AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm not worried about Cornflakes attacking any time soon,....he's not coming after us.

Let's not start that again. Last time you said that you felt comfortable,...

Deterrant against opportunism as always before musing of opportunism become dreams of grandeur. Let's not kid ourselves; Cornflakes can take cities from us anytime that he wants. 20T from now, probably not. Right now, yes and easily.

Keep showing CGIII LB and put walls in our border cities. That's what made Jowy bypass LALaw to his detriment.

Score right now (from CivStats):

Commdore: 996
Cornflakes: 950
AT: 915

Yeah, I can't belive it. Its incredible that we're doing so well considering we came within spitting distance of near total collapse. And have we built *any* infrastructure other than granaries and lighthouses?

But still, let's keep our score whipped down until we've nabbed Jowy's cities.

Power rating us: #2
Power rating Commodore: #3, at best.

Yeah, that's good that it looks like Commodore might not be in a position to easily invade Jowy. Keep up the pressure before Commodore is ready. Nobody would expect us to counter attack so quick I imagine. Vultures wait until they're sure of an easy meal.

Civics:

In Vassalage and Theo, NYPB Blue can make 3 promo maces and cats, and we don't need to make a fort to get units into the lake. 5 4 move galleys means a really fast force that can be used against Commodore's Lake Superior cities. The lack of worker turns is what is hurting us most right now, so I like that plan....

It sounds like you want both military civics? You're bypassing bureau now? That's interesting. Good I think too. Even if Jowy got LBs, the CRIII Maces can still put a hurt on. And WIII maces or WII/WIII Pikes will pick off wooded elephants with ease.

So if we're going both military civics,...that Academy is less effective if no bureau. Are we ready for a GA to polish off Jowy and handle the double civic switch? Not great going into GA while having war weariness. But still 2T (if that's what it is) of anarchy will really help Jowy reinforce. And the extra hammers will probably 1T those maces in NYPD. And we can get those maces to the front FAST with those galleys.

Well... then, we were the #5 military. Now, we are #2. Infra - some. We have some forges, a couple of libs, a market. a lot of free totem poles That said - yes, we will continue to build mil for SWAT. It needs some cats - the walls and LB are what made Jowy go away... the cats are what killed his stack...

Using the GP to kick off a GA isn't a bad plan, either - serious military building up, then can switch back to bureau after, maybe OR, too.

[MindyMcCready]

Other options if Eden Prime looks too tough to crack.

Forts only work as canals if they are next to a city, so we'd have to place a city by that lower fort. Is getting galleys there buying us anything?

City--Lake--Fort--Forts a no-go? Oh drat.

It only gets us future opportunity, and not even that given the 'need-a-city' oversight. If Jowy's rectified his lack of cities around the iron, that could be some easy pickings.

Long-term, if we have naval mobility between these lakes, unnamed Jowy lake, Erie, Blue and Superior that could be devestating. With the 2-civics that's 5 move galleys off the line. Brutal to defend against. We can boat cities out of the fog with ease.

[AutomatedTeller]

4 move galleys. We could get one up to 5, but that's with a GG promotion. Still, 4 move galleys are pretty good.

[MindyMcCready]

4 move galleys. We could get one up to 5, but that's with a GG promotion. Still, 4 move galleys are pretty good.

Sorry, typo again. 5-move galleons off the line.

[AutomatedTeller]

so, current plan (which may well have fallen apart by jowy action)

1) Take Horizon this turn. Build up forces and whatever infra we want in the next few turns.
2) Kick off a GA in a few turns. Switch to theo and vassalage. Kick out 5 4 xp galleys and upgrade them all to 8xp.
3) Start moving in on Jowy.
4) Drop off a force at Citadel from out of the fog and take it the next turn.

Ironcially, cities without a rax? Should be building maces - 2 promos out the gate, baby!!

We may only stay in both civics for the duration of the GA, maybe not even that long. But boy - it'll cause some consternation

[MindyMcCready]

so, current plan (which may well have fallen apart by jowy action)

1) Take Horizon this turn. Build up forces and whatever infra we want in the next few turns.
2) Kick off a GA in a few turns. Switch to theo and vassalage. Kick out 5 4 xp galleys and upgrade them all to 8xp.
3) Start moving in on Jowy.
4) Drop off a force at Citadel from out of the fog and take it the next turn.

Ironcially, cities without a rax? Should be building maces - 2 promos out the gate, baby!!

We may only stay in both civics for the duration of the GA, maybe not even that long. But boy - it'll cause some consternation

Sounds good. Took alot of back-and-forth to come up with, but its a good plan.

Looking forward to the results of the Battle of Horizon.

[MindyMcCready]

so, current plan (which may well have fallen apart by jowy action)

2) Kick off a GA in a few turns. Switch to theo and vassalage. Kick out 5 4 xp galleys and upgrade them all to 8xp.

I missed this. You want 5 galleys rather than 3? Why was that? Did you not think that 3 galleys could get the job done? I'm a little apprehensive about the delay that getting the 2 extra galleys and 4 extra units will cause. That's another 100H of galleys and another 200-280H of units.

I'm not sure that we need this kind of ompf on a surprise attack.

Is this what you intended to say?

[MindyMcCready]

In Vassalage and Theo, NYPB Blue can make 3 promo maces and cats, and we don't need to make a fort to get units into the lake. 5 4 move galleys means a really fast force that can be used against Commodore's Lake Superior cities. The lack of worker turns is what is hurting us most right now, so I like that plan....

Ok. So you are planning for 5 galleys. What's the timeline for that? I really don't think that we can do that in time for this round of war with Jowy. Unless you're whipping every city to the ground Jowy's going to have a pretty decent military by then.

We don't really need this many galleys right now. Commodore can wait. The days of galleys aren't that much longer anyway. 4-move or 5-move galleons are coming and we'll be able to upgrade those galleys to 6-move galleons before long. In the distant future dry docks will get us those 4XP.

That's a lot of hammers when we have an immediate need for troops and ground troops. Not clear if the opportunity cost is 100H for 2 empty galleys (not necessary since we're not faking him out, we're going for the jugular) or we're looking at 2 extra galleys + 200-280H of invading force.

Sorry that I didn't read it carefully enough before, just in a rush today. Spending waaaaaayyyyy too much time on PB lurking.

My preference is 1 existing galley (0XP) + 1 additional galley from BJ (0XP if not civic switch yet) + 1 additional galley from LA (4XP, last galley needs to be post civic switch) + 20XP GG = 24XP/3units. Its just going to be so much faster to put these together. Jowy's going to be able to nail our stack with a whack of catapults if we delay too much.

And like you said, we could very well get another GG before long.

What turn is "T0" going to occur on based on this estimate?

[AutomatedTeller]

In Vassalage and Theo, NYPB Blue can make 3 promo maces and cats, and we don't need to make a fort to get units into the lake. 5 4 move galleys means a really fast force that can be used against Commodore's Lake Superior cities. The lack of worker turns is what is hurting us most right now, so I like that plan....

Ok. So you are planning for 5 galleys. What's the timeline for that? I really don't think that we can do that in time for this round of war with Jowy. Unless you're whipping every city to the ground Jowy's going to have a pretty decent military by then.

We don't really need this many galleys right now. Commodore can wait. The days of galleys aren't that much longer anyway. 4-move or 5-move galleons are coming and we'll be able to upgrade those galleys to 6-move galleons before long. In the distant future dry docks will get us those 4XP.

That's a lot of hammers when we have an immediate need for troops and ground troops. Not clear if the opportunity cost is 100H for 2 empty galleys (not necessary since we're not faking him out, we're going for the jugular) or we're looking at 2 extra galleys + 200-280H of invading force.

Sorry that I didn't read it carefully enough before, just in a rush today. Spending waaaaaayyyyy too much time on PB lurking.

My preference is 1 existing galley (0XP) + 1 additional galley from BJ (0XP if not civic switch yet) + 1 additional galley from LA (4XP, last galley needs to be post civic switch) + 20XP GG = 24XP/3units. Its just going to be so much faster to put these together. Jowy's going to be able to nail our stack with a whack of catapults if we delay too much.

And like you said, we could very well get another GG before long.

What turn is "T0" going to occur on based on this estimate?

Ahh - I see the disconnect. When you give XP to mulitple units, it's over all of them as equally as the game can make it. So, we can't give 8 to 2 and 4 to 1 like that.

1 unit can get 20
2 can get 10/10
3 can get 7/7/6
4 can get 5/5/5/5
5 can get 4/4/4/4/4

We can go with 3 galleys and 2 other units getting a bonus - in fact, the GG can be attached to another unit completely. Or, we can switch only to Theocracy, whip out 3 galleys and use those.

We don't have to decide this turn, though we should by next turn.

[MindyMcCready]

My preference is 1 existing galley (0XP) + 1 additional galley from BJ (0XP if not civic switch yet) + 1 additional galley from LA (4XP, last galley needs to be post civic switch) + 20XP GG = 24XP/3units. Its just going to be so much faster to put these together. Jowy's going to be able to nail our stack with a whack of catapults if we delay too much.

Ahh - I see the disconnect. When you give XP to mulitple units, it's over all of them as equally as the game can make it. So, we can't give 8 to 2 and 4 to 1 like that.

1 unit can get 20
2 can get 10/10
3 can get 7/7/6
4 can get 5/5/5/5
5 can get 4/4/4/4/4

We can go with 3 galleys and 2 other units getting a bonus - in fact, the GG can be attached to another unit completely. Or, we can switch only to Theocracy, whip out 3 galleys and use those.

We don't have to decide this turn, though we should by next turn.

Ah crap. That's how it works. BOOOOOOO! HISSSSS! Obviously, I've never done this kind of cool stuff against the AI.

Ok. I don't think that we can wait for 5 galleys. Time is against us.

2 galleys 10XP each with a follow up regular galley. If we can stage them on the same tile on T0 then it should only be 1-turn behind. That allows us to use the existing galley which will also help to speed up our attack.

What do you think about 2-10XP galleys and 1-0XP galley (or maybe 4 xp, could still be a 3 mover,...).