Our Strategy....You Probably Haven't Heard of It

[WarriorKnight]

Since Shoot's in a GA, we should probably switch funding over to him for now.

Also I think we should go for PP after Steel. Thoughts?

[Shoot the Moon]

Since Shoot's in a GA, we should probably switch funding over to him for now.

Also I think we should go for PP after Steel. Thoughts?

Dave and I ran the numbers, and it is still better to fund him (by about 200 beakers/turn). The combination of him having oxford up while I don't and me having some gold multiplier buildings (for happiness in capital and in preparation of the Great Prophet in my holy city) while he has none makes him more efficient to fund fully.

[oledavy]

Hey Guys,

Scooter and MJW have both proposed that we as a team need to refocus our strategy, preferably before the next turn rolls. At the moment we're pulling in three different directions.

[SIZE="4"]Part I[/SIZE]

With all the military Lewwyn is deploying to protect Beijing, an overland campaign to take the city just doesn't seem very promising at this point. Furthermore, as Scooter pointed out, whacking on Team #2 at this point just ends up indirectly helping Team #1. To quote Locke: "stupid teams fighting good for us." It just isn't profitable to engage Lewwyn's megastack when Team #1 is running away in tech. We now have a very defensible border around Shoot, and should capitalize on that. So, at this point, we should end the campaign against Team #2, and instead have Shoot focus on boosting his GNP. If you recall from my State of Development post 14 turns ago, our weakness as a team was that Shoot was behind on infrastructure, and building cannons for an overland campaign doesn't promise to rectify that. Right now, India's focus should be becoming the team researcher we really need it to be.

Proposed Strategy for India
- Abort planned campaign against Lewwyn.
- Focus on growing cities and building infrastructure, particularly universities, observatories and courthouses.
- Build Oxford.
- Expand into the last 3-4 city sites in the East and Northeast.
- Fortify Maurice Levy, Omar, and Marlo.

Oh, and I know I sound like a broken record, but please cram more pikes into Maurice Levy. I'm really scared of that city falling. Omar and Marlo, not so much, Lewwyn would be foolish to attack us now that we have steel.

[SIZE="4"]Part II[/SIZE]

So, now the question becomes, what does India do with all that surplus military. Right now, we're in the twilight of the pre-rifle era, and if we're going to be able to kill elo hell before Sunrise gets a slew of redcoats, we need to go now and we need to go with overwhelming force. India should gift all it's surplus military, particularly the two-mover stack, to WK for use against Sunrise. He is the weak-link in Team #1, and taking out elo hell would be a huge blow to their research machine. So, I feel like right now we need to divert every spare resource on the team to making this attack work. I'm shuffling around my available military to free up some musketeers to participate in the attack from my next drafting cycle. If we all pool our resources, we can easily field a large enough military next to the city to guarantee it falls.

Proposed Strategy for Rome
- Focus everything on razing elo hell.

[SIZE="4"]Part III - Long-Term Strategy[/SIZE]

It's hard to plan out long-term. But here's my stab at it. After the presumed fall of elo hell, I think Rome needs to adopt a support role and focus on building infrastructure, growing its cities, and pumping out aggressive military + imperialistic settlers for the rest of the team. As the funder civ, the higher GPT it can reach, the better or our research rate. France still has a lot of land to expand into, and long-term, will be the superpower on our team. It just requires some help to get there. I still think it would be best for us to expand against the technologically backwards Team #4. However, if you read my latest update, you'll see I'm done going on the offensive against them for awhile out of necessity. I already accomplished the primary goal of securing the front and giving myself good land to backfill. 20 turns down the road though, I would like to resume going on the offensive and get some pre-cottaged land from Nabaxo to augment our empire. We could revisit attacking Team #2 at this point, however, I am beginning to think we're better served playing chicken with Team #1 as long a possible. Speaker and Sulla want to win this game. They proposed this game because they needed a win after Pitboss #4. They're going to blink first and go after Team #2 if they get too close to a cultural victory. If we just sit back, turtle, tech, and expand into Team #4's land, we'll be sitting pretty by the time the late game rolls around.

Proposed Long-Term Strategy for Rome
- Adopt support role.

Proposed Long-Term Strategy for France
- Continue expanding into the remaining city sites.
- Abuse spiritual for infrastructure, great people and drafting.
- Kill Nabaxo.

I think we go for Communism next regardless of what Team #1 does. It's go broke or go home. We have a pure GE pool in D'Angelo we can leverage into the Kremlin, and State Property promised to be a huge boost for our team, not to mention intelligence agencies and the free great spy. We will probably be at risk from cavalry, but I think that's a risk we need to take. If Team #1 decides to race us there, I think we can beat them since we'll have the GE.

Should all be very exciting if nothing else.

[scooter]

FWIW (not much but I thought I'd chime in anyways), I'm 100% in favor of oledavy's plan. The most notable thing to me lately is there's a clear lack of direction, and continuing down that path is basically conceding to team1 and playing for 2nd place. I don't think attacking Team2 right now is really all that profitable to us. Sure it hurts them, but in reality it helps Team1 more than it helps us, which is a bad trade.

[Shoot the Moon]

A couple thoughts:

Before calling off the attack on Team 2, I'd like to probe what Guangzhou has in it. With two movers, I can attack out of the fog with only 1t for him to respond, and my gut says it is probably lightly defended. At the very worst it just means I move a sentry knight in, see it is too well defended, and then move the two mover stack somewhere else. I agree though attacking the stack in Macau is likely not worth it at this point.

If I am going to be able to keep Maurice Levy, I'll need us to go for rifling after PP. Cannons are good on defense, but only when you can't be hit in 1t. Just pointing that out.

Also, my HE city is decently situated to give cannons to WK in support of hitting elo hell. This would especially work if WK can make some formation pikes for me -- with my pending revolt into Theocracy, I can put the same number of promos on my cannons as WK, but not on the pikes produced, so that would be worthwhile for us to essentially trade.

Actually though, that does bring up the question of whether or not I should switch into theo or stay in OR. I'd favor theo, but I don't think it is necessarily clear.

[WarriorKnight]

FWIW (not much but I thought I'd chime in anyways), I'm 100% in favor of oledavy's plan. The most notable thing to me lately is there's a clear lack of direction, and continuing down that path is basically conceding to team1 and playing for 2nd place. I don't think attacking Team2 right now is really all that profitable to us. Sure it hurts them, but in reality it helps Team1 more than it helps us, which is a bad trade.

2nded.

Before calling off the attack on Team 2, I'd like to probe what Guangzhou has in it. With two movers, I can attack out of the fog with only 1t for him to respond, and my gut says it is probably lightly defended. At the very worst it just means I move a sentry knight in, see it is too well defended, and then move the two mover stack somewhere else. I agree though attacking the stack in Macau is likely not worth it at this point.

I'm not sure what city Guangzhou is, but since Leewyn has Janissaries it probably won't end well with just 2-movers. Look at how quickly nabaxo managed to reinforce his cities last turn against dave. The Knight era looks like it's coming to a close since everyone has gunpowder.

If I am going to be able to keep Maurice Levy, I'll need us to go for rifling after PP. Cannons are good on defense, but only when you can't be hit in 1t. Just pointing that out.

We can probably deal with rifles on the defensive but not cavalry. As much as I wish we didn't have to I think we'll need to go for Rifling real shortly.

Also, my HE city is decently situated to give cannons to WK in support of hitting elo hell. This would especially work if WK can make some formation pikes for me -- with my pending revolt into Theocracy, I can put the same number of promos on my cannons as WK, but not on the pikes produced, so that would be worthwhile for us to essentially trade.

I plan to start the invasion in 5-6 turns or so. Any cannons that can reach VI before then would be greatly appreciated. Any 2 movers that can reach B in 7-8 turns would also be useful.

As for pikes, I'd be happy to build some more, but most of my cities are busy preparing for the invasion. If you can wait until VI builds enough galleons then I can switch it to pikes again.

[oledavy]

Alrighty, number of topics to respond to, first up:

Assault on elo hell



With the current time-frame, Team #1 will have rifling for 5 turns before WK can put troops ashore to threaten the city. We need a consensus before WK plays his turn on whether to go ahead or not.

Guangzhou



The city is probably lightly defended, and could probably be stormed. However, I think it probably isn't worthwhile. First off, razing the city does nothing to further Shoot's position, other than the pillage gold, and just puts Lewwyn back. Second, I'm really concerned that the 2-mover stack could be cut off and destroyed while in his territory. Lastly, if the debate is between using the stack to kill a city of Lewwyn's or kill elo hell, elo hell is definitely better to focus on. The stack can barely reach the front in time as it is, and this would divert it from the attack we really want to work. Of course, if we decide to abort the assault on elo hell, this becomes a bit of a non-issue, other than my second point anyway.

Maurice Levy



I sincerely believe if we just cram enough units in the city, we can hold Maurice Levy. Speaker is not going to attack unless he knows he can take it, and won't leave a ton of wounded cav on the doorstep of the city to be hit by collateral and mopped up. Formation pikes fortified in the city get odds on cav, so let's pile as many of those as we can in there, and and fill it with cheap drafted muskets and other units, anything to take a hit.

I would recommend you assemble a force of siege to defend the city, and augment the current cat stack with cannon. Place is behind the city, but still in range of the key tiles, so that Speaker can't flank it to death. Additionally, I'd recommend assembling a response force of two-movers stationed on the tile 1NW of Kararomum VI to play zone defense for Maurice Levy, X, W, and still be in range of all the adjacent tiles to Maurice Levy.

Rifling



I've already said how I think we can get by without rifling, and really need to skip it to get some economic techs online. However, I do have a possible compromise in mind. Instead of targeting rifling after Printing Press, we research military science. It's about 4,000 beakers cheaper than rifling + replaceable parts. Grenadiers make any rifle-led attack inadvisable, and are a Str. 12 unit we can promote to counter cavalry. As an added benefit, I get SoL to help me against Team #1 in the east. What do you two think?

Organized Religion or Theocracy for India

Organized religion. We already have WK in Nationhood and theocracy that is putting enough of a damper on our team's economy. India needs to focus on infrastructure and increasing its research rate, so I'd say OR is much better. Free Religion would also be a decent option, but let's get universities and observatories up first.

[WarriorKnight]

With the current time-frame, Team #1 will have rifling for 5 turns before WK can put troops ashore to threaten the city. We need a consensus before WK plays his turn on whether to go ahead or not.

5t is a long time. It all really depends on if sunrise starts drafting Redcoats or not. I have a hard time seeing why he wouldn't though. I'll continue preparing for the time being as I could use some cannon/galleons anyway.

Additionally, I'd recommend assembling a response force of two-movers stationed on the tile 1NW of Kararomum VI to play zone defense for Maurice Levy, X, W, and still be in range of all the adjacent tiles to Maurice Levy.

I'm already keeping units S of W for zone defense for W, X and B. However since B is probably less likely to fall under attack I'll probably switch staging locations once the elo hell assault has been completed.

I've already said how I think we can get by without rifling, and really need to skip it to get some economic techs online. However, I do have a possible compromise in mind. Instead of targeting rifling after Printing Press, we research military science. It's about 4,000 beakers cheaper than rifling + replaceable parts. Grenadiers make any rifle-led attack inadvisable, and are a Str. 12 unit we can promote to counter cavalry. As an added benefit, I get SoL to help me against Team #1 in the east. What do you two think?

Interesting. The only 2 problems I can see with Grenadiers are that they can't be drafted and they don't have any bonus against Redcoats. The 2nd point can be mostly avoided if we play smart defensively with cannons. However that still leaves nothing good to draft during the time where it's most effective.

[oledavy]

I'll continue preparing for the time being as I could use some cannon/galleons anyway.

The problem with continuing to build galleons is that they'll never be terribly useful in this part of the world. They offer you some tactical flexibility yes, but on the whole, land units would be better

Interesting. The only 2 problems I can see with Grenadiers are that they can't be drafted and they don't have any bonus against Redcoats. The 2nd point can be mostly avoided if we play smart defensively with cannons. However that still leaves nothing good to draft during the time where it's most effective.

Grenadiers get their 50% bonus against redcoats too. The big issue is that they cannot be drafted. On the other hand, drafting muskets longer would allow me to get in more musketeers, which will remain pretty useful for awhile.

[WarriorKnight]

The problem with continuing to build galleons is that they'll never be terribly useful in this part of the world. They offer you some tactical flexibility yes, but on the whole, land units would be better

Well without galleons there's no way we can assault elo hell. While it's possible we won't have much of a chance anyway, do you think we should stop the invasion right now?

Grenadiers get their 50% bonus against redcoats too. The big issue is that they cannot be drafted. On the other hand, drafting muskets longer would allow me to get in more musketeers, which will remain pretty useful for awhile.

So they do. That must have been changed somewhere.

Anyway, I forgot about musketeers. Continuing to draft them could be very useful. It does leave me with nothing good to draft in the short term, but I'll probably just focus on growth again.