Beyond Alphabet

[DeepO]

Well... I see WCs as some kind of guarantee. They will be able to be upgraded later, and can repell immortals now if we need to. Of course, we don't want to blow our GA too soon, which is another reason to speed to a gov change.

As to warrior / swords upgrade: we should keep them ready, so we can use them if we need to, but I wouldn't upgrade anyone right now.

DeepO

[Lawrence of Arabia]

If we build WCs now, and dont go to war, we will be wasting shields that we could have used elsewhere. But if we dont build them and Vox attacks and we dont have anything else, then we are screwed.

I've never like War chariots because they are wheeled, and rather weak, and will trigger a golden age way to early. With all of the hills and mountains and jungles along our coasts, we will not be able to use them very effectively outside of the central plain. With the jungle limiting their effectiveness in the north, the War Chariots are no longer an offensive weapon aka. they cannot bring the battle to Vox's cities. To do so would require a huge investement in clearning the jungle.

These types of terrain also mean that catapults and the like will not be able to threaten us for a while. Therefore, the conclusion at this time would be the build warriors/spearmen/swordsmen/horsemen for our offense/defense without having to waste resources at roading and clearning far from our centers

The key to any war will be the mountains. The side which can effectively use them to shield their weaknesses (for example Immortal on defense) will win the war.

[DeepO]

LoA, we can't risk not building them now. Notice the road Vox is building towards us... they would be wise not to fully connect (leaving one jungle tile unroaded, so our WCs can't get through), but we'll have a path sooner then we think, as they are helping.

True, the mountains will be key, and I wouldn't be surprised if Vox uses the road to settle a city near the fish and wheat (site #12 on the original city site proposal). We are hesitating, as it will compromise our defense, but they could very well go ahead, gambling on our expansion and thus non-attacking mode.

It seems everyone agrees that going offensive now is not ideal for us, as it could maybe solve the Vox problem, but leave us behind on a world scale. WCs are for me pure defensive: so far, they can be used on all our cities, and with a little jungle clearing and mountain roading this should hold for quite some time.

As this is the 'what to research next?' thread, allow me to state that I don't value HBR at all unless we want to attack Vox, instead of defending ourselves. There are a lot of other techs to get to first...

DeepO

[Dominae]

LoA, I believe our strategy at this point is to prepare for a Voxian attack with Swordsmen and War Chariots. When they make the first move, our cheaper and faster WCs will easily repel their Immortals on open ground. To not use WCs for this would render our defense a lot less effective. Yes, we would lose our GA, but hopefully so will Vox. We are not planning any attack on their lands at this point.


Dominae

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Alright. Do we know if there is another civ close to Vox?

[DeepO]

Yes there is... but we haven't figured out with whom they have contact in-game. Look for 'our mailbox thread', and see what's in there, you'll find some of the files quite handy to catch up

DeepO

[Lawrence of Arabia]

heh. ok i get the picture.