RBPitboss #2 Athlete4life10 & Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Turn 74 has arrived and has seen our first HA roll out of Coruscant.

Turn 73 we moved our chariots to occupy some tiles. Our stack that has been sitting west of Athens is now only 2 chariots (our 2 promoted ones).

Dice Ibegon (warrior) is 1W,1SW of Athens occupying a grass/forest/hill.

We have a chariot on the wheat tile 2S of Athens (vulnerable to an attack as they have a road 1S).

We have a chariot 1E and 2E in a forest of Athens. These are both across a river.

It's unlikely that we get hit as they still have 4 archers and 2 workers cooped up in Athens and they'll probably have to use 2 archers to take out any 1 chariot. Our remaining chariots should be able to clean up Athens if they attempt to attack. Due to the placement of our units they can only work their crab tile, a grass/forest across the coast, and any 2 yield tile, whether it's 1F1H or 2F or 2H.

For T74 Owen has started a chop at Coruscant, and Beru is almost finished her mine at Kashyyyk. She'll finish next turn. So we're in position to get some HA's out pretty quickly now.

[Ilios]

Could we get some screenshots from outside the battlefield?

[Bobchillingworth]

Question about the Horse Archers (apologies if this has already been answered)- do you intend to move them into enemy territory as soon as they're completed, significantly strengthening the choke at the cost of some troop maintenance and the element of surprise, or will you move them all in at once for the kill?


Also, thank you for consistently updating your thread with new emails and conversations; your diplo work in forming a coalition of allies has been very impressive. Good luck in your war, I hope you prevail!

[kalin]

Hi Athlete,

A small correction: if they use 2 archers to kill a chariot, we won't be able to take Athens with 2 archers in it, but the second archer killing the chariot gets stranded on flat land and will die next turn. We trade 1 chariot for 2 archers which is pretty darn good, just that I don't think they'll take that trade

I have been thinking and I realized that we can move the horse archers 2SE of their horses. From that tile we can move in 1 turn between the wheat and horses (1E of the wheat, 1W of the horses) and be able to attack the capital next turn. If we play last in turn Byzantium will have no time to react! Of course, they shouldn't move after us, but I think we don't want to give them a chance to make a "mistake". Note that the tile 2SE of their horses will be in our cultural borders next turn when Endor gets the 3rd ring.

Given this information, and the fact that they only have 4 archers, I want us to be open to the possibility of attacking with as few as 4HAs. That is, once we have 4HAs on that tile, if they only have 4 archers in their capital we should move in! 4HAs and 5chariots can kill the 4 archers. If this happens we may not have to build that many HAs.

I also think we should get a HA from Endor now. With granary Endor can grow back very fast (1 turn I think, 2 at most). I therefore suggest the chop from the cottage goes into a HA, that we then whip. This may give us the 4HAs needed for the lightning strike. If we go with this plan, we are likely to have another HA just 1 turn behind that could attack either next turn or even the same turn across the river.

I want your opinion on the above It kind of makes sense to me. If we can eliminate them earlier we can move on with other things: workers, a galley, settlers.

Kalin

[kalin]

Question about the Horse Archers (apologies if this has already been answered)- do you intend to move them into enemy territory as soon as they're completed, significantly strengthening the choke at the cost of some troop maintenance and the element of surprise, or will you move them all in at once for the kill?


Also, thank you for consistently updating your thread with new emails and conversations; your diplo work in forming a coalition of allies has been very impressive. Good luck in your war, I hope you prevail!

Hi and thanks for stopping by.

I just outlined a plan independent of your post We don't intend to move the HAs in the enemy territory. The choke is very strong as it is, and we neither want to let them prepare more nor to pay more maintenance. I was hesitating to move the other two chariots in their territory anyway, but with them taking IW and having iron next to the capital and 2 workers, I think it's worth paying maintenance just to be safer. Back to the HAs, note how we can be last to move, move the HAs within 2 tiles of Athens, end turn, then be ready to attack during the new turn. Byzantium will see the HAs but be able to do nothing, unless we are slightly unlucky and they finish an archer that same turn. Please don't tell this to Byzantium

@Ilios: We have some older screenshots of our territory a while back that I have been using myself because nothing changed much. I cannot put more screenshots right now, but will try to do it a bit later.

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Could we get some screenshots from outside the battlefield?

I should be able to get a solid update done tonight, but as Kalin's already mentioned nothing has changed a whole lot.

[athlete4life10]

Hi Athlete,

A small correction: if they use 2 archers to kill a chariot, we won't be able to take Athens with 2 archers in it, but the second archer killing the chariot gets stranded on flat land and will die next turn. We trade 1 chariot for 2 archers which is pretty darn good, just that I don't think they'll take that trade

It would be a risk but something we could contemplate . We've been so conservative so far if we had an HA or 2 within striking distance for atleat the following turn I'd probably do it. Anyways that's another conversation .

I have been thinking and I realized that we can move the horse archers 2SE of their horses. From that tile we can move in 1 turn between the wheat and horses (1E of the wheat, 1W of the horses) and be able to attack the capital next turn. If we play last in turn Byzantium will have no time to react! Of course, they shouldn't move after us, but I think we don't want to give them a chance to make a "mistake". Note that the tile 2SE of their horses will be in our cultural borders next turn when Endor gets the 3rd ring.

Given this information, and the fact that they only have 4 archers, I want us to be open to the possibility of attacking with as few as 4HAs. That is, once we have 4HAs on that tile, if they only have 4 archers in their capital we should move in! 4HAs and 5chariots can kill the 4 archers. If this happens we may not have to build that many HAs.

I also think we should get a HA from Endor now. With granary Endor can grow back very fast (1 turn I think, 2 at most). I therefore suggest the chop from the cottage goes into a HA, that we then whip. This may give us the 4HAs needed for the lightning strike. If we go with this plan, we are likely to have another HA just 1 turn behind that could attack either next turn or even the same turn across the river.

I actually already saw that move but figured we'd discuss staging once we had a couple more HA's. However given we could have 4 very quickly I'm quite open to the idea of attacking sooner. We've got one already, and could get the other 3 from Coruscant and Kashyyyk quite quickly with chop/whip and overflow. We should really analyze this turn and the next couple to see if it's necessary to get the 4th from Endor or we can get them all from Coruscant and Kashyyyk.

FYI: I'll be pretty busy for the next little bit and might not get much of a chance to check in until tonight.

[kalin]

I actually already saw that move but figured we'd discuss staging once we had a couple more HA's. However given we could have 4 very quickly I'm quite open to the idea of attacking sooner. We've got one already, and could get the other 3 from Coruscant and Kashyyyk quite quickly with chop/whip and overflow. We should really analyze this turn and the next couple to see if it's necessary to get the 4th from Endor or we can get them all from Coruscant and Kashyyyk.

I think we need at least 4 HAs. The change in plan doesn't require almost any change in worker actions or tiles worked or anything. I am thinking that if we have 4HAs on the staging tile and Byzantium has only 4 archers, we can just move in and attack next turn without them being able to react much. 4HAs and 5 chariots are plenty for only 4 archers. Let's keep discussing.

Kalin

[kalin]

A very long message from Byzantium. I am still perplexed at the general tone and how they will "cede" us "Paris". Sure the tone is quite subdued, but I feel like they are negotiating from almost equal positions here.

The good news is that they completely misread us and our graphs They think we got IW and not only that, but they told us there is iron at Paris

In a sense, I am glad we got such an email because it is so easy to refuse them We should probably talk to them, being a bit tough, but subtly suggesting we are still quite far from being able to destroy them. I am imagining saying something: "we are still undecided about your fate, I hope you are aware that we will be able to easily destroy you in something like 30 turns or less".

Let's sleep on this a bit...

Kalin

Hey Athlete / Kalin,

So, I thought it was again time to drop you guys a note. Time has passed, tempers have cooled (if you were annoyed by what we ended up saying, you should have SEEN some of the drafts :-D ), and here we still are. Your chariots are enjoying our lush Byzantine scenery. You have researched Iron Working 2 turns ago, and will have seen where the various iron deposits are. If my math is right, you will shortly have the copper at Paris hooked up if it's not already and of course there is iron there too.

So the main impetus for writing you is... well let me see if I can put this in Civ in-game diplo-speak. Just as you let us know that our "head would look good on a pole" when you declared war, we are writing to say that you are no longer our "worst enemy". And so you may be interested in working out some sort of deal with us.

I mean, at this point, you have Paris (I hope you will not mind my referring to it by its old name, at least until They Might Be Giants write a song about it), you have a sizable force near Athens, and you have essentially crippled our civ. We stand a miniscule chance of winning this game, IMO.

So the real question at this point is whether it makes sense to completely eliminate us or not, should you be able to. Obviously it's a risk of undetermined magnitude as to whether or not you can eliminate us, in a given timeframe. My personal opinion is that should you decide to devote a majority of your resources to it, in due time you would be able to achieve that, for some given amount of time and resources. The question is instead, is that the best avenue for your resources? While you are still chopping and whipping out chariots (and likely soon axes and swords), other teams are massively expanding. You will of course already noted how many cities Speaker / Sullla have (and their score, as compared to yours or ours or even anyones!).

So our proposal is that you let us live, and we will serve as sort of a "meat-shield" in front of you. We cede Paris, as well as the river valley north of Paris. In addition, we realize that our civ and leader has certain advantages, just as yours (and others) do. For example you are Creative and Financial, which gives you some advantages, while we are Philosophical and Expansive, which gives us some advantages. I believe we mentioned awhile ago that we might be able to work something out in such a way that capitalizes on our strengths, when we offered workers, which might cost us only 45 hammers but give you 60 hammers of benefit. Something like that.

Honestly at this point, we would probably be up for just about anything. I'd prefer to avoid the outright vassalage, because it's a little crude and hard to enforce exactly before Feudalism, but we would be willing to act according to your general intentions. But obviously we're not in the position of strength here :-D

Anyway, time is a bit tight of course, and I assume that you need to talk things over with each other, but hopefully we can hear something soon. I should be around most of the afternoon / evening if you want to chat to iron out details, pardon the pun :-D

dan.
regoarrarr
Byzantium

[Jabah]

IW : that is quite a good news (both that you have some and that they completely missed their data analysis...)

In MP game, how do you enforce vassalage ???