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TMcC01 - Narcissistic Nehru (C3C, AWM)

Well this turn pretty much matched our worst nightmares. It is pretty grim.

Preturn: I wonder if it might have been a good idea to have saved some money (like 120 gold) and built a few warriors. Something to consider for next time I guess.

I switch a few units to offensive units. We seem to have a shortage.

I can MM indianapolis to +2 food with the same number of shields. I suspect an enemy was killed on a food square (Note to self: remember to adjust towns every turn.

IBT: Aztecs start the GLib. Competition.
We lose our spear guarding Slingers Delhi and may lose the town. Yom's Folly is disconnected from our road network. we kill 3-4 units.

70 AD:
Rush a spear in Slinger's Delhi. Not sure we can hold until next turn as there are 4 strength 2 attackers vs an unfortified spear and an archer. Going to try it though. The rush is very annoying as I need to do it for a single shield!

IBT: First Horse kills the spear! Needless to say Slingers Delhi is now only taking Byzantine customers.
We have lost 3 units and killed 4. Bad RNG.
Looks like Yom might be the new target city by the Aztecs.
Nehuvia: Horse->Sword
French start the statue of Zeus.
Mayans start the Great Library

90 AD: Mayans have a second iron connected (again?)
I kill 2 Jav's. The rest is out of range.

IBT: Horse kills our Elite fortified spear in Indianapolis Our spear kills an Swordsman in Yom. Chinese sword retreats
Indianapolis: Sword->Horse

110 AD: Not much I can do... I Kill a Jav and a Horse without loss. Yom has another spear now and is safer.

IBT:
Nearly lose an elite Spear on a hill behind walls to a Vet Jav! Fortunately we barely win.
Equina: Catapult->Catapult
More statues to Zeus

130 AD:
Kill 2 horses and a spear near Indianapolis and capture a settler for 2 workers.

IBT: Jav loses vs a spear in Yom. Horse can get to our 2 workers and kills the archer. I miscalculated.
Hehruvia: Sword->Horse

150 AD: Kill an archer and a horse.
Change indianapolis to a Temple.

IBT: Kill 3-4 Javs and a horse.

170 AD: Bombard where I can

IBT: 3 Javs and a sword impale themselves on Yom's walls

190 AD: Bombard and attack a Jav with a vet horse which retreats doing no damage.

IBT: Some Chinese horses (first chinese in a few turns) and more Mayan Javs enter our land. Horse attacks Irontown and loses. The French are building the GLib.
Nehruvia: Horse->Sword
Sugar Plantation: Sword->Temple

The next message I get is the one we are least happy to get. Can you guess? Egypt is the culprit and we don't even know where they are!

210 AD:
Greebley Heights: GLib switched to Oracle.

Bombard and attack a spear warrior promotes to Veteran.
Kill two horses and a sword promotes to elite.

IBT: A Jav attacks and loses
Indianapolis: Temple->Worker
Equina: Catapult->Temple
French build the Colossus

230: Kill an archer, a Jav, and on a whim attack a 1 hp Jav with a elite spear... and get a leader! Switch Nehruvia to a settler... we only have 7 towns and I want an army!

IBT: More annoying Mayans are seen. They are the ones we are pillaging and have by far the most units... Go figure...

Notes:
I was finally able to hold off most of the hordes by the end. I think we may eventually be able to go on the offensive

I think we need a second army to hit the Byzantines. For that we need another city. Army pillaging is going to be VERY important if we are to win. We must use it to slow the tech pace to have any chance at all.

I think we should attack the Byzantines or Chinese first and end this multi-front war (eventually).

I forgot to note that Yom's Folly is connected again.

The game looks grim, but not yet dead. Of course, that might be because I don't know any better. In any case, if it comes to a vote, I say fight to the end.

Our (smaller) homelands.
TMcC01_AD250.JPG


The Save
 
T_McC01 - Poking the Corpse with a Stick

250 AD (0)
Hoo boy, this one is going south in a hurry. First, adust science to be in the black. Min-Sci on Monarchy nets us 7 gpt. Already have a site picked out for the settler, then will form a Sword army. I don't think the Oracle will be useful to us, so I swap Greebley Heights to the Heroic Epic, wasting 75 shields. Motivation was primarily because we need another military producer, and I don't see us getting a chance to build many Temples in the near future. Wanted the Temple of Artemis, notice it (like the Great Library) is in Thebes. I smell a leader-rush. Have to check the replay after this turn. Swap Sugar Plantation to a spear, as it has barracks and the next city will need defenders.

260 AD (1)
Greebley completes Heroic Epic. French complete Oracle. Lucky guess. Kill Byz Horse. Loads of Javs approach Equinia. [1-0]

270 AD (2)
Kill two Javs. Find Egypt, declare war on Egypt. [3-0]

280 AD (3)
Retreat Chinese Horse, kill Chinese horse. [4-0]

290 AD (4)
Rebuff Aztecs. Kill Chinese horse. [5-0]

300 AD (5)
Win three, lose 1 at Equinia. Win vs. Archer at Irontown. (All these elite victories before I can found the 8th city. Arrgh!) Found Hail Vishnu South of Sugar. Form 13 HP Sword army. At a total loss where to send the army. Palenque has to burn. Greebley Heights set to settler, to replace burned-out Palenque. Kill Mayan Sword. [10-1]

310 AD (6)
Win vs. two Byz archers. Win vs. Byz horse, promote our Horse. Kill Jav. Start to knock down that infernal forest around Equinia. [14-1]

320 AD (7)
Rebuff Americans. Rebuff French. Win vs. Byz Horse.
Attack on Palenque: Sword Army wins, wins again.

Burn_Palenque.JPG


And the Mayans learn Rule #1: Don't F*CK with Nehru.

Notice that two of the recovered slaves are ours? We'll keep those and kill the other two.

Off another Jav outside of Equinia. [18-1]

330 AD (8)
Gong a Jav outside of Equinia (first forest has come down). Kill with Sword and promote. Greebley Heights: Settler --> Barracks. Kill Chinese Horse outside of Indy. Americans unload a regular warrior outside of Hail. C'mon Abe, that's not even trying. [20-1]

340 AD (9)
Chinese Settler pair enter our territory. A cat shot and an elite horse later, 4 shields of sacrifice are put to good use in Greebley. [21-1]

350 AD (10)
Mayans make an amphibious landing near Sugar. Lose a horse to kill a jav and a spear. Also get a sword promotion. [23-2]


Final Notes: We ain't dead yet, but we really need a 2nd Sword army to go on the offensive against the Byz. I have been using the spear army to cover workers around Equinia. Currently, the army is covering two workers, a settler, a catapult, and an elite sword. Once the new city has been founded (I figure on the river grassland tile that is 3 squares from both Yom's and Equinia), the army can go back to pillaging the Mayans. The sword army is currently covering two workers chopping forest outside of Yom. I don't have a strong idea for where that army goes next, but it certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to go re-claim Slinger's Deli. By my interpretation of the variant (and it is my game), that is our city, so we may capture it without razing.

Slinger is in for a hell of a first turn. The Byz have lined up in an ambiguous position between Iron, Greebley and Indy. The Mayans have sent three troops in towards Nehruvia.

I played my turns under v.1.13




Rigor, or Spasms of Life?
 
350AD inherited turn – MM’ing, Indy horse in 1, Irontown temple in 2, Equina gets better growth. Sword army spots a French settler pair moving in towards Palaneque area, He heads over to capture. And then to Chartres for city capture! Looks like we are naturally moving our core towards crappy, yet defensible, peninsula. Let’s take it! Send cat to GH from Iron town to bomb horse. Score! Fire up sword in Indy to take out archer. He wins going to 1hp. I cover with 4hp spear. This will leave Indy less defended and undoubtably get the masses coming for it instead of the northern cities. We have money but again, what are we going to spend it on? I set Monarchy due in 9 at –26. The sooner the better to get to that. Also on a side note, my studies have shown that if you have the option of moving a slider down to, say, get a tech in two and save a little money, it is best to leave it as high as possible and reap the money at tech due in one. You get more money.

Hit enter – IT – An archer comes from the Dehli to attack spear covering sword. We win going to 1 hp. The masses scurry down to fresh meat. Forces converge on Equina.

360AD – turn 1 -In Equina – I hit a jav with the cat under army and score and then use 4/5 sword on 2/3 jav and..a leader!What do I do with this? No Army availability until we get 4 more cities. I can build a library due in 10, I think a barracks somewere that may take 30 turns would be best or maybe a settler to send over to close the gap on the peninsula? I’ll think about more next turn.
I whip the barracks in Greebley Heights to get production rolling. Can’t figure why the citizenry still has happy faces on F1. Do they know what Nehru thinks he can do here? They do have the utmost trust him. Sword Army takes out Joans settler and sends them back to help chop under army at Equina. I’m getting rid of that forest to free up a grassland. The 4/5 sword knocks the fortified warrior at Vishnu. Is he gone? 6-0. I move a 5/5 spear from GH to fortify on deer food tile and take ALL available cats to bomb from there. They went 4/4. J

IT – We win 1 battle in Equina. 7-0 2 chinese horses show at Indy S tile. 1 archer moves in from bombarded boys. There were 6! Eqyptian swords moving according to the view the minnows gave me. W Minnow has a tail on him. The swords are around 20 turns from impact.
Indy – Horse>Spear
GH – B-rax>Spear
EQ – Horse>Horse in 10 but forest clearing for grassland.
Yoms Folly – Reg sword > B-rax to be rushed with leader.
Irontown – Temple> Cat

370AD – turn 2 – In Equina, Cats moving to Indy for bombard fun and get out from under lone spear. They go ¾ and we have 3 2/3 foes there. V Horse takes out archer losing 1hp. Yom’s Folly gets a Granary with the leader. This town may someday be our new capital! Perhaps weed using it for that, but I’m feeling lucky an this town FINALLY has nice land. E horse takes out a horse in Indy, bounces back to town. Sword army knocks a couple of warriors to clear out the area SW of Equina for our settler. Other are moving in for it too. They should meet the welcoming committee. There is a 7 unit SOD NE of Indy, though 2 are injured and probably heading home. Either way, I scrambled a spear from Sugar P for extra cover. Dang, while typing, I realized it is probably MP. Whew, it’s OK at 2-1-2 pop happiness. Back to Equina. Really want to move settler so I bomb from army cat and use sword to kill jav. That leaves him open so move spear from mountain to cover and shuffle spear from Equina to mountain. Cats in EQ knock 2 3/3 javs 3/3 so they won’t attack, though I’m hoping. If 2/3 jav still attacks I’m going to stop bombarding to redline so they don’t run back to heal. Spear army takes out 1/3 sword behind the lines and moves 1 SW from prior position. Settler can now move with him. 12-0. Run through MM’ing. Get horse this turn, add some growth.

IT – Sheet, the 2/3 sword knocked my E spear! 3 more Egyptian swords seen on the move. Have to take a chance after I settle city and go after the Iron with the army. 12-1
Nehru- Horse>Sword

380AD – turn 3 – Sword army kills an American War/Arch pair. In Indy we go 4/4 on cats and take out one horse with them retreating once. 15-1

IT – No attacks, but they take the mountain NE of deer food tile near Indy. Ow, total weed. I checked F1 for happiness, but neglected to move sci-sli back. 1 cat disbanded due to lack of funds. Sorry guys L. Monarchy in 35. A Chinese horse jumps on cow tile and SOD is 6 strong on mountain.

390AD – turn 4 – In Indy, I had previously moved the 5/5 archer down from Irontown and he gets one hit on Chinese horse but he ran off. Spear covering sword now shifts to cover archer and sword goes back to Indy. The SOD gets bombed from under fortified spear on deer tile and goes 3/3. The settler plops 3 from Equine and Yom and since the Dehli didn’t work out I decided to open a 7-Eleven. 0g – 11gpt. Sword army and horse backup arrive at Chartres. I check calc to see that 4/4 sword vs ¾ horse on mountain is 82% and go, but he retreats off stack. Sword to cat pile on deer. Horse from Nehru knocks a 1/3 jav I had bombed in Equine and gets the bounce back to town. 16-1. Monarchy in 14 with a scientist in Indy to cap growth for now since cash is low.

IT – No attacks again. I think they now sense the might of Nehru. Turns out those Egyptian swords were attacking Aztecs. Watched a sword bite it while dining on the bow of the Minnow. Indy – Spear>Library. Possible change since its due in 12.

400AD – turn 5 – In Indy, GH area, cats move from deer to GH due to enemy shuffle toward Iron town. Cats go ¾ and ¾ sword (82%) knocks 3/4 archer and E horse knocks ¾ archer but left open to 2/4 horse. He’s only a 36% favorite to win so he’ll run off. SOD eliminated. Over in Chartres, I send the 4/4 horse to soften 4/4spear and he dies taking 2 hp off. Army goes in against 3/3 spear and wins and then another 3/3 pops up, dang. We win again. 2/4 spear left with archer coming in to run into town. In Equine, cats go ¾ and E horse wins and then as I like to do, E spear kills 1/3 jav (84% chance), losing 1 hp. Changed Sugar P to settler. 4/4 horse in GH kills 2/3 horse in forest(92%) losing 1 hp. 23-2
IT- Just got a bad scare. A horse from the Biz city E of Iron town came out and attacked Irontown with one 5/5 spear guarding. The range is there so I think I can’t rely on line of sight. We won going down to 1hp, other movement and then another came out!!!! Our brave spear retreated him. Whew! LESSON LEARNED in Iron town. Must leave troops there! No other attacks. 24-2

410AD – turn 6 – Sent cat and 4/4 spear to Irontown. In Chartres, new horse attacks to soften and dies taking off 3 hp. They had another 3/3 spear in there. Sword army takes out 3/3 and 2/4 and there is an archer left. Army is 5/13 though. One more try next round. Doesn’t look like there is any one else in the vicinity. I decide to stay overnight on the minnow and I dock with the W bound minnow. We throw a circumnavigation party and watch another war on Egypt – Aztec border making fun with the advisors on the AI war tactics. Swapped Indy to sword so that I could move archer and sword down S to Yom back yard for cleanup duty.26-3

IT – Biz drop off 1 horse in Vishnu. Probably will have to take spear off the hill. No attacks again. Nehru bellows from the deck of the minnow his war cry.

420AD – turn 7 – Chartres is ours with 2 slaves. Army is 3-13 with a sword coming. No attacks due next turn so healing will come. I’m also sending the workers out to mine BG as bait. Near Yoms Folly, kill a R jav that popped from our new backyard with a sword. An E horse killed 1 of the 2 warriors across a river in the forest. Still one warrior left. Shifted a cat down from 7-11 on our new road network. I have chopped a couple forests and roaded to 7-11 already. Should get another city down in 2 turns.29-3

IT – Busy IT. Our spear on the cow withstood 2 attacks, killing one but fell to the 3rd. Another horse popped from Biz dehli and attacked Indy. Dead to our E spear. The horse that got dropped off attacked our sword coming down from Yom and won, he’s redlined now due a visit from our E horse. Got the forbidden palace message. I think Yom gets it. 32-5

430AD – turn 8 – Cats bomb horse that moved to our interior S of GH a bit. E horse kills him from GH. Cats bomb a jav in Equine and 5/5 spear gets him. Hoping for GL for Yom FP. Not much else but MM. I will see some attacks on GH and Irontown. Defense ready unless bad RNG. 34-5

IT – No attacks. Biz sends 2 horse and an archer SW of GH. I think the abundance of defense keeps them from attacking (bad odds) so they keep moving. I think we need to balance what is coming with what we have waiting or they will proceed through and pillage. I may lose SW GH tile. I wanted an attack.
Yoms – Spear> Sword
Vishnu – Walls> B-rax

440AD – turn 9 - E sword attacks a warrior across river to secure city site. E horse kills off redlined Biz horse. Where’s my leader? Army is 9-13 now with 3 archers knocking. There is a horse just moved in for us to help out. GH tile is cleared killing 2 of 3. No leader. Army kills 2 of 4 archers parked outside Chartres. Chartres renamed to Joans Folly for trying to secre horses from across the map. Monarchy in 6 with 22 in bank at –2gpt. By the way the spear army has been pillaging Maya. 40-5

IT – Nothing but finishing a wall in 7-11 and a sword in Indy

450AD – turn 10 – Found T-ville, set to Walls. A spear and sword are 1 tile E ready to help with defense and a sword is already in there. My E spear luck holds but at the cost of 4hp. No leader. Use a 4/4 sword to attack a 4/4 archer on mountain near GH (82%). Win. 42-5

I’m playing one more turn because there are too many loose ends with units hanging outside cities exposed workers, etc.
IT – Nothing again.

460AD – turn will play 9 next time. Tidied up the workers and loose units. Attacked Calukmul S of Yom with sword and beat 3/3 spear. There is a spear left on top, probably the last one and we can take that city next turn. ¾ sword is 78% so I would take a shot and let the spear with him finish it if need be, though there is backup coming. Hit an archer on that darn SE tile of GH and got a leader that is sitting in capital for, IMHO, the FP I switched to in Yom.
44-5. 2 cities founded. 1 city capture with another hopefully next turn. 2 leaders.

The SAVE

Nehru_460.jpg
 
Well, pretty good turns there Slinger, but a few things disturbed me.

Originally posted by barbslinger

360AD – Sword Army takes out Joans settler and sends them back to help chop under army at Equina. ...

Remember the variant rules. No slaves.

Originally posted by barbslinger
Yoms Folly – Reg sword > B-rax to be rushed with leader.
:confused:

In the 350 AD save I passed you, Yom's Folly already has a barracks. Did we go broke and lose it? What did you use the leader for?

Ahh, Yom's has a rushed Granary.

Originally posted by barbslinger
420AD – turn 7 – Chartres is ours with 2 slaves.
Remember the variant rules. We don't capture enemy cities.


Not too sure about an FP at this stage. I think we have to keep our capital in Nehruvia (or nearby) and try to put our FP in the Byzantine territory. Hard to say, since the rules change with every patch/week. I think we would be much better served with another army, as we still need much more land. Two sword armies should be able to cut through the Byz fairly quickly. We can get a jump on the city requirement by re-capturing Slinger's Deli (we may only keep cities that were originally ours).

We also don't have any cities that would be considered 3rd ring to Nehruvia.

We also have to decide whether we are playing this variant or not. If we are, 4 French slaves have to meet their demise and 1 city has to be abandoned. We have started down a slippery slope here, as we have already derived benefit from having these verboten items.


Final note: Be wary of Monarchy. Since we only have 1 city that is larger than size 6, we are going to be paying mucho unit support costs until we can get a core of cities that are not on the front lines. Oddly, the Byzantines are listed as having captured two Chinese citizens. Maybe they are at war too?
 
I noticed the same thing abuot the salaves & captured cities.

I'm in favor of sticking to the variant rules (no trading, no slaves raze all cities), but if you guys decide to modify the variant I'm fine with it. We have already broken all three of the major no's with respect to trades, slaves & cities so far. I'll assign my vote by proxy to our fearless team leader. T_McC what do you prefer to do?
 
Should have read the varient rules over before playing. Off with their heads, they are slow laggards anyway. Need settlers then.
 
The oracle would have been of use I think given our lack of Lux, but I going for the Heroic Epic a good choice too. I spent some time waffling between the two.

The only good part of my turn was that our military was finally up to the task of holding off the hordes. I am glad to see we were able to go past that and actually go on the offensive.

Barbslinger, did you capture a city? We are supposed to raze all cities. I had forgotten this myself when I captured the settler. Yom, you want to check and disband all foreign units and abandon all cities with foreigners? Make sure we are being honest?

[Edit: Cross post - I forgot to hit send so it is 2 hours out of date]

[Edit: Lets stick with the rules. We all have been reminded so we should remember from now on. I also think we should stick with 1.13 for the rest of the game to avoid the "ever changing rules" problem. 1.13 sounds like the first patch that has all the major bugs worked out. The further changes sound like mostly enhancements that we won't really need.

I just realized I played my turns unpatched. A mistake on my part. I don't think it hurt anything though. ]

[Another Edit: On Chinese worker for Byzantium: No those are from the settler we captured. We captured a Chinese settler, which next turn was attacked by the Byzantines and lost. So they managed to get those two workers from that. ]

YAE (yet another edit): BTW, if we take back our town and it is filled with foreigners, I assume we have to raze it right? Maybe if it is still mixed we can bring it to size 1. If it is our citizen we keep, otherwise raze? Does that sound reasonable?
 
I guess when we go to capture a town near frontlines we should tkae a settler with us. I think the only reason I was getting limited attacks was that the AI is probably at war with each other now. That won't last long. On FP in Yom. It makes for a nice ring on our future peninsula. As soon as we can secure it we can leave workers with out guard behind the lines to clear the land. Yoms could be a great city with its land. Then the palace can jump to Biz land. I think we need 2 more cities to support another army after Joans folly abandon. We can get a settler at both Folly and prep one for Calakmul capture.
The army needs to pillage both Maya and Eqypt iron and then stay up there disrupting production. 2 more settlers and we can form another army with leader though I'm not really a fan of holding leaders when we get chances every turn. This might be one exception. 2 settlers out of Nehru and Indy and we can form up and use its offensive firepower against Biz,China. This lull won't last long. Let's get that bottom half of the peninsula though, especially the Calakmul site. It should fall next turn with sword vs spear.
EDIT: I considered disbanding the curraughs too but felt I would take our naval stack CCW to sink the galley that was tailing me.
On monarchy, the unit costs may be offset by the less corruption. We can then put the cities over 6, for the additional 2 support units. Yom, T'ville and soon to be captured Cakamul should be able to get over 6 soon. I would perhaps wait until we save a little cash, get towns closer to 6 and then switch. 10 turns maybe.
 
This has been a really good game to follow :). I just wanted to ask a question about barbslinger's combat calculator (being something of a math nut) ;).
I check calc to see that 4/4 sword vs 3/4 horse on mountain is 82%...
....Use a 4/4 sword to attack a 4/4 archer on mountain near GH (82%)
It seems like the calculator should output different odds for different hitpoint levels for the same defense defender. Does the calc take into account hp differences, or does the retreat factor have an effect of the odds of defeating a horse?
There is a spear left on top, probably the last one and we can take that city next turn. 3/4 sword is 78%
In this case, the odds seem a bit high against a regular spear fortified on grassland (defense 2.7 vs attack 3). A different combat calculator give 54.9% odds of victory in the same circumstances. Is this the combined odds of the spear and swordsman attacking Calukmul?
 
Some of those odds were a little off because some of the time after the battle I would look at calc and see I had wrong settings. It would be on mountain but it was jungle, etc. I don't think I ever attacked a fortified unit though except for the 3hp warrior that was down by Hail Vishnu.
To reiterate my prior post that I edited. On Monarchy I would wait a little while too. Unit cost would kill our research. Workers for new peninsula to get some +6 cities would be the ticket now.
I don't think we can rush Oracle per Greebley or HG with the leader. Only builds and military items. My 1st choice is FP due to that area on peninsula will be our major producers in next 30 turns. If the gang decides not I would get the settlers out and then make an army if you don't feel comfortable we will get another leader. Another sword army can begin another offensive front and one can remain behind to pick up slack in any city being attacked by an SOD.
 
Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about rushing the Oracle. I was commenting on TMcC's choice to switch the oracle build to the Heroic Epic.

For the leader, I feel we should maximize the number of armies in the field. I like the idea of reaching 12 towns by hook or by crook, and sending out another one to pillage or take towns.

I think my biggest worry in this game is that we will fall behind in tech due to our inability to trade and then having us lose due to superior units. We saw the effect of pillaging in the previous game; I think we need to do this here as well. Our one advantage with Pangea is that we can reach all civs to pillage. Question is: Can we pillage enough to keep up in tech? I just don't know.
 
Originally posted by Greebley

I think my biggest worry in this game is that we will fall behind in tech due to our inability to trade and then having us lose due to superior units. We saw the effect of pillaging in the previous game; I think we need to do this here as well. Our one advantage with Pangea is that we can reach all civs to pillage. Question is: Can we pillage enough to keep up in tech? I just don't know.

That really is the crux of this game. If we get too far behind and have to fend off Knights from all these other civs with spears, we'll be in trouble.
 
I'm going to play my turns using 1.13b (either tonight or tomorrow). Am I correct in saying that we are going to disband chatres and the 4 workers or are we going to retake slinger's first to allow a 3rd army(btw, what happens if you have more armies than you can support, are they disbanded?)? If we do disband chatres, we should probably retake slinger's immediately anyway, as those wines will be necessary to support size 7+ cities in a Monarchy. As for new cities, I'm thinking we should raze Yaxchilan and rebuild on its original location, it could be a worker farm in Monarchy depending on corruption(we desperately need more workers and improved tiles). Also, maybe we should hold off on monarchy until we can get our cities a little larger and whip a few walls to get everything out of despotism that we can.
 
Cakamul is there to be razed also. A sword vs 3/3 spear should be a push over. On the tech problem, it is definitely a problem. One solution would be to be able to extort tech for peace and then immediately redecalre. However this goes against the games rules of thier technology is rubbish. More cities is the only thing I can think of to speed up our tech. More settlers and raze/replace. Chartres and then Cakamul. We can kill off any settlers that dare try to poach what we have conquered. Getting the army using Cakamul and Chartres first would be nice though. Yom could take Cakamul 1st turn, make army and then abandon Chartres and Cakamul. The sword army can watch over our west holdings while new army could take care of eastside and retake the Dehli. He can then go and pillage Biz + horses and come back and knock out China, resettling that peninsula and taking care of the future Rider threat.
As for new cities I read Yom saying to go for the oasis city city. I think before we move north and settle cities that will require a lot of defense we should secure our own backyard! Am I the only one seeing this. It will require less defense, they are relatively less defended being away from thier cores and we can easily settle 4-5 cities there for additional unit support. Raze and replace a new city pattern there. The jungle spot SW of the deer looks good.
 
To reply to a few topics:

I am not in favor of the FP in Yom's for a couple of reasons. (1) I feel an army will be of more immediate use than lowering corruption in 2-3 cities. I think our expansion will be to the east, and we will be playing defense in the west, so we would benefit more from an FP in the east. (2) With the v1.13 definition of the FP, distance corruption is calculated from the nearer of the FP or Palace, but rank corruption is calculated from the Palace alone. Functionally, the Palace ring will have lower corruption than the FP ring. If we are going to be playing defense in the west, I want our Palace in the west in order to have lower corruption in those towns that have to build their own defense. If the east is under lower pressure, it can provide the population/workers/settlers for the empire, and food isn't affected by corruption. If the game gets far enough along, I envision us jumping our Palace a little farther west, but I think it would really disadvantageous to move our Palace away from the front. (i.e, eastward)

In a perfect world, I think our FP should be built in the replacement for Nicea.

If the western civs are fighting, maybe we can get away with starting an eastward push. Re-capturing Slinger's Deli and re-founding something around Joan's Folly would get us to 12 cities with only having to build one settler. The second (first?) target in the east could be Chalcedon, with a goal to re-found 1 tile SE (river/hill). That location would work well with Deli and our other cities.

A slightly longer-term plan should be to relieve pressure on Indy by razing/replacing a city south on a hill by the lake. Indy is our one town that could benefit from Monarchy, and could easily produce settlers if its improvements can be kept intact.

Re: Switch to the Oracle. In the end it was irrelevant, as France completed the Oracle on my 1st IT. All switching pre-turn did was save us 1 turn of shields.

I'm not sure Cakamul will be a push-over, but it can't hurt to try.

Razing and replacing Yaxchilan would create a new target for the Mayans, possibly sparing Equinia and 7-Eleven from being attacked. Whether we go east, west, north or south, we are going to have a large number of cities on the front lines. I think it would be better to try to "free up" our capital and 1st ring rather than having the loosely attacked cities be farthest from the capital. Agreed that the south peninsula cities will be more lightly defended, but they also won't be able to produce much offensive might either. Cities in those locations would be fairly useful to us, but are useless for the AI's, except as money sinks. This argues (at least to me) that those are targets of convenience, to be razed at our leisure. If we push the front one ring west we can improve the lands around our capital without much fear of pillaging or worker capture. Pro to this approach: Exisiting cities can grow to 7+ faster than cities we found on the peninsula, and also can more quickly build stuff. Con: We are settling into the teeth of the AI, and the core cities would still have to produce military for the new target city. Going south, the pro is that these cities won't require much defense. The con is that our 1st ring still has to devote much of it's energies to defending itself, and we will have a difficult time maintaining improvements.

One final pro to razing Yak... . Losing a 1st-ring, size 7 city will injure the Mayans a lot more than losing some size 2 city in the middle of nowhere. An initial sweep CW from Joan's Folly, followed by a later campaign against the peninsula sounds like a solid strategy to me. Usually I preach "low-hanging fruit", but the road west isn't going to get any easier, and I don't believe the AI can seriously improve the cities on the peninsula.
 
I agree with all of your points T_McC. I want to get a move on the upper cities too. With another sword army we can do just that. Another army requires city and unit support. I already killed on spear and Cakamul and there is no way they will have another there this turn. Any city down there increases our unit support which is killing us already. Once we have 3 armies this game will improve for us. We need 12 cities. Replacing Cakamul and Joans Folly gets us there now, much easier than trying to take out the Dehli. there are limited offensive troops there. If we can get an army with seizing Cakamul and abandoning per rules, would that not be optimum? that army can then go to re-open the dehli.
 
Originally posted by Yom
Am I correct in saying that we are going to disband chatres and the 4 workers or are we going to retake slinger's first to allow a 3rd army(btw, what happens if you have more armies than you can support, are they disbanded?)?

I don't know what happens to "extra" armies, I've never had that occur before. I can't imagine that the army would be disbanded, as I assume the only check occurs when a leader is generated, to be able to properly display your options for him.

You are correct to state that Chartres/Joan's Folly has to be disbanded and the 4 French workers sacrificed. (Might as well cash them in for 8 shields somewhere.)
 
I don't think i'll be able to play any time soon, as i'm having trouble with conquests (it still won't play on my PC, despite a reinstallation, cleaning of the disk, and restarting of my computer and i don't have my laptop with me). So go ahead and skip me.
 
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