Strategy for the American campaign

[Harovan]

I think Shiber is right, luxuries have the highest priority, so we should go for Chicago first. ManicStarSeed has also a point with fighting a decisive war with overwhelming forces, but where will we take them from? So I again agree with Shiber, altho I'd take a few more Knights, say 4 each stack, 2 War Chariots and 2 Pikemen as garrison and shelter for injured units. 2 of these stacks, with 2-3 more Knights waiting in reserve, should suffice to finish America in 4-5 turns.

Shiber, did you by chance forget the "War Academy:" in the thread title, or do you by purpose ignore our glorious institute?

[Torkkeli]

Enough of War!

Stop the aggression and live peacefully!



Build improvements and improve our infrastructure.
Let our culture explode the minds of other civs.

[Harovan]

Why can the one not go along with the other?

[Shiber]

Calc II: I have reviewed the same idea earlier (Re: "swing units". Good name btw) and I'm afraid to say that this idea, though a great one, is undoable until we get cavalry with 3 movement points.

Sir Ralph: yes, you're on to me. I'm planning to start a rival institution.
Just kidding, I simply forgot. As a member of the War Academy I know that this counts as an inexusable crime punished by death, so I ask you to spare me at least until we get America.
By the way, Sir Ralph, what is your opinion regarding the subject of checking one turn before the American campaign is launched which civs will pay us for an alliance against the Aztecs and then sign alliances with them? It will bring us money as well as improve our foreign relations.

My thoughts: I don't like the idea of a war with America that lasts more than one turn. The time after America should be devoted to construction, not to rushing units to the fronts in case America brings in some allies.
Therefore, I suggest that we put 4 units in each stack: two WCs and two knights. America has 4 cities, so the total cost of this would be 8 knights and 8 WCs, or a total of 720 shields. If instead of building the 8 knights we build 8 additional WCs and then upgrade those to knights the cost will be reduced to 320 shields and 800 gold, or 400 gold if we get Leonardo's Workshop by then.
Of course any knight or WC that we'll have left after Persia will reduce the cost of the war.

[=OttomusCeasar=]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I think Shiber is right, luxuries have the highest priority, so we should go for Chicago first. ManicStarSeed has also a point with fighting a decisive war with overwhelming forces, but where will we take them from? So I again agree with Shiber, altho I'd take a few more Knights, say 4 each stack, 2 War Chariots and 2 Pikemen as garrison and shelter for injured units. 2 of these stacks, with 2-3 more Knights waiting in reserve, should suffice to finish America in 4-5 turns.

Shiber, did you by chance forget the "War Academy:" in the thread title, or do you by purpose ignore our glorious institute?

Chicago's luxuries won't be worth anything if it isn't connected to our capital. We have to take Washington and Chicago.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Torkkeli
Let our culture explode the minds of other civs.

But then we'd have to divert workers to clean up the mess.

In any case, culture will be a major player in determining the course of this war. If we can take New York culturally we can cut expenses by 25%!!

Edit: Sir Ralph, you mentioned once that you have the formula for determining the chance of cultural flipping. Could you please disclose it?

[joncnunn]

On the SwordMen during the American campaign:

Don't disband the surviving ones even afterwords, they can be stationed on any city to help reduce risk of a flip, and more over will help to keep the peace against civs that may be hostile.

And Swordmen kill Longbowmen just fine as long as the Swordmen is attacking.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by =OttomusCeasar=
Chicago's luxuries won't be worth anything if it isn't connected to our capital. We have to take Washington and Chicago.

There are other ways to connect Chicago. We can build a road there, but that road will most likely be swallowed by Greek cultural expansion, it seems, and we'd lose our supply of incense if Greece declares war on us (which is why we should try to appease them by striking an incense deal with them).
Of course it would be best if we can take Washington as well. I see your point here and I think you're right - we should make Washington as much of a priority as Chicago.

[joncnunn]

On the getting allies and getting paid to do so: For a quick war, we'll want the payments to be one time; the Gold Per Turn protion may be auto canceled if the civ it's against is wiped out early.

[Shiber]

I second with joncnunn. We should not disband the swords we'll have left after the Persian campaign (if any), we should rather use them for odd jobs like serving as military police (in Uber Island perhaps) or killing longbowmen.

[Harovan]

Chicago's luxuries won't be worth anything if it isn't connected to our capital. We have to take Washington and Chicago.

I said go first for Chicago. And we can connect the city ourselves with ease, we are industrious.

About alliances: If we do so, we have to bring in an overwhelming force to keep the war short, and we should ally with civs far away, or we risk, that our allies take a part of America. But somehow I have a gut feeling, that nobody will pay a penny for that alliance.

Before we attack, we should trade with America and sell them something (tech, map or combo) to make sure they have 0 gold, so they can't ally up with anyone.

[=OttomusCeasar=]

Washington cuts off their Iron and their luxuries in one swoop leaving them to rush spearmen only, no pikes or knights. Then we take Chicago (luxuries), then Boston and New York.

[Shiber]

Ottomus, afaik our maps of America are up-to-date so we know they don't have a single road.
Haha! No roads!! Those losers...
In any case, we know that America doesn't have iron because IIRC, in the diplomacy screen there's an option to sell them iron (though it's grayed out because we don't have a trade route with America). I'm afraid I can't load the game right now and make sure; can anyone check this please?

Conclusions:
* America has no luxuries connected, meaning that their cities cannot reach maximum work capacity (some citizens have to be used as entertainers or other specialists).
* America has no iron, meaning that its strongest defensive unit is the spearman and its strongest offensive unit is the archer, or the longbowman if they have engineering. In any case, they aren't any threat to us, though we should be prepared in case the dice of chance give us bad rolls again.

[Aro]

There's an America Map in my site, http://www.arociv.com/Maps.html .
You can see two aztecs regular spearmen near Washington.
A thumbnail:

[Aggie]

Here is a plan I came up with.(from my own idea and reading the very good discussion here)
1)Chicago must be first for 2 reason
a) luxuries
b) most likely to fall to aztects.
2) Offensive must be based on speed and ideally will involve wc and knights to get a ga.
With defense of 3, 1knights can hold a city.
Pike can come up later
3) Lets use some of our workers to road up there right now, I know they are busy but this is important here are the roads i plan
a) Delmonte road goes n,ne
Fom there we can attack both boston/new york
b) From chiquita n,nw,nw and also (from 1N) ne,ne

Now for the attack, all knights and sword from persian war(I estimate 7+) + 5wc(they are cheap) are involved
5knights go to point s,se of chicago

Rest of forces go to point s of boston(est 2knight,5wc)
some of this force could go to mountain 2se of new york.(maybe somesword here, depending on movement but we won't wait).

We then attack chicago,boston,NY in one turn, forces then conerge on washington to finish the war.
The first forces to get to washington will be on turn 2, this assumeswith take chicago, with no more than 4 attacks. Main forces can be able to finish it by turn 3.
By the way I estimate it will take the knights near chicago 7 turns to get into postion from antioch(the last battle in the persian war). So this will give us 7turns of peace to help war weariness too.
Aggie