Recon of Boston and options

[Aggie]

With approval of the President I did a recon of Boston and vicinity. Here is the image and a new save.
Aggie

[Aggie]

Here is the save following the recon.

[Donegeal]

ah, excellent! Three spear and a nearly completed Library. That is essentialy 4 spear. I would say it would take Aztec at least 3-4 turns to take the city. That will give us time to redeploy our troops (like useing the WC on NY instead of Boston).

Use our WC on Boston first so we don't have a unit with attack of 2 attacking a spear fortified in a size two (with reguards to defensive ranking) city (civ capitols always get bumped to the next larger size city).

[Meshelic]

That's a big risk if the Aztecs DO take it, are we willing to let them take it while just standing aside? We can take Boston THIS turn, capture New York in 2-3 turns and the war would be over! We need to act immediately if we want to gain anything from the last weeks of planning this campaign.

I hope others see my logic.

[Meshelic]

The Aztecs would be willing to ally with us for NO cost... what would a 3-4 turn war due to an alliance if we signed up with them?

[Meshelic]

'do' instead of 'due'

and I meant, would we receive black mark for that?

[Donegeal]

We have plenty of time.

The Aztecs only have one unit that can attack at this time, and its a horseman (2 attack, 1 defend, 2 move). Even if it succeds in killing a spearman (not very likely. A 2 attack vs a 2 defend + fortified + size two defendable city), the AI will switch production over to spearman to replace the one it lost, then the Aztec army will come in and only be able to kill one spear at a time. Now that I think about it, it will take the Aztecs five turns at the LEAST to take Boston.

The good news is that we know know how the Aztecs have been cleaning up the Americans (with that damn Army [which will be outdated soon, if not already])

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by donegeal
We have plenty of time.

The Aztecs only have one unit that can attack at this time, and its a horseman (2 attack, 1 defend, 2 move). Even if it succeds in killing a spearman (not very likely. A 2 attack vs a 2 defend + fortified + size two defendable city), the AI will switch production over to spearman to replace the one it lost, then the Aztec army will come in and only be able to kill one spear at a time. Now that I think about it, it will take the Aztecs five turns at the LEAST to take Boston.

The good news is that we know know how the Aztecs have been cleaning up the Americans (with that damn Army [which will be outdated soon, if not already])

I am convinced that the Aztecs are quite capable of taking it rather quickly. With the horsemen unit we can see and the army they can take down 2 spearmen... I don't know for sure if the army with movement 2 can make 2 attacks in the same turn (I seem to think it can from my own experience with armies of knights, but I could be wrong about that), which means they could take down an additional 2 spearmen the next turn.

It must be kept in mind that the Americans are BROKE, so they can't rush additional spearmen in Boston... so if they lose a spearman, they likely CANNOT replace it in 1 turn.

The net result is that if we send our WCs the full turn back to Del Monte... spend a full turn upgrading them to knights, and then spend 2 more turns getting them to the front line, it is quite likely that Boston will be Aztec by then. FURTHERMORE, the huge stack of Aztec spearmen and archers 4 spaces (or was it 3 spaces?) away from Boston to the west can make it there in time to add additional firepower against the American defenders...

In short, our time is short

I'd recommend storming in with the WCs on the border and hoping the Aztecs wear down the defenses enough in their initial strike (hoping dearly the city has 3 spearmen instead of only 2) to allow our WCs to capture the city for ourselves.

[Donegeal]

Armys can only attack more than once in a turn if EVERY unit in the Army has the "Blitz" ability. This means that the army can only attack once a turn.

The horseman will most likely loose if it attacks the city. The army will take at least one tuns to get there (it is two tiles away) and the stack of units behind it move only one tile a turn.

I noted that the library is almost done cause what will happen is once Boston looses one of its spear, it will switch from finishing the library to building a spear and instantly have the shields needed for an addional spear.

One turn for the Army to get there and 4 tuns to kill the four spear. 5 turns total.

Only other possibilities is 1) single horse manages to win (unlikely) 2) Boston doesn't switch to spear (also unlikely). At most this reduces the time to 3 turns. The Aztecs WILL NOT take Boston any sooner than this.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by donegeal
Now that I think about it, it will take the Aztecs five turns at the LEAST to take Boston.

No, I figure with the units they have they will take Boston at the end of next turn at the very latest. They may not have enough units to take it this turn. But if we don't take it the turn after this current one, it will be an Aztec city and not an American one.

They only have to kill 3 spear that fourth will never happen. The Aztecs will attack and probably kill 2 spear if we are lucky. Boston will switch to spearman. Aztecs will attack the second turn and will only have to kill the one spearman who survived because it will take a turn before the production goes through for the last literate spearman. They have 2 turns to kill 3 spearman. That will be easy for them.

[Robber Baron]

Taking Boston with war chariots means triggering the golden age. Assuming the timing is not yet ideal, a mistimed GA is NOT worth taking Boston (which we should be able to take easily enough down the road).

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Robber Baron
Taking Boston with war chariots means triggering the golden age. Assuming the timing is not yet ideal, a mistimed GA is NOT worth taking Boston (which we should be able to take easily enough down the road).

I agree, We have 2 options:

1) Take Boston next turn and trigger a GA.

2) Forget Boston and try to take New York.

We wouldn't have been left with these choices if someone had built a road towards Boston.

[Shiber]

We need to plan for the possibility that Boston will be taken by the Aztecs after 500 AD. Having said that, our two options are just what Ghengis said in the above post.
Keep in mind that if we take option 1 we must switch to Republic this turn so that we don't spend turns in anarchy during our GA.
Also keep in mind that if we do decide to give up on Boston for now and take New York instead, once a temple is rushed in New York we will be holding 4 out of Boston's 21 city tiles, and since our culture is far superior to that of the Aztecs and our capital is a lot closer it shouldn't be too hard to flip Boston.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

We should move the emergency settler to between Chicago and Washington and found a city where we should alternate building one turn then rushing a temple, a cathedral etc and try to force flip Chicago and Washington ASAP, I do not believe they are connected to the Aztec capital.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
We should move the emergency settler to between Chicago and Washington and found a city where we should alternate building one turn then rushing a temple, a cathedral etc and try to force flip Chicago and Washington ASAP, I do not believe they are connected to the Aztec capital.

Assuming we're willing to spend the money to try this, I think this is the best plan.