The 'Teers 02: The Man in the Iron Mask

[pholkhero]

while we wait fro skunk, I found out what happened to frankcor ~

Moonighting Frankcor

 

[SkunkDoctor]

damn guys sorry I'm late (I think) and have been such a pain in the ass. It's been crazy this week moving in, plus my fiance's parents have been here the past few days. I will play turns later today and have the report up by this evening.

 

[SpriteSODA]

ok no problem=]

 

[Lobsterboy]

Hey guys! Since we are playing Napolean, and we can't take advantage of our aggressive trait until we get to Muskateers, I thought y'all might be interested in this discussion regarding the Muskateer Rush.

 

[pholkhero]

Re cavalry and musketeers:

Musketeers make a good escort for cavalry. They are cheap, and so can bulk up the force, and move as fast as the cavalry. They also are good for protection against pikemen. They heal much faster too, so are good for taking out weak troops that would go down, but hurt your cavalry in the process. What you can do is build a force of musketeers, go on a pillaging spree, and as soon as you get cavalry bring them in for a knockout punch. You can't go on a pillaging spree with grenadiers which is why I like the musketeer/cavalry combo. Even if you can't take a city with musketeers you can do alot of damage because they're fast and so keep the enemy down so they can't get to riflemen.

You can of course just do the macemen thing but then you may as well be playing japan. The knockout unit for france is still grenadiers/cavalry, the musketeers just provide a dangerous pillaging unit that is a threat to smaller cities. Which is why I said this strategy is about a pillaging rush. The only medieval unit that can touch them are knights, so grab msuketeers o nthe way to cavalry, and isntead of wiating for cavalry or grandiers to attack, charge at their resources and smaller cities with the unique unit.

Re longbows:

Musketeers will beat fortified longbows unless those longbows are in a city on a hill. The key here is promotions. With agressive, barracks, and vassalage and theocracy, you will have level 3 straight away and only 1 combat away from level 4. A musketeer with combat 1, 2 and cover, will get a +45% bonus against a longbowman, or strength 13 in other words. This is more than twice the longbow's base strength so you can see how the longbow will need to use a hill or some fancy promotions to beat the musketeer. Even if you go all general and take combat 3, you still have a strength of 12.

So, the moral of the story is, give your musketeers combat 1, 2, and then save the third promtion for just before you fight. You might need to promote them to cover, shock or whatever based on what you come across.

I like the way this man thinks. This is exactly what i had in mind w/our musketeers, yet have been flailing to explain correctly.

Another salient point:

The game tells me that the shorter route to Gunpowder is by Writing to Theology to Education, which overlaps a lot with the Alphabet route. I tried clicking the other route (Metal Casting to Guilds) and indeed it seemed more techs to research and a lot more turns.

So, what do we do now re: our tech path?? stick w/the longer path, or go with the Writing>Theo>Educ route? If we do this, what should we do about the oracle?? maybe still take MC with the oracle for the forges and just see which tech path is faster: Writing>Mono>Theo>Paper>Educ (use Liberal sling for nat'l, the nat'l draft of musketeers [which is pretty antithetical but whatever ~ we'll muddy up the corps with common blood], and head out for Cavs) OR Writing>MC>Machinery>Monarchy>Feudal>Guilds.

Path one: (120+120+500+600+1800)=3140
Path two: (120+700+300+700+1000)=2820

So, with P1, we can go with the above described path afterwards for an extra 300 beakers OR, with P2, we can stick with the plan we've got, and we'll have knights straight away for help with our conquests ~ thoughts??

edit: this also assumes we are now going to skip Alpha

 

[pholkhero]

@ Skunk, do you have it? the save has no views, so I'm assuming no.
if you can, check in and let us know the status or ask for a skip.

or, if you can't play by tonight, i'll grab it.

 

[frankcor]

while we wait fro skunk, I found out what happened to frankcor ~

Moonighting Frankcor

LOL! That guy's a piker. I've had farts last longer than 7 minutes -- try holding your breath through that.

Re: research path

The part of that article that rang loudest for me is that a more balanced research path is usually the fastest way to a tech. I don't see anything in our variants to preclude us going for Alphabet rather than beelining to Gunpowder. Once we get Alphabet (and never never trade it unless asked) we can start to focus on the beeline, filling in useful and prerequisite technologies by trading as we go along.

 

[pholkhero]

LOL! That guy's a piker. I've had farts last longer than 7 minutes -- try holding your breath through that.

Re: research path

The part of that article that rang loudest for me is that a more balanced research path is usually the fastest way to a tech. I don't see anything in our variants to preclude us going for Alphabet rather than beelining to Gunpowder. Once we get Alphabet (and never never trade it unless asked) we can start to focus on the beeline, filling in useful and prerequisite technologies by trading as we go along.

The way through educ may be quicker, but from where we are now, it is the longer tech path by 300 beakers (but, as I say, this pays off by setting us up for a Liberal/Nat'l Slingshot and we could draft Musketeers and head right for Mil Trad.)

As of now, i have no opinion on the Alphabet, getting it or waiting . . . i also would like to have two or three more cities before the smashy-smashy comes in ~ i think we have only 2 right now??

 

[Lobsterboy]

According to the variant, we need to automatically declare war on 3 civs as soon as we build a Muskateer no? (Perhaps we should modify that to 3 Muskateers?) If we go the Education route, the only halfway decent unit we will have will be Longbows. Going the MC/Guilds route will give us Crossbowmen and Knights (and Longbowman) that we can build along the way. This will put us in a more forward position for attack as well as give us a more diverse defense for what I expect will be an onslaught of enemy SODs after the triple declaration.

 

[pholkhero]

that is correct about the musketeer variant, but I actually like the 3 musketeers idea, so let's roll with that. Good one, lobster. New rule: we must declare on any 3 civs upon completeion of our first three (3) musketeers.

You make a good point about the xbows and knights. Also, we can choose who we declare on (provided we know all the other civs by then) so we could choose the 3 weakest or those that have been involved in many wars. Pre-an AW SG, i would've been scared, but now, if we're careful about what sort of cities we found (i.e., found in hills) we should be able to withstand any assualt that lacks cats. However, IF we discover Christianity BEFORE we're at war (by way of Theo to Paper), we can delay declaring for 30 turns

 

[Lobsterboy]

However, IF we discover Christianity BEFORE we're at war (by way of Theo to Paper), we can delay declaring for 30 turns

I doubt that's going to happen, especially since Isabelle is only 2 techs away (Writing/Theology). I wish now that I had chosen to go through Polytheism instead of Meditation to get to Priesthood. That way, we might have been able to take Theology with the Oracle. This also would have put us closer to Gunpowder via the Paper>Education route. Oh well. I should have paid more attention to the Tech Tree before we started. Live and learn.

 

[pholkhero]

Okay, skipping Skunk. I've got it. Will finish Pottery, get Oracle, grab MC, research writing. Also, will try to start a settler for City 3.

 

[pholkhero]

05/12/06
T00/940bc:
MM Paris to get Settler down from 10>8; a warrior was on a go-to path (please either let us know that you’ve done this or don’t do it); move our chariot eastward; I plan on having him explore the vast open area to our east.

T01/925bc:

T02/910bc:
I spy a dbl-axe, settler group heading ???

T03/895bc:

T04/880bc:
Neapolis is founded, where we wanted to go next.

Let’s hope we can keep control of the horses at least.

T05/865bc:
Pottery in, head for Writing. Also,


Third,

Finally, a Settler in 4 @ Paris, except….revolution!

T06/850bc:
We are now in slavery. I whip the settler at Paris for 2 pop. Also, I decide to go Granary first @ Orleans, before Barracks.

...will be continued...

Here's an overview map for discussion about where the next city should go.

I'll check back later.

 

[Lobsterboy]

Julius is such a dirtbag!

For city # 3, I'm thinking either 1 tile W of the Corn above Neapolis, or 1 tile E of the Corn to the SW of Neapolis.

The northern Corn tile isn't the greatest city cite (4 mountains in the fat cross), but If we settle there, we may be able to put enough cultural pressure on Neapolis to flip it, especially now that Paris has the Oracle (+8 culture/turn baby!) Settling there will also force China to string it's empire out in the North, if Qin (or is it Mao?) decides to expand our way.

The Corn tile to the S also includes the Gold in the fat cross, but we'll probably lose that to Julius as some point.

Because Paris has the Oracle, I'd be surprised if we lost control of the Horses.

 

[pholkhero]

Here's what i was thinking.



edit: i think we'd have to go to yellow first, but then quickly whip another couple of settlers for the other 2 cities. I'd like to get these 5 done, if not by 0 ad, well before Guns so that each city can have a forge and a barracks.

 

[Lobsterboy]

Yellow looks good pholk, followed by Red, although I think I would move Red over one tile W. This will lose the pigs, but I think that it would be difficult to hold on to them anyway with Isabelle nearby. This would put the city on a fresh water tile which would make up a little for losing the pigs.

I would build some Axes before another settler though. If we don't gest some defenders up, Julius is likely to come for us.

 

[pholkhero]

okay, will be finishing up tonight.

 

[SpriteSODA]

Settle green.
Now here's a new problem - if we go through MC\Guilds path, we wont have any new buildings to build in our cities, and if we flood the military, we will get bankrobbed.

 

[pi-r8]

I'll be very interested to see how you guys handle this. My own experience with musketeers has been that you have to make sure you get there FAST, ideally when some other civs are still relying on archers for defense. With all the restrictions you're playing under, that's going to be very difficult.

 

[SpriteSODA]

I'll be very interested to see how you guys handle this. My own experience with musketeers has been that you have to make sure you get there FAST, ideally when some other civs are still relying on archers for defense. With all the restrictions you're playing under, that's going to be very difficult.

yeah... well the Musketeers will not function as our main troops, its just for the variant and style=P