats can take crucial hit points from their Galleys so that our Galleys have the advantage on an attack.

The alternative?

a) Lose our Galley(s) in an even-odds attack
b) Let C3B troops unload on our mainland shore to face our Warriors

You said in another thread that human players are too smart for our use of Catapults. Well, not if we provide our Cats with a movement range that could bombard a C3B Galley at the end of its turn within a certain range. Then our Galleys could ambush the redlined ship and hopefully take some troops with it. If a human then becomes smart enough to avoid this trap, then good for us! It means we have just closed off a major C3B avenue of attack.