War & Our 50 turn roadmap

[KingMorgan]

With the recent declaration I think we can all agree that the geopolitical landscape has dramatically changed and we must adjust our thinking accordingly.

At this point we cannot follow a peaceful builder mentality, at worst we will be overtaken by SANCTA's veteran units after Kaz has been seriously wounded and possibly broken. I don't think we can rely on MS to send in the cavalry either.

Question is what do we do?
Doing nothing or continuing on our present course and hoping it all goes away is an epic fail imo, at the very least we need a credible defense. What form should this defense take? Our current military builds will not be good enough to defend our cities, we must decide on a suitable defensive capability and build some quick.

Attack is the best form of defense?
Should we consider standing shoulder to shoulder with Kaz? I'm not sure we have anything to offer them in military aid or support, if we do not help then there a good chance their empire will be broken and we will have to stand alone to face the joint attack from Saturn / SANCTA.

This border skirmish could escalate to a full blown military campaign and once SANTCA starts rolling i suspect we will be the next team in the firing line, taking into account the MFG capability of SANCTA i suspect we would face a serious and credible threat.

I think we need to agree a course of action that prepares us for the worst and sets us in good stead to continue our rise to power.

 

[oyzar]

You seem to have some misconception about warfare in multiplayer. Unless Kaz is severly inept sancta won't have many veteran units from fighting them and certainly won't be better able to wage a future war than they are currently(or if they did nothing but build up from this point). Defending is a lot easier than attacking(however i can agree with that we might want to do some defensive chopping), due to roads and ful visbility. The era of seige is not far away, with catapults defending becomes a lot easier, as long as we aren't caught with our pants completly down(a few strategic scouting units would prevent this).

Why do we need to build some defense quick? We have no hostile army heading towards our territory and except for sancta noone have any major power rating(and they are rather far away and also otherwise engaged).

Attacking is not the best form of defense in multiplayer. In fact the game is very heavily weighted in favour of the defender. With proper positioning it is possible to get very good kill ratios with minimal defenders. Getting kaz to build units won't be hard. We can't get them to use them properly, but they do have some capable people who probably can take care of that...

Our best strategy for prepearing for a future battle is getting better production capabilities ourselves, that is best accomplished by expanding. With less hammers invested into military units that will just hang around doing nothing (though some might be smart, because as US points out, saturn will quite soon go through the portion of our empire where we have near undefended cities) we get more cities/workers/worked tiles -> production and commerce capability. This allows us to build more units when we will actually need them.

That said i have been wrong about when to build up for war before, but i am still convinced that we don't need more than a couple more units(2-3) to be able to defend against our potential enemies.

 

[Renata]

We have no hostile army heading towards our territory

How do you know? It would only take 100 hammers worth of units showing up in the right place at the right time to cause us some serious disruption. And as I keep pointing out, we have no way of knowing what's out there.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

Proper positioning? I would very much like to know what you mean by that. I would also like to know how you expect Kaz to hang in indefinitely. My experience has been that even a tiny advantage is enough to lead to a one sided looking victory. If Sancta is smart it won't take very long and they will absolutely come away with promoted units. All you have to do to get your units promoted is have an extra catapult and a few defensive units in the stack. After that it is inevitable.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I agree with the last points, while I see no hurry to go in full military mode as we can't help them effectively, 2/3 sentry units (they can be scouts) can prove usefull.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@PT: what do you propose? I mean do you want us to send a stack? In what time frame could it be done? I think too late to be effective anyway.
what tech do we have that can be usefull to them? As many have pointed out, construction is the thing they need, and we don't have it. As for our own good, I think keeping the rex with a better intel is the way to go. I am not opposed to more units though, I missed Usun's proposition of axe builts though.

Cheers

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I agree with the last points, while I see no hurry to go in full military mode as we can't help them effectively, 2/3 sentry units (they can be scouts) can prove usefull.

No Hunting for scouts. The best sentry we can build is the Spy.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

I have been looking over the state of things and have a proposal to make. We will have CS in four turns. Our palace and Stonehenge will both be finished in 3 and 4 turns respectively. Cimeira is not building anything atm and Sombra finishes a settler in 4. Having examined those cities production capacities I think it is reasonable to believe we could build 5 axemen in the next 6-7 turns without disrupting any current production. This could be a first step to prepare for an attack on Sancta, or to defend ourselves.

Sancta is claiming that the disputed city is near their southern border. We know the disputed city is within several turns range of our eastern chariots as is. This makes me believe that if we were to assemble a legitimate force, say 4 axes 4 swords and 3 catapults (when MS finishes construction, if they decide to share), that we would be able to capture that city with relative ease. Particularly if by that time Sancta is really sticking it to Kaz. I also think that by the time we got there they would have the city somewhat connected to their road network (certainly if they intend to invade Kaz). There might be an opportunity to gain a turn on their response in the interval between capturing the disputed city and reaching their borders. I would expect it to take a significant amount of time to arrange this. The units could probably be made in 12-14 turns, but the travel time could add that much again. I think that would be acceptable. I expect Kaz to struggle fighting Sancta, but if we could offer some light at the end of the tunnel they should be able to hold out a little while. Having looked at the map, it looks to me like the travel time alone between the disputed city and Hazrat-E should take at least that long. Wars aren't decide by who draws blood first. They are decided by destroying the warmaking capacity of the other guy. There may be an opportunity to take advantage of Sancta exposing themselves while throttling Kaz. If there isn't we can at least ease the burden on Kaz by doing this.

We have two settlers in the field already, and a third on the way. CS is around the corner and our bureau capital is almost set. I think these factors are going to expand our capacity to undertake this proposal. I believe the question at this point should not be so much what to do, but rather how best to do it and how to afford it. With nine workers we should be able to spare one for building a road in the desired direction and one or two to chop rush more workers. We have three workers at our current capital and I think we might be able to spare one there.

 

[Renata]

Spies would make excellent sentries, actually; no one would know we were forewarned. They're expensive, though. Comments on the rest will have to wait; I'm out of time today.

 

[Niklas]

I don't have much time to spend on this at the moment - I would just like to say that I really agree with PT in most of what he says. We should definitely put diplomatic pressure on Saturn (though I would prefer it to be done subtly over IM than in an official stance letter), and we should build some units at least for protection, but I wouldn't be averse to the idea of building a real strike force.

There's one thing I would like to comment though - are we certain Kaz will not back down? If they do, and that means SANCTA won't push forward, will we be content to wait a while longer and get a better opportunity, with Maces presumably?

 

[Renata]

I have not seen either of Saturn's turnplayers on MSN in ages, and I have their addresses. Otherwise I would prefer to do it that way, too.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

If it looks like it will be a short war I would really like to see us build only a small security force like a handful of axes or mebbe two or three axes and a few more chariots and then wait on maces. I think a gradual buildup of forces is desirable over suddenly whipping everything on the cusp of an emergency though and would advocate such.