Where do we bring the war next?

[Kev]

OK, I can pretty much see that about 3-4 turns into the next batch of play the Chinese will no longer be an issue for us.

So where do we go from here?

Oxford and Leeds (at least) still remain on Dover Island while Brundisium is a tempting target on Viroconium Island as well. While bribing may be an option, the Roman cities are bound to be much more expensive given the proximity of Rome. Even so, we probably won't be able to get more than 1 or 2 English cities as well before their expenses rise as well.

So, we'll probably have a pretty decent army left over on the (soon-to-be-former) Chinese mainland. A barracks in Nanking is nice, and with Shake's being in Bejing, here we could have a nice base for producing and supporting units without fear of any unhappiness. We'll also likely have a spy or two left over as well. The transport with the engineer can hang around, and it's a pretty straight shot south to those English cities. Of course - right to the west ar the Mongols as well - and the Germans and the Zulus are out there, too.

So what do people think?

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Well i guess ,due to the fact that some of our beautifull island's are poisend by Settlement's of the Roman's on one island and by the English on another island ,that they would be our first target's.And from those i would prefer to take on the English first ,as they are almost defeated anyway ,since they only have but 2 city's left.The roman's however are a bit more powerfull ,then again they are no match for our supperior force's and general's anyway.

But also have to take into consideration our logistic's.Inspecting the situation i have noticed that most of our offensive force's reside in China for the moment (pretty obvious) ,and that the Island where China is on (for the moment) is pretty close to the English Island.Also notice that most of our naval force's are in that area.So i guess moving a good offensive force to the English land's would be quicker than moving them to the Roman island's.

So ,i guess IMHO we should first of all clean up the English (after the Chinese afcourse) and then decide on our next target ,wich should probably be the Roman holding's Near DukeShire.

 

[duke o' york]

Er Duck, the English have 2 cities that we can actually see. They in fact have 16 cities (well, last time we checked with their embassy).
This makes them 3 cities bigger than the Romans, although they are some techs behind (only researching Economics!!) and have less cash than the Romans. Fortunately both countries are in Republic and are eminently bribeable! The democratic Mongols are the civ that we don't want to go for at the moment, but the Zulus and the Germans both would appear to be pushovers. It is possible but unlikely that there may be several barb-held cities in the south of the map.
I see the Romans as the greatest threat in the near future, and although Duck has pointed out that it will take longer to bring all our troops back from China to attack on the other side of our empire, the sooner we can strike at their home island the better. It would certainly stop the irritating trickle of attackers arriving in Dukeshire and they may even have received Genetic Engineering from the Germans, who are giving it away to everyone but us. In fact, we'll have probably taken it from the Chinese by then, but we can use the fact that our troops have to be shipped across to build some more and attack them on their mainland and from Dukeshire. We can of course discuss tactics once we have decided which lucky souls to use these tactics on.

 

[Kev]

I'm wondering if the Germans are somewhere east of the Chinese and/or our northern English colonies - somewhere in that big black, unexplored region. I say this because Beijing has a trade route with Heidelberg - so I don't think that they're too far away. I'll be sending an exploring spy and transport into the area, and we can see what pops up.

Given the lack of German funds (won't be able to move their capital) and German cities, this civ could be a possible next target - assuming my guess is right. They may even be able to give us the Cure for Cancer if they build it fast enough.

If this is so, moving those troops east would then give us a nice launching stage to hit the Romans. We could attack the Viroconium colonies by moving west out of Dukeshire et. al. and then other Roman cities by moving east from German lands.

If the Germans end up being elsewhere, then maybe concentrate on the English for the time being - or at least until we have the Dover continent to ourselves.

I WOULD like to get the Romans though. We'd get the Pyramids and the Statue of Liberty as part of the "booty".

Oooh! It's like being in a candy store, isn't it.

By the way, I think the Mongols are going to give us the biggest fits in the future. They are very well spread out judging by the random cities I've seen with exploration, and given that they have been able to stay in a democracy, they will be the biggest challenge to us regarding cash and technology both.

I don't like that they are so close to our home island either. We'll have to keep an eye on those guys.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I would like to see us finish off the Chinese, move south and clear the Dover continent, then while we are shifting troops over to the Romans, do some celebrating.

This is assuming we don't find the Germans clsoe to the Chinese, if we do, I think we shoud hit them first, then clear Dover land, etc....

 

[Mr Spice]

Romans and Mongols are definitely the biggest threats to us. I am actually very surprised to see the Mongols being large, advanced and democratic. In my experience they are usually spread out with small cities clogged up with so many units they never get a chance to get out of despotism until fanaticism comes around.

Anyway, this might be the right time to strike a blow against he Romans. With a couple of cruisers (3-4) we might even be strong enough to target Rome. Considering the geografy around Rome, I bet they have a number of warships there, but our cruisers would be better than anything they can come up with in the immidiate future. But we would do well to attack them swiftly, while we still have the advantage of better naval technologies.

 

[Leowind]

I've thought some about the situation on Dover and Viroconium islands, and I'm not so sure we want to clear them just for the sake of clearing them. Having enemies on the same continent means they will continue sending troops agains our fortifications by land. In essence, we always know where they'll attack and we can set up kill zones. I would think they'd be far less likely to launch a seabourne invasion, which is a bit harder to defend against (even though the AI does it very poorly). Personally, I think the Mongols are our biggest threat. They are the most advanced in techs, and are still in a Democracy, and as Kev pointed out very close to our homeland. This makes me very nervous as they could easily strike at several different points with little warning. Are we currently at war with them or in cease fire?

I see two options to dealing with the MOngols: 1) Take them now before they can attack. 2) Take out everybody else, isolating them and getting further ahead of them in techs, then take them out. Bear in mind they are also the key civ and getting them to a pet city and gifting techs will further help our tech lead.

 

[Mr Spice]

Leowind made me take a closer look on the Mongols, here is their main island btw. They are currently researching conscription, so if we strike soon they are likely to have mostly musketeer defenses. Their cities seem small, but keep in mind that our map from these parts has not been updated for a long time. When I looked at the supply/demand screen I saw that their capital Karakorum is size 9, but on the map it is size 4. Still, city walls should be visible if present and they seem to keep them only in Karakorum. Further, all but one of their cities are located on the coast, so if we quickly build a few cruisers (for example in THDP, Joespaniel and Unknown City) taking them out is not at all impossible. However, one condition is that we do not waste our cavalry as cannon fodder to the Chineese partisans, since building new ones could take a while.

 

[Zwelgje]

As the mongols are right behind us in techs we should try to weaken them to let them be less of a threat to us. I suggest to attack their home continent seaside cities first to prevent them from attacking us as I don't trust them at all. The Roman cities on the same continent as our cities (Virconium continent if I remember well) should also be priority to stop any attacks coming from them. To kill small civs is relatively easy but I prefer to attack big civs to prevent them from becoming even bigger (and harder to kill)

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

My main concern with trying to hit the Mongols first, is that we have a very limited military. We made great progress against the Chinese due to our few troops and spies. Not being able to bribe the Mongols will make it very much more difficult to make great progress against them.

 

[Mr Spice]

Not being able to bribe is of course a concern. But their army will be inferior at least for a few more turns, they seem to have city walls in only one city and their cities are on the coast, making them a sitting duck for our cruisers. Considering this we should be able to take a few cities without too much trouble. We need to rush a few cruisers, 3 will be enough, and some alpine troops for defense. Add our 3-4 veteran cavalry and we have enough to go after them. Kashgar, Bokhara and Tabriz are good targets IMO, since they should be relatively easy to take and doing so would decrease the threat of a sudden mongol invasion of our core cities.

 

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Kev
I'm wondering if the Germans are somewhere east of the Chinese and/or our northern English colonies - somewhere in that big black, unexplored region.

I told you to cheat ages ago and you didn't! Never mind. (Duck'll love this! )
If you want to find out where the Germans are then as long as they have a wonder then you can use the Find City option. This allows you to centre the map on one of a choice of all your cities or any of the cities with a wonder. So if Berlin has a wonder you can use Find City to centre the map on Berlin. It won't do a lot for you but you can check which commodities it demands and its general direction in the blackness.
This isn't really a terrible cheat but I say that if it's not allowed in the GOTM then we shouldn't use it either and should explore until we find Germany or use the UN to swap maps with them. So we can use this "cheat" to cut a few turns from our exploration, but maybe we need these extra few turns to build up troops and celebrate. I'd be interested to see the state of the German nation before we decide toward whom to level our rifles next.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

AHAH ,we have a cheater here ,finaly i get a chance to impeach Duke.

You had to make a mistake someday.

nah ,banning is to easy ,expect a smear campagin soon.

About the Mongel's ,i've seen in te demographic's that old Genhis is minting quite some cash in his democracy.Maybe we should go straith for the mongol capital=instant gouverment collapse.

 

[Kev]

With all of that cash, the Mongols could probably relocate their capital like 3 or 4 times. I'm not sure if that will cause them to change governments, but even if they do, the cities in question will still be quite expensive while they continue to rebuild their palace.

I'm nervous about taking a minimal force into Mongol lands. We've not seen their cities for a while, and given that the AI likes to build city walls so much, I'd guess that more cities have them than are shown right now. Further, there's a good chance that some of these cities have coastal fortresses - another thing the AI seems to like. They could mean death for our cruisers.

I think that what I'll do over the next bunch of turns is send the destroyer to explore Mongol holdings - the ship that is right outside of Tsingtao right now. We could even have a brief spy run once we have finished the Chinese and are building back up militarily - but I think that a destroyer visit will be helpful.

There's been a lot of back and forth on this topic - and it's warranted since there are so many events and/or searching discoveries that could make huge differences. Perhaps I'll make this a smaller batch of turns - and after 5 or 6 turns we'll hopefully know a lot more and be better able to decide. Unless you'd all like to see a larger group of turns and just give me some basic guidelines to work with (like - if the Mongols have built up a lot then just go after the English - or something like that).

And duke - I know that you've suggested that "find city" option. Believe me, I am VERY curious as to where these guys are hiding, but I just have more fun discovering them on my own. Sort of like the "cursor" trick where you can tell which squares are land and which are ocean even if it's in the "black". Sneaky

 

[Ren]

Well first of all, isn't this my field of concern??

Secondly, I agree that we should go for the Mongols. Not necesarilly straight away, but before we go for anyone else, the last thing we need is a civ defended with mech inf and city walls launching the spaceship on us, while we are struggling with developing mobile warfare! Of course we should take care of the IMMEDIATE Roman and English threats first.

 

[duke o' york]

We are some way ahead of all the other civs on tech at the moment and with our SSC, it is highly likely that we will be miles ahead of them by the time we come to crush whoever we choose to. There is absolutely no chance of Mongolia getting Mech Infantry before we do as they haven't even got conscription yet. We are the most advanced nation, with the Romans and China next (but not for long ) so the Mongols do not pose a threat at the moment. Our infrastructure is being built up very well indeed so even if our plans for conquest did not succeed then we are still in a very strong position. In fact, I'd like to see the central cities exempt from the war effort, to concentrate on making money and research and improvements, while the outer cities produce the units we need as and when we do. This need not happen yet, as our outer cities are just not powerful enough yet, but we will "inherit" some strong cities in China and can use them to further our military ambitions in England and Mongolia in future.

 

[Zwelgje]

I usually choose to develop my "own" cities (very happy and very intelligentpeople live there) and the cities that I conquer are military production cities (cheap labour lives there), they will have to wait to be developed until the end game when I build temples and cathedrals to make them happy. This will boost up my score. Until then.....WORK!!!!! and produce me some nice military.

 

[Mr Spice]

Originally posted by Kev

I'm nervous about taking a minimal force into Mongol lands. We've not seen their cities for a while, and given that the AI likes to build city walls so much, I'd guess that more cities have them than are shown right now. Further, there's a good chance that some of these cities have coastal fortresses - another thing the AI seems to like. They could mean death for our cruisers.

My memory might be wrong on this, but I do believe city walls show up on AI cities even if they are built after the last time you had a unit close by or traded maps. I won´t swear on it though. And in my experience the AI builds city walls before coastal fortresses, but this is not bulletproof either.

 

[Kev]

OK, guys, I'm willing to give a go at the Mongols. I like the idea of taking a piece out of our stronger competition as early as possible. Even if we just get a foothold, that could help us later on.

Don't know if things will start with them in the next batch of turns, but we'll likely be pretty close.

 

[Leowind]

The point was raised about having a rather small army in the field, which is a valid concern. Whatever action we plan anywhere, We need to finish off China and consolidate our gains before moving on. I kind of like Kev's suggestion of playing fewer turns this go-around and then taking another look. Can we use this time to consolidate in China, and PLAN for a limited Mongol invasion, along with destroyer and spy intel. runs, but not carry it out just yet? If at that point that is still our intended action then we'll have more info about the Mongols and be in a stronger position from which to launch our attacks. We have to remember we'll need a bit more defensively in Mongolia to hold whatever we take. Not as big a concern in China because we're going to take out all their cities in just a few turns.