War (repost)

[ainwood]

Every good General loves a war. Its our only real means of justifying our existence. For me, as a Military Advisor coming to the end of my term, posting my first poll is an attempt to show something concrete from my term.

Our fledgling civilization is all alone on our big island, but yet we hear rumours of far off lands. Stories of wonderous cities across the sea, peopled by strange inhabitants talking in strange tongues.

In true xenophobic style; "They've got to go". Question is: do we prepare now, or later?

Our current technology does not really provide many military options. The current thinking however should lead to elephants and crusaders. Fuedalism will allow us to build Sun Tzus war academy, and train veteran armies. In the upcoming times, what do you think we should be doing?

 

[GaryNemo]

Well, we are driving for Philosophy, perhaps because we want to build Mike's Chapel. So I plan to vote for the Elephants, Triremes, and Diplomatic subversion. War is the exciting part of the game!

To be clear, the way to get all of this science and all of the necessary units is to build cities, roads and trade routes. We can use this calm interlude to prepare the economic infrastructure for WAR!
- Your respectful Domestic Advisor.

 

[GaryNemo]

There is an interesting discussion in Old WAR Poll
Please consider that closed. Comment and vote here, in this nice Multi-Poll.

Crusaders are indeed mobile catapults. And nothing blasts thru City Walls for quite some time. Metallurgy itself knocks down the Great Wall, iirc, and the Cannons can blast thru a City Wall, although it is often a Pyrrhic Victory .

 

[Dell19]

In my world Crusaders don't change into Knights and only change into Dragoons. I also thought that Crusaders and Knights were two separate units that merge into dragoons.

Anyway we should be building crusaders and pikes. Pikes move to a hill two tiles away from the city and then the crusaders race down and crusade

 

[MonkE]

I assume "Super Military City" means high production with barracks. If we're interested in a space ship later, we want high production cities anyway.

The ultimate SMS would include Shakespeare's Theater for rampages under Republic/Democracy. There are so many other wonders I'd prefer before SunTzu that I'd want to build barracks in selected cities for veterans.

Generally, I support trade and science as the best way to gain advantage over rival civs. Then subvert & bribe (raise taxes as necessary). I believe we get more for our investment by taking whole cities that way.

If it becomes necessary to fight head-on, let's have a big tech advantage. I prefer crusaders & musketeers for the medieval era.

Let's build 'em cheap and get Leo's Workshop.

 

[ainwood]

The super military city does mean essentially what you said (well, in my little brain it does ).

Basically, you don't bother about building any improvements except a barracks in the short term, and you do build Shakespeares (essential!).

It is good to get it started early, so that you can churn-out lots of upgradable units for when you get Leo's.

A sight with production specials (iron, coal, pheasant) is great, as you can support a lot of units without the marked impact on production. And if you do go to war pre shakespeare, you can confine the unhappiness largely to one city.

 

[MonkE]

If we upgrade with Leo's, the units can be built anywhere and rehomed because they will lose veteran status anyway.

 

[ainwood]

Good point, but if we are doing a lot of pre-building, we don't necessarily want to tie up too much in support costs from other cities where building infrastructure is more important.

 

[GaryNemo]

Yes, build anywhere, Leo's ruins the Veteran status.
But I thought Shakespeare would go in the SSC.

Ainwood, a high production city, with Temple etc, and probably Barracks, will be a useful asset. The Iron City, eh?

With enough cities, we can please everyone!

Right now, we need Trade. Trade! and Maps, and Mike's.

 

[MonkE]

I agree: Trade, Maps & Mike's as the nearest term priorities. That's why I say 'crusaders & musketeers' for military units. They should be available by the time our economy is ready to support them.

 

[Serutan]

I think we need to primarily concentrate on defensive units,
but must build a few offensive units to crush any AI incursions
like a cockroach.

I also think we need the SMS, and, yes Gary, that would be
the Iron City. Especially now that we have a settle going to found RM, we need to get both of those 4 special areas (Iron
City, and the Peat City on the penensula) founded ASAP both
for production purposes, and to preempt any AI colonization
attemps.

 

[ainwood]

I'm not convinced on this build-anywhere-rehome-later thingy.

That tactic is fine later in the game when we are in a democracy, but more importantly we have railroaded our continent. Pre-rail, it is just too much of a hassle to move all our units from their cities to the centre-point for rehoming. We may even get unhappiness on the way. This could stop some cities celebrating.

Don't disagree with it completely, but we should certainly limit the units per city that we build for this purpose.

 

[duke o' york]

The Iron City should definitely be the SMS, and I'd prefer Shakespeare's to be there rather than the SSC. The fact that it will have loads of production, no unhappiness and sea access means that we can build loads of battleships to rule the waves!

 

[Angelscotboi]

I think we should build an SMS too, sounds like the best idea, that way we can satisfy the "hawks" amongst us and the "doves" too. hehe

 

[jonel1111]

Doves? Aren't "Doves" just the cities ready to be eaten? Certainly not the players and population of an expanding civilization. While I'm a "Dove" in SCC, if I have more than one city I'm as "Hawkish" as I can safely be.

 

[Zwelgje]

So why are we calling Super Military City SMS??

Anyway, Iron city is the perfect spot for this and it can be founded fairly quickly with the new Dellham settler too! We need some nice defensive units at the borders of our empire (to the north for the Vikings, to the west for the Indians). But we do need some offensive units too as I am unwilling to spend all our cash on bribing units we may not even want. We need offensive units but we'll also need triremes sooner or later and we should be able to rushbuild those too!

 

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by civ1-addict
So why are we calling Super Military City SMS??

Give it a chance! Until it's got an aqueduct then it's Super Military Settlement, until it's got a sewer system it'll be Super Military Town and only after can it be called SMC!

I'm not sure that we need to IPRB everything we build, as seems to be the way of thinking here, but certainly it can save us time when we need something in a hurry. The production potential of this new city (named after its keenest supporter ainwood maybe?) will ensure that we can keep the Vikings and Indians at bay should they take a fancy to our island and even build a battle fleet to occupy a chunk of their territory. We will definitely need Shakespeare's Theatre in this city to avoid unhappiness with the swarms of troops it will eventually support.

 

[GaryNemo]

Ainwood and duke, I figure you're looking here. Please give us a City Name in your honor: List of City Names . Ditto Leowind and others.

Now, having lost the opportunity to build the Colossus with the Hanging Gardens, which I guess was never going to work on Deity anyway, I have a new idea for you all.

We need Shakespeare with the SSC, with Elysium. Rehoming units is a good policy for Republic and Democracy anyway, and it maintains the highest possible build rate in our Barracks City, SMS. A unit built by Iron City may walk NE, and can easily rehome on the River, or Reneaux, there are many choices. In addition to my slogan, A Road for Every Serf, I add, One Battle Unit supported per City! For the Good of the Republic! Woo Hoo!

And did someone mention Battleships? I don't believe they are improved by a Barracks -- we need a Port Facility, far in the future, near whatever is then the front.

In any event, we will soon found the Iron City with the Settler coming from Dellham. Ainwood, I'd like to know your choice of name for it. And, does anyone want one road at the city's gate? That discussion is brought to you by ... our new Governor ... MonkE? And what does Iron build? Not a barracks yet, I hope. A Phalanx and then a Settler.