The Spartan Academy

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Theseus


Thank god us "strategy gurus" can figure this out in the privacy of our own forum!!

I have to say I was surprised you didn't know the answer. I guess I knew because I used to be such a fan of the Babs... those little 2/2/1 bowmen are excellent barbarian killers.

Speaking of hoarding up some cash for a swordsman upgrade, I have no problem with it - I just want to get a feel for the world first: you never know, there may be a compelling reason to ditch the upgrade (something I do almost as a matter of course in my SP games) in favor of flat-out research, relying soley on our WCs.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

We won't have to address cash until well into researching BW.

[Dominae]

As the Egyptians we can do without ever upgrading a Warrior. Thus, asking the Economic Schola for a bunch of gold may not be necessary, so we need to plan this one in advance. Warrior->Sworsmen, or just WCs? Of course, this depends on if there's any Jungle in our general area.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

The entire question of warrior-to-swordsman upgrades is relevant only if we get iron working, and given the power of war chariots, I really don't want to put the time into researching that until after we've changed out of Despotism. If we can trade other tech we have for it, great, but I view getting out of Despotism as a higher priority. (And the fact that we have a powerful UU that doesn't require iron may even help us get a better deal on iron working than a civ that relies more heavily on swords for its fighting would get.)

[Arrian]

I was just thinking about roads, luxuries, and other civs.

I think it would be a good idea, once we figured out where our nearest neighbor is, to detail 1 worker and 1 military unit (preferably a spearman) to build a road toward their empire. This is not a particularly earth-shattering idea, I know, but I want to discuss a couple of side issues:

1) I said 1 worker. I feel any more will hurt our overall development. Our industrious little fellow will complete a section of road every 3 turns (1 for the move, 2 to build road), which is reasonably fast. A *very* early road connection isn't really all that necessary, since most people will not have cities over size 3 for very long in the early game.

2) Once we have managed a trade connection, we must consider our trade policy. In other words: what we feel is "fair." There are essentially 2 possibilities: a) when trading luxuries for luxuries, we accept only 1-for-1 deals, without consideration for whose empire is bigger; and b) we will accept the idea of taking empire/city size into account and sweeten the pot to get the luxury we want [ex: furs plus 1gpt for wine]

Philosophically, I favor option a, but as is the case trading with the AI in SP, it's all about how much that luxury is worth to you. If we can work out a deal that benifits us by lowering our luxury rate and saving more money than they are asking us to pay, clearly it's in our best interest to do the deal. Then again, I suspect that many human <-> human trade deals will be a mixed bag of luxuries, resources, tech, and money.

3) Such a road is potentially hazardous for us and them: a road that can transport trade caravans can transport an army. We may wish to deliberately slow down construction of the road to run it over a mountain or hill, preferably about halfway between the two empires, and leave our spearman escort up on that good defensive terrain. That would offer us advanced warning of an incoming invasion. At the same time, we may need to somehow convince them that we aren't going to come calling with 20 war chariots.

If our nearest neighbor is GoW, then this road may still be built, but not with trading in mind.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Nice idea about roads. A further consideration: Settlers move faster along roads (like almost any other unit!), so maybe we could expand in the road's direction. This is advantageous because: 1) it brings our empire closer to the other civ's, perhaps denying them land (peacefully), 2) our cities get founded faster (which is always a good thing).


Dominae

[Arrian]

Dominae,

Clearly any such road should be built with consideration for expansion. If we need to detour slightly to speed a settler toward a source of luxuries, there probably won't be any debate.

Further, such an outlying city could serve the same purpose as my proposed "spearman on a mountain."

However, absent the chance of grabbing more luxury types, it is my opinion that our expansion efforts be directed at quickly building cities on good terrain relatively close to EotS, even if that means building away from other civs. In other words, right now it looks like grassland lies south of us, and we don't know what's north but given the FP along the river there is a decent chance of desert. I think we should build where the good land is (probably south), while hopefully our road worker is going north. This will allow us to get a settler up there quickly. Cities close to EotS will hopefully build their own workers and connect themselves to our road net.

Bah, this is all so theoretical right now.

-Arrian

[alva]

Strange, no one has even mentioned outposts.
Maybe a question for NYE, don't they get used in MP?
Are they worth the worker?

I havn't used them in SP yet. Well I have build one very late, just to see what they look like

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alva848
Strange, no one has even mentioned outposts.
Maybe a question for NYE, don't they get used in MP?
Are they worth the worker?

I havn't used them in SP yet. Well I have build one very late, just to see what they look like

I've never used Outposts either; my gut reaction is that they're *never* worth the Worker. Even if they took as long to build as Fortresses but did not waste a Worker, they probably would be the last thing I would do with my Worker.


Dominae

[DeepO]

well... they may be worth it to spend a slave on... and in order to have a good view of the enemy territory from within your borders too. But indeed, it seems outposts are a minor addition.

DeepO

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by alva848
Maybe a question for NYE, don't they get used in MP?

I can't think of a good and resource-efficient use for them in any game mode.

[Theseus]

I've been using them... they are great.

Build one for the Spearman on a mountain (which is something I very much want, btw...)

[Arrian]

Actually, there is one potential use I can think of... depending on *exactly* how they work.

If you can glimpse a civ's border across a straight, but it's 1 tile too far away to contact them, you might build an outpost and then be able to. Would that work, or do they not extend "sight" range over water?

-Arrian

[Theseus]

I think that works.

At 10 shields they are a bargain, trust me.

BTW, has anybody seen how many radar towers the AI now builds? Sheesh.

[Dominae]

Uum, 10 Shields and pop point, let's not forget the pop point!

Actually, I'm glad to be proved wrong about Outposts. Useful uses I've heard so far:

1. "Spearmen on a Mountain" stat; with the Spearmen sitting on an Outpost, visibility is 4 tiles in every direction, which is great for...

2. Looking into other civs' borders; keeping track of unit movements in and especially out of a city is certainly good information. This is not usually possible with the 1-tile visibility of cultural borders.

3. Contacting unreachable civs; comms are worth mucho gold (and techs, etc.), so having to wait to build a Galley to contact some civs is money down the drain.

4. Intimidation; the psychological effect of knowing your neighbor is watching your every move must be huge. If we build Outposts, some teams may even ask us to take them down!


Surprisingly, only #1 is exclusive to the early-game (unless you've got Mountains along borders), meaning that the loss of a Worker is not necessarily painful. Gotta try them in SP (when I get the chance).


Dominae