Stepping back for a moment

[Theseus]

In reviewing 290AD this evening, I thought I'd step back and do a little bit of critiquing as we do in the Strat forum.

(vxma1, chime in here at any time. )

A couple of things occur to me:

* Our production is insane for 290 AD. That's the good news.

* Too bad we did not know about RCP. We've got three cities at 4, which is not so bad.

* Why have we not chopped in southern Stormia?

* Why are we building a Colosseum in Arashi? We can build a Market in three turns, with 4 current lux.

* Why have we not been building Temples? (Catt would lose it )

* A number of cities have hit yellow, i.e. no further growth. I typically insert Workers and Settlers into the build queue at this point... which we need, btw.

* Tempest is a powerhouse this early, at 21 shields. Oracle or Hang Gardens in 15 turns from SCRATCH!! Tempting, very tempting.

* We can plant an embassy in Lego... they will have completed Sistine in 13 turns. They really ARE building.

* It is time to re-name the cities in northern Stormia.

* More good news: We have an insane military ready to go... let's get'em going.

* Merida, Essigbar, and X are ND and GoW's sole presence in southern Bob... they gotta go (incl. the GoW ivory at Merida).

* I still don't understand how maps work in MP/PBEM... are we seeing the current tile improvements in ND and GoW? If so, 1) GoW especially is not playing that well, and 2) we have an excellent opportunity to mess with GoW at Skulgaria 78 and then 7.

* Neither GoW or ND has our level of sea power.

* Neither GoW or ND is ready for what we have in the north (when upgraded). Let us unleash hell.

* We need more Pikes for southern Bob.

* Future reference, I worry about Elipolis... too easy to cut Stormia in half.

* Lego and Vox involvement in the Bobian Wars would be much welcome, if only as a distraction for the enemy.

Chime in, everyone. I know things have been a touch slow due to RL and other stuff, but this really is a major crux in the game!!

[asleepathewheel]

Re: Stepping back for a moment

We need to stop building that colliseum in Arashi. We need the units, and its useless if we are still planning on moving the FP to Elipolis.

I agree on your other points.

Any idea how much longer the enemies are going to have their golden ages, it seems like this has been goign on forever.

I wish we could get lego and vox invovled, I guess Vel's earlier probes proved unsuccessful. I'm suprised they haven't stepped in, as from the map appearance, it looks like RP has been routed and is failing.

[vulture]

I know ND triggered their golden age in their turn 128 (our turn 129 was the first one after their GA started). Their 129th turn was the first one with the increased production, so their 149th turn will be their first without it. So on our turn 149 they have 1 more GA turn left, and on our turn 150 they should be back to normal production. Don't know about GoW - they started 2 or 3 turns later. So not much GA production left for them now.

[Arrian]

I say we switch that colosseum to a marketplace.

A few temples wouldn't be a bad idea... but we're in a knock-down, drag-out war, and unless the temples actually save us money via decreased use of the lux slider, I'm not sure we can take the time to build them and pay the upkeep. We might just have to stay uncultured barbarian types.

If I understand what you did correctly, I'm going to forget what you said about Lego.

I TOTALLY agree about more pikes for Southern Spain. And SETTLERS. We have to rebuild them. I don't see us conquering GoW & ND. So the alternative, besides a full retreat, is:

1) throw everything we have at removing ND & GoW from the South.
2) resettle, and form a pike wall on the NW mountains (west of Pamp).
3) Gift the southern cities back to RP, and turtle.

IIRC, we are preparing for a hit on GoW. Fine. Take our shot, maybe hurt them. But unless it goes shockingly well, our focus should return to the south of Spain.

Thoughts?

-Arrian

[vulture]

Shouldn't we be aiming to keep at least some of the cities in southern Bob for ourselves. Particularly if we are fortunate enough to get a leader for palace rushing purposes (although we might not want to do that). Don't forget that we were previously of the opinion that we needed significant land on Bob to keep up with Lego - that is only more true now they've had 20 turns of peace while we've been involved in this rather brutal war.

I don't think Lego are going to be coming to our aid. They know almost as well as we do what our production is like. They've seen RP take an early beating, but since then, what do they see? Two GoW-captured cities in the south have fallen. RP have evidently recovered enough that we've been able to return cities to them for them to defend. No further RP cities have gone. It begins to look like the initial thrust over-extended our enemies, and we are slowly clawing back the territory in a sustainable way.

As it happens, that probably suits Lego - they want it to be a close fight in which all sides have to commit completely to the war, while they build up a nice tech lead.

Vox might still be amenable to taking the GoW island. Did we ever hear anything more about that? If we did, I missed it. Lego should like that too 0 the weakest nation taking some territory from one of the stronger ones only works in their favour.

Agree with Arrian that we really need more settlers to start repopulating southern Spain (for us and for Spain). Otherwise we are just going to have so much blank territory filled with rubble, barbarians, and 3-move raiders lost in the fog of war.

[OPD]

Re: Stepping back for a moment

I think it may just be a case of real WW, but I'm unsure about the position were currently in,

Originally posted by Theseus
* Our production is insane for 290 AD. That's the good news.

* More good news: We have an insane military ready to go... let's get'em going.

Chime in, everyone. I know things have been a touch slow due to RL and other stuff, but this really is a major crux in the game!!

GS are the superpower of the world in all respects, the most productive (despite rivals in a GA), the most commercial, the most research potential, the strongest millitary, the strongest navy, we are ahead in this game no doubt about it.

The only thing is, we as a nation are not moving forward, we are stagnating, in terms of infrastructure, lego get closer each turn, in terms of millitary the combined production of ND and GoW in likely surpassing us.

Despite having the strongest millitary in the world we have nothing to show for it, we make no gains, and get no return for the units we lose.

Originally posted by Theseus
* Neither GoW or ND is ready for what we have in the north (when upgraded). Let us unleash hell.

If both have been producing millitary this whole time, with GoW using Leo's, I think they'll be more than ready, muskets on hills..... Landing 40+ units may damage but it will not destroy them, we will get little benefit from the huge cost, and have little to show for it.

I don't really know what I'm getting at here, other than the fact that were not getting moving forward as a nation. As the strongest nation we should be consolidating our lead not throwing it away.