Tactical Scholia

[alva]

I'm gonna register here to , as a low key member

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Theseus
Most importantly, when can we build mixed-unit Armies??!!

hehe... I want to see those used to understand them better... even if I have to warn you that with my luck when it comes to mixed unit armies, you will probably find that they die on first contact

DeepO

[Theseus]

So, for those interested, the big question as Egypt is gonna be the use of WCs.

In general, I hate early GAs, but I'm guessing this game will be won or lost at the start. Without having seen the map, I would posit that WCs will let us successfully go after at least 2 neighboring civs.

Thoughts?

[Meshelic]

I hate early GA's too, but we need to consider how long the shelf-life of a team in this game will be. Certainly a few months at least since it takes so long to get the game going. When you think about it though, some teams may be eliminated 25% or 35% or 45% in to the game. So how bout we try to trigger our GA at the best possible moment, not delay it too long but not use it up too early.

We don't want to be the team that gets killed 25% of the way through the game....

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
So, for those interested, the big question as Egypt is gonna be the use of WCs.

In general, I hate early GAs, but I'm guessing this game will be won or lost at the start. Without having seen the map, I would posit that WCs will let us successfully go after at least 2 neighboring civs.

Thoughts?

A lot depends on whether our prospective targets also have early UUs. Two civs spending their golden ages slugging out with each other could be quite costly to both of them. On the other hand, if we're in a GA and our target isn't, that could give us a decisive advantage.

I'll post two possible scenarios for consideration in separate messages.

[nbarclay]

Scenario A: Two-civ Land Mass, Neighbor with No Early UU

In this scenario, assuming we have horses and unless we have a significantly inferior starting position, our early UU and prospect for a GA gives us a clearly decisive advantage. Further, if we claim our entire land mass early, we can go into builder mode until Map Making without having to worry about our defenses at all, and even after Map Making, the ocean will be something of an obstacle against would-be aggressors. That combination of circumstances could more than make up for the disadvantages of a despotic GA.

In such a situation, the logical approach would probably be to focus on expansion, barracks, and defense against a possible preemptive strike until we get horses connected and then to go into nearly an all-out military mode preparing to attack. Build up a small force of WCs, launch an initial attack against an outlying position, and use our GA to add a production advantage to the qualitative advantage our WCs give us. That would put us in a position to finish the enemy off.

Note: If the neighbor is a team we're willing to trust not to stab us in the backs, and the land mass is large enough to accommodate two civs with plenty of size and production, and especially if we have a better starting position, it may make more sense for the two civs to work together. Two can research faster than one, especially in the ancient era when corruption is at its worst, and I for one don't mind leaving a (hopefully) permanent ally on our home continent if that sets us up to have a major advantage invading others. But if we need the extra territory the other civ occupies, we definitely take it!

[nbarclay]

Scenario B: Land mass with two other likely warmongers

In this scenario, attacking either neighbor would risk giving the other an opening to come after us while we're weakened. Therefore, I think the following strategy might be in order:

1) If there's any kind of bottleneck enemy forces would have to go through to attack, use warriors and/or spearmen as advance lookouts to warn of potentially hostile encroachments.

2) Use our war chariots as a strategic reserve to attack and counterattack should an enemy come after us. If a neighboring warmonger insists on an early fight, using WCs on our own turf could bleed them a lot more effectively than anything we could accomplish in their territory. Then, once their offensive force is nullified, we can go after them.

3) Try to work the diplomatic situation in our favor. Ideally, we want our neighbors to go after each other, and we definitely don't want them to team up against us. Note that actually proposing an alliance could be risky, though, since the civ we propose it to might doublecross us by showing our proposal to the other civ and using it as leverage to get an alliance against us. So we probably want a pretty strong feeling that a civ is already on better terms with us than with the other one before we make such a proposal.

4) Watch for opportunities. If one neighbor attacks the other, we can let them fight it out for a while and then join one side (probably the weaker) agains tthe other. I've already discussed that basic idea on other threads.

5) If we have a chance to discover Monarchy before war breaks out, our GA would give us a significantly greater proportionate advantage than a despotic GA would. That could be a good time to actively seek an allaince.

[Arrian]

5) If we have a chance to discover Monarchy before war breaks out, our GA would give us a significantly greater proportionate advantage than a despotic GA would. That could be a good time to actively seek an allaince.

When I play Egypt in SP games, I always try to get to Monarchy prior to unleashing the WC's. Much better production, slightly lower corruption/waste, and a shot at the HG.

I figure if we go BW, Wheel, and then straight @ Monarchy, we can hit somebody with a large number of WC's well before they can properly counter it. My only worry is being hit before we are ready. We would be forced to use our WCs to defend ourselves... unless we are willing to use the warrior -> sword upgrade to have a decent stockpile of swordsmen with which to fend off an early attack (5-10 swords). But that requires another tech - IW. So BW, IW, Wheel, -> Monarchy...

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Arrian

I figure if we go BW, Wheel, and then straight @ Monarchy, we can hit somebody with a large number of WC's well before they can properly counter it. My only worry is being hit before we are ready. We would be forced to use our WCs to defend ourselves... unless we are willing to use the warrior -> sword upgrade to have a decent stockpile of swordsmen with which to fend off an early attack (5-10 swords). But that requires another tech - IW. So BW, IW, Wheel, -> Monarchy...

-Arrian

The gold for any significant number of warrior->sword upgrades would interfere with our research on top of the time it would take to research Iron Working. I do think it probably makes sense to research Bronze Working early so we'll have units that can defend decently, but I'd rather rely on WCs for attacking and counterattacking. Yes that risks having someone force us to blow our GA early, but they'd better be prepared to spend the next 20 turns dealing with an enraged Egypt ready to focus its GA on their destruction.

I favor the order of Bronze Working, then the Wheel, then beeline for Monarchy (hoping to trade for Warrior Code somewhere along the way). If we can get someone to trade us Iron Working on decent terms, we can get it; otherwise, wait until we get Monarchy to worry about it. Of course if we get the Wheel and then find out there aren't any horses around, or if there's no one else on our land mass (or only a civ we think we're better off working with than attacking if the land mass is big enough), that changes our priorities big time.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Uh, Nathan, you think someone's going to trade us IW??

Only if we're smack in the middle of a jungle, and then we've got other problems.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus
Uh, Nathan, you think someone's going to trade us IW??

Only if we're smack in the middle of a jungle, and then we've got other problems.

Let me turn this around and think about the circumstances under which we might trade a militarily useful tech to someone:

1) There may be times when it's useful to prop up a weaker civ as a counterweight against a stronger one.

2) If the civ is on another continent and not on our hit list for any time soon, trading with them could benefit us enough to be worth helping them.

3) Trading a key tech to someone could be a good way to improve relations with them, as long as we aren't likely targets for them to use the technology on.

4) If we don't trade the tech to someone, we risk having a rival trade it to them, in which case the civ we refuse to trade with gets the tech anyhow but someone else gets the payment instead of us.

I certainly wouldn't count on having a situation where someone regards trading us iron working as worth their while, and especially not anyone near us. But neither is a possibility of someone's being willing to make a deal for it sooner or later something I'm ready to completely rule out.

Nathan

[Theseus]

I do like the way you think... no preconceptions.

We'll see what happens come game time. I have a feeling we'll want the flexibility afforded by having both Swordsmen and WCs/Egypt or MWs/Iroqouis.

In fact, in both civ cases, a part of me leans towards ABSOLUTELY having Swordsmen available, so that we have the further choice of delaying our GA until Monarchy.

Also, in the 'standard' warmonger progression, I find that I first do damage with Swords, followed subsequently by a more distant attack using mounted troops, but keeping the Swords close to home for either defense or yet another nearby attack. I'm sort of loather to give that up (depending obviously, on the early situation on our home continent).

[nbarclay]

I guess the big question is how much researching Iron Working would delay our bid for Monarchy. It would probably be good for one or more of us to do some experimenting with that (maybe even game out the progression on a map with a similar starting position after the game starts). Of course if we can find a builder civ to sell or trade Iron Working to, we could get some benefit from our research beyond just the tech itself.

Really, the only kind of fight where swordsmen would be likely to help us avoid an early GA would be a fight with little other purpose than to provoke us into triggering our GA prematurely. And that would be an extremely dangerous stunt for an opponent to try against Egypt, although it might be worth a shot if a civ with another ancient UU doesn't mind the possibilty of ending up with a slugging match. It's hard to imagine any kind of really serious war against human opponents where foregoing the advantage of war chariots would make sense.

Playing a civ without an early UU in SP, it's not rare for me to start an attack with swordsmen and follow up with horsemen if I decide early war is in order. (After all, horsemen take half as long getting to the front lines.) But with WCs available, the only time I think it makes sense to build swordsmen is when a city can build swordsmen and WCs equally quickly. Otherwise, the cost advantage of WCs is too good to pass up.

Nathan

[Theseus]

I'm g-ddamn ready already!

[notyoueither]

Consider this. We are on a continent with 2 other civs. GoW or LI, and Lego or RolePlay.

Do we pitch to the peaceniks that we trade IronWorking for Horseback Riding?

Follow that up with we trade them Mysticism, Polytheism, Monarchy for ...

All things being equal, I think I would prefer to ally with a more peaceful civ who is distant and cooperate on long range tech goals. There are a couple of wild cards in the game now, and being on good terms with at least 1, preferably 2 other civs early would be valuable. Ideally, a somewhat stable civ will be distant enough for us to have no ancient land problems with, but close enough to make contact.