Term VI: Commander-In-Chief

[Donovan Zoi]

Welcome to the office of the Commander-in-Chief!

I will be looking at the latest save, as well as the diplomatic threads, and making assessments of our situation within the next 48 hours. In the meantime, please feel free to post here with any questions or concerns regarding SABER military strategy and I will address them promptly.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

**reserved**

 

[Donovan Zoi]

OK, the current issue I have pulled from the Term V thread regards the disbanding of Swordsmen in our galleys patroling the coastal waters of our rivals. To help me with my decision, please continue to post your thoughts on the matter here.

 

[Cyc]

Personally, I believe landing troops on foreign soil at this point would not only be wrong in our international community, but a mistake on our part.

 

[Chamnix]

I like Donovan_Zoi's idea of sending a boat to explore the ocean. If there are other islands, I would guess that they have resources on them to give people a reason to care about them, and it would be best if we discovered them first.

If we wanted to use our current boats, then I would nominate either the caravel near Babe or the one heading toward FREE (or both). FREE's galley near our coast guarantees that we have a trade route with FREE, and we don't really care about a trade route with Babe. Also, the one circling Babe will be very slow exploring their coast because I'd like never to end a turn in Babe's territory so we keep our war happiness as long as possible. I don't remember for sure, but I don't think either GONG or Council has come to one of our harbors, so we still need to reach their harbors to establish trade.

The one headed toward FREE has a sword aboard it, the one near Babe does not. We could move the sword from the caravel near GONG to the Babe caravel, but it will slow down our exploration of GONG by 1 turn. That turn may or may not matter depending on where the closest GONG harbor is - if the town in GONG's northeast corner has a harbor, then we should still be able to swap luxuries as soon as we discover Magnetism. If it doesn't, then we lose a turn of GONG's luxuries (assuming they are going to trade with us).

We also could just call the caravel near Babe back home and put a different unit aboard, but it will take about 4 turns to get home. Or we could just use that empty boat for exploring, and if it finds anything, then we will bring a unit over ASAP.

 

[Cyc]

I would say lose the turn @ GONG by swapping the sword. I agree with using the Caravels to explore the respective waters. Building another Ocean vessel would not be a bad idea. Especially if we want to immediately transport a Settler, Worker, or a military unit.

 

[Chamnix]

There doesn't seem to be a clear consensus, and I have to finish the turn before I go to work. For this turn, I'm going to disband only the sword on the boat heading toward Council since I think everyone agrees that we should not land on Councilland, and we need to find a Council harbor so that boat can't explore ocean.

The sword on the boat to FREE will stay alive for now since some people think it is OK to land on FREEland, and that boat may also be an ocean explorer.

The sword toward GONG will also stay alive for now. I'm going to move the boat toward GONG, so if we want to swap the sword eventually, we won't be able to do it next turn, but we will try to find a GONG harbor without losing a turn.

If anyone has any major problems with this, then post fast...

EDIT - we will be able to make the swap next turn if we want, but it will cost us the same turn it would have cost us before.

 

[Marsden]

Personally, I believe landing troops on foreign soil at this point would not only be wrong in our international community, but a mistake on our part.

I agree, dump the the swords over the side (disband). I get too aggressive sometimes, wanting to kill and invade things.

How about a frigate or two? They move 4, so to galleons, a little bit faster than our caravels.

 

[Chamnix]

Caravels move 4 also .

 

[dutchfire]

I agree with scouting the seas. BTW, can't we (IE. not me ) extrapolate from the domination limit and our current territory and the size of the small islands if there is a significant amount of land left?

By the way, is it just me, or does FREE have an undefended coast? Well, I suppose attacking them is not really feasible, but it's an option to consider. edit: nevermind, it's the Council. Still interesting though.

 

[Chamnix]

That's Council not FREE, but yeah, that caught me by surprise. They knew we had 2 boats in the area, and they still didn't turtle up. Too bad that is the one sword I had already disbanded .

And yes, it could be possible for someone (else) to see if there is much land left assuming we know the domination limit, but I didn't think CAII or MapStat provided that number until you had a significant percent of the world defoggified.

 

[Cyc]

My CIV II didn't give any info on the domination limit, but it did say Zweihander is about to riot.

 

[Chamnix]

Yep, as of the beginning of the turn, the citizens were looking rather unruly, but they were calmed down. From the SotE report:

Zweihander needs a scientist.

 

[greekguy]

If the sword on teh boat headed to FREE land hasn't been disbanded yet, I suggest we don't disband him. FREE is the one nation we've had teh least amount of contact with, and landing a sword on their island I think would help us get a better picture of their strategy and civ progress thus far.

 

[Chamnix]

Any decision (or more opinions) on what to do with our boats/swords?

 

[dutchfire]

We might as well disband them.

 

[Chamnix]

Trying to summarize the most recent opinions from both threads for ease of reference:

Cyc – keep GONG sword to transfer to Babe boat to explore ocean
Calis – disband both
Dutchfire – disband both
Marsden – disband both
Donovan_Zoi – leaning toward disband both
greekguy - keep sword headed toward FREE
denyd - disband both

If I've misrepresented what anyone wants, please let me know, and I'll correct it.

I think there is definitely no need to keep swords aboard the boats that are exploring rival coastline - I don't think we should enter anyone's land territory right now.

I do think it is a good idea to explore ocean ASAP (although we can't do it next turn because we won't have Magnetism yet). If we find land, it would be nice to be able to claim it immediately. The problem is there may not be any other land, and even if there is, if the other land is bigger than a 1-tile island, then one sword won't be able to safeguard it anyway .

 

[denyd]

I'll chip in my thoughts on this. If we aren't planning to attack anyone until marines, then we might as well disband the swords. While I'd prefer to have them disband in a city, the time spent to get to one of ours is not worth the cost in gold or the backtracking on future exploration, so I vote disband them now.

I'll also like to suggest a couple of frigate pre-builds so that we can send out a couple of them to go decorate the Babe shoreline with lots of sandtraps. We should probably build them in towns with harbors so that they start out as veterans.

 

[dutchfire]

I'll chip in my thoughts on this. If we aren't planning to attack anyone until marines, then we might as well disband the swords. While I'd prefer to have them disband in a city, the time spent to get to one of ours is not worth the cost in gold or the backtracking on future exploration, so I vote disband them now.

I'll also like to suggest a couple of frigate pre-builds so that we can send out a couple of them to go decorate the Babe shoreline with lots of sandtraps. We should probably build them in towns with harbors so that they start out as veterans.

Won't that make us lose our War Happiness? In that case, it isn't worth it IMO, since hurting Babe won't do us much good.

 

[denyd]

Not if our Frigates don't end their turn in Babe's land. You move 1 tile into Babe waters, fire a shot and then move back out. Also it would allow us to harass Babe transports.

Anybody want to build a couple of privateers to harass the rest of the worlds shipping with?