Turn 101 - 150

[2metraninja]

Did a "really compelling argument" arrive in another thread (I've mostly just been following this one)?

No, the compelling argument came in the form of few small notepad sheets I filled with my ugly handwriting I saw we can make good dates for NAT and Taj respectively and decided that we having 800 gold and couple hundreds hammers more, while depriving RB from the same 800 gold and hammers can be worth the 8-10 turns delay of our invasion in Zululand. We cant really get 80 gpt from the Spanish cities. Nationalism can save us another good chunk of hammers. Going MC-Machinery the slower way with maximum growth was meant to have population to be whipped in maces, but some of those pop which we would have grown we can have trough drafts, which are better in hammers conversion ratio.

I notice machinery doesn't appear in the new plan.

We can have it in just few turns after we finish Nat and start on Taj.

New plan looks interesting. Alphabet in 2 sounds good (visibility on others' tech progress).

I was wondering on that too. Maybe it was better to tech MC first? I wonder if it is good thing to tech Alpha and give RB visibility of our own techs and also idea that we want to bulb Philo. They having such info can be bad for us (they plan and beat us to Taj) or this can be very good by making them run for Taj and this giving time to Apolyton to grab Liberalism and hopefully RB lose both Lib and Taj).

But I have to admit some concerns about us putting off the Spanish invasion further and further -- it looks like we're now not planning to invade Spain until (guessing from the quote above) around turn 145?

Otherwise we would have been able to attack at about t138. Yes, it postpones with some 7-10 turns conquering Zululand. But... We might gain good from this.

1. We shortened the NAP with RB to turn 170. That effectively means they are contingency planning a war with us at turn 170 when our army will be recovering on a mound of dead Spaniards far in the other direction. I think we may be getting in serious danger of putting off the war until a time when we will not be able to wage it for fear of RB dogpiling our other border before we're done and recovered.

BTW, it is t175, not t170.

2.2. The pact lasts until the beginning of turn 175.

And no, I dont think they will try to war with us at t175. They will be just ran out of land to settle and most probably absorbed one of their weaker neighbors - Germans or WPC. I think one of them told us they have NAP till t160 or t165, while the other have longer, so this looks like the case to me. RB wanted to extend our NAP to t200 and this speaks a lot to me. They have plans what to do till t200 which dont involve us.

Even if RB want to war with us, we will be already consumed Zululand some good 15-20 turns before this (from t145 to t155) and most probably we will be at the peak of our military might with army number 1 in the world. Good luck to RB trying to invade us.

2. Spain's other neighbours are also out-teching them, and know darn well that most of Spain's army is at our end of the country. They might not wait so long to gobble up some Spanish low hanging fruit.

Actually, someone (civFR) attacking Spaniards will do us great favor. Currently we are military power number 1 and if civFR take the bullet of the Spanish catapults invading them first with same age army, nothing will stay on our path to conquering Spanish cities even earlier and with way less investment. Not to mention civFR are building marble wonders like crazy and are not near our army or research capabilities.

3. It feels a bit rude that the rest of the game are having to put up with a split timer for a war that isn't happening.

I am not 100% sure, but today is the first occasion where the turn takes longer than the normal 44 hours because we play after the normal timer is run out. It is Germans who play almost always last and holds the turn.

Making strategic decisions, hurrying our game and putting on risk our in-game success because of to just make the game end faster is not something we must really discuss or implement

All in all, I am not absolutely 100% sure it was/is the right decision. The more you know, the more you feel uncertain

We will see what RB are doing and what our chances are and we will react.

 

[2metraninja]

Cheers. (And I don't mean to sound too critical -- just an unfortunate aspect of my writing style -- really a big fan of the great job you've been doing)

Not at all you sound overcritical. I actually always enjoy having discussion. And your thoughts are absolutely reasonable. I am not 100% sure I am doing the best or the most right thing, but ... is there anyone who can be sure? I dont think so.

Also, this is part of being leader To do what you believe is right and then be ready to be proven wrong or at least take the heavy critic which may follow. So, bring it on!

 

[tobiasn]

Great set of posts. Both whb's comments and 2metra's answers. I've been out of here for so long, and this really ties up my understanding of the near-time strategy. And it looks really good too. Thanks!

 

[2metraninja]

Glad you are back, Tobias. And actually, I think even more interesting times are coming

 

[2metraninja]

APT mod site had sent me e-mail that we can already play our turn, which is good, but along with it had told me that an impi had killed our DynamicSpirit chariot. I had moved DS to sentry duty in the jungle hill north of Hansa before I moved a group of workers nearby to farm. I hope this is only a border skirmish and not some planned mass attack. Will be able to log in to investigate the situation in 2 hours.

 

[2metraninja]

Here it is the mighty Impi:

 

[2metraninja]

1 chariot lost and 1 impi sitting near our cities is nothing to worry for. But I fear there is whole military corpus somewhere north-northeast of Hansa. At least to guard the workers that built the road for this Impi. I am quite sure there was no tile last tile where they could have attacked the hill without roading, otherwise I would have moved more units there.

We must ask Uciv what they see with their warrior right now.

 

[vranasm]

seems to me like the hill is very good place to put whole stack next turn...

that warrior screams to me free exp a bit...

what about the axe 3E behind the lake? looks suspicious

 

[2metraninja]

The axe stays there in combination with one other impi there for the next 4-5 turns. We believe they are there for sentry duty.

 

[2metraninja]

And which warrior you were talking about?

 

[vranasm]

And which warrior you were talking about?

well if I understand the picture right there is 3.7 impi and 1.5 warriro... the colors can be a bit misleading, but I somehow thought both are from spaniards....

 

[2metraninja]

No, no - the warrior is with HRE cloros - Uciv.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I wish we had a Spy following their main stack around so we would know where it is

 

[YossarianLives]

1 chariot lost and 1 impi sitting near our cities is nothing to worry for. But I fear there is whole military corpus somewhere north-northeast of Hansa. At least to guard the workers that built the road for this Impi. I am quite sure there was no tile last tile where they could have attacked the hill without roading, otherwise I would have moved more units there.

We must ask Uciv what they see with their warrior right now.

Thier Impi could have started on the Cow tile that is hidden NE of the hills where their Axe / Impi pair has been hanging out. Or, the could have used the scouting Impi to take out our chariot, and moved a new Impi oynto that hill. So I don't think they needed to have built a road in order to take out the chariot?

I wish we had a Spy following their main stack around so we would know where it is

We'll finish Alpha next turn, which will open up Spy builds for us. I'm not too worried about their stack, though. Their power chart has remained completed flat ever since they retreated out of our territory. They are not building up to attack us again.

Speaking of which, I wanted to clarify that in the screenshot I showed that had a new Axe in their southern city, that was not a newly built axe. They had just completed a colloseum in that city, so it could not have also completed an axe on the same turn. Instead, that must have been an axe from their main stack that they pulled south to help garrison that city.

 

[2metraninja]

I wish we had a Spy following their main stack around so we would know where it is

We will have Alphabet soon, Captain, so your wish will come true

 

[2metraninja]

Thier Impi could have started on the Cow tile that is hidden NE of the hills where their Axe / Impi pair has been hanging out. Or, the could have used the scouting Impi to take out our chariot, and moved a new Impi oynto that hill. So I don't think they needed to have built a road in order to take out the chariot?

hahahahh.. Yossa, you made my night... I must have been blind when played the turn and today when observing the situation. But of course this must have been their impi from the desert hill... How I did not saw this I just dont know

Speaking of which, I wanted to clarify that in the screenshot I showed that had a new Axe in their southern city, that was not a newly built axe. They had just completed a colloseum in that city, so it could not have also completed an axe on the same turn. Instead, that must have been an axe from their main stack that they pulled south to help garrison that city.

This is very good observation Yossa, thanks for keeping eye on this. Interesting why they had decided to put exactly axe there where we can actually attack surprisingly only with chariots. Dont they see the possibility?

All in all, I think I need some sleep Thank God its Friday (and that I have such a great deputy to keep eye when I miss things)

 

[YossarianLives]

One very minor suggestion after taking a look at the screenshots from last turn. Why don't we run an Artist in Hansa instead of a Merchant? When the borders pop, we'll gain control of that jungle hill for the visibility you were trying to get with our Chariot. Plus it gives us the extra defense bonus in the city.

 

[YossarianLives]

A couple of things I noticed when I just logged in.

First, Poly has Paper. We should exchange world maps with them.

Spoiler :

Second, I wanted to show the Spaniards' power graph ever since their retreat out of our borders.

Spoiler :

Sure, they can still do opportunistic snipes like they did with their Impi against our chariot, but we really, really don't need to worry about this team as a military threat to us anymore. We do need to be careful with that impi, though. It has the woody 2 promotion for double movement in jungles, so it can skim along the top of our empire very quickly.

And here's a picture of RB's MFG during their GA.

Spoiler :

 

[2metraninja]

First, Poly has Paper. We should exchange world maps with them.

Yes, I saw this, but MZ said he is hooping for the circumnavigation bonus, so he will not trade maps yet

Can we do something to beat him at this btw?

 

[Sommerswerd]

This map does not seem like navy will be important at all (Much like the first MTDG) so I don't know if pissing off potential allies with something so petty as the Circumnavigation bonus which we may not even use much... Hmmm ... what do you think?