Gavagai manages his personal GULAG

[Gavagai]

I currently plan to attack Tsargon on T113 with a one-mover stack in the south (to lure his forces out of position) and follow up on T115 with a two-mover stack in the north to capture his core. Southern stack will have 2 Spears, 3 Axes, 4 Swords, 3 Chariots. This is the most pessimistic scenario, most likely we will have more units. Northern stack will have no less than 30 HAs (may be more).

Bacchus, comments?

I see you're trying really hard to avoid early wars

The situation pushes for this. Between Tsargon, HAK and Wannabe Krill is like a fox in a henhouse and we have no choice but to engage in chicken-eating contest with him.

[The Black Sword]

Krill is like a fox in a henhouse and we have no choice but to engage in chicken-eating contest with him.

You are on a roll with these quotes.

[Bacchus]

Our Stakhanovite leaders of production:

The Glorious, Order of Lenin Copper Mining City of Norilsk



The Magnificent, Order of the Worker's Red Flag Quarrying City and Construction 859



These Mints are working super-hard

Also, tech screen. We have everything to the left except for Meditation and Priesthood

[Bacchus]

At about 6 turns we are coming to the tech juncture. I still think we should pick up Medi-Priesthood-CoL rather than Construction. By ~T115 our army will be fully built up, and we will be pushing our number of cities to a level where maintenance becomes significant. If we go the Medi-Priest-CoL path, we'll get access to courthouses just as we have available production, and just as their ability becomes relevant. We should go Construction only if we fear a war with Barteq and want access to collateral for protection purposes.

[Gavagai]

This isn't even a choice, I think. Without CoL Tsargon's cities will kill our economy.

[Gavagai]

News: 1) We found Adrien to NE from Tsargon. Offered him OB. 2) HAK logged in but didn't accept open borders. 3) Barteq accepted OB.

Questions to consider:

1) If we reschedule our attack to T110 as we discussed in chat, we need to to remove one of the units from the sourthern stack (to remind: initial estimate was 3 chars, 2 spears, 3 axes, 4 swords). I vote to remove spear.

2) To which stack we should attach super-medic? Initially I wanted to go with the sourthern stack (one of three chariots listed) but now I have doubts.

3) We have an option to swap a chariot in the sourthern stack to unpromoted HA. Should we do it?

[Bacchus]

1) I would drop a chariot from the stack, as Tsargon's army is Immortal heavy. Swords do stand up well enough against them, but sad for them to lose hit points. Chariots are a bit useless, there aren't really any objectives that require mobility in the south.

2) Northern. This also answers question 1) then.

3) I would say unnecessary, also very antisynergistic with sword/axe attacks, they will be hitting any spears last.

[Gavagai]

OK, agreed.

EDIT: I think we should also grab free skirmisher which we currently have on sentry duty in the south and add him to the stack.

[Gavagai]

I disagree, however, that HA would be useless in the south. The big problem of sourthern stack is that it is very vulnerable to axes: the best defender against an axe we have there is a similar axe. HA would be a solution to this. However, I think I will just make a shock HA in Norilsk and send it to follow this stack. It should catch up fast enough.

[Bacchus]

If he hits out with axes, I think it will be favourable for us. His units are already thin, and picking 50-50 fights in the face of immediate counterattack would be ill-advised.