War Academy: Our military doctrine for the early Medieval age

[Spiffor]

Shiber : these figures are the defense value of buildings / citizens against artillery attacks. They don't affect the defense bonus of units within the city. You must go to the general settings tab, and look at the value behind town, city and metropolis. IIRC, a town provides no bonus, a city 50% bonus, and a metropolis 100%.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So you complain, that we have no money? Build marketplaces! They are at the moment much more important than cathedrals, as they also help to increase happiness after the 3rd luxury. Settler building is over, connect luxuries after we conquered them, and let the population grow. Let the Public works minister build roads everywhere. This will skyrocket our commerce, guaranteed. I currently play a similar game (huge, 16, continents, emperor) as the Zulus, have 41 gold per turn and am still in the ancient age. Btw without a single war so far. Why do you think this should be impossible in Apolytonia?

Got to quote myself, just to show that Spiffors complaints have been answered long ago. Not a Chariots or Marketplaces are to be chosen, but Chariots and Marketplaces. The order of building matters, though. And what concerns workers: Roads, roads, roads. And mines. We are industious, let's play out this advantage.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Shiber : these figures are the defense value of buildings / citizens against artillery attacks. They don't affect the defense bonus of units within the city.

That explains it. Thanks.

Originally posted by Spiffor
You must go to the general settings tab, and look at the value behind town, city and metropolis. IIRC, a town provides no bonus, a city 50% bonus, and a metropolis 100%.

I did, but thanks anyway.

[Shiber]

AFAIK Godking our city planner is planning to invest in granaries. This should play along with Sir Ralph's plans for the workers since they will be able to concentrate on increasing commerce and shield production.
Me, I just wish we'd switch to Monarchy as soon as possible and get rid of that damn tile bonus.

[Treestumpx]

Using Spiffor's number above:

20 war whariots = 400 shields = 4 marketplaces

And Sir Ralphs argument to build War Chariots AND Market Places, are we not looking at 800 shields?

I believe that the argument for 8 War Chariots and at least 4 market places at least minizes total sheild production alloted to this endeavour: 8 War Chariots + 4 Market Places = 480 shields.

Remeber that the plan requires that we upgrade the units later at a cost of 100 lytons, meaning that we would need 800 in the coffers or 100/turn for 8 turns, or 50/turn for 16 turns to upgrade the lot.

IMHO still expensive but not too expensive. Certainly not in the realm of 20 Chariots.

[Harovan]

What, pray tell, is a "lyton"?

[Vlad Antlerkov]

"Lyton"= 1 gold.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Shiber
AFAIK Godking our city planner is planning to invest in granaries.

That would be a waste of shields. We have happiness problems and can't afford a very quick growth. 1 granary for a worker factory is ok, but multiple? No, better marketplaces.

[Shiber]

With one free content citizen, at least one more from military police, a temple and two luxuries (soon) we can safely reach 6 citizens. Of course cities with access to fresh water are gonna need more military police and a marketplace, but for small cities located in the middle of a jungle and located nowhere near a source of fresh water a granary (which will allow us to produce new workers or settlers if we decide to build more and pop rush more) will be more useful than a marketplace (which will add one happy face which isn't essential and increase the commerce output by 50%, which won't matter much because the city is very corrupted).

Edit: let me clear up an important point so I don't get misunderstood here: I too am against building excess granaries, only my limit at the moment is 2.
However, once we have 3 luxuries a settlement with 2 garrisons, a temple and a marketplace can safely reach 12 citizens (unless there's war weariness, in which case we'll need entertainment / entertainers) so building granaries before cathedrals will be a wise choice IMHO.
Keep in mind: 12 citizens means Metropolis, and Metropolis means 8 free support under Monarchy.

[Harovan]

DP, server problems

[Harovan]

13+ cities are metropolises, and they are possible only after building hospitals. Until then, (7-12) cities will support 4 units under monarchy.

[adaMada]

Re: War Academy: Our military doctrine for the early Medieval age

First, I wanted to say that this is a very interesting thread that I'm basically going to listen to but not say much, since I'm fairly undecided and believe that both sides have some valid points.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Fellow War Academy members,
Should we plan to give in to AI demands and extortions, as planned by some of the so called "builders"?

I refuse to answer this question, as it is so obvious. It is double-faced on the one hand to say yes to blackmails, and on the other hand to demand a "rock hard" Apolytonia. I want to be proud to be an Apolytonian. And by the way: Giving in to extortions does not hinder an AI civ to attack, or to ally up with another one that already attacked.

I do, however, think that this specific comment warrents a reply defending the Foreign Ministry's policy re: demands.

The ministry has a clear obligation to try to keep our nation out of any wars that we have not planned for and are not prepared for. As such, the foreign minister must cede to demands that he thinks will start a war unless our military branch intructs us to try to get them into a war with a civilization (something that, as far as I'm aware, hasn't happened). Of course, if we became a very powerful civilization, then the Ministry's assessment of which nations to cede demands to will change, and perhaps (dare I say hopefully?) one day become none.

Basically, however, I don't see how the ministry can possibly not give in to demands if we believe that refusing will start a war against our nation. (This doesn't address our 'charity' nations, which we generally give whatever they ask for to affect the political climate, but I think that's a different issue than the one addressed in this thread).

Please note that in this post I do not speak with the sanction of the foreign ministry, or as their representative -- I'm just giving my personal reason that I accept the necessity of giving in to some demands.

-- adaMada

[Togas]

Writing in as guest to the War Academy as I am not officially a member.

The most important thing Ralph has brought up in this thread, IMO, is that we need to get our GA going and the Middle-Ages is the time to have it.

If we don't get it through the use of our UU, I don't see how we're going to get it through Wonder building. The AI is a Wonder building fantatic and we're already behind on tech as it is. They play at Regent, we play at Emperer.

War is the norm in the middle ages, especially for the AI. We will either by choice or by tragedy be brought into a war. I'd prefer we choose the time and opponent. And I prefer that we take advantage of our weak UU to get a GA before it's absolutely useless.

We need to continue our agressive play into the next age.

Once in our GA, we will be able to build our infrastructure to the delight of the Builders, catch up on tech, secure the entire Basin, and hopefully get a GL to build the much needed Forbidden Palace.

--Togas

[Shiber]

Don't you mean get a GL to build an army, win a battle with it and then build the heroic epic first, then build the FP with the 2nd GL? It pays up in the long run.

[Togas]

Originally posted by Shiber
Don't you mean get a GL to build an army, win a battle with it and then build the heroic epic first, then build the FP with the 2nd GL? It pays up in the long run.

That's not a bad plan either, but I usually use my GL for the FP and then use every GL after that for wonders in my games. I rarely make armies until late in the game.

I really dislike that we can't remove units from an army. An army of swordsmen or knights isn't all that useful later in the game.

--Togas