Operation "Backstab"

[sooooo]

This thread is for the discussion of all things related to Constantinople and the delaration of war against Imperio and subsequent invasion of Maya.

Screenshots to appear later, but I'd be interested in Sunrise's thoughts on possible strikes against Chichen Itza and Mutal.

[sunrise089]

First, a forum question:

When I visit the main apoloyton forum site I scroll down to the demogame link, I see the title from the most recent thread. Can I only see the names of threads that I have permission to view? If not, then we should rename this one :)

As for the strike on Imperio, we're sort of working towards cross purposes right now.

No matter what we do we need/want to kill the Imperio stack, either by letting them capture Constantinople with it and then hitting them, or by capturing Constantinople ourselves and then getting them to walk their stack up to the city.

I believe my marked tiles are still valid, and we can still conduct a 2-mover attack versus Mutal and an amphibious attack versus Chichen Itza. How we combine these attacks with taking Constantinople and attacking the Imperio mega-stack isn't clear, and it depends on what we prioritize. Options:

1) Peaceful option - as long as we have city spots to settle and our power is growing faster than Imperio's then we simply capture Constantinople, settle 2 more cities, and declare later when Imperio's can't counter our attack even if they see it coming.

2) Total surprise option - we gamble that Imperio will use their mega-stack to capture Constantinople. We keep workers on hand but make no move to capture the city. As soon as Imperio captures the city we declare, hit their mega-stack with all of our one movers minus 4 Oromos, and simultaneously move in our knight+ha stack and boats in the north. The dangers here are that Imperio may not move everything against Constantinople, and that once the city falls and its culture goes away they could hit our stack the same way we could hit theirs.

3) Cake and eat it too option - Capture Constantinople, use diplomacy to somehow coax the Imperio stack towards the city, and then initiate the 3-pronged attack. The main difference between this and option 2 is that we capture the city ourselves, controlling the time frame better.

4) Compromise option - Capture Constantinople, then attack Mutal and Chichen, and not worry about the Imperio mega-stack. Once our army heals we can hopefully prevent the Imperio stack from moving against us, and Imperio will be down two cities.

Right now we seem to be heading towards options 3 or 4 (based on the votes for attacking Constantinople). The biggest danger I can see with this plan is that we may not be strong enough to detach our 2-movers, capture Constantinople, and then attack the Imperio stack in short order. Furthermore we risk tipping off Imperio and having them place more units in Mutal and Chichen. Of course we have to weight against that the defensive power of controlling Constantinople.

[sooooo]

I like option 2 - total surprise option.

The votes to attack constantinople were based on the thought that Imperio were going after Damascus. If they head to Constantinople, then we could still capture the city just not from the Templars, from Imperio :)

And:

When I visit the main apoloyton forum site I scroll down to the demogame link, I see the title from the most recent thread. Can I only see the names of threads that I have permission to view? If not, then we should rename this one :)

Yes, you can only see the thread names you have permission to view. Otherwise we'd be seeing the other teams' thread names.

[darrelljs]

Yeah, this thread needs to be renamed for the reason sunrise stated and also because it isn't a backstab since they didn't give us Gunpowder for Nationalism as agreed :).

Darrell

[Swiss Pauli]

As you all know, I'm vacillating between surprise and obvious confrontation, and it's all Imperio's fault for not playing their turns!

All things being equal, we'd be much better off catching Imperio unawares, but if they don't play their turns then we lose valuable time in our quest to control our continent.

I suggest Option 2.5: let's move to threaten Constantinople next turn, and if Imperio moves their stack towards Constantinople on the same turn we pull back towards Jericho. If they don't then we can choose to take it ourselves.

One point we shouldn't forget is that if Imperio attacks Constantinople, they will have units (possibly the majority, and certainly lots of cats) on the far side of the city on the turn they capture it (on the Copper tile, I assume). Therefore we need to have 1 move units 2 tiles from Constantinople, so that we can also attack out from the city after capturing it.

PS: I had The Fear about thread names a while back, so I logged out of Poly, and verified that you can only see allowed threads.

[regoarrarr]

I like swiss's suggestion of operation 2.5

[sunrise089]

...

One point we shouldn't forget is that if Imperio attacks Constantinople, they will have units (possibly the majority, and certainly lots of cats) on the far side of the city on the turn they capture it (on the Copper tile, I assume). Therefore we need to have 1 move units 2 tiles from Constantinople, so that we can also attack out from the city after capturing it.

Right, I've thought about this as well, and fortunately things work ok for this. We can always keep our units 2 tiles from the city under the pretense of merging our stacks together as they leave Jerusalem - not having a completed road actually helps us here, in case there are any Imperio spies. We will just need to have lots of workers in position...I'll detail the tiles we need to have workers on when I make my little turn report tonight.

In other next Imperio is sitting their galley in Cape Town, so they will have warning if we build 2 galleys there.

[mostly-harmless]

We could hold back on Const for now and wait for the forced peace to end and go for Chichen & Mutal first. We will see if Imperio even declares on Templars before T165(?) and then re-assess the Const issue.
That way we will ensure surprise and low defense in Chichen & Mutal. And every turn we wait, our military grows bigger than theirs.

mh

[ruff_hi]

If we don't like Op Backstab, then how about ...

'Operation Bravo Cats By Tick'

which is an anagram of 'Operation Backstab Victory'

[Zeviz]

How close is Imperio to attacking Constantinopole? If they can get there before our troops heal after capturing the city, they can hit our stack the way we intend to hit theirs. So if we can be ready for them by the time they get there, I vote for Option 4. Otherwise, option 2.
If we don't like Op Backstab, then how about ...

'Operation Bravo Cats By Tick'

which is an anagram of 'Operation Backstab Victory'
I like this name. :p

[Sullla]

sunrise, I concur with most of the others here in saying that it all depends on what Imperio does with their uber-stack. If they move aggressively on Constantinople, we pull back and let them capture the city, then hit them with the total blindside attack (option 2). If they continue to run around in circles, we capture the city ourselves and present them with a fait accompli in the south (option 1 or 4).

Regardless, we want to move towards Constantinople on the upcoming turn (T162). Depending on what Imperio does, we can decide whether to build another cat in Cape Town, or swap over to galleys. My own opinion is that if Imperio goes for Templars, we make the change and prepare for the total backstab.

[Dreylin]

Question:

Much of the discussion has been about a lightening strike in to capture and probably raze Mutal. I realise that would be particularly demoralising for Imperio, but do we really want to raze Mutal? It contains the Sistine Chapel, which we'd really like to have if we do go for a Cultural victory at the end of this game....

I know that much of our planning will be determined by how effectively we can get Imperio to walk their stack into ours, but should we be looking for a plan of attack for Mutal that doesn't likely result in it turning into a pile of rubble?

[MyOtherCar]

I think it is preferable if we let Imperio and Templars slug it out and let them loose some units to each other. On the other hand, we shouldn't wait indefinitely for Imperio to act (stop listening to Aidun, hombres!)

@ruff: you have entirely too much time on your hands. :)

[sunrise089]

Question:

Much of the discussion has been about a lightening strike in to capture and probably raze Mutal. I realise that would be particularly demoralising for Imperio, but do we really want to raze Mutal? It contains the Sistine Chapel, which we'd really like to have if we do go for a Cultural victory at the end of this game....

I know that much of our planning will be determined by how effectively we can get Imperio to walk their stack into ours, but should we be looking for a plan of attack for Mutal that doesn't likely result in it turning into a pile of rubble?

I think we want to raze any cities we can, 100%. Think of how long it took us to take the offensive during our 2-front war, even though we were winning it in terms of unit production and kills. And even with all of our advantages, each successive Templar battle (Jericho, their army in our land, Jerusalem, and now Constantinople) has been against more and stronger units.

Knocking out Imperio's stack in the south and capturing Constantinople will clearly win our continent for us in the long term, but it will also consume a lot of RB units. If we can knock out 2 developed Imperio cities for the cost of around 10 units at the same time...well that should let us more or less steamroll them.

[sooooo]

Agree about taking the chance to raze Mutal if we can. It kills their teching and hence we kill off PAL's only remaining trade partner.

Need to move the mounted troops from jerusalem north and Sarah methinks.

[darrelljs]

Ouch on losing Sistine Chapel, but I defer to sunrise on that one. It'd be nice if someone could come up with a way to keep it though.

Darrell

[sooooo]

Cultural victory is a pipe dream. I'm pretty sure that this game will be won (by either side) by domination or conquest.

[sunrise089]

Ouch on losing Sistine Chapel, but I defer to sunrise on that one. It'd be nice if someone could come up with a way to keep it though.

Darrell

Well we can keep it, 100%, if we want. We take Constantinople before or after killing the Imperio stack, and we attack Chichen Itza with knights and the Oromos on boats removing the threat to Cape Town. However we are now faced with Imperio with one more city drafting/slaving units and teching at the same time. Of course we can leverage our 15 cities and march up to it, but it's a delay of 5-10 turns and gives us a much stronger Imperio to fight. I just don't think a single wonder is worth that.

Other than fight PAL, we can do anything we want in this game in the short-term, and that includes capturing Mutal. The problem is every prolonged military engagement, and every city building military, puts us further behind PAL.

[Dreylin]

Other than fight PAL, we can do anything we want in this game in the short-term, and that includes capturing Mutal. The problem is every prolonged military engagement, and every city building military, puts us further behind PAL.
OK, that's what I wanted to know ... after all I need to learn all I can about the secrets of MP warfare so I can hold my own in the RB Pitboss! :)

[Sullla]

There's another excellent reason to raze Mutal: it contains Imperio's only iron source... and since they have no copper, their only source of any metals at all. Obviously we would like to keep Mutal. I love Sistine Chapel, it's one of my favorite wonders. But it's more important to kill off the city quickly if at all possible, and we can't possibly keep it if we go the lightning strike route.

If we can successfully pull off all aspects of our backstab plan, we would achieve the following:

- Razing of Imperio's capital and best city
- Capture of Chichen Itza, their #3 city
- Annihilation of their army, over 200k worth of units

That would leave Imperio with Lakamha as their new capital, along with a series of fishing village cities that lack production. Yes, they could whip and draft, but with no metals they couldn't produce much other than muskets. No knights and no cannon, even if PAL gifts them Steel. From that position, our mastery over the continent is assured, and that gets us into an extreme late-game showdown with PAL at the very least.

It all depends on decapitating Imperio's capital at the very outset of the war. That requires speed, and that means razing Mutal. Besides, we'll get to keep Lakamha, and that's an even better city, with the Islamic Shrine and Notre Dame to boot. :)

[sunrise089]

Post complete. This post covers the proposed attacks on Chichen Itza and Mutal. I will make another post next turn with a plan to hit the main Imperio stack in the south after we have more info about the stack's destination.

Okay, lets talk unit micromanagement.

Right now the earlier we can attack Imperio is turn 166. Let me detail what needs to happen for that to happen.

Boats (2 galleys, 1 trireme)
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5545/civ4screenshot0322.jpg
T163 - Galley 1 is produced out of Cape Town.
T164 - Galley 2 is produced out of Cape Town. Both galleys move 1 tile NW out of Cape Town.
T165 - Galleys sail towards Imperio waters.
T166 - Sail into Imperio waters and land next to Chichen Itza.

Horses (up to 4 knights, 5 horse archers, 1 chariot)
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5599/civ4screenshot0324.jpg
T162 - Healthy mounted units step into Templar land to escort catapults towards the safety of a hill tile.
T162b - Other mounted units cover their stack and move next to Constantinople.
T163 - Horses step back into Jerusalem.
T163b - Horses south of Constantinople move to the stack north of the city.
T164 - Horses move towards Imperio land.
T164b - Horses next to Constantinople retreat into Jericho.
T165 - Horses move towards Imperio land.
T166 - Horses ride 2 tiles along our road and then 2 tiles into Imperio land.
T167 - Horses attack Mutal
PS - I haven't mapped out the route, but Betty Hur should join this party. She won't be able to scout once the war begins, and this will be a good opportunity to ensure she faces a wounded unit.

Workers (2 workers)
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/7990/civ4screenshot0326.jpg
T165 - Workers move to their staging tile.
T166 - Workers road Cape Town's rice tile.

Oromo Warriors (11 Oromos)
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/278/civ4screenshot0327.jpg
We have 11 Oromo warriors, assigned to 4 task groups. Group "d," which comprises three Oromos, is part of the Constantinople attack force and is not part of this plan.
T163 - Group "a," with one red dot per Oromo, moves to the T163 tile. Group "b," blue dots, move towards the T164b tile, with the 2 Oromos covering a catapult 1SE of Jericho moving back into the city as the cat is handed off to the "a" stack. "C," the yellow Oromo moves forward as well.
T164 - "A" Oromos move into Cape Town. "B" and "C" Oromos move onto their new staging tiles.
T165 - "A" Oromos move onto the two galleys. "B" Oromos move into Cape Town and (hopefully) fool Imperio into thinking only one unit moved away. They also prevent an Imperio 2-mover sneak attack. "C" moves into Red Herring in case Imperio has units on their galley and plans to sneak attack us.
T166 - "A" Oromos attack Chichen Itza.

[Sullla]

This looks pretty solid to me - assuming that we are in a position to hit the Imperio stack on T166, we would be in tremendous shape.

One minor request: please keep Betty Hur in Imperio land for the time being. One additional chariot won't make much of a difference in the actual attack, whereas the information she brings back each turn on Imperio troop movements and number of defenders in each city is priceless to us. She'll even be teleported back to our land when we declare war, so she'll live to fight another day. At the very least, we have to keep visibility on the uberstack until we confirm where it's heading.

[sunrise089]

...One minor request: please keep Betty Hur in Imperio land for the time being...

I plan to keep her on station until at least T164. The turn before we declare though it will be useful for her to run past Mutal and Chichen Itza and then wind up teleported onto the rice tile, so I'd like to arrange that. If Mutal falls easily Betty will simply run home, but on the off chance one weak unit remains alive she can play a role. It's always nice to have one extra unit if we can supply it without cost (in this case to scouting).

EDIT: I simmed out a battle of a healthy southern RB army versus a healthy Imperio army, including all of Imperio's muskets and longbows, and none of RB's mounted units. In the first round we loose every catapult, but only three other units. Imperio looses every non-cat except for four units. In the second round, versus the AI, Imperio cats us but can only kill a single unit. After we promote our units we have 95%+ on the Imperio cats and wounded units.

Same sim but with 3 RB horse archers and without the Imperio longbows (probably the most likely scenario) sees us loose all but one cat, and 4 regular units, to win every other battle and kill a total of 6 Imperio cats. The second round has every remaining Imperio unit die to no RB losses.

Finally, same sim as above, but with all 5 HAs present for RB sees 9 Imperio cats die in the first round.

[Swiss Pauli]

Hmmmm...I think out element of surprise might be compromised by that pesky lake south of Cape Town. If you look at how the lake on the Imperio border is acting, we're getting visibility of tiles on its far-side. I think we should pull back the Oromos into the forest until the last minute.

Ack, if we DoW Imperio their scouting Galley will surely be teleported to the coastal tile 1N of Cape's cows, so we'd be relying on our trireme winning its battle in order to boat Chichen. It'll have good odds, but we should consider the cost of failure when deciding whether or not to train another trireme (before Optics).

[mostly-harmless]

Ack, if we DoW Imperio their scouting Galley will surely be teleported to the coastal tile 1N of Cape's cows, so we'd be relying on our trireme winning its battle in order to boat Chichen. It'll have good odds, but we should consider the cost of failure when deciding whether or not to train another trireme (before Optics).
Good point. However, if our trireme fails it should leave their galley wounded and easy prey for our galley, which gets a free promotion fro the settled GG.

hm

[Swiss Pauli]

Yeah, but the problem is the battle will cost the galley a movement point, I think, leaving the units onboard unable to attack Chichen.

[mostly-harmless]

Yeah, but the problem is the battle will cost the galley a movement point, I think, leaving the units onboard unable to attack Chichen.

I don't think this is the case. It is a 1move tile (unlike attacking units on a hill or a forest with for example cavalry).

mh

[ruff_hi]

@ruff: you have entirely too much time on your hands. :)

No I don't ... http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

[T-hawk]

I don't think this is the case. It is a 1move tile (unlike attacking units on a hill or a forest with for example cavalry).

mh

mh is correct. If a ship kills another ship, and there are no more defending ships in the defending tile, the winning attacker will automatically advance into the defender's square.

[sooooo]

I think Swiss is right. The winner will indeed move into the defender's square, but the galley needs to then move another square to be able to attack Chichen. I think it loses that last movement point.

But anyway, we're clutching at straws here. If we are unlucky and our trireme loses we'll have to wait a turn to attack Chichen or risk attacking with just two oromos. Or even unload the two oromos in the first galley and then the following turn attack with them with 2 backup oromos that could attack amphibiously.

[Sullla]

EDIT: I simmed out a battle of a healthy southern RB army versus a healthy Imperio army, including all of Imperio's muskets and longbows, and none of RB's mounted units. In the first round we loose every catapult, but only three other units. Imperio looses every non-cat except for four units. In the second round, versus the AI, Imperio cats us but can only kill a single unit. After we promote our units we have 95%+ on the Imperio cats and wounded units.

Same sim but with 3 RB horse archers and without the Imperio longbows (probably the most likely scenario) sees us loose all but one cat, and 4 regular units, to win every other battle and kill a total of 6 Imperio cats. The second round has every remaining Imperio unit die to no RB losses.

Finally, same sim as above, but with all 5 HAs present for RB sees 9 Imperio cats die in the first round.


Based on this, it sounds like we should keep a couple of horse archers in the Constantinople area. Still, we can't weaken the striking arm heading for Mutal too much - that's the most critical force of all. I suspect we'll have to wait and see what Imperio does, and shift our forces around accordingly. At least this gives us a good idea of how things might play out. :)

[mostly-harmless]

I think Swiss is right. The winner will indeed move into the defender's square, but the galley needs to then move another square to be able to attack Chichen. I think it loses that last movement point.
Just checked this out in WorldBuilder. The galley keeps it 2nd movement point after sinking it's opponent with the 1st.(like cavalry on plains for example)
Otherwise it would have been just too counter-intuitive.

mh

[sunrise089]

@Sullla - Yes, not too surprisingly even our army isn't large enough to attack Chichen Itza, Mutal, the Imperio mega-stack, and cover our cities simultaneously with total safety :)

I agree the Mutal strike is critical. I think a compromise might be to keep the three Oromos not tasked with attacking Chichen Itza on hand at Constantinople. That will leave Cape Town almost totally undefended until it can build some more units itself during T164 onwards, but I think we can use Lady Godiva to make sure there isn't an Imperio stack of knights waiting to 1-move Cape Town as soon as peace expires.

EDIT: I think this compromise works out pretty well:

1) The 2-movers, workers, and ships are built and moved as planned.
2) Lady Godiva ends T163 2 tiles south of Mutal, and then proceeds to the the northern Imperio city with gold and marble on T164, checking for mounted units in the fog NW of Mutal. She then verifies Mutal's defenses on T165 and moves desert 1E of the Cape Town rice tile, where she will teleport back into our land during T166.
3) Assuming Lady Godiva doesn't find any mounted units, all of our Oromos except for three head into Templar land. The three that don't board the ships, along with an Oromo built in Cape Town that appears on T165. Cape Town then builds another defender that will appear on T166 or T167 depending on overflow.
4) The result is that our southern army has 8 Oromos by the time Imperio is able to attack Constantinople, which will probably make up for casualties even if we attack Constantinople ourselves and take some losses.

One hitch in this plan - what do we think the odds are that Imperio has 2 units on their galley that is inside Cape Town? And what are the odds they will declare war themselves on T164 or T165? If we think the odds are more than negligible than I should still divert an Oromo to Red Herring.

[regoarrarr]

Can Saxon the Beach be drafted to cover for Red Herring?

[sunrise089]

I don't think so - the Oromo ends up a tile short. It isn't the end of the world to keep the yellow dot Oromo heading to Red Herring, it just reduces the number of Oromos at Constantinople by 1 from T167 onwards. T167 is pretty far off, and may not matter if the Imperio stack roles in quickly.

[sooooo]

We still have a couple of hammers each into a longbow and a trireme at Red Herring and can upgrade the archer too if necessary. I wouldn't divert an oromo to the city.

[Sullla]

One hitch in this plan - what do we think the odds are that Imperio has 2 units on their galley that is inside Cape Town? And what are the odds they will declare war themselves on T164 or T165? If we think the odds are more than negligible than I should still divert an Oromo to Red Herring.


I rate this an extremely low probability based on reading the C&D numbers. Imperio is building a wonder in Lakamha right now, their #2 city, and I can't see them conducting a sneak-attack on us under those conditions. I believe that their offer of a 40-turn NAP was genuine, and (if we truly were willing to gift them all of the Templar cities) it would put them in a pretty competitive position in this game. Furthermore, even if they did declare war on us, their galley would be teleported back to their own borders, and we could sink it with our trireme before it got anywhere close to Red Herring. So no need to send an Oromo there - we even have the emergency options of whipping or upgrading the archer defender there, should all else fail.

sunrise's compromise posted above sound good to me. And since we have visibility on essentially all Imperio units, and C&D analysis to prove their are no hidden stacks, I rate the possibility of a surprise knight move against Cape Town as all but non-existant. We'll be OK to move just about everything forward.

[Zeviz]

The plan looks good, but I have a question: What do we do if Imperio's mega-stack stays put or moves north on turn 165? Will they be able to threaten Cape Town before we can reinforce it?

Also, if Imperio has a 1-turn warning before our attack on Mutal, will they be able to use their mounted units to reinforce the city? What other reinforcements can we expect? (1 whipped and 1 drafted musket. What else?)

[sunrise089]

The plan looks good, but I have a question: What do we do if Imperio's mega-stack stays put or moves north on turn 165? Will they be able to threaten Cape Town before we can reinforce it?

Also, if Imperio has a 1-turn warning before our attack on Mutal, will they be able to use their mounted units to reinforce the city? What other reinforcements can we expect? (1 whipped and 1 drafted musket. What else?)

Is Imperio in Nationhood? If not I would expect a whipped pike in Mutal and also possibly a whipped unit in Chichen Itza if they correctly interpret our galleys' movement.

If the mega stack stays put we capture Constantinople and heal up, while using any surviving 2 movers to pillage roads in the north. Without the culture of Mutal and Chichen Imperio won't have easy access to Cape Town. If the mega-stack moves north we basically can do the same thing as long as the stack isn't in position to intercept our units on T166.

As of T162 Imperio doesn't have any 2-movers that can cover any city we plan to hit.

[sooooo]

An update from Imperio:

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/2654/impmessage.jpg (http://img164.imageshack.us/i/impmessage.jpg/)

That doesn't tell us where. I replied with "OK. At constantinople?"

Their muskets have joined their main stack which is now 1S of where it was before.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8826/imparmy162.jpg (http://img528.imageshack.us/i/imparmy162.jpg/)

[MyOtherCar]

Seems to me they can't reach Constantinople on turn 164, only Damascus. They need 3 turns to move next to Constantinople, whereas they can move next to Damascus in 2.

[sooooo]

I assumed they meant that they'd declare war on T164, not necessarily be in a position to take a city on T164.

[Sullla]

I interpret their message as entering the war against Templars on T164, which means they could hit either city first. We can spin things in our favor either way:

- If they go for Constantinople, we follow our stated plan of backing away and letting them kill the garrison, then our troops pouncing on them. This is the best possible plan for us.

- If they go for Damascus, we take Constantinople ourselves and wait until Imperio bloodies themselves killing the Templar garrison in their #2 city. Then we hold up in neutral territory and wait for a chance to get their stack, pillaging as necessary to cut road links. They can't strike us at Constantinople without giving us a chance to hit them first. This is not as good of a scenario, but it still sees us take out two of their cities and gets Imperio to lose some units fighting the Templars.

[sooooo]

They can't actually see our troops at Constantinople so maybe we shouldn't bombard Constantinople next turn, as that would be the only way they could detect our presence (the defence going down).

If on T164 they declare and move onto the hill 2E of the city, can they see our stack 1S of it? If they can, then we move our stack to the tile 1SW of the city on T163 if we detect they are going for Constantinople and have 2 workers arrive too to road the tile. I doubt they would go onto the hill 1E of the city because that means attacking across a river. They'll probably attack from the flat copper tile 1NE, so unless they have a sentry they could simply not detect that we are even there.

[sunrise089]

Right - Imperio are fools if they attack any city on T164. They need next turn to move 1 tile S or SW (if SW is roaded) and then can declare and pop into Templar territory on T164. Lets all pray they go for Constantinople, because assuming they can bombard and attack the same turn they will be in the city after our moves on T165, which is absolutely perfect.

EDIT: Crosspost with Soooo. Imperio should land on the flat tile 1N 2E of Constantinople so they can take the copper tile without crossing a river.

[sooooo]

EDIT: Crosspost with Soooo. Imperio should land on the flat tile 1N 2E of Constantinople so they can take the copper tile without crossing a river.

The copper tile will surely be undefended, since Templars won't move units out of a city when we have troops nearby.

[Dreylin]

BTW, should we move a force to pillage the Copper tile? It would prevent Templars from Drafting any additional Maces, but would it look suspicious to Imperio.

[MyOtherCar]

No, because then they would see us

[sooooo]

Logistically it's not great to pillage the copper since a unit cannot do it in one turn from where they are. Any mounted unit would need a considerable defensive force with all those macemen in the city. And if we move a whole stack towards the copper Imperio will be able to see it.

I think next turn will be their last time drafting. Their cities are size 6,6 and 5 and surely are starving with all the unhappiness.

[darrelljs]

Can we encourage Imperio to move on Constantinople? Somethink like "we'll park our units nearby so they can't sally from the city" or similar.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Can we encourage Imperio to move on Constantinople? Somethink like "we'll park our units nearby so they can't sally from the city" or similar.

Darrell

I think there is a decent chance Imperio will head that way, and by telling them anything we risk cluing them in about what we have planned.

Remember, we have a 3-pronged attack, with separate goals of securing Cape Town, crippling their research, and destroying their army. Destroying the army may be priority #1, but it isn't necessarily better than accomplishing the other two objectives.

Like Sullla pointed out, we just have to take our chances. If Imperio marches for Constantinople, they get hit three ways. If they go to Damascus they still get hit 2 ways, we gain a city, and Imperio looses some units. Plus there is even the possibility that we will still be in a position to hit Imperio's stack, for instance if we have combat engineers on hand and they don't. I think that's the best we can hope for.

[Zeviz]

If we see them heading for Constantinopole, should we retreat from the city and delay Operation Backstub by a few turns?

[sunrise089]

I don't think so. First, their likely approach to Constantinople times perfectly with the planned T166 attack anyways, and second any delays risk them either wising up to why we're building galleys and/or deciding to station additional defenders in Mutal and/or Chichen.

[sooooo]

If they head for constantinople however, either we should not bombard the city to hide our units or we should send them an email with the "we'll help you bombard and suicide outdated units in return for the plunder from the city" email.

[Zeviz]

How about an email along the lines of "Are you going to finish off Templars or not? If you don't start doing it soon, we'll just do it ourselves."

That sounds too aggressive, but it does explain the presence of our troops near Constantinopole.

[Swiss Pauli]

We're in the COnstantinople area, so as not to tip off Templars to Imperio's imminent attack, so there's no problem as far as I'm concerned: if Imperio asks, we can tell them exactly that.

[Swiss Pauli]

Looks like we should take Constantinople oursleves, given recent developments. What do we all think?

[mostly-harmless]

Yep, I agree.

We can argue to Imperio, that we see a problem with PAL boosting Templars, with military techs and future gold (true or not true, doesn't matter). And we have to take Templars out as soon as possible to prevent them regaining some sort of strength.

mh

[Sullla]

Let's not go crazy here. Templars are completely tapped out at this point: all cities drafted to the minimum pop, their civ falling apart from unhappiness. They can't even move out of their cities, or the whole edifice of their civ collapses. Even if PAL gifts them up to Chemistry, where are they going to get the money to upgrade units to grenadiers? I don't think PAL will be willing to subsidize them that far...

Definitely bombard down the defenses at Constantinople starting this turn, then wait and see what Imperio does in response. If they continue on with their uberstack towards Constantinople, there's no reason for us to attack the city. Only if they divert somewhere else (like to Damascus) should we engage the city ourselves. Yes, we can take Constantinople, but we will lose units doing it, and we'd prefer that not happening.

[T-hawk]

Even if PAL gifts them up to Chemistry, where are they going to get the money to upgrade units to grenadiers?

psst... in BTS, Grenadiers don't come until Military Science ;)

[MyOtherCar]

Ok, let's start bombarding then, we can always say we're helping Imperio out.

[sooooo]

I agree with Sullla but I wonder if Templars parked units outside Calakmul. If they did then Imperio will be preoccupied and use their stack against it instead of advancing on Constantinople.

[Iamjohn]

I didn't think they had the units to take out of their city with out the chance of losing it?

[MyOtherCar]

I agree with Sullla but I wonder if Templars parked units outside Calakmul. If they did then Imperio will be preoccupied and use their stack against it instead of advancing on Constantinople.
I'm fine with whatever way that Imperio and Templars exchange units, although Imperio loosing more than Templars is preferable.

[Sullla]

Here's an easy solution to that issue: have Lady Godiva go scout out Calakmul on our turn. We'll be able to see very quickly whether the Templars have advanced into Imperio territory, and if Imperio needs to move their uberstack in that direction to counter.

OK, I was wrong about grenadiers needing Military Science in the expansion, but that only makes my point even more valid about not needing to rush in and attack right now. :)

[sunrise089]

Here's an easy solution to that issue: have Lady Godiva go scout out Calakmul on our turn. We'll be able to see very quickly whether the Templars have advanced into Imperio territory, and if Imperio needs to move their uberstack in that direction to counter.

OK, I was wrong about grenadiers needing Military Science in the expansion, but that only makes my point even more valid about not needing to rush in and attack right now. :)

Sounds like a plan Sullla. And I admit I'm perhaps over-eager to capture Constantinople...the strategic control of the middle of the map is just very appealing to me. However, because Imperio will probably be at least wary of a possible Templar attack I think we have a good opportunity here.

First, Imperio will probably be slowed down a bit by this declaration and may delay a turn or two before attacking Templars. This gives us the time we need to capture Constantinople, heal our units, and maybe even get some more Oromos on hand.

Second, I'm guessing this declaration has Imperio a bit shaken up, if simply because it was so unexpected. Imperio has already not forced the issue about Jerusalem. Now we can cover the capture of Constantinople by telling them that we wanted to weaken Templars ASAP, and that Imperio couldn't simply be gifted the city because Templars would re-capture it due to the war, and have those claims come off as less suspicious, if Imperio even thinks to ask about the city.

Of course, I'm as anxious as anyone to sneak attack Mutal and Chichen Itza, since they may not stay basically empty forever. But capturing Constantinople gives us a lot more flexibility to move our army toward the Imperio stack for the ideal 1-2-3 knock out combination :)

[dsplaisted]

Sorry to bring this up so late, but...

From a gameplay perspective I think backstabbing Imperio is the right thing to do. However, I would rather try to avoid doing so so flagrantly. They did break the treaty by not giving us gunpowder, but a much more reasonable response would be to keep Jerusalem and Constantinople for ourselves rather than a surprise attack which razes their cities and decimates their stack. Of I'm a late joiner to the team so I think I missed out on some of the events that lead to animosity between RB and Imperio.

What would the situation look like if we didn't attack Imperio? How soon might be able to stage a surprise attack on PAL?

And if we do end up backstabbing them (which I think is likely), please don't use the excuse that they failed to declare war on the Templars. :) To me that makes us look worse-- they were moving into position to do so when the Templars declared on them. The fact that they didn't give us gunpowder, as well as whatever historical grudges we have against them, will have to do.

[Zeviz]

I was away when deal was negotiated, so somebody correct me if I am wrong, but here is my understanding:

The only reason to make peace with Imperio on such insanely generous terms (we promised them all Templar cities besides Jericho) was to launch a joint attack against PAL before they got a chance to attack Banana, securing PAL's domination of Eastern continent. However, Imperio showed no interest in pursuing this agenda: They didn't follow through on Gunpowder deal, and took so long to declare on Templars that they got attacked themselves instead. So they failed to follow through on the only two promises they've made in return for our promise of Templars' entire territory.

As for attacking PAL without Imperio's full cooperation, that would be just asking for a backstab. (After all, Imperio already betrayed their Templar allies making a secret agreement with us, so there is no reason they wouldn't betray us either.)

PS I'd feel very guilty for backstabbing Imperio if the peace deal hadn't been so generous towards them and they hadn't broken their side anyway. If either Imperio had actively followed through on their side of the deal, or if the deal had been fair, I'd have voted against backstabbing them.

PPS To clarify, the problem with Imperio failing to attack Templars is that it indicates Imperio breaking the spirit of joint war against Templars clause by letting us fight alone for so long that Templars declared on them themselves. So it's not just about extremely literal interpretation of the agreement's terms.

[Sullla]

Well dsplaisted, since you weren't on the team for the whole game (not that I blame you, it's been going on for over a year now!) here's a quick summary of our history with Imperio:

- We met them fairly early, around T30. Early relations were cordial, although they didn't respond to many of our messages, probably because Imperio is a team of Spanish speakers.

- We negotiated a Non-Aggression Pact around T75, which was to last for 50t, up until T125. This was in contrast to Templars, who refused to ever sign anything formal with us. I think everyone was feeling pretty good about Imperio at this point.

- Almost immediately thereafter, we grabbed the Cape Town location right out from Imperio's nose. I think it was T78, offhand without checking. Imperio felt that this spot was "theirs", and have held it against us ever since.

- Around T100, we noticed a major uptick in Imperio's power. Thanks to our Open Borders, we sent a chariot into their territory and ran around watching all of their cities, noting all of their military builds. (Why they didn't kick us out, I have no idea!) This forced us to trigger our own military buildup in response, and a cold war of sorts lasted for several months on end.

- Right around T120, Imperio began running the Espionage slider, and sent spies to pillage our copper resource. They succeeded in doing this once, and failed on two other attempts. We traded for iron with Banana in response, and kept on building elephants/maces.

- When Templars declared war on us (~T130), they made it clear that Imperio was on their side and about to do so as well. Indeed, Imperio declared war on us a few turns later. They remained at war with us until it became clear that we were shredding the Templars, at which point in time they opportunistically changed sides and signed peace with us. It's obvious that their plan was to let Templars do the fighting and dying, then pick up the spoils; when that didn't work, they changed their target.

- After signing peace, Imperio refused to give us Gunpowder as promised. They also refused to stop trading with PAL, including sending them techs and refusing to drop Open Borders and resource trades. Imperio claimed that they would help us fight Templars, and yet almost 10t passed with no action from them! Hardly the actions of an "ally". It's pretty clear that they intended to rent RB's military force against Templars, and then reap all of the rewards - without any real intention of working as a team against PAL.

As far as I'm concerned, we have causus belli with them simply for their earlier war declaration against us, and sabotage attempts. They have not adhered to the letter of their treaty with us, nor do they care about the spirit of it either. Since we can't trust them to work with us against PAL, I see no reason why we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. They'd turn on us in a heartbeat if they thought it was to their advantage.

[Swiss Pauli]

We're big enough to admit it's a backstab, so we just tell Naldo: 'sorry about the backstab, but you broke our balls with the peace treaty & gunpowder trades, so we couldn't see a long term alliance against PAL working out. It's a cold-blooded move, but we didn't see any other option open to us'.

[Swiss Pauli]

Sullla's post relating to backstab copied from Turnplayer thread:


http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162791&stc=1&d=1247550583

However, I would like to make a slight objection here. There is no reason why we need to attack Imperio in 2t. Certainly we want to be prepared to do so, but we should NOT consider it a certainty. Remember, aside from capturing their cities of Chichen Itza and Mutal, our big goal was eliminating that uberstack of Imperio's. We will not be in a position to do that in two turns!

As I see it, we should wait a couple of turns and let Imperio bloody their stack against the Templars at Damascus. This is the best possible situation for us, the #2 and #3 powers on our continent wasting their power against one another in a pointless war of revenge. We capture Constantinople, yes, then heal up, wait for Imperio to weaken themselves against the remaining Templar cities, and only then plunge the knife into their back. If we attack too early, we'll be facing not only Imperio's current forces and whatever they can whip/draft out of their cities, but also whatever remnants are left from the Templars. Why not let them batter each around around for a couple more turns yet?

I don't see any need to hurry in our sneak attack; time is definitely on our side. We can start a second draft round at no penalty in 3t. Every turn that passes gets Jerusalem (and soon to be Constantinople) out of resistance and producing RB culture, giving us more control over the disputed zone in the south. We have lots of young cities that are just getting started, and slowly contributing on the military/industrial front. And if we cancel our horses deal with Banana, we could even crank out a couple more knights at Cape Town. The key thing is just to be ready to attack Imperio at any point in time; we simply need to have the Mounted stack and the galley pair ready to move out whenever the moment seems right. Ideally, we capture Constantinople, spend a turn or two healing the forces there, start moving them east, and then hit Imperio at Damascus right after they capture the city from Templars. So this would be our same plan as before, only taking place outside Damascus rather than outside Constantinople, as we originally envisioned. For whatever reason, Imperio is NOT pressuring us to sign over Templar cities to them. Let's take advantage of this! There's no need to rush into another war until we can deliver the complete crushing blow, and we need Imperio's army to be vulnerable for that to happen.

This a critical decision, and we need to start planning for it immediately, so let's get some feedback here. I know that sunrise wants to move Lady Godiva up by Mutal, but I'm going to plead again here to keep it in the Calakmul/Damascus area, so that we can watch what's going on with the Templar/Imperio fighting. Sorry about that! ;)

[sooooo]

Sullla makes some good points. We still should prepare for a T166 attack though and get our workers and knights in position, since we want to be in a position to move at a moment's notice. However, I wouldn't sail the galleys out into Imperio's line of sight - that looks way too suspicious.

Not that it should be a deal-breaker, but if we declare on Imperio we lose 2 happiness in each of our cities (currently only relevant at Pink Dot) and if we do it before we get astronomy we lose our trade routes again.

[MyOtherCar]

Not that it should be a deal-breaker, but if we declare on Imperio we lose 2 happiness in each of our cities (currently only relevant at Pink Dot) and if we do it before we get astronomy we lose our trade routes again.

Unless we convince banana to take Acres.

[Swiss Pauli]

I guess Imperio's time-line is as follows:

T164 - move to Damascus.
T165 - bombard, attack & take Damascus.
T166 - heal.

Given Imperio was in Vassalage for while, I'm assuming they'll have enough Accuracy cats to bomb down and attack with cats on the same turn. I could be wrong, and they may delay to T166 before taking the city.

In any event, should we consider leaving a few, seriously wounded defenders in Constantinople next turn, and take it on T166? If we take it on T 165 before Imperio moves, there's the chance they'll realise we're up to no good.

[sooooo]

In any event, should we consider leaving a few, seriously wounded defenders in Constantinople next turn, and take it on T166? If we take it on T 165 before Imperio moves, there's the chance they'll realise we're up to no good.

Hmm, an interesting idea. The city cannot build anything since it will be happiness-crippled (especially when we kill all the military police) and templars are still not in slavery so the only downside appears to be a lack of movement on templar roads and the 25g we are paying for unit supply.

[sooooo]

Hmm, well actually I've changed my mind - we should take constantinople next turn if Imperio advance their stack next to damascus this turn. We need the time to take the city and move to damascus.

If we take constantinople next turn (T165), mainly using troops from our eastern stack, we can move any remaining troops onto the grass tile with the worker on it.

I'm not sure Imperio will capture the city on T165, probably they will do so on T166 after spending one turn bombarding to 0%. If the city has walls it will take all of their catapults to bombard the city, leaving none to suicide. But if they do capture it on T165 we can hit their stack on T166 (and go for Mutal!). If they wait until T166 to capture the city we can strike on T167.

[Kylearan]

Hi,
We're big enough to admit it's a backstab, so we just tell Naldo: 'sorry about the backstab, but you broke our balls with the peace treaty & gunpowder trades, so we couldn't see a long term alliance against PAL working out. It's a cold-blooded move, but we didn't see any other option open to us'.
I agree with Swiss Pauli on this. Trying to find excuses like that they didn't declare on Templars is a bit silly and won't fool anyone, so let's be honest about it. I think this will also help to prevent carrying over bad feelings from the game over to the gamers.

-Kylearan

[sunrise089]

I also provisionally agree to wait to attack Mutal and Chichen. I was going to ask the team about timing in my report, but thought it made more sense to wait and see what happened later in the turn with Templars and Imperio. Just so everyone is on the same page, the only compelling reason NOT to delay the attack is that there is some risk Imperio will reinforce their vulnerable northern cities, especially after we capture Constantinople.

[Sullla]

Right - I concur, I just don't see that happening. :) I think Imperio totally believes that we are now their dear allies, and remember too that the only units they can actually "see" up there in the north are the two galleys. We even have a logic to build them, since their own galley was poking around the area. Imperio should have a unit or two running around in our territory, watching where our stacks are located... but they don't. Their loss. ;)

I'm not convinced that Imperio will capture Damascus as soon as T166. They certainly could, however their team has been pretty flaky over the past few weeks. This is why I'd like to see us keep our chariot in the area, watching their stacks move around. We need to know exactly what turn to initiate things! I can actually keep track of the defenses in Mutal just by watching the C&D builds.

We could potentially even wait a little longer than when Imperio goes after Damascus... Another thought is that we simply wait for Imperio to take Damascus AND Acre, thereby eliminating Templars from the game. Maybe that's too long to wait, but it is a possibility, and it might be nice to remove all of the Templar war weariness before starting up new unhappiness with Imperio. It would also remove any worries about losing trade routes with Banana too, and see the maximum amount of Imperio/Templar wasteful fighting. Worth a thought anyway, we'll wait and watch what happens...

There's no doubt that we should capture Constantinople next turn. :hammer: (Thank goodness Templars didn't use their Great General for a City Garrison III super-unit! That would have made the most sense.)

[sunrise089]

If we wait for Imperio to take out Templars I'd really really like to get our horses back. We can crank knights and attack Mutal with a stronger stack, and then peel off and maybe take another city on the cheap - with one Holkan per city its definitely possible.

[Sullla]

Well, let's fire off a message to Banana then! There's no reason why we can't let them know that we need our horses right now. I mean, we're still at war and they're not. Just promise Donovan that we'll have another source hooked up in about 5t or so, and they'll have permanent access thereafter.

[darrelljs]

With PAL having Steel I am sure Banana badly needs the Horse resource. We should at least let them keep it one more turn so they can whip out any partially completed Knights.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Remember though Darrell - Knights don't flank Cannons.

[Zeviz]

I agree about waiting for Imperio to take Damascus, but waiting for Acre would take too long.

As for Banana, did we ask about their opinion on a pre-emptive strike with Knights? If they road a farm tile near PAL border, they could capture PAL's border city on the turn war is declared. If they go with that plan, that would be better than using the horses ourselves.

[sunrise089]

I agree about waiting for Imperio to take Damascus, but waiting for Acre would take too long.

As for Banana, did we ask about their opinion on a pre-emptive strike with Knights? If they road a farm tile near PAL border, they could capture PAL's border city on the turn war is declared. If they go with that plan, that would be better than using the horses ourselves.

If they one-move the city they don't need many knights, unless PAL is keeping a large garrison in the city. If they are, then Banana will probably need catapults anyways and the whole idea doesn't work.

[Kylearan]

Hi,


Agreed with Sullla on waiting a bit before the backstab. Indeed, since we will probably want a turn or two to heal after Constantinople so it makes sense to delay until that stack is ready again.

I don't know exactly where our and Imperio's SoDs are right now, but what if they decide to backstab *us*? Is there a possibility for them to do this and annihilate our stack, like we plan to do with theirs?

I know we believe they trust us, but what if they think along the same lines as we do, and look for an opportunity to wipe out *our* SoD? Are we susceptible to such a backstab?

This scenario is probably (hopefully) far-fetched, but I thought I'd ask that question about our stack's vulnerability before we decide to delay the backstab. Having to wait for our SoD to heal sounds like that could be a nice opportunity for Imperio...

-Kylearan

[sunrise089]

Hi,

I don't know exactly where our and Imperio's SoDs are right now, but what if they decide to backstab *us*? Is there a possibility for them to do this and annihilate our stack, like we plan to do with theirs?

I know we believe they trust us, but what if they think along the same lines as we do, and look for an opportunity to wipe out *our* SoD? Are we susceptible to such a backstab?

This scenario is probably (hopefully) far-fetched, but I thought I'd ask that question about our stack's vulnerability before we decide to delay the backstab. Having to wait for our SoD to heal sounds like that could be a nice opportunity for Imperio...

-Kylearan

We've looked at this possibility, but it's probably unlikely.

First, even if they were successful we only need a single turn before we can hit Mutal and Chichen Itza if we keep our northern forces in their staging areas, so we wouldn't come out as total loosers.

Second, in the short term Imperio has no ability to backstab us because they can't use Templars' road network. Perhaps there is some sort of crazy Imperio-sponsored plot for Templars to declare on Imperio so Imperio can surprise us, but that seems too far fetched considering Imperio has been killing Templar units.

So all that said, the risk is after we take Constantinople. But even then Imperio has to land within three tiles of Constantinople to ever hit our stack, and as soon as they do we can hit them. They would need to move in on Constantinople while our troops are still healing, but with our GG that is a very brief window. The biggest single opportunity Imperio has is when we advance our units towards theirs, assuming they don't approach Constantinople. So at that time we'll have to be carefully tactically, possibly using horse units to pillage roads and then only rebuilding them when we're ready to strike.

[Swiss Pauli]

The risk of serious exposure is very low as Imperio's road network to Constantinople is missing a couple of key links at the border, though Imperio realising we're up to no good when we take Constantinople next turn could make things awkward for us. The worst case scenario would be peace between Imperio & Templars who also sign OBs. However, the bad blood between them over their last alliance & current fighting makes this unlikely.

As I see it, the main question is whether Imperio will go through with an attack on Damascus if we take Constantinople. One big disadvantage Imperio has is their lack of log-ins to the game: in all probability they'll see the capture message for Constantinople just as they need to play their turns, limiting their chance to weigh their options.

(so much for not polluting this thread with backstab stuff :p )

[sooooo]

Here's a picture of our troops at Constantinople:

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7416/t164.jpg (http://img170.imageshack.us/i/t164.jpg/)

And a picture of the Incan defenders:

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/192/38015612.jpg (http://img187.imageshack.us/i/38015612.jpg/)

[mostly-harmless]

Even if we delay OP Backstab, I suggest to put our 4 mariner Oromos onto those galleys now, reducing the risk of them being spotted by Imperio in the turn to come.

mh

[sooooo]

Here's a sandbox save of the troops that can attack Constantinople next turn. The defenders all have 25% fortify bonus and our troops are promoted to what I presume they will be when they attack.

[sunrise089]

How does the sandbox battle go Sooooo?

[sooooo]

From that sim it didn't look too great. We certainly don't have the troops to both attack constantinople and move the other troops towards Damascus on the same turn.

I attacked with 7 catapults and still lost 2 oromos, 2 macemen and 6 cats. That's quite a lot of troops for a city that Imperio pledged to capture.

Ah well, think of the upkeep savings.

[sunrise089]

10 lost units is a lot, but it's only 4 "real units." I mean, I know cats cost hammers, but we have to consider them pretty expendable in order to save other units. Does it do any good to sacrifice more cats? Also, what was your attack order? Can we loose more macemen to loose fewer Oromos?

[Sullla]

That's right around what I expected. Templars have a lot of units in there, and we're going to take losses. If events play out the way the sim worked, we would be losing 66k of units to kill 101k. For attacking into a city, that's pretty good overall.

Depending on how many losses we take at Constantinople, we may want to wait a little longer before going in against Imperio, in order to let us get another ~10 Oromos drafted and into position on the front lines.

[sooooo]

I just attacked with all the oromos first then all the macemen. I didn't think about it too much so there's presumably room for improvement.

[sunrise089]

Well in a vacuum I'd attack the same way Soooo, but if a pitched battle versus the Imperio stack obviously the CR Maces are much less valuable compared to CI maces, much less Oromos, so that may influence our decision. I'll play with the sim myself when I get home.

[dsplaisted]

Is the sim set to use a new random seed on reload? IMO it should be so you can try several times and get an idea of what's likely to happen.

[sooooo]

No, unfortunately it is not. However, I think you can just get a different seed if you attack with, say, the barrage catapult instead of one of the city raider ones. Shouldn't affect the result too much but the important battles will be different. You can attack with the barrage cat in any of 7 positions in the cat order, giving 7 different battles.

[sooooo]

Have any opinions changed regarding operation backstab? Clearly we don't want to declare war on Imperio until we get MT (3 turns). But does the team still want to capture constantinople next turn or wait until the trade goes through? Personally I'm still in favour of taking the city. Imperio might be annoyed but they still want education so would still probably go through with it.

[darrelljs]

Have any opinions changed regarding operation backstab?

Not really...I would not delay it for a tech either assuming we get a clean shot at their stack. I assume you mean "delay" and not "abandon"?

does the team still want to capture constantinople next turn or wait until the trade goes through? Personally I'm still in favour of taking the city. Imperio might be annoyed but they still want education so would still probably go through with it

I don't care if they get annoyed, but I don't want to tip them off either. That said, if we do delay we should still take the city ;).

Darrell

[sooooo]

Their units are not accessible, being at Damascus. We don't have a clean shot at their stack and wouldn't do until around the time we get music anyway.

Another thought: the sooner we capture constantinople the sooner we get horses.

[Sullla]

Nothing has changed regarding Constantinople. The sooner we (and Imperio) can remove Templars from the game, the better. I want them good and dead before we start backstabbing Imperio.

[Zeviz]

We shouldn't road the rice and move units until the last possible moment. So if Operation is delayed, we should delay the preparations and unit movements as well to avoid tipping off Imperio.

[sunrise089]

Certainly - the galleys and trireme will sit on their current tile, and they need 2 turns to attack from there. So I'll hold the mounted units on their current tile (also 2 turns out) as well. Workers won't road until we've actually declared and attacked Chichen Itza.

[Sullla]

And those workers have plenty of roads to builds around Constantinople/Jerusalem in the meantime anyway. :)

[Compromise]

Out of curiosity, is there any way that gifting Constantinople to Imperio after capturing it can help?

I believe that when you gift a city that's in revolt, the revolt stays. So Imperio couldn't whip/draft troops out of it until the revolt ends. Our own forces could stay inside to prevent Templar from retaking it.

Imperio might also feel compelled to split their forces a bit to defend it. Only units inside with a city defense bonus would get any kind of boost when Op Backstab begins (ie, no hill bonus, no fortification bonus). It might also make the trade for Mil Trad more compelling.

The biggest downside is probably line-of-sight to our own stacks, though I think that until the city comes out of revolt, it only sees what a unit sitting on that tile would see. And, of course, the delay in bringing Constantinople into the empire.

Since you guys are doing such a thorough job here, it seems that the only hope of being helpful is to try to think--at the risk of just being a distraction--waaay outside the box.

Please let me know if there are other areas that you think a newcomer could help with.

[timmy827]

Since you guys are doing such a thorough job here, it seems that the only hope of being helpful is to try to think--at the risk of just being a distraction--waaay outside the box.


Heh, that was my thought a few months ago.

The downsides to gifting to Imperio don't sound that steep with your description, so we should keep that in mind if Imperio wants a handover before doing the tech trade. But I don't think initiating a handover would help; they are unlikely to move more units to defend (and thus be a target for sneak attack).

I do kind of wonder what they think of our drafting binge - they really should realize that we have more than enough to take out Templar, don't yet have the navy to take on PAL, and yet have been amassing conscripts...I fear that letting them see the full size of the stack might finally trigger that alarm.
Currently they will be able to see units in Constantinople but not any we leave 1S or 1W of the city.

[sooooo]

Currently they will be able to see units in Constantinople but not any we leave 1S or 1W of the city.
This is a good point, probably we shouldn't send the whole stack into Constantinople after we take the city. Our units can heal in the open, it's quicker that way regardless since they can start healing the turn after they have attacked.

[sunrise089]

This is a good point, probably we shouldn't send the whole stack into Constantinople after we take the city. Our units can heal in the open, it's quicker that way regardless since they can start healing the turn after they have attacked.

A few points:

1) It's only quicker to heal in the open if all of the units that attack come from one of our two stacks, right?. That seems tough to pull off.

2) We in principle want to keep most of our units out of Constantinople in order to prevent visibility and to guard against an Imperio backstab. However the counter-concern is that we may need the units in the city for road movement purposes - we need to make sure we can get within three tiles of anywhere Imperio moves their stack. Anyways, I'm not sure this is an issue, but I'll take a look at the movement possibilities more on my next login.
______

3) @Timmy - Our stack doesn't look as fearful as it might, since we have 11 units currently outside the stack preparing for the backstab. The units we have on hand now are only a marginally more powerful collection than the Imperio stack.

4) I think gifting over Constantinople would be a big mistake. We need something that gets Imperio's stack off their road network intact, and gifting the city will only get them to put a handful of defensive units inside. We can take the city back, but that doesn't get us anywhere closer than we are now.

[sooooo]

1) It's only quicker to heal in the open if all of the units that attack come from one of our two stacks, right?. That seems tough to pull off.


No, I don't think that's correct. If you put Lady Godiva onto one of the tiles between the two stacks she can do her thing. My point was that it's better to spend the extra turn healing by not moving than to get the slight increase in healing rate from being in a city in revolt. It's not as much of a bonus as being in a city you control that isn't in revolt.

2) We in principle want to keep most of our units out of Constantinople in order to prevent visibility and to guard against an Imperio backstab. However the counter-concern is that we may need the units in the city for road movement purposes - we need to make sure we can get within three tiles of anywhere Imperio moves their stack. Anyways, I'm not sure this is an issue, but I'll take a look at the movement possibilities more on my next login.

I think it's more important to heal our wounded units quickly than for them to be in a position to hit imperio before they are nursed to full health.

[Sullla]

sooooo is right; better to put our Great General healing chariot in the city itself post-capture, and leave all of the one-move units in place so that they don't have to waste a turn moving into the city (and not healing on that turn where they're moving). The only reason not to do this is if the city itself is threatened in some way. One advantage of two-movers is that they can attack and then use their second movement point to get into a city after it's been captured, thus allowing them to heal faster. For one movers - especially with a Medic III Great General - better to leave them in place, since they'll be healing a minimum of 25% health per turn.

On another note, we've got about 4 hours left on the timer now, less if PAL logs in and ends their turn. sunrise, any thoughts on setting a time to play the turn at an early evening America/late night Europe time frame? Or wait until sometime tomorrow? I'm sure that our usual gang will be interested in jumping into the chat room for another city attack plan. :)

[sunrise089]

I'd like to attack tonight - attacks are always fun, so why wait. It's isn't like we'll suffer a 1/100,000 dice roll or anything, right? :)

6:00pm works fine for me. Would anyone prefer later? I know later makes it a bit easier on the US crew, but it starts to get awfully late for the European bunch.

Also, @Ruff - What chat room do we use for tonight's attack?

[Kodii]

6:00EST would work for me.

We also have the option of doing it earlier, the next turn has begun!

[ruff_hi]

@Ruff - What chat room do we use for tonight's attack?
I've forgotten the The Big Blah chat room admin password and so I cannot clear the content. I've created another one ...

The Little Blah (http://www.chatzy.com/464359753427)
The password is VariantScum. The admin password adds a '1' to that.

It is easy to create a new room if we want to chat to Banana.

Use 'little blah' - going to have to let 'big blah' die as I cannot clear it.

[MyOtherCar]

I'll try and be there too. I missed the last couple of chats/battle. 6 EST is 12 o'clock over here, right (here= +1 GMT)

[sooooo]

6pm EST is indeed midnight in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure you're at GMT+2. I'm at GMT+1 (British summer time) and you are 1 hour ahead of us.

[MyOtherCar]

6pm EST is indeed midnight in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure you're at GMT+2. I'm at GMT+1 (British summer time) and you are 1 hour ahead of us.
:( I'm afraid you're quite right there, old chap. Count me out in that case.

[sunrise089]

:( I'm afraid you're quite right there, old chap. Count me out in that case.

Not sure while you're counted out though...isn't Soooo saying the time isn't any later than you think it is?

[darrelljs]

No, unfortunately it is not. However, I think you can just get a different seed if you attack with, say, the barrage catapult instead of one of the city raider ones. Shouldn't affect the result too much but the important battles will be different. You can attack with the barrage cat in any of 7 positions in the cat order, giving 7 different battles.

Too late I guess, but you can just add 10 units off in the hinterlands. First sim through, set one to auto explor. Second sim through, set two to auto explore, etc. Blake once suggested autoexplore is the best way to increment the random number generator for these kinds of things.

Darrell

[Dreylin]

Except we should be talking EDT, not EST. The UK is still 5hrs off from the US, so Europe is 6hrs ... so midnight.

[sooooo]

Go to the little blah chatroom - all the cool kids are in there right now.

[Kodii]

Operation Mehmed II has commenced

[MyOtherCar]

And succeeded!

[Swiss Pauli]

What should we do if Naldo asks for Jerusalem & Constantinople along with the MT for Edu trade?

I'd hand over Jerusalem, but keep Constantinople saying we need to heal our units in our own land to save away unit costs. Before handing over Jerusalem, we should slave it down to min pop to stop him whipping a defender when we backstab.

[sooooo]

We should rename Jerusalem so Imperio won't know which city to demand :P

[MyOtherCar]

How about " Navajada de espalda" ? Or "Ningun pólvora" :cool:
"Stab in the back" and " No Gunpowder" respectively

[mostly-harmless]

I guess it is important for us to log in right after turn start and initiate the tech trade ourselves. That might slightyl increase the chances of them accepting.

mh

[Sullla]

Alright, now that our Military Tradition trade has gone through with Imperio, we can start thinking in earnest about how we're going to slip the knife into their back. ;) I spent a while this morning looking over the map, and based on how Imperio has moved on their turn, I think we can pull off something pretty good. Here's the current situation (T166):

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162887&stc=1&d=1248018005

There are a couple of injured units in Damascus, but the bulk of their stack has moved (without healing) southeast onto the hill towards Acre. My best guess is that the Templars don't have very many units in Acre, and Imperio is just going to move in there and finish off the job quickly. That means we have to be fast as well if we're going to be in position! Fortunately, we can do all of the moves necessary with only two workers, leaving the other two outside Jerusalem to finish pasturizing the cattle there. Here's how I would play this:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162888&stc=1&d=1248018005

We first move our exploring chariot SE onto the hill with the Imperio stack, so we can watch their battle against Acre in full. (I didn't bother to draw this in, but wanted to state it for clarity's sake.) Now Imperio should move either SW or S with their big stack, along the arrows draw in. We are only in trouble if they move SE, so let's hope that they don't move along the coast! Assuming that they go in the other directions, everything works out.

We gather all of our healthy units on the three "red" tiles around Constantinople, and combine them together into one large stack on the yellow circled tile. This is essentially the staging turn, in other words. Meanwhile, two workers move onto the boxed white tile located SW-SW of Damascus. Imperio does NOT have visibility on this tile, so they shouldn't see our workers moved into position there.

Next, on T168:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162889&stc=1&d=1248018005

Imperio will likely attack and capture Acre on this turn, hopefully from one of the two tiles indicated in the picture. (It's not a disaster if they don't too, as I'll explain in a minute.) We begin by having our two workers road the tile in white, allowing our "red" stack of military units to move SE-SE-Se onto the arrowed tile indicated. This tile, three west of Acre, is the critical spot. Imperio again should NOT have visibility on this spot, and it allows us to hit every target we want.

Finally, on T169:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162890&stc=1&d=1248018005

Our workers move SE and build a road on the tile where our military stack is located. Our units can then move along the former Templar road network and then hit Acre, Damascus, or either of the tiles from which Imperio is likely to attack. It's the perfect spot from which to backstab them! And if Imperio doesn't capture Acre on T168, we simply wait a turn and execute the plan on T170. This tactic is nicely flexible in that regard. We simply have to move the galleys in the north to the Imperio border on the turn that we expect Acre to be captured (this will likely be obvious, thanks to our chariot scout).

I'd like sunrise to vet this plan before putting it into execution. Comments and suggestions welcome - we have to make sure we're all on the same page before committing to such an important decision!

[sunrise089]

Good plan Sullla!

I've not logged into the game yet, but the only potential problems I see are:

1) Templars capture our workers with a 2-mover.

2) Templars tell Imperio about our units (unlikely)

3) Templars have very few units in Acre, and Imperio sends much of their stack home (probably unlikely).

4) Imperio decides to spend several turns healing their units in Templar territory (almost impossible, right?)

I also simmed out the naval attack and mounted unit attack, and found that if we maintain surprise while the naval units sit 1-tile off the Imperio border (by no means guaranteed unfortunately) then there is very little Imperio can do to stop our attack. If however Imperio slaves or drafts a defender in Chichen Itza than things are much less certain.

In the south, it is very much to our good fortune that Imperio hasn't healed their stack, and that Acre is on a hill. We should be easily able to kill more Imperio units than we loose, although any unwounded knights will present a problem. Have we decided in our goals in the south other than killing the Imperio stack? We can probably capture Acre in the cheap, but with very few available cats taking Damascus could be more difficult.

Finally, just so everyone is on the same page, the result of this battle would probably sink us down to third place in power if Banana had actually been competent about assembling an army over the past 50 turns. We will critically injure Imperio, denying them their army and two cities, but we may have very little army of our own left. While Imperio won't pose a direct offensive threat to us, we need to consider that PAL and Imperio will probably team up as soon as we backstab Imperio, and Imperio will receive technology from PAL and possibly PAL naval assistance against our coastal cities.

I'm still bullish about the attack, I just wanted to get everyone on the same page. We can keep drafting Oromos, build a round of Curaissars, and get a decent stack of cats within 8 turns or so of the backstab, but we will face Imperio city garrisons a lot more modern than the Templar ones when we move in on their core.

[Sullla]

Yes, those pointers are all well brought up. As far as the Templars having possible two movers in Acre, we'll be able to see whether or not that's the case as soon as Betty Hur moves at the start of next turn; hopefully we'll find that there's nothing in Acre and can go forward with the plan. Even if that's not the case, we can move one or two units current on the tile 1S of Constantinople up to cover the workers when they move forward. Actually, we probably should do this regardless!

For the other points, I also find it unlikely that Templars would tell Imperio we have a stack moving towards them. Frankly, they would probably think our units are coming to kill them, given the recent history in this game. So probably no need to worry about that... Imperio already had a chance to move their stack back home and didn't, sending almost everything forward onto that hill tile in Templar territory. And if they were going to pause for healing, they certainly wouldn't have moved into Templar borders! Therefore, I concur that #3 and #4 are unlikely to happen as well. My main concern is that Imperio moves its big stack SE next turn, which would make hitting them a heck of a lot harder. Crossing fingers that doesn't happen.

Finally, just so everyone is on the same page, the result of this battle would probably sink us down to third place in power if Banana had actually been competent about assembling an army over the past 50 turns. We will critically injure Imperio, denying them their army and two cities, but we may have very little army of our own left. While Imperio won't pose a direct offensive threat to us, we need to consider that PAL and Imperio will probably team up as soon as we backstab Imperio, and Imperio will receive technology from PAL and possibly PAL naval assistance against our coastal cities.


This is absolutely true, and everyone needs to be aware of it. We should wipe out the Imperio army, but we're going to get pretty well bloodied too. Don't expect us to go running through the Imperio core with anything like the ease we took down the Templars. At the global strategic level, however, I think it's the best move to make. PAL is going to be occupied with slogging their way through Banana for the next few dozen turns. They'll eventually win, but Donovan will make them bleed a lot. (We hope, anyway!) The only way to compete against PAL with any chance of victory will be to control our own continent - which means eliminating Imperio. And the best chance to do that is right now, when we can crush their army in one fell blow and knock out two of their best three cities. Remember, Imperio has never done any fighting of substance throughout the whole game. This current force represents everything they've produced over the last 100 turns. It will take them quite a while to replace it. Knocking out both of our current forces turns this into a war of production, and that's one that Imperio can't possibly win against us, especially if we successfully capture Chichen Itza and raze Mutal at the outset of the conflict.

sunrise, we may even manage to do better than you and I think if Imperio doesn't pause to heal its forces, and we smash into an army weakened by two city captures. Let's hope so! :b: To go back to a point I made in the Turnplayer thread, do you think we should cancel the horses deal with Banana and swap to a cuirassier in Cape Town? I really think that would increase the odds of taking Mutal substantially, if we added one more cuirassier to that stack. (If I were playing alone, I would do it. Apologize to Donovan later!)

[MyOtherCar]

If something can be called a window of opportunity, this is it. Imperio not healing and moving in on Acres, is the best chance we get to crush their army. The alternative to the backstab, would be us teaming up with Imperio against PAL, and frankly I don't expect much from Imperio when it comes to war. As expected, I find Sullla's plan well thought out. Again, it's Sullla's plan, so count me in. And, if somehow, if things go awry, well, I will stand by what I say here, and point out that, you know, it was Sullla's plan. :)

Regarding horses, let's give Donovan one more chance to whip out some knights and then get them back.

[sooooo]

I like this plan.

Only thing I spotted is that there is no need to move 2 workers onto the white tile in T167, potentially allowing Imperio/Tempar scouts to discover them. They can be on the red staging tile with the troops, then move onto the white tile and road all in T168. Or they could even spend T167 roading the grass 2W of the white tile.

[Iamjohn]

Regarding horses, let's give Donovan one more chance to whip out some knights and then get them back.

If it was me I'd send Donovan a friendly warning that we simply have to cancel the trade a turn beforehand, but remind him that we should be able to send him another source of horses pretty soon (we should have a second source soon, right?), and then cancel it the next turn. We're in here to win, we know that ultimately Donovan isn't going to be able to pull this one out. We need the cuirassiers and any other advantage we can get.

[Sullla]

Only thing I spotted is that there is no need to move 2 workers onto the white tile in T167, potentially allowing Imperio/Tempar scouts to discover them. They can be on the red staging tile with the troops, then move onto the white tile and road all in T168. Or they could even spend T167 roading the grass 2W of the white tile.


Nice catch! :b: I should have thought of this. Definitely do this and not what I suggested. A road on the tile 2W of the white tile could potentially be useful.

[Zeviz]

Sulla's plan sounds good. The only correction I see is the worker move pointed out by Sooooo. Do we have any 2-mover to cover our workers on turn 168? If not, we'll have to save at least one pike for it, because if Templars decide to send their last HA to capture our workers out of spite, the whole operation will fail.

As for canceling horses, we need to give Banana a warning to pause their builds, but I agree that an extra Curassier would be very good.

[Zeviz]

Imperio has 17 units and 9 cats in its SoD. We have 23 healthy units in Constantinople area. However, we have to leave at least one unit for defense. (More if we don't want Imperio to get suspicious.) We should move pike from Jerusalem to staging area to get one more good unit there. Jerusalem is far from front lines, so we'll get plenty of warning if any enemies approach.

EDIT: The two hurt maces can also join the stack, and heal via promotions later. If we are very lucky, Imperio will have only the Cats left when we are done with them.

EDIT2: It's too late for the horses: Curassier would take 3 turns in Cape Town, which would make it late for the attack on turn 169.

[mostly-harmless]

A good plan.
I am with Iamjohn on the horses issue. We need them now to make a substantial change to the game (razing Mutal). Donovan kind of messed things up with just 3 knights. :(

mh

[mostly-harmless]

I was looking into the possibility to actually hold on to Mutal. We could decide on it depending how many mariner Oromos are left alive after Chichen Itza.
Mutal is not enveloped by any other city's culture. In fact the 1 ring is free, except for the tile SE.
The very nice thing about taking or razing Mutal is that Imperio will lose their Iron source and can kiss their Curaissiers good bye. :)
That said, we have to cancel the Banana Horses to get better chances on Mutal.

mh

[Zeviz]

I was looking into the possibility to actually hold on to Mutal. We could decide on it depending how many mariner Oromos are left alive after Chichen Itza.
Mutal is not enveloped by any other city's culture. In fact the 1 ring is free, except for the tile SE.
The very nice thing about taking or razing Mutal is that Imperio will lose their Iron source and can kiss their Curaissiers good bye. :)
That said, we have to cancel the Banana Horses to get better chances on Mutal.

mh
In this case, we should train an Oromo in CT now. A CG2 (or maybe Drill 4) Oromo should be able to guard the city from the couple of units Imperio might be able to send in as reinforcements until our own reinforcements arrive. We can't train a Curassier in time for the capture of Mutal, but we can train an Oromo in time to garrison the city.

[Sullla]

Seriously, we're not going to be able to hold on to Mutal, nice as it would be. Might as well give up on that notion right now. We'd have to concentrate huge forces in the north to do it, and that wouldn't leave us the chance to eliminate Imperio's main army in the south.

You've got to remember that we're playing against humans here, and not the AI. The city has to be razed. :)

[mostly-harmless]

As far as I understand we are planning to destroy Imperios forces in the south and attack Mutal. Assuming we can wipe out or significantly weaken their main army, a handful of Oromos should be able to defend Mutal, no?

I know that I was among the people how lobbied for the razing of Mutal to break Imperio's spirit, but if we remove Imperio's main army we stand a chance to defend Mutal.
After all, Imperio has to defend an awful long front line.

As I understand the plan, we are attacking their army on T169 and attack Chichen Itza on T169. The attack on Mutal will be scheduled for T170. So we will see how much harm we inflict on their main army on T169 and how many Oromos are surviving the Chichen attack and then decide whether to hold or raze Mutal.

mh

[sooooo]

I can understand both sides of the argument. I think the odds are that we will have to raze but we can reevaluate the situation on T170. We still have a stream of oromos coming into the area that can help if needs be.

[sunrise089]

I also believe we're going to have to raze the city, but it's true that we can re-assess after T169.

What will the cultural situation be like at Mutal? Holding Cape Town tied down a large army just because of how quickly Imperio could hit the city. If Mutal can be one-moved from several directions we'll either need a very large garrison for the duration of the war or a large spy network.

In other news, watch how large of a spy/sentry network I advocate putting in PAL lands once Banana is conquered :)

[mostly-harmless]

What will the cultural situation be like at Mutal? Holding Cape Town tied down a large army just because of how quickly Imperio could hit the city. If Mutal can be one-moved from several directions we'll either need a very large garrison for the duration of the war or a large spy network.

Well, the 1st ring is uncontested, except the tile 1SE, which is 3rd ring Mayapan & 4th ring Lakamha, so that should be cleared pretty soon by us.
However, we will have problems with securing the 2nd ring, I blieve, as we have multiple clashes with 2nd rings from Uxmal, Oxihuta (whatever), Maypan and 3rd ring from Lakamha.

So, if this is the criterion for keeping or razing Mutal, then I think we have to raze it.

What is actually our plan for the next steps after we initiated "Backstab"? I think Lakamha is city we must keep for the shrine income.

mh

[sunrise089]

The plan for the next steps is to try to build military as fast as possible while still not crashing our economy. Basically the RB/Imperio military situation will be zeroed out, but we will have a huge production advantage. Working against us will be the fact that Imperio will get PAL tech and will follow the Templar path and slave/draft their economy into oblivion, which we cannot do. Our advantage, aside from production, is that Imperio has a larger empire than Templars, and so we can possibly achieve tactical surprise when we move into their land.

[Swiss Pauli]

The main reason to keep Mutal would be the wonders, but Stonehenge will soon be obsolete, Oracle yields little benefit to the conqueror, and Sistene is great for cultural wins. We can look at keeping it, of course, but we shouldn't get too greedy at this stage.

Another city we should seriously consider keeping is Damascus to get the AP, and thus the hammers from Chrsitian temples and monasteries.

[mostly-harmless]

Another city we should seriously consider keeping is Damascus to get the AP, and thus the hammers from Chrsitian temples and monasteries.

Those get awarded even if we are not the AP resident, iirc from looking at PD.
Question is, will they vanish if the AP gets lost?


mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Dunno. Instinct tells me the benefits should be lost, but experience tells me this might not be the case. Maybe we should test it?

[Zeviz]

Perhaps the decision on Mutal should depend on how many of our troops survive after annihilating Imperio's main army, assuming we do manage it. If we have a significant enough offensive forse left, we can keep lightly-garrisoned Mutal, tempting Imperio to send their new units north, while our southern army captures Damascus and advances on Lakhama. Then we can recapture Mutal back.

[mostly-harmless]

Dunno. Instinct tells me the benefits should be lost, but experience tells me this might not be the case. Maybe we should test it?

Just had a look. Seems like the benefits are no longer there. Could that be linked to us defying that resolution?

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Yes, defying loses the hammers: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452

[Sullla]

OK, for all you non-MP folks, here's why trying to keep Mutal is a bad idea. ;)

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162905&stc=1&d=1248120076

I've drawn in the full cultural borders of all the cities around Mutal, assuming that we will capture Chichen Itza as planned. The key tile is the one already identified, one SE of Mutal. This spot will remain in Imperio hands no matter what we do, making an effective defense all but impossible. That tile has been in Mutal's first ring the whole game, plus it's been getting accumulated culture from Lakamha and Mayapan for ages now. The tile undoubtedly has a "culture score" rating in the thousands, so we may as well forget about having any chance to control it ourselves. Yes, we get bonus culture for it being in our first ring, but the bonus culture only amounts to 20/turn. That won't even be enough to overcome the culture being added each turn from Lakamha and Mayapan, much less erode away the THOUSANDS of culture points already in place from Imperio's prior possession of Mutal. Trust me, I've spent tons of time working with the culture formula. The only way to control that tile will be to capture/raze Lakamha AND Mayapan, a tall order.

However, even leaving aside that tile for a moment, we still shouldn't consider holding on to Mutal. Discounting the white "X" above, Imperio can still double-move on Mutal from no less than SIX different tiles, indicated with white arrows above. And that's not even including Oxhuitza, which I expect us to raze in the wake of a successful Mutal attack. Six different spots for a double-move! :eek: The only defense against that would be maintaining a large garrison in Mutal at all times, which would tie us down and remove all tactical flexibility. I think it will be worthwhile to do that at Lakamha (Imperio's best city and possessor of the Islamic Shrine + Notre Dame) but Mutal is just too poorly situated.

I appreciate the comments and feedback, however you guys have to remember that this is NOT Single Player, and we cannot afford to have Imperio recapture their capital city back from us. As a civ, Imperio gets about 70% of its production from Mutal, Lakamha, and Chichen Itza. Knock out two of those three cities immediately, plus the existing Imperio army, and we win the war. Period. No need to take any silly risks from getting too greedy! :D

[Iamjohn]

Well I'm certainly willing to raze it. IMO we should be happy with what we can get away with already. :)

In anycase though, it'd be a significant amount of resources we'd be forced to use to defend Mutal, that much more that wouldn't be in an army capturing/razing other imperio cities, and the slower we'd recover from our warmongering ways and get ready for the real fight with PAL.

[Zeviz]

Note that without Iron, Imperio will not be training any mounted units, so we only have to worry about 1-mover attack. And we have to protect our northern cities anyway, so if we raze Mutal, we'll have to garrison Cape Town and Chichen Itza instead. Why not keep our northern defense force in Mutal, instead of CT itself?

If Imperio gets to keep its army, I agree that keeping Mutal will be impossible. However, if they are down to city garrisons while we have a small stack left, there is no way they can both recapture Mutal and stop our southern advance. Let's see where we stand 2 turns from now, because if we fail to catch Imperio's main army this debate becomes pointless.

[sunrise089]

Note that without Iron, Imperio will not be training any mounted units, so we only have to worry about 1-mover attack. And we have to protect our northern cities anyway, so if we raze Mutal, we'll have to garrison Cape Town and Chichen Itza instead. Why not keep our northern defense force in Mutal, instead of CT itself?

If Imperio gets to keep its army, I agree that keeping Mutal will be impossible. However, if they are down to city garrisons while we have a small stack left, there is no way they can both recapture Mutal and stop our southern advance. Let's see where we stand 2 turns from now, because if we fail to catch Imperio's main army this debate becomes pointless.

Look at what Templars cost us per city - I think with enough drafting and slaving Imperio can certainly hold us off, of course at the cost of torpedoing their civ's long term ability to compete.

FYI - The reason it is MUCH easier to hold Cape Town is because we will have cultural defense and always have warning of an attack.

Also, are we going to try to keep Chichen Itza? I thought we planned to raze both cities.

[Sullla]

Well y'all can do what you want, but my personal recommendation is VERY strongly to raze Mutal. We should be able to hold Chichen Itza though without too much trouble. I advise capturing rather than razing there.

[mostly-harmless]

Chichen fits nicely into our dotmap and should be kept.

About Mutal, all I was saying was, that we keep an open mind. If we by some miracle not lose our mariner Oromos and not lose our mounted stack in the Mutal attack and our main stack largely intact and Imperio's army defeated, then we should consider keeping Mutal. That's all there is to that idea. Imperio has little garrison units in their remaining cities to threaten with a counter attack. In that scenario we eat through their remaining cities in no-time.

However, in the more likely scenario that we lose some of our mariners, some of our mounted stack and a significant portion of our main army, then Mutal is not defendable and must be razed.

Lets all calm down here and have a fresh look on T170.

mh

[timmy827]

I hate to be the wet blanket, but has anyone tried a sim of what happens when we capture CI? Yes, there is no Mutal-culture in the tiles 1S and 2S1W of the city which is what we need to have the Mutal strike ready. But this game is notorious for buggy behavior in the borders right after a capture, where it takes a turn or two for them to properly adjust, so I fear that one of those crucial tiles will remain actively Maya.

[mostly-harmless]

I hate to be the wet blanket, but has anyone tried a sim of what happens when we capture CI? Yes, there is no Mutal-culture in the tiles 1S and 2S1W of the city which is what we need to have the Mutal strike ready. But this game is notorious for buggy behavior in the borders right after a capture, where it takes a turn or two for them to properly adjust, so I fear that one of those crucial tiles will remain actively Maya.

IIRC, the Mutal strike is independent from the CI success, as the mounted stack advances via the Rice tile.

mh

[sooooo]

Probably the tile to put our knights on is 2W of Mutal? It's the furthest away from the southern army we can get.

[darrelljs]

Note that without Iron, Imperio will not be training any mounted units

Or Cannon, assuming PAL gifts them Steel.

Darrell

[Iamjohn]

Does anyone else have extra iron that they might give imperio to spite us?

[mostly-harmless]

Does anyone else have extra iron that they might give imperio to spite us?

No. Rabbits lost their iron to PAL.
PAL has only the Rabbit Iron.

mh

[T-hawk]

But this game is notorious for buggy behavior in the borders right after a capture, where it takes a turn or two for them to properly adjust, so I fear that one of those crucial tiles will remain actively Maya.

The new borders are visible while the "capture or raze?" dialog is up. We'll have information on the borders before the raze decision.

[Sullla]

Did some simming of Mutal attacks this afternoon:

Sim I: Optimistic Scenario
Mutal with CGII longbow (full fortify bonus) + whipped pike (no promotions or fortify bonus)

1) 2k die, 2k + 5ha survive
2) 3k 1ha die, 1ha retreat, 1k + 4ha survive
3) 2k die, 2k + 5ha survive
4) 1k die, 3k + 5ha survive
5) 3k die, 1k + 5ha survive
6) 1k die, 3k + 5ha survive
7) 1k die, 3k + 5ha survive
8) 2k die, 2k + 5ha survive
9) 2k die, 2k + 5ha survive
10) 2k die, 2k + 5ha survive

OK, pretty clear that there's no need to do any upgrading if we face just the longbow and a whipped pike. All 10 attempts won pretty easily, even with some awful luck on sim #2. However, things become dicier if we have to face a third unit in Mutal.

Sim II: Worst-Case Scenario
Mutal with CGII longbow (full fortify bonus) + whipped pike (no promotions or fortify bonus) + CGII musket (no fortify)

1) 4k + 1ha die, 1ha retreat, 4ha survive (SUCCESS)
2) 3k + 3ha die, 1k + 2ha survive (SUCCESS)
3) 3k die, 1k + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
4) 4k + 2ha die, 3ha survive (SUCCESS)
5) 3k die, 1k + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
6) 4k + 3ha die, 1ha retreat, 2ha survive (FAILURE, 2 defenders left alive)
7) 3k + 1ha die, 1ha retreat, 1k + 4ha survive (SUCCESS)
8) 3k + 2ha die, 1k + 3ha survive (SUCCESS)
9) 4k + 5ha die (CATASTROPHIC FAILURE, all 3 defenders left alive! Although there were some atrocious rolls in here.)
10) 2k + 1ha die, 2k + 4ha survive (SUCCESS)

Even in what I believe to be the worst case scenario, we still capture Mutal in 8 out of 10 sims, although the combat was often close, and the last horse archer took the city several times. Now here's the same situation simmed out with cuirassiers instead of knights:

Sim III: Worst-Case Scenario with Cuirassiers

1) 3c + 1ha die, 1c + 4ha survive (SUCCESS)
2) 4c + 5ha survive (TOTAL SUCCESS)
3) 1c + 1ha die, 1c retreat, 3c + 4ha survive (SUCCESS)
4) 2c die, 1c retreat, 2c + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
5) 2c die, 2c + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
6) 1c die, 3c + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
7) 2c + 2ha die, 2c + 3ha survive (SUCCESS)
8) 3c die, 1c + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
9) 2c die, 2c + 5ha survive (SUCCESS)
10) 2c + 3ha die, 2c + 2ha survive (SUCCESS)

All of these sims were successful, even #10 where a cuirassier died against the Imperio pike without doing a single point of damage. And perhaps equally importantly, cuirassiers survived every single sim to live and fight again, as opposed to the slaughter of knights in the previous sim. On average, 2 out of 4 cuirassiers lived. My recommendation is therefore that we spend the 200g to turn all our knights into cuirassiers. Think of it this way: is it worth 200g to be absolutely certain that we burn down the Imperio capital? I say yes, especially because we'll loot at least 100g back in the taking of the city! This also insures us against Imperio getting a fourth unit into Mutal (somehow), meaning we still have a good chance at success. My sincere hope is that we won't even face defenders as tough as the ones I estimated here!

Note: I had our top knight/cuirassier promoted with CII/Melee, which was a mistake in retrospect. We should promote this unit with CIII instead, and will likely do a little better than these sims as a result. Savegame file is attached for anyone who wants to play around with this further. Random seed is not preserved, so load away and get different results.

[mostly-harmless]

Looks promising. Upgrading deletes all movement points, iirc. is the plan to attack on T170 still valid?

mh

[regoarrarr]

If so we have to upgrade this turn, right?

[sunrise089]

Yes - the knights and such are to remain stationary next turn anyways while the workers move back into position and the ships sail to our border tile with Imperio.

[sooooo]

We can upgrade on T168, next turn.

[Sullla]

Here's the relevant C&D info for Imperio this turn. It's not the greatest, unfortunately.

Imperio 458EP (+0 EP)
Current Civics: Hereditary Rule, Bureaucracy, Slavery, Decentralization, Organized Religion
Mutal (size 13) = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Palace, Barracks, Granary, Monument, Forge, Library, Stonehenge, Oracle, The Sistine Chapel
Lakamha (size 10) = 40 shields (+40)
Infrastructure: Barracks, Monument, Granary, Library, Bank, Islamic shrine, Notre Dame
Chichen Itza (size 8) = 53 shields (+13)
Infrastructure: Granary, Monument, Lighthouse, Barracks, Christian Monastery, Library
Uxmal (size 15) = N/A, zero shields invested
Infrastructure: Monument, Barracks, Granary, Ball Court (Colosseum), Lighthouse, Library, Statue of Zeus
Mayapan (size 15) = 102 shields (+12)
Infrastructure: Monument, Barracks, Granary, Lighthouse, Ball Court (Colosseum)
Calakmul (size 10) = 25 shields (+25)
Infrastructure: Monument, Library, Barracks, Granary, Islamic Temple, Lighthouse
Oxhuitza (size 3) = 30 shields (+10)
Infrastructure: Monument, Granary, Library
Damascus (size 4) = 2t resistance
Infrastructure: Monument, Granary, Apostolic Palace (Christianity)

Mutal finished a build that was either 80, 90, or 100 shields. (Last turn: 73 shields, +26 shields/turn.) There's really no way to tell what this is, unfortunately. My best guess is a cuirassier: Imperio started this build the same turn they discovered Military Tradition, and it's a logical build since Imperio didn't know how quickly Templars would collapse. Worst-case scenario is a musket build, which fortifies in Mutal (although I took this into account with our sims, and we can still capture the city even if that's the case.)

Uxmal also worries me. Unfortunately, it finishes what looks like an 80 shield build (Last turn: 66 shields, +18 shields/turn) which can only be a musket. If headed south, the unit will be passing near to Mutal, and would be able to move in there and reinforce when we attack. There's really nothing we can do about this, however. Cross our fingers and hope that the unit won't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's theoretically possible Imperio could get four defenders into Mutal when we attack. If so, we'd probably have to cancel the strike, so let's hope that doesn't happen...

[sunrise089]

Fortunately even if that happens they won't be able to attack out. I'm not in the game at the moment, but I assume there is some sort of city-splitting opportunity that might permit us to get a second city even if Mutal lives. Of course that would hardly be ideal...

[mostly-harmless]

In the light of Banana possibly betraying our intent at Chichen Itza, I suggest to escort the galleys with the trireme. Name them "Santa Maria", "Nina" & "Pinta" to maybe confuse Imperio into thinking about a long journey for the New World or possibly for the next continent.

Even if Imperio gets suspicious about the boats, they might just move a defender out of Mutal to protect CI. :)

mh

[sunrise089]

I need to get to bed, but here is the update. 8 in-game hours left in the turn. Everything is moved except our naval squadron and our units in the SE. The relevant pic, notice the knight:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3033/civ4screenshot0430a.jpg

Option 1: Continue as normal, cover our workers with some number of units.

Option 2: Move to the wheat tile with our stack and workers, since Imperio can see us anyways.

Option 3: Call off the attack.

Option 4: Someone is more creative than me and has a better idea.

Option A, to be combined with any of the above: Send some sort of message to Imperio.

I Am John is going to paste the text to the chat I had with him, Sooooo, and M_H.

[Iamjohn]

Chatlog


sunrise from x.x.x.60 joined the chat 4 minutes ago
sooooo from x.x.x.229 joined the chat 101 seconds ago
sooooo: hi
sunrise: hi guys
sunrise: ok, moderate potential problem
sunrise: stand by for screenshot
sunrise: http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5972/civ4screenshot0430.jpg
Iamjohn: hmm, that would be an issue
sooooo: yeah, definitely an issue
Iamjohn: I really don't think there's much we can do though
sooooo: but what can they do?
sooooo: their stack isn't on a road, they can only move it one tile
sunrise: see, this is why always war is easier - we just kill the sentry, and they don't know if we have a big stack or a single unit :)
sooooo: i suppose they could just not take Acre
sunrise: no, they have no ability to hit us except with knights and the units in Damasscus, and only the later after the Templars die
sunrise: but they can withdraw
Iamjohn: what happens if they decide to bug out
sooooo: and move their stack 1N
Iamjohn: go north
sunrise: also, we have to cover the workers in case they declare on us
sunrise: what are the odds they arent going to see this coming after the boats move and the email?
sunrise: about zero?
Iamjohn: yeah, I think they definitly arn't trusting atm
Iamjohn: what about if they decide to head to Damascus?
sooooo: yeah about zero
sunrise: wel i just wanted to run by you guys for a reality check to make sure we shouldnt aboty
sooooo: let's wait for 8 hours to come up for a plan
Iamjohn: I don't think we have a choice imo
Iamjohn: unless you see something I don't
Iamjohn: just continue on
sunrise: actually - the only tile that saves their stack is 1NE, onto the hill, I think
sunrise: I should have brought four workers, then they couldnt have escaped
sunrise: although we'd have to capture Acre
Iamjohn: poor templars could be limping on for awhile if things go wrong...
mh from x.x.x.97 joined the chat 3 seconds ago
mh: hi
Iamjohn: hey
sunrise]: hi
sunrise: check out the above link MH
Iamjohn: look at the screenshot at the top of the chat
sunrise: it isnt good
sooooo: they can escape how they want if they don't take acre - 4 workers wouldn't make a difference
Iamjohn: let's hope they don't take the better part of valor then
sunrise: ugh, of course...i wasnt thinking
mh: hmm, tricky. If Templars culture is not removed, we can't follow them as quickly as we wanted. The thing is I am not sure the will retreat seeing our stack. We don't have any 2movers and they might feel their stack is better than ours.
sunrise: they may also capture our workers
Iamjohn: the fact that they arn't fully healed might concern them
mh: We could say, we want to make sure Acre is taken. Or we just say "PAL next" and have them wondering.
sunrise: so here is my proposal
Iamjohn: too much talking is almost as bad as simply admiting that we're going to attack imo
sunrise: move the main stack to the staging tile 3E of Acre, move the workers onto the tile they need to road and road, cover the workers with 2 maces we have available, and cover the workers with X units out of our main stack
sunrise: for X I recommend a pair of pikes, for 2 maces 2 pikes total, against 1 knight, and 1 musket, 2 maces, 1 longbow, and 2 pikes, all but the knight in Damascus
sunrise: actually, since they see us anyways, we can also just move on the wheat tile
sunrise: then we dont need to worry about the workers
mh: The workers are only exposed in peace times, right? So if they go for them, They would have to declare.
sunrise: yes
Iamjohn: I suppose
sunrise: they have to declare first if they want the workers, and they have to do it this turn
mh: True
Iamjohn: what units do they have in Damascus?
sunrise: mustket, longbow, 2 wounded maces, 2 pikes
mh: I would be very surprised if they declare.
Iamjohn: I wouldn't put it past them if they decided it was the best option for them *shrug*
mh: If it turns out we have to thank Banana for this increased alertness of Imperio, that would really disappoint me.
Iamjohn: it does seem an odd coincidence
mh: @John: for just two workers?
Iamjohn: well to put us more on the defence
sooooo: i think t it's fairly natural for them to put a knight on that hill
Iamjohn: they're probably concerned about their SOD
mh: True, but up to today, they think of us as their trusted allies.
sooooo: hey don't need the knight to take acre and they want to get jerusalem
Iamjohn: possibly
sooooo: mh why do you think banana tipped them off?
Iamjohn: I guess the betrayer always suspects betrayal, eh? :p
sunrise: well do you have any preference over Sullla's tile versus the wheat tile Sooooo?
mh: Yep. I am in favour of the Wheat tile solution
sooooo: probably the wheat is better but may as well wait - we have time left in the turn
mh: But move the workers there as well, in case we ned them later
mh: yes, lets bring it up in the forums, someone might come up with a whacky idea. "Kill the knigh ans say Oooops"
sunrise: do workers captured in a city have movement?
Iamjohn: Don't think so
mh: then move the knights to Mutal and say "hera are the replacements" :)
sunrise: if so we also need to consider Imperio can capture acre, use the workers to road under the Imperio stack, and then hit us
Iamjohn: we're upgrading them to currassiers iirc
sooooo: unlikely, they'd have to have 2 workers on the wheat for that to be possible
sunrise: just confirming the two workers they will capture in Acre wont have movement Sooooo
sooooo: oh, yeah those two. no they don't have movement
mh: I repeat, I don't think Imperio will declare on us staright away.
sunrise: ok, good
mh: If we go for the Wheat, they actually might split their stack and move some more defenders into Damaskus. And we can pick them up separately
Iamjohn: I just tested it, they wont' have movement
sunrise: well how about then I move everything else, but not the troops in the SW, and one of you guys can make a forum post?
sunrise: it is very very late here, and I'd like to get to bed
Iamjohn: I'll post the chat log if you want
Iamjohn: other then that sounds good to me
mh: Sounds good. Good night sunrise. I am about to have breakfast now.
Iamjohn: night all
sunrise: thanks guys...I'll be back online in a few

[mostly-harmless]

Probably the tile to put our knights on is 2W of Mutal? It's the furthest away from the southern army we can get.

Hmmm, but that won't give us line of sight into Mutal.
I suggest to put the Mutal Raiding Party onto the Iron Hill 2SW of Mutal.

mh

[Dreylin]

Can we move up the timetable and start the Northern attacks this turn?

How about declaring this turn, killing the Knight and putting the stack onto that hill. With two Workers underneath, we can road it next turn and then attack either Damascus or Acre, and we get the benefit of the hill for defense if they decide to attack?

[timmy827]

Workers definitely must be covered - if Imperio moves 1N we need them to road that tile to attack T169.

My big concern is they get smart and move their uberstack 1NE to the hill (more importantly we can't attack there, unless a rare case). In that case I think we raze Damascus, killing the units there on the cheap, but play cat-and-mouse while their stack is off road network - that way they can't hit us first. There is a slight chance that maybe they will take Acre and move their stack 1NE - that's the only case where moving to the wheat buys us something (since we could road through the neutral ex-Templar land and hit them. Not ideal on the hill, but worth it to get the first strike in and kill a bunch of already-hurt units.) If we think this won't happen though the wheat tile doesn't get us anything, and lets us cover the two trailing macemen by staying 1W of the wheat.

Not to sound alarmist, but 2 1/2 hours to play. I don't want to take sunrise's turnplayer spot unless totally necessary however I will need to be at work by the end of our slot and unable to login then.

[mostly-harmless]

But we also do not lose anything by moving onto the Wheat.

mh

[sunrise089]

The advantage of the wheat is that we don't have to declare and we don't have to cover the workers.

@Dreylin - We can't move the timetable up unfortunately due to the Cuiraissier upgrades.

EDIT: 1 hour left to discuss.

[Dreylin]

What if we move everything else up? Do you think they'd be more likely to reinforce Mutal (which doesn't look to be under threat) Chichen (which will after we move the galleys) or the South where are stack is?

Basically, if we make offensive moves in the South, can we draw their attention away from our real goals in the centre?

[sooooo]

Hmmm, but that won't give us line of sight into Mutal.
I suggest to put the Mutal Raiding Party onto the Iron Hill 2SW of Mutal.

mh

We have a sentry HA so we can see into Mutal from that tile.

[mostly-harmless]

We have a sentry HA so we can see into Mutal from that tile.

Ah! Good. Missed that detail.

mh

[ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF]

What happens if Imperio moves their stack 1S onto the road, but doesn't attack Acre?

[Sullla]

If there's still time to discuss this, I'd move the stack as we originally planned. The wheat tile is directly next to Damascus, and extremely threatening. Down there in the south, we have at least some slight plausibility for moving on Templars...

[Kodii]

Original plan, as per Sullla's reason

[sunrise089]

Ok Sullla, I can accept that reasoning.

The question is how much to cover our workers with. We have a pair of maces already assigned to that tile, since they can't make it to the main army's tile. We also have a few more units in Constantinople that can move up but not cover the maces (the threaten-Constantinople-only group). Imperio can attack the workers with their knight, and then 6 units out of Damascus (mustket, pair of wounded maces, pair of pikes, longbow). I would guess covering the workers with 2 pikes and 2 maces would be enough, but it won't be if Imperio wants to trade the city for the workers.

[sooooo]

Those few units will be fine. No need to spend too many troops guarding workers.

[shadyforce]

I'm pretty sure Imperio won't declare war to nab any exposed workers in peacetime. From their perspective, they'd have to be pretty damn certain you were stabbing them. If they were suspicious but not certain, I don't think they would blow any chance of peaceful cooperation and the chance to get those cities off you just on a hunch, even a strong hunch.

In fact perhaps leaving workers near imperio unguarded might ease Imperio suspicions a little. I know that I would probably trust an 'ally' more if they were leaving workers, cities, etc exposed than one who didn't appear to trust me and kept our borders (and in this case workers) closely guarded.

[Sullla]

Why would Imperio trade a city for two workers? I think the two maces will be plenty, or maybe add one pike at the most. We know that the two workers are critical to our plan, but they certainly don't. I have a hard time seeing Imperio declaring war on us at all; they might be suspicious, but I highly doubt they actually want a war with our team.

Also, 30 minutes left on the timer. I'm guessing sunrise will log in shortly on his lunch break, but I can cover the moves if he's not available.

[Broker33]

This is exciting.....cry havoc let loose the hounds

[Zeviz]

I am probably late, but I am in the "cover workers as weakly as possible" camp. It looks good and they will not declare just for two workers.

[Dreylin]

sunrise is in now - and so is Banana....

[Broker33]

Well since I am here I suppose I can put in my two cents.

I wouldn't cover the workers or cover them weakly simply to say. Nothing to see here just minding my own business.

It may confuse them....large stack, unprotected workers. And as I see it confusion that may cause a delay of one turn is what you need.

I also doubt they will attack for just two workers. What would be thier excuse ...We thought you were going to attack us so we broke our deal??

[Kodii]

Well since I am here I suppose I can put in my two cents.

sunrise has already played :)

[Broker33]

sunrise has already played :)

Well since it is hindsight it should be worth more than 2 cents.;)

[sunrise089]

Ok, ships and units moved as per the Sullla plan.

Idea, ex post - We should have brought a SETTLER with our stack. Having one would have at least given us plausible deniability for having our workers and army on the 3W of Acre tile.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/170/civ4screenshot0431.jpg

[ruff_hi]

This is exciting.....cry havoc let loose the hounds
Actually, that isn't the best quote to use ... Anthony used it after killing Ceaser; he started to regret the course he had taken ...

The 'cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war' form of the phrase is from his (Shakespeare) Julius Caesar, 1601. After Caesar's murder Anthony regrets the course he has taken and predicts that war is sure to follow.

ANTONY:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial. (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html)

[Sullla]

Well, if we're going to quote Shakespeare... ;)

HAMLET
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

My favorite speech from Hamlet (Act IV, Scene IV). I'll admit that this game is very exciting at the moment, almost too much so. I'm checking the forums every 2 hours, and not getting a whole lot of work done on my lectures... :lol:

[Broker33]

Hey I was quoting from the original Klingon ;)

And random quotes are always better out of context:)

My favorite quote

And he opened the fourth seal and behold a pale horse and its riders name was Death and Hell rode behind him. They were given dominion over 1/4 of the earth.....

But I am a preachers kid:)

[darrelljs]

I had a teacher who made us memorize and recite that Antony speech, so naturally I hate it ;).

Darrell

[sunrise089]

I prefer the Johny Cash version of that verse Broker

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, and I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.

[sooooo]

I predict Imperio will take Acre then pillage the road on the wheat and the tile 2S of damascus.

[Sullla]

Here are some thoughts on how to go about making the "shock and awe" strike next turn:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162938&stc=1&d=1248327492

As I see it, the best tile for our Mounted stack to occupy is the iron hill SW-SW of Mutal. From here, we have visibility into the city (thanks to our Sentry horse archer) and can see a good distance in every direction. We'll be able to tell what Imperio's doing and can react accordingly. Even better, being on the iron tile, we have the option to pillage it if something goes disastrously wrong. But the main reason is that it leaves us an option to move elsewhere if the attack on Mutal looks like it won't succeed.

With the white arrows, I drew possible Imperio troop movements. The logical response would be to move anything and everything available towards their capital city in the hopes of saving it. In the worst case scenario, we may not be able to attack Mutal; however, we can respond by doing this:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162939&stc=1&d=1248327492

We move SE-SE to threaten Lakamha. Most importantly, any units in Mutal cannot reach Lakamha in time to reinforce, nor can any units in Mutal even reach our stack to attack it! (Single-movers; obviously double-movers still can, but then they don't get defensive bonuses either.) Since Lakamha has only a holkan inside as its default defender, we could potentially catch Imperio with their pants down at their second city and have a shot to grab it. We definitely would prefer not to do this - we would have to attack across a river at Lakamha, and the city is also on a hill for further defensive bonus - but it's at least a possibility. Worst case from this position, we see that Lakamha also has too many defenders, and retreat back into our own territory. Obviously this plan assumes that we wipe out essentially all of the Imperio main army in the south, which can otherwise reinforce Lakamha without much trouble!

One interesting thing to come out of this planning is that we should move the Mounted stack FIRST on T169, to get instant visibility into Mutal. Based on what we see there, we can then decide whether or not to keep Chichen Itza in the naval attack. If it doesn't look like we'll be able to take Mutal, we need to raze Chichen Itza rather than capturing it.

sunrise, do you see an alternate or better way to move these units?

[sunrise089]

Good plan Sullla. If the main Imperio stack had been further north I'd propose the floodplain 2E of Mutal, but we know where pretty much all of their units are. The only disadvantage I can think of at the moment is that if Imperio has a defender in the fog that cannot reach Mutal but can reach the tile 1SW of the city they can station their unit there and force us to attack it. 2W or 2W1S lets us hit Mutal from two different tiles. I believe this situation is unlikely though.

[Swiss Pauli]

Why don't we first move the sentry HA to the Iron stack, and then decide where to move the rest of the units, based on her findings?

[mostly-harmless]

I thought that with the sentry HA we don't even need to be on a hill to see into Mutal? We get 2tile visibility on flat lands.

If Imperio moves a unit out of Mutal to block our way, we should have better odds on it.

mh

[Zeviz]

Why do we have to raze Chichen Itza? (The city is right next to our border, so if we can't hold it we can't hold CT either.)

[Swiss Pauli]

The sentry is not a key combat unit, and with it we see the Lamakha area in case we need to abort the razing of Mutal.

Sunrise raised the possibility of Imperio stationing a unit (probably the Cuirassier they just trained in Mutal) between the Iron and Mutal, potentially scuppering our attack if we move all units to the Iron tile. If the sentry tells us we can raze Mutal, then we can move our Cuirassiers to the FP 1N of the Iron, so that such a block is impossible.

If Mutal is still standing, Chichen becomes too hard to defend because of Mutal's culture, so we'd have to raze & re-settle. Cape doesn't suffer the same problem with Mutal's culture.

[mostly-harmless]

Imperio has finished off Templars and has scattered their main stack! :D

Here is the situation.
I hope the force composition is clear.
We additional Forces in Const and beyond.
The single Musketman is probably going for Jerusalem garrison duty.
Jerusalem, undefended currently, will get a border pop next turn.
That Musketman is good news, as it is not defending Mutal.

Ok, sunrise, start thinking. What do we do. The moment PAL finishes the turn we are up!!!

No changes on the northern sector btw.
mh

EDIT: better picture quality

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok, so their mainy army moved onto the road to Damascus. They'll certainly get a revelation, but it's not likely to be a pleasant one :evil:

[mostly-harmless]

I think we can pick up the main stack, the sole Knight, the sole Musketman and then either Damaskus or the 2mace&3cat stack.

We should probably ignore taking Acre at the moment and concentrate on Damscus & Calakmul to prevent too much drafting & whipping.

Edit: This is getting really exciting now. :D
I hope the US wakes up soon.


mh

[regoarrarr]

I think I'd take Damascus and leave the 2 mace / 3 cat stack, since it's not on the road network and isn't going anywhere, so in theory it can be picked up by the remnants of our army the turn after (we should have enough healthy / promotable units to take it out, as well as Acre)

[Kodii]

I hope the US wakes up soon.

Me too, since it's 9:30 EST

Let the Games begin!

[Dreylin]

Hang the US waking up, what we really need is PAL to end turn ASAP so we can get on with the Imperio beatdown!

[mostly-harmless]

Hang the US waking up, what we really need is PAL to end turn ASAP so we can get on with the Imperio beatdown!

Well, since peace broke out, if PAL finishes now, Imperio can log in straight away and move their units.

mh

[Dreylin]

Can we declare war on Imperio now, even though we've ended our turn already, to lock in the turn order?

[T-hawk]

Even if we can, we should not. If we declare war now, Imperio can change build orders to units and start whipping.

[sunrise089]

Ok guys, here is what I think we want to do - as soon as anyone sees PAL end turn and the turn timer tick over, just log in and declare war. We shouldn't have any double-move issues, and as soon as we're back at war we go back to have the first 24 hours of the turn, right? After all we played first last turn and would be playing first this turn.

PS - Not in the game, but those Imperio moves look really good for us.

[Sullla]

Oh man, this could NOT have gone better for us! :lol: First of all, thanks to mh for grabbing such a beautiful screenshot. I didn't need to log into the game at all to see what happened. :b: Now let's break down exactly what happened to Imperio's forces in the attack on Acre:

- No change in Damascus, same units there.
- Exploring knight moved SW (this unit is dead meat, moved right next to our pikes!)
- Musket moved out of the fog next to Constantinople. This unit must have been moving over the hill tiles east of Constantinople. (Good because it eats up another 9k of Soldier count that was unaccounted for!)
- A Combat II pike moved onto the hill E of Damascus. (Score another 6k Soldier points, leaving only 14k unaccounted for!)
- The main stack initially had 3 knights, 1 musket, 3 elephants, 6 maces, 3 longbows, 1 pike, and 9 catapults. Here's what happened to them:

- One of the knights was damaged from 7.3 to 5.1 strength. None died, all moved W onto the Damascus road.
- The musket didn't attack and moved W as well. (Not into the city, where its Guerilla promotion would have meant something!)
- None of the war elephants attacked, all moved W too.
- None of the maces died. Two stayed in place (presumably attacking and winning without taking damage) while the other four moved W as well.
- One longbow moved into Acre. The other two moved W, including the Guerilla II longbow, where its promotions are useless.
- The pike from the main stack moved into Acre.
- Out of Imperio's 9 cats, 3 remain on the staging tile and 5 moved west. One evidently died.

So overall, Imperio appears to have lost only one suicide cat. However, their units are spread out all over the place, virtually everything is injured, and we have free run on their entire armed forces. They could NOT have presented us with a better opportunity if they had tried! :D

There are too many units to try and sim everything out, but here are some early thoughts on attacking:

- Jamie Lynn Spears (pike) attacks the Imperio scouting knight.
- Carrie and Chloe, our cats furthest back from the action, hit the main Imperio stack on the road to Damascus. Maybe two more cats from the main stack follow, depending on our odds there.
- Save our City Raider maces for attacking into Damascus or Acre, where they get the combat bonus.
- We definitely want to concentrate on killing the main stack, the injured remnants located NW of Acre, and the defenders in Damascus. We won't have enough units to kill everything, so Acre itself can wait another turn or so. Those units aren't going anywhere!
- It's important to capture or raze Damascus, because otherwise it will expand borders on the following turn!
- Our Oromos should clean up against pretty much anything, with their first strikes against injured units. We should be able to kill about 25 Imperio units for the loss of ~5 cats and 2-3 real units. It's gonna be a total slaughter!

* * * * *

Two final points:

1) Definitely agree with sunrise - log into the game and declare war as soon as the turn rolls over. We don't have to do anything else, but that gets the clock rules in play.
2) CivStats shows that Imperio didn't whip anything on their turn. That means no extra defenders in Chichen Itza, and a guaranteed city capture or razing for us on our turn!

[timmy827]

Sulla's plan for the north sounds good. Hopefully we can lock in the turn order;
However knowing imperio, I really doubt they will log in immediately and double-move out of danger.

I'll trust sunrise to run things well, but since the Imperio stacks are pretty banged up I'll weigh in against using too many cats here.

Since we don't have any flanking, we will be using up most of our units on cleaning up the main stack, we may not have enough to take Damascus (are we keeping it?). I think it would make more sense to clean up the units 1NW of Acre, then hit Damascus when we can use the full army (although regorarr is right about them not likely to escape). Anyways, if we have the full 24 hours we can pause after the main stack is dead and post some screenshots to poll.

I would ignore the musket in the woods next turn. It could threaten Jerusalem so I suggest moving Liz (the musket in Sweet Tooth) in that direction.

And I hope PAL doesn't log in, because I just might be home in 14 hours and able to follow a battle live for once;)

[Sullla]

Indeed, definitely ignore that musket in the woods by Constantinople. It can't do anything threatening, so long as we have two defenders in the city. However, we do need to take down Damascus on the turn of the attack, because otherwise it expands borders on the following turn and will present all sorts of problems for our units in the area.

[mostly-harmless]

The lone musket does not really threaten Jerusalem, as it will pop borders next turn.

Small correction on Sullla's notes:
The single Pike 1E of Damascus was moved out of the city. Damscus had 6 units as garrison previously (incl. 2pikes) now it has only one pike left.

If we can kill off most of Imperio's units with small losses, then we definitely want to keep Chichen Itza.

I assume we will have a combat-chat again?

mh

[LiPing]

Agree with regoarrarr, pretty sure there isn't enough force to kill the main stack, Damascus and the small lot of Maces/Catapults all on the same turn, and I'm pretty the small stack can't get to any tile that isn't in range next turn, even with the two workers in Acre.

[Broker33]

Whens the battle I may be able to log into the chat also.

[darrelljs]

I assume we will have a combat-chat again?


That would be great...BUT, I think the combat should take place the soonest Sulla and Sunrise can get on teamspeak together. If Imperio logs in after we declare war and move before we attack, then we have to get the lawyers involved.

Darrell

[Swiss Pauli]

I second darrell here. We need to be a little bit careful: remember that Krill ruled that Imperio would move before Templars because Imperio hadn't ended their turn, but they had moved units before Templars declared. We should try to play our turn as soon as practicable after the clock ticks over.

[Broker33]

You know this seems to fit

"What we've got here is...failure to communicate."
"Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men".

[Zeviz]

On suiciding cats, I am not sure how many are worth sacrificing, given that Imperio units are wounded already. However, we have to kill main stack and capture Damascus, and kill wounded maces north of Acre before they heal by promotions, and Cats can't kill units so it might be worthwhile to sacrifice a couple extra to make sure we have good odds for more of the real units.

[Broker33]

Pal logged in.

[Zeviz]

New turn started. Somebody needs to log in and declare war.

[Broker33]

PAL ended turn.

Blood makes the grass grow kill kill kill.....

[Sullla]

I'm on it. Will log in, declare war, and get the clock rules in play for us. sunrise can probably play the actual turn tonight after work, and still early enough for our European team members to jump into a big old battle session. :)

[Zeviz]

While you are at it, can you move boats and move one of the mounted units to Iron Hill, so we can plan what to do with Chichen Itza and Mutal while we wait?

PS Approximately at what time are you planning to play?

[Broker33]

Well it will irritate my wife but I will try to sit in on the chat. :)

I am guessing around 1800 EDT Think that is GMT-4

[sunrise089]

When are you available to TS Sullla? I can play any time since I'll be at work until midnight tonight no matter what. I'll just run home and play and then come back.

[Sullla]

OK, logged in. First, there was an inconclusive Apostolic Palace vote; Imperio voted for themselves, PAL and RB both abstained. Here's the exact breakdown:

Imperio vote for themselves (12)
PAL abstain (24)
RB abstain (20)
Inconclusive, no AP resident (needed 22/56)

Then I declared war, snapped this screenie:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162950&stc=1&d=1248375893

Krill, the 24/24 clock rules are now in effect. Please convey this info to Imperio in their forum. Many thanks. :)

Notice the second dot in Chichen Itza? I was freaking out over another defender, but no! It's a Worker!!! :lol: I swear, this attack could NOT be set up any better. Free worker for us to capture at Chichen Itza! I moved the galleys/trireme up to Chichen's doorstep, but that was it. I didn't move the Mounted stack, didn't want to make any mistake there.

sunrise, I can chat at any point this afternoon/evening. Let's try to shoot for something like a 5:30pm EST start (10:30 GMT) so that we can gather a larger portion of the team together, and not make it too late for the European players. Plus, you can get dinner while you're home. How does that sound for everyone?

[Iamjohn]

Sweet, hopefully I should be able to make the chat. :)


I'm going to laugh though if Imperio forgets to log in this turn. :p

[Broker33]

I was just thinking about how Imperio is going to feel when they log in.

Just wiped out Templars got a couple cities. Heading over to take over two more log out feeling pretty good :)

Log in and WTF :huh:

[sunrise089]

Ok, 5:30pm EST it is.

[ruff_hi]

Ok, 5:30pm EST it is.What are the teamspeak details - I would love to try them again.

[Iamjohn]

I thought we were on the chatroom *shrug*

[sunrise089]

We're on both. If you can download and install teamspeak I'll paste the server info when I get home. Or perhaps Sullla can paste it now.

[ruff_hi]

is it this one?

64.237.38.194:9535

[Krill]

Yes that's the one.

[mostly-harmless]

So its in another hour, right?
A, well my wife will hate me, but I don't want to miss this. Will be in the chat.

mh

[Dreylin]

Yes:

5:30pm Eastern US
10:30pm UK
11:30PM Europe

and for me:

4:30pm Central US

[MyOtherCar]

I'll try to be in the chat as well. Did someone send naldo an email?
edit: Where's the chatroom again?

[mostly-harmless]

Lets have a successful first strike first.

mh

[Dreylin]

I'll try to be in the chat as well. Did someone send naldo an email?
edit: Where's the chatroom again?

Details are in the "Chatroom" thread - which I think should be stickied:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showpost.php?p=5634564&postcount=1