Turn 21, 3200BC

[notyoueither]

Turn 21, 3200BC
(Current Plan)

Units
Grog: 2/2, 1/2 Exp. Move 3
Spinebreaker: 1.6/2 (2t) 2/5 Exp (W1). Healing
Warrior 3: 2/2, 0/2 Exp. Fortify in EotS

Science
Current: Hunting in 3[2]
Polytheism 134/143


Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 3) WF back to flood plains
Growth: 3/26, paused for Warrior/Worker build
Production: Warrior complete; Worker in 8 turns is next in que

Diplomacy
Not much

Other
Name for Warrior 3?
Grog moves 3 (assuming no wild life show up next to him)?

[Arrian]

The first name that popped into my head was "Thug" :lol:

I dunno why I like it so much, but I do.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

/me thinks Arrian has mucho naming inspiration. :lol:

[notyoueither]

Turn 21, 3200BC

Units
Grog: 2/2, 1/2 Exp, move 3
Spinebreaker: Healing, 1.6/2 (2t) 2/5 Exp (W1)
Thug: 2/2, 0/2 Exp, Fort in Eye ofthe Storm

Science
Current: Hunting in 2 (34/57 +12)
Polytheism 134/143


Cities

Eye of the Storm (Size 3) Gov manage WF on: to 4-8-9
Growth: 3/26, 0fpt, paused for Worker build
Production: Worker in 8 turns, 12/60, +5f,1hpt

Diplomacy
None

Mailing end turn map shot to team email.

[DeepO]

I think we can use another warrior, if it doesn't delay growth-potential too much. Currently, we've got both the advantage and initiative on Vox, putting another warrior in the field can let us keep that until we can build a skirmisher.

Vox can count, they know when our first skirmisher is going to appear. If they can swarm us before that time, we can't put our worker to good use, and even risk facing an archer choke before we've got enough troops to destroy a forest-archer.

-------------

Plus, we still don't know where they are for sure. There is still the remote possibility that they moved their scout through the Tundra in the South undetected from the East to the West, and only advanced so visibly East in previous turn to let us think they're West, when in reality they were moving back to their home base.

A bit of an off-chance, I know. But knowing where the Voxian borders are and putting a scouting warrior nearby would certainly ease my mind.

DeepO

[DeepO]

I just realized something else... with Vox squarely on military techs, we've got the best chance of racing to Monotheism, and actually winning it, even after archery.

That's expensive, though, and we'll probably have to wait until at least BW or AH. At that point, we're not certain of anything anymore, and it's again a gamble.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Another quick warrior will slow us down yet more on the way to Archery. Is that bad? We finish the worker a turn before Archery as things stand.

Can we get some eyes on the demographics. If I'm not mistaken, Vox are at 1hpt and have been for some time. They just boosted their commerce.

[Blake]

I checked the demographics. Vox are in hardcore food mode. They may however be heading to Slavery with the intention of whipping out a unit or 3.

I think we could actually quite safely forge ahead to Monotheism once we have Archery. Our worker can just mine the sheep then another hill, then start making roads (I don't think we can use more than 2 mines). Working 2 mines will give us a skirmisher every 3 turns

The main problem is we wont know where horses/copper are; this knowledge would probably be most useful for denial (ie so we know where to park out Skirmishers).

Also without fast cottages we wont really have a shot at conf....

edit: Btw any speculation on why Vox switched to Hinudism? My best guess at the moment is that it was grounded in ignorance rather than good decision making (ie they think they need to adopt it for spreading purposes or something). Since if they want to know if it's spread (to us), they could probably use the religion screen and watch for the influence changing... or watch for our culture graph to bend.
The ideal time to switch to a religion is after the worker or settler pops out, so the unit can get working/moving during the anarchy.
Of course they may also have changed for RP reasons...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Blake
I think we could actually quite safely forge ahead to
Monotheism once we have Archery.

Only if we're begging to lose.

We are in a war, and we are playing humans who will be developing their economies.

We have a religion. It's over there in the Voice. Let's go get it.

[alva]

We have a religion. It's over there in the Voice. Let's go get it.


That was my initital thought too, to be honest.

[Arrian]

We're not going to conquer them with Skirmishers, folks, so if conquest is our goal, we need horses or metal.

Actually, given our sheep, AH is still a good bet. What if we can hook up some horses soon? Having Archery already, although it's expensive, HBR could give us a decisive advantage.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Are we sure we want to try and conquer Vox? I thought the war was primarily to keep their religion out and deny them their scouting advantage. Heading for Monotheism after AH appeals to me, but then I'm just a wussy builder. :cute: :o

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Arrian
We're not going to conquer them with Skirmishers, folks...

Why not?

[Mudhut]

Originally posted by Theseus


Why not?

Um... because skirmishers are excellent defensive units, but lousy at attacking cities? I know you know that already, so I think this probably just a semantic disagreement. Our eventual victory in this war will be because our skirmishers severely restrict Vox's expansion and growth, meaning we can bring overwhelming numbers to the battlefield. It may not be skirms which eventually take their capital...but you could say that our skirmishers will indirectly win the war.

Agree?

[notyoueither]

I do.

That's the point. Skirms will win the war long before the last battle is fought.

To do that, we will need to stay focused on what is in front of us, not some rabbit in the bushes.

We need the econ techs (pottery, agri, AH) and then Bronze Working, not necessarily in that order.

It would be a hell of a note if the Voice is built on Copper and we don't find out about it til the first axeman is coming while we're off on some pilgramage to a useless (in a war) religion.

[Blake]

What I REALLY think we should do is this.
FORGET about religion, it's lame and not needed and we have wines and can just get Monarchy to solve all happy problems, we don't need the holy city to get 90% of the benefit we can even just let Hinduism spread to us after we've vassalized Vox (in other words form an alliance where we have a stronger bargaining position, to offset their intelligence position from being able to see our cities).

While we're not pissing around going after Monotheism or whatever we grab archery and pump out 2-4 skirmishers (using mined sheep + another mined hill) and send at least 2 over to Vox to make a nuisance of themselves, with the goal being to either convince them to ally with us (as the war would DEFINITELY be too costly for them) or hurt them enough to allow us to finish them, or just make it hard for them to bring any fight to US.

After Archery we research to Pottery via Agriculture and we start getting cottages so we don't fall behind in tech, and we'll have enough research power to get Code of Laws or Monarchy very quickly (like 10 turns).
After Pottery we get Bronze Working to reveal copper and enable the whip.
After BW we get Animal Husbandry to reveal horses, and hook up the sheep (we'll probably be able to use the health by then - altough bear in mind THE MINED SHEEP IS A DAMN GOOD TILE)

With all important early techs under our belt we then either go to CoL or Monarchy (possibly via Monotheism if it seems like a good idea), or we can commit to a war, with a tech like Mathematics, Horseback Riding or Iron Working (depending on what resources we have).

Sound like a pretty strong plan?

[notyoueither]

Yes, it does.

We need BW, but everything is faster with cottages (two cottages quickly equal the palace).

I can see delaying BW til after Pottery. Possible modification if we see something strange in Vox land.

I'm still wondering why they are stuck at 1hpt.

I should note that I have seen McM and others in SP PBEMs do settlers waay early.

[Ennet]

Are they maxing commerce or just food? If they are maxing commerce they might be trying to speed up their path to Archery and then switch over to hammers to pump them out real fast. possibly even with a negative food balance, which would explain them maxing out food now aswell. They have an edge on us knowing exactly where we are, how far it is there, and everything about the terrain in between..

It would be hard to imagine that they are building a settler when they only have one warrior, and we might be marching upon their borders with two at this very moment.. OTOH If they are far enought away from us they must know the minimum number of turns it will take us to get to them, and if they know that they can settle a city and get a coupple of warriors to defend themselves they might go for it, hoping to get a production advantage over us..

Oh and if they have gold there is a good bet they are trying to get a worker out to mine it. With a good food bonus from cattle, fish or whatever else, you basically get a second palace with some nice production..

[vmxa1]

That is the most likely scenario. Trying to get archers as they have to be concerned about our UU. I cannot fathom them doing a settler right now, that would be crazy.

Oh wait, moving the scout where they did was close to being crazy. Blake's plan makes sense, until we see some reason to change.

[Blake]

Well in my new KGB thread I have some pretty good spec on Vox plans.

In short? They're giving our skirmishers the proper respect and are BEELINING to BW so they can beat US to THEIR copper.
After all, THEY don't know that we aren't researching Bronze Working, we aborted Poly after all.

For all they know our Warrior ("Grog") is already halfway over and rearing to set up camp on their copper. So they're heading full-tilt to BW, they're going to pray for copper, they're going to secure their copper, they're going to whip axemen.

[vmxa1]

That is betting the farm that they have copper, is it not? Archers could allow them to get some sort of peace deal and try to get more land to find copper.

Having copper will do them little good if it is not nearby. Archers at least means it will hard to take them down.

[Theseus]

Then beeline for BW, building Warriors in the meantime, whilst building up as much of a pop & food capability as possibility, in order to 1) whip Axemen if they have copper, or 2) continue with Warriors while then researching Archery, then whip Archers.

To Arrian's point, well yeah, even hardened Warriors can be a ***** taking down with Skirmies... Doesn;t matter; we will win with a Skirmie-choke in any case.

Blake's plan is good. :b: