War Academy - Persia defeated, Aztec-American War, what next?

[Kloreep]

Aside from finishing off the Americans, I agree that we should consolidate and build. Avignon is a nice target for the future, but I don't see any urgent need.

Looking farther ahead, both Germany and Greece offer tempting land. However, wars against either are not possible right now, and probably won't be until Cavalry.

[Donegeal]

As much of a Hawk as I've become over the last few months, I have to say that "eliminating an opponnet is a bad Idea. Generally speaking, all other civs are more advanced than we are and if we wipe them out, we can't get tech from them (or Lpt). I say a constant state of one or two city "whacks" would be best against alternating opponnets. As long as we don't break a treaty or violate a border before we attack, we don't loose any rep from war.

"Whack" a civ (I say the Aztec cities in Pina Colada ) for one, two or three cities, then sue for peace with tech and/or Lpt. Move troops into position for another "whack" and then do it when troops are ready (I think the German cities in Pina Colada would be perfect for this ).

If we whittle away at the other civs like this we will become so large that we will have improved our "infrastructure" as the bigger we get, the less we will need our big cities to build military units.

[Donegeal]

We must also remember that the AI gets a 20% production/commerce/sci bonus over us. Loosing a city hurts them moore then it hurts us (puls after a while of this "whacking" they will have very few cities and could not even come close to us with improvements or not. We will simple be to big for them to compete with )

[Shiber]

War with France will give us great prizes but will also hold back Republic for at least 15 turns.
We need to race forward for America and grab whatever we can. Then we should turn our heads to peace, and Republic.
War mongers, think about it this way: with Republic we can make a lot more money, and more money means ability to rush more units and to finish the French in record time when we decide to.

[Meshelic]

Definetely America must be liberated from the Aztec

BUT

Arnelos brought up a good point about musketmen vs. knight / cavalry vs. musketmen ; if the French get that tech before us, then we may as well kiss that hugely strategic location goodbye. The only way to guarantee success is to attack in numbers soon

[XOR]

Originally posted by Shiber
War with France will give us great prizes but will also hold back Republic for at least 15 turns.
We need to race forward for America and grab whatever we can. Then we should turn our heads to peace, and Republic.
War mongers, think about it this way: with Republic we can make a lot more money, and more money means ability to rush more units and to finish the French in record time when we decide to.

We have no marketplaces. No marketplaces = no republic . So discard republic until after we have the marketplaces.

War = Great Leaders, think of it...

We can war with france while building up the infrastructure but we have to keep good relationships and good reputation to avoid a massive alliance against us. Should this massive alliance form, we would be able to handle it, but it will just delay the infrastructure constructions.

Do you want your France with French fries?

[Donegeal]

I would like to repute the thought that the only reason we have had such military success is because we have been picking on "weak" civs. We have truly only fought three civs: the Americans, the French and the Persians (I don't count the Germans as it was so pathetic).

Of these three civs we only had an advantage over one of them, the Persians. They had no Iron and could not stand up to even our Swordmen at the time.

The other two (America and France), we fought on even ground.

America was fought with Archer stacks ( @ Unortho) and spearmen. We both had some of each. We won do to stragety and the fact that we had more.

France was fought with Archer stacks, Spearmen and Swordmen. Again, we both had some of each (hell, Rheims was taken back by a warrior). Again, we won do to stragety.

Both the French and American wars are examples of what I call "whacking a civ". We whacked them and they turned pathetic. We whack Greece, Germany, Aztec, English, Rome and Russia in the same mannor, and they all become pathetic. All of Abananaba becomes a mop up job.

[Robber Baron]

Originally posted by Meshelic
Speaking of other civs, what is the likelihood of the Germans taking a stance against us in the case of this hypothetical invasion?

Great question, Meshelic. If we do decide to proceed against the French, it seems to me we have to weigh the possibility of third party aggression, from either the Aztecs or the Germans. That scenario would make it impossible to do any substantial building (courthouses, marketplaces, cathedrals). We now have a vast and potentially rich hinterland, but we're not yet using it fully.

I'm a bit hesitant to plunge into the next phase of imperialist expansion. France looks tempting, and vulnerable. Can we take it while at the same time buttressing ourselves culturally and economically?
If the French campaign can be an isolated one, we should be able to put it together and execute pretty cheaply.
If we're not sure of this, however, then it becomes a serious proposition. Because we need to have a major building phase, including (IMO) palace/FP placement, a cathedral campaign, and a series of courthouse/marketplace rushes.
What do people think? Are we pretty confident we can hold Otto and Monty in check (via trade agreements and so on), while we take out another layer or two of pink territory?
Nothing should impede or further delay a substantial building campaign. :doitnow:

[zeit]

We definetely need the time to er-organize, we can't allow ourselves to be drawn to another war in the near future, we'll do better if we muster our city production towards marketplaces and courthouses, make lots of money with Republic, and attack in the window of Cavalry before Riflemen. We can get the Cav before france gets Nationality, and we'll have plenty of knights and money to upgrade them, then launch an invasion. For now, we must grab NY, and if we can boston too, by using the 4 WC we have south of boston to form a 'blockade' on the SE and south of Boston, if the Aztecs won't attack from the north, we might be able to get Boston before them, and if they get Boston, our blockade will slow their approach to New york (they'll have to go through hills and mountains) and we can have our 2 knights attack it in 3 turns. After that we should definitely stop the wars and consolidate for a while.

[ruby_maser]

gunpowder

we need to know soon what is going on with saltpeter. we could easily be targeted by one of our AI neighbors simply because we have it in some lightly-defended location and they do not have it at all. Insuring we have it would allow us to delay a campaign against France because we could be sure of calvary when the time comes. Or conversely, we could be sure that France did and we didn't and that a pre-emptive strike would be in order to attain it. however, over 1000 lytons to purchase it is very high; have we considered all options for how to get it cheaply and with all possible speed?

[roadcage]

Why are we considering attacking the French? They have no Techs to give in the negotiations.

Greece, Rome, and Germany are only ones with the techs we crave.

Lets see know. What was the Persian line at the negotiating table? Something like

It would be cheaper to crush you and take your stuff.

[joncnunn]

What's left of America is the higher priority.

Aggie, how many turns from now are you proposing the second French war?

And do you think we can implement the plan before the French get Musketters?

We must get Gunpowder this turn so we know who will have access to it with the tech and who who will still lack.

I'll only back the war as long as the French don't get Musketeers before we start. And if they get this before we take Tours, I'd be proposing sueing for peace.

[joncnunn]

Rome & Germany both have Gunpowder. We don't really want to fight them now even if after we buy this tech ASAP as superior numbers of Knights will be needed.

Greece can easily afford to bribe Rome and/or Germany into attacking us, so we shouldn't fight them either.

The obvious goal of the second French campaign is conquest, they can't even afford a decent price on the techs we have that they don't.

It will take a few turns for the Knights to get into position, which will reduce the inital war werrious.
If war wearrious becomes a problem during the war, we either switch to Monarchy for the remainder of the war or sue for peace depending upon if the French have Musketters or not.

[Aggie]

We have a peace treaty signed with france from last turn chat, so the earliest the war can take place is 17 or so turns. If it is delayed long enough we could do the same thing with calvary. This attack would even give us slighlty better odds.
knight vs fortified pike is 4:3.75(1,.07:1)
Calvary vs forified musket is 6:5(1.2:1)
and I can just about guarentee we can have calvary before they have upgraded all pike to musket
Of course this depends on us and them having saltpeter
Obviously it is IMPERITVE that we get gunpower fast. so we can see it.
One thing to notice we will have to upgrade about 10 chariots to knights this will cost 1000 total but over 20 turns+ what we have that is less than 1/3 our budget and maybe we'll make some knights.
One thought I've had is this, we could make alliance with russia, why you ask well very simple. If we make alliance with russia 2 things can happen. The french might take that russian city and if the frence did get somebody else to help them it might be against the russians and with luck we could set off a southern war with rome and russia.
Aggie

[joncnunn]

Well the good news is that in 17 turns war werrious wouldn't be a significant factor at the start of the war.

The bad news is that it's probable that the French will have Gun powder and if there's Saltpeter in their territroy they'll have some Musketeers because they'll have started to upgrade Pikemen.

If this takes place, Calvary will be needed. Yes, they have clear supproity over Musket Men and Musketeers. Nationalism will be right around the corner though, so we would need to act fast before we need to increase the army for expected losses to drafted Riflemen.

The ultimate show stoper though is when civs get Replaceable Parts (with access to Rubber). This makes wars futile until Mobile Warfare.