UNGY-03 The Gods of the Aztec

[mystyfly]

I only remember seing his tao holy city and wasn't sure whether it is in this game where he founded confucianism. We really need to scout his (and SBs) territory (jags are good in that, make 1-2 woody2), then we can see how far confucianism/taoism has spread and we'll see how likely he is to switch out of buddhism. I personally don't think it's that high, as the AIs seem to consider the religious "status" of the world. Everyone being buddhist won't help there...

We could, 2-3 turns before we attack, switch our victim (be it QSH or SB) to another religion. This would require us to convert too. This shouldn't be a problem tough, as we're spiritual and can convert back in 5 turns.

 

[silverbullet]

I think we need to declare war on Hammurabi by our rules. He made an arrogant demand and he is annoyed.

 

[Atropos]

Was he annoyed when he made the demand? If so, we definitely need to declare war.

 

[mystyfly]

Hammurabi was already annoyed before. And I didn't DOW as we didn't have a clear conseses when talking about these kind of demands (declare, cancel deals). But feel free...

 

[Rusten]

Cancelling trade deals means we lose out on stuff and according to the screenshot he was annoyed. So yeah, we have to DoW.

 

[silverbullet]

I think we should declare war on him. Boudica will be happy

 

[ungy]

OK-had a look.

We've whipped up an army which to me seems a little light for the job but we've got some serious maintenance now so I think sooner rather than later.

Seems like we need to go for QSH--why did we not scout him last set?

Beijing has GLH, MoM, SoZ. If we could get that it would be quite useful.
I guess there's a chance we get him pre-LB if we go in around 5-6 turns. I don't think we can wait for an army of jumbos.

We need to declare on Ham per variant.

Scrap the WB--don't need anymore.

Any thoughts?--I confess I'm not too optimistic about our plans and could use some help. In an ideal world we'd get QSH into another religion but not sure how--too expensive espionage and if we switch I don't think he'll follow for HBR as we won't have the relations anymore.

Also war plans--I guess it makes sense to hook up our empire but I'm tempted to try a run along the coast to Beijing.

 

[Atropos]

I would also recommend the latter. The cities between ours are on hills, Beijing may not be. This is why not scouting is bad.

 

[ungy]

I would also recommend the latter. The cities between ours are on hills, Beijing may not be. This is why not scouting is bad.

Yes I'm leaning that way. Seems like if we go for the cities between us we'll not have the strength to carry Beijing.

I'll get some scouting before we get our units together.

Any more input? This is not a layup here--I could use some help.

 

[Rusten]

Go for the coast imo too. Hills and protective is a big no-no.

Attacking before WEs might be a good idea. There's the risk of facing longbows and not having WEs though, but at this point taking some risks is necessary in order to take control of the game.

 

[Atropos]

I think the big question is not whether we should wait for WEs but whether we should wait for scouting. Blundering about looking for Beijing doesn't sound like much fun, but our window before longbows is likely to be quite narrow.

One advantage of having already launched our attack when he gets Feudalism would be that upgrading a unit removes the defensive bonus. Quite helpful.

I was playing a game as the Khmer the other day in which I waited for a decent WE army. Worked quite well, even though my opponent, Asoka, got longbows when I had only captured one city. But I don't think we have that luxury now - we have already whipped a huge axemen army and more or less have to use it before the maintenance kills us.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm OOP until the 19th.

And yeah, I know by now that not scouting was bad. Apologies...

 

[Atropos]

No need to apologize. You're still a better player than I'll ever be. It's just that we need to deal with it, so we can't exactly avoid discussing it.

 

[ungy]

I think the big question is not whether we should wait for WEs but whether we should wait for scouting. Blundering about looking for Beijing doesn't sound like much fun, but our window before longbows is likely to be quite narrow.

I'll play later today with the plan of working our way down the coast. Since Beijing has the GLH, we know that's where we'll find it. Also he was pretty close to us at the start so it won't be too far. I'll get a little scouting in as I plan to bring over the northern army before attacking and hold the north with new units. Not a certainty but I don't see a better option. Also build roads to speed up reinforcements.

As for jumbos, since we are aggressive and I don't see any mounteds, their usefulness is probably a little less than normal. If the scouting turns up anything of interest I'll pause for comment.

 

[ungy]

A very short set--the problems come early:

IT. OK plan to attack QSH at T+6 Bring all available units—Teotihuacan is on a hill and will have to get by. Get a little scouting going. Disband scouting WB.
We declare on Ham. That cancels Ivory trade so I trade it to SB. Trade Sury crab for dye.
275…
300 hmm QSH has mace+cho. Not sure if this is still doable. I’m stopping here for comments.

I feel like we need a plan and soon. I can't see how we can take down a protective civ with mace-cho (and hard to imagine we won't see LB soon).

Anybody got any ideas? Do we have a chance if we skip attacking now?

 

[ungy]

here's a save:

 

[Rusten]

We definitely have to attack someone. We only have 5 cities and already invested so much into it.

This religion spread is really annoying--we'll attack everyone's friend no matter what we do.

The way I see it there are 3 options;
- attack QSH (and most likely lose--especially considering he can bribe others vs us with his many, many techs).
- attack Boudica (this we should win, but we don't know much about her land).
- attack SB (should win this as well, but probably struggle a lot in the process).

Regarding SB; according to the "can research" thing he doesn't have monotheism yet (also lacking priesthood) which means that he's far away from longbows, but the problem is that he's 8 turns away from x-bows (we'd need to reinforce with WEs). While he is SB and generally not your prime rush target we don't have many options here and unlike other civs we have scouted him so we know for a fact that none of his cities are on a hill which helps a lot.

Overall I'm not too optimistic about this game. Some tough luck (getting our starting city surrounded by sea and a huge lake on an already cramped map) coupled with some inaccurate play has put us in a bad situation.

Edit: mystyfly, the reason the workers were up north was because those cities were the ones not having their prime tiles improved yet and this is still the case. Why did you send them back again without mining the riverside grassland hill (covered by jungle)? I wanted to clear all the jungle and get the plantations up in the 2 northern cities quickly. Minoan was going to whip after size 3 anyway, it didn't need any more fixing for the time being. Now we have a useless cottage in our capital BFC instead which is not going to be worked for at least 50 turns as it's got so many good tiles already and is set to pop GSs and whip when the prime tiles are already worked. Basically I put more emphasis on getting the "great" tiles ready as soon as possible than to make improvements that aren't necessary yet.

Not to nag, it's a very minor thing, but you asked why they were all up there so I thought I'd respond (even if somewhat late).

 

[Atropos]

We cannot attack Qin. Axes versus macemen is just suicide, and cho-ko-nus are just icing on the cake. With cat backup, we can beat dog soldiers. (Cats beat dogs ) By the time SB gets crossbows, we will have WEs. The AI tends not to build crossbows in significant numbers anyway, and he is a long way away from macemen, let alone pikemen, which are the first hard counter to WEs. Cats can wear down his promoted archers. Boudica is a pig in a poke and has horrible logistics. WEs from the capital would come too late to do any good.

We need to stop building axemen. They are costing us our economy in maintenance and are rapidly becoming obsolete. Cats are better.

I think we can still pull out a win. WEs + cats are broken and SB will have no counter to them for quite a while.

 

[Rusten]

Agree on all accounts, especially regarding axemen. I Agree that attacking QSH is suicide. With option I meant alternative to consider--not that's it's any good (quite the opposite!). Bad wording on my part if you thought I suggested it. I take it that you agree that attacking SB is the better plan?

Good thing you paused your set ungy or this would be all over I'm afraid.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm back.

I think winning vs QSH is unrealistic. I'm for going after SB. We already have lots of EPs on him and could inflict some revolts with would speed along the vassalization and we wouldn't be that far behind after the warring.

The outcome of the war will most likely decide over the fate ot the aztec peaople. No pressure or anything


@Rusten:
I don't still have it in mind that clearly but I was under the impression that the northern cities had enought nice tiles - and I also counted cottages, they need to grow someitme, while tenochtitlan and minoan didn't.
You said (before my set) that we should start heavy whipping. Whipping loses effeciency as the city grows in pop, meaning whipping small cities has a better food to hammer ratio. Teno is on scientist duty and has a couple of decent tiles (like calms) and is thus decently-sized and is easily running into problems (due to the nice food surplus). All this makes it less appealing to whip teno. That's why it needs a bit more improved tiles.
Minoan just had about 2 improved tiles at that time IIRC.