We're pretty thin on NAPs right now. We have one with catbandit to turn 220(so essentially game long), but besides that we have ones to turn 150 with Arki, Eggheads and Yoss. Still, the chances of those three teams being able to hurt us at that time is essentially zero(we'll have about 40 drafted muskets by then).
Sistine is going to be really important after we absorb Arki because we'll then be directly bordering Eggheads, who will have cataphracts by then, and Yossadron, who is also pretty strong. Sistine will let us immediately pop second-ring borders in all of our captured cities using merc specialists. It also has nice synergy with AP and Sankore, which we both will have in our possession by turn 155ish.
Obviously this warrants some explaining, so here are my thoughts on the war and tactics.
Advantages: We will have a superior economy to Arki and we'll be ahead in military tech with cuirs circumventing stone defense. However, by far our biggest advantage will be our superior production. With nationhood, we'll be able to produce about 30 cannonfodder muskets for one-mover stacks. In addition, we can build about 15 cats before we get mil trad. After mil trad, our GA production will be geared towards building cuirs as 2-movers are going to be by far the most important units in the war. Arki won't have access to drafting and he has very little pop to liquidate into units via slavery. Currently, his military is atrocious and if that doesn't improve soon he won't have much military to throw at us. I think our attack should exploit this by attacking from multiple points, stretching his army thin and limiting the efficacy of his catapults.
Disadvantages: Despite all of this, we have some distinct disadvantages. First off, the game gives Arki an advantage as the defender. Our difference in tech won't be enough to completely make up for this; we'll be attacking into at least longbows and potentially even muskets. Arki also has the diplomatic upper hand. We have to assume that his two other neighbors, Eggheads and Yossadron, are going to be on his side in the war and will cancel resource deals with us and may even give some token military intervention. Eggheads will have cataphracts by then, so their military is going to be pretty tough to handle. We have to be careful to not overextend ourselves too much or we could see our military be destroyed by the combined Inca, Dutch and Byzantine armies.
With all that in mind, let me explain the picture:
Attack Forces:
Green: The point of green is to annoy Arki a little and try to snipe Alice. I'm thinking it'll be composed of 1-2 galleys filled with muskets drafted from Thermidor and Freezy.
Black Will be a one-mover stack whose size will be largely determined by how large Xena's garrison is. If Arki chooses to stack it with longbows and muskets, we'll need about half our muskets and cats here. The purpose of this stack is take Xena and then move on to garrison Katniss.
Purple Will be composed of 2 galleys filled with cats. On t1 of the war, the cats will be loaded on to the tile next to Xena so they can get a turn of bombarding in before black can get ready to attack xena. If Arki chooses to abandon Xena, we won't need this force.
Red Will be our most important stack. It will be composed of all of our 2-movers and will focus on capturing Arki's two most important cities, Katniss(Hindu holy city) and Hermione(capital). On turn 1, they'll move to the SW of Xena to cover the purple stack before moving on to Katniss on turn 3 and Hermione on turn 4.
Orange Will be the northern naval stack composed of 1-2 galleys filled with muskets and 2-3 triremes. The units will move onto the jungle NE of Kala to start off the war, potentially capturing Kala if Arki elects to not defend it. After that, Orange will sail around the northern coast, pressuring Bella and stopping any of Arki's navy from bothering us.
Blue Will be a tertiary one-mover stack which will attack Kala if Arki chooses to defend there.
The light-blue line is where I think we should stop expanding until we get rifles. This leaves us with very defensible borders and all of Arki's wonders. All of the cities outside of this line will be dominated by Byzantine or Inca culture, so I don't feel confident about defending them until we have truly superior technology.
The big issue with this attack plan is if Arki chooses to abandon his front cities and makes a stand at Katniss/his capital. This will probably stop our 2-mover attack from succeeding fully, but OTOH it will leave Arki with very few cities to raise an army from and a 1-mover SOD would eventually capture his capital. The only truly disastrous thing would be if Eggheads and Yossadron provided a ton of military support to Arki and were able to confront our SOD and elimanate it. That's unlikely to happen, though.
Awesome invasion plan - I'll write up a full response sometime tomorrow. I agree on the light blue line - though I would very much like to secure a source of dye.
These cities draft two muskets and get whipped for 4+ cuirassiers.
Frimaire
Ventôse
Prarial
Messidor
YOUNG:
These cities are still getting their basic infrastructure in place, they contribute 2 muskets, but few cuirassiers (no forge).
Thermidor
Fructidor
Wheezy
Sneezy
Freezy
FILLER
I don't think Slippy will be able to contribute much.
Slippy
So that's ~20 Muskets, ~20 Curassiers, and ~15 Catapults
This leads to some comments on your invasion plan:
Red: Agreed
Black: Agreed
Purple: Where are we going to build these galleys? I checked in game and, unless I'm mistaken on the mechanic, we can't build them in Flo. Even if we could build them, I think I would instead prefer two more catapults on black - two less bombards but help with the cleanup of Kala and Bella.
Orange/Green: I agree we should load 2 muskets on to each of the existing North/South galleys. A small price to pay to take an undefended city (unlikely) or (more likely) tie down units and encourage Arki to stack the periphery instead of reinforcing the core. I don't get the impression that Arki is a details guy, so you're probably right that signaling WE'RE ATTACKING FROM EVERYWHERE might have a useful effect. If Arki defends the cities with more than a classical unit, pillaging the clam/pig/deer also justifies the investment.
I'm not sure what value a second galley adds, given that two more galleys means one less Cuirassier and we'd still be unlikely to take a defended city with 4 muskets.
Arki doesn't have MC, so perhaps let's hold back on triremes for now. If/when he does tech MC, a single trireme 3N of Bella, patrolling SW and back, should be enough to keep tabs. Frankly, I would be willing to pay one trireme for Arki to whip out two triremes and run them at Wheezy. We'd have plenty of time to counter and it would divert resources away from units. A spy near the dye if you're concerned about Eggheads - though it would be far more efficient/likely for them to to just march along roads.
Blue: is a luxury if our spies see that Arki is simply just unprepared.
Purple is possible with forting, though thinking about it some more, it's impractical. I'm fine with not using it; my obsession with forts is impairing my tactical thinking.
Arki doesn't have MC now, but he's IND and MC is pretty cheap at this point. I expect he'll get it any turn now, so the northern stack should have a trireme or two.
The main point of the two naval stacks is to encourage Arki to waste troops defending his border cities while we strike into his core with 2-movers. One movers have limited utility in this war because Arki has so much culture in his cities; at best, a one mover stack would take an appalling seven turns to get to his capital. The point of 2 galleys is to try to frighten Arki into stacking more units in his cities, I don't care as much about taking the border cities, because that's easily accomplished with one-movers. If Arki stacks 4 muskets in Kala, I view that as win because with Arki's production capabilities, I doubt he will have more than 12 muskets. 20 cuirs isn't THAT much when we're talking about capturing his capital and second city. Once those cities fall, the rest of the invasion will be easy.
Are those two extra galleys more important than two catapults? I guess it depends on how strong Arki's tactics are. No offense to Arki, but if his civ play is any indication of his tactical play(it usually is) I think we can assume that he will make some mistakes.
I think we can claim dyes if we raze Penny and replace it with the city that grabs the jungle pig.
Can't Vendemaire's GA production contribute 3-4 cuirs? I know it's a great commerce cities, but it can also get close to 50hpt with GA production. Are there any wonders we're building in it that are more important than military? I thought we were only starting Sistine after we finish the military build-up?
Blue and Black's composition completely relies on what our spies reveal to be Arki's border defenses.
Oh and usually I think posting diplo in the game thread is incredibly boring, but I thought I'd share with the lurkers what suttree wants to send to Eggheads(I'm all for it, btw)
Quote:Did you ever hear of Chicken Little,
hew she disturbed a whole neighborhood by her foolish alarm?
Well, Chicken Little was running about in a
gentleman's garden, where she had no business to
be : she ran under a rose-bush, and a leaf fell on her
tail; so she was dreadfully frightened, and ran away to Hen Pen.
"O Hen Pen," said she, "the sky is falling!"
"Why, Chicken Little, how do you know it?"
"O, I heard it with my ears, I saw it with my eyes, and part of it fell on my tail."
"Come, then," says Hen Pen, "let us run as fast as we can."
So they ran till they came to Duck Luck.
"O Duck Luck," says Hen Pen, "the sky is falling!"
"Why, how do you know it?" says Duck Luck.
"Chicken Little told me."
"Chicken Little, how do you know it?"
"I heard it with my ears, I saw it with my eyes, and part of it fell on my tail."
"O, let us run!" says Duck Luck.
And they went on till they came to Goose Loose.
"O Goose Loose!" says Duck Luck, "the sky is falling."
"Why, Duck Luck," says Goose Loose, "how do you know it?"
Says Duck Luck, "Hen Pen told me."
"Hen Pen, how do you know it?"
"Chicken Little told me."
"Chicken Little, how do you know it?"
"O, I heard it with my ears, I saw it with my eyes, and part of it fell on my tail!"
Run, run! as fast as you can," says Goose Loose.
And away they went till they came to Turkey Lurkey.
"O Turkey Lurkey! " says Goose Loose, "the sky is falling!"
"Why," says Turkey Lurkey, "Goose Loose, how do you know it?"
Says Goose Loose, "Duck Luck told me."
"Duck Luck, how do you know it?"
Says Duck Luck, "Hen Pen told me."
"Hen Pen, how do you know it ?"
Says Hen Pen, "Chicken Little told me."
"Chicken Little, how do you know it?"
"How can I help knowing it?" says Chicken Little;
"I heard it with my ears, I saw it with my eyes, and part of it fell on my tail!"
"O, come, let us run!" says Turkey Lurkey.
And away they all went till they met with Fox Lox.
"O Fox Lox ! " says Turkey Lurkey, "the sky is falling!"
"Who told you?" says Fox Lox.
Says Turkey Lurkey, "Goose Loose told me."
"Goose Loose, who told you?"
"Duck Luck told me."
"Duck Luck, who told you?"
"Hen Pen told me."
"Hen Pen, who told you?"
"Chicken Little told me."
"Chicken Little, how do you know it?"
"O, I heard it with my ears, I saw it with my eyes, and part of it fell on my tail ! "
"Make haste ! " says Fox Lox, "and all come into my den"
Fox Lox opened the door, and in went Turkey Lurkey. As she went in, Fox Lox bit off her head, threw it one way, and the body another. Then went in Goose Loose. Fox Lox cut off her head, and threw her in. Then came Duck Luck. Fox Lox did the same by her. Then came Hen Pen. Fox Lox bit off her head, and threw it one way, and the body the other. Then came Chicken Little. Fox Lox caught hold of her, and eat her all up, and then finished his supper with the rest, and all this from the foolish fright of Chicken Little.
Hell, let's post it in the story thread. It's not like it'll make our diplomatic situation any less screwed.
It's a pretty good play by them, though breaking a DP on turn 3 of the war is pretty dickish. I'm glad we didn't try to send GMs their way. I was serious about posting it in the story thread. It might earn us some good will with the small teams, who are the only civs that would conceivably ally with us.
