Are we playing too conservatively?

[nbarclay]

Hurricane is our only really good place to work on a wonder until we get into Republic, and I think the scale of war production you guys are talking about is completely ridiculous given the fact that we already have a "strong military" relative to Vox. We'll have another settler in about seven more turns or so (assuming disease doesn't strike yet again), and I view the #4 site as a good place for another barracks in addition to Bolderberg's.

With an aqueduct under Republic, Tempest has potential to be a very nice wonder city, but for the moment, I think its best use is building workers so EotS and Cyclone don't have to worry about them as much. With two irrigated FPs and an irrigated plains, it should be able to crank out workers in five turns without having to bother with a granary.

[Harovan]

Nathan, it's not only Vox. Map Making is approaching quickly, and we know, the main continent is overcrowded and technologically advanced. My fear, that somebody from there settles our coast (may be even our incense desert) gets more and more real. At the moment, we wouldn't be able to kill a single Spearman. The time we use to build a military would give them time to ship in more units and make it a fortress.

The minimum I'd consider to build, is 2 stacks of a Spearman and a Swordsman each, 3 WCs, plus 2 or 3 Spearmen to fortify on strategical important points. That's a total of 9 or 10 units to be built during the next about 25 or 30 turns. That's not that many, btw.

[Aeson]

For the Swordsmen we could just reserve x amount of gold for an emergency upgrade. If Vox is going to be slower on their Philosophy than we are on Code of Laws, it would be a good time to build up that reserve.

I agree we need some WC's and (more) Spearmen soon.

[Harovan]

We have about 70 gold and would need only 1 turn to make 2 upgrades. In fact, next turn we'll save some extra money, because we make much more gold than the remaining part of Writing costs beakers. So 2 upgrades ain't an issue, although it would use up our whole reserve. Tempest is built on a gold hill, which also increased our research pace.

[nbarclay]

Can you really see someone from the main continent sparing the units to heavily fortify a city on our continent, given the tensions over there? Also note that either they would have to put a settler in their galley without knowing when they might find a good place to use him (which would only make sense if a civ has run out of room for REXing at home) or they'd have to get a galley to our shores, see that there's a good opening, and then bring in another galley with a settler (hoping in the meantime that we or Vox wouldn't claim the land while their settler is in route). I'm inclined to view the "heavily fortified foreign city" scenario as an unlikely one, and it's also one we could deal with if we have to when the time comes - preferably by diplomatic means, but by military means if necessary.

Also, if we want to get the Pyramids shortly after we enter Republic (and if we want them at all, we need to aim for shortly after Republic in case we have competition), we need to go ahead and get started - especially if we don't want to compromise our REXing. And ultimately, getting all our cities in place is the best way to fend off ambitious foreign galleys.

Nathan

[Harovan]

If I were on the main continent, would see that my civ runs out of room soon (which is apparently already the case) and would know about another continent to be reached safely with a galley, my first galley would already contain that settler and vet spearman. And none of these civs wishes us to survive long, I can assure you. A city on our continent is a potential risk and a big strategical disadvantage on the long run. They could (and most likely would) stockpile an invasion force there over the time, and we wouldn't even notice it.

And, btw, I would not dare to play any MP game based on "may be" and "unlikely". Expansion without military is as worthless as military without expansion. Both have to coexist in the right relation.

[Conqueror]

SR/NYE/Aeson & Lawrence are right: we need the military now, and not when someone loads settler & spearman pair onto the Incense hill.

If that happens, and we start building forces to take back the incense, by the time we have enough forces, they have already built walls there and sent few vet spears to reinforce the garrison.

Finally someone speaks up ! Seems like i wasnt the only one who has been worrying about Immortal invasion and all the deals made with Vox.

I feel bit the same way that Theseus in his "Is it just me" thread a while back. It seems like few big guns (for example DeepO & nbarclay - "We must build GL in Hurricane") are deciding all the actions. Even if we hold a poll and the result is not good in their opinion - hmm another poll on same subject comes up, or third, if the masses still dont agree.

I myself have almost stopped posting here since it makes no difference what we small guys say, i'll just play the PBEM games quietly. I still read most of the threads and suffer quietly.

Sir Ralph is doing a great job, but seems like NYE had more influence over the people, atleast people didnt argue with him so much. Seems like few individuals oppose most of Sir Ralphs proposals just for personal reasons ?

Haa - very agitating post - but propably a wasted one anyway.

[nbarclay]

I agree that we have to be prepared for the unlikely, but what I object to is that you seem inclined to let the unlikely dominate your planning. I'm all for making contingency plans to deal with something like an unexpected landing, but they should be just that - contingency plans that we can put into effect when and if the need arises.

By the time galleys come calling, Bolderberg will have its barracks and could have a second vet spearman well underway. We have lots of warriors floating around, and lots of income to upgrade them to swordsmen if we suspend research for a few turns. It's not like a landing on our coast is something we would have no way of coping with unless we delay starting a wonder in Hurricane to build more troops first.

But consider the cost if we go for the Pyramids and miss them by a couple turns because we spent too much time building military units that turned out to be unnecessary. My philosophy is, "Focus on the likely, but be prepared for the unlikely."

By the way, as far as I'm concerned, WCs don't even enter the picture until we get Republic for anything short of a major war. For minor skirmishes, we're a whole lot better off sticking with swordsmen and saving our GA.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Conqueror:

Nathan is doing a great job as chief economist and de-facto diplomat to Vox. And we knew already at the time we created the Scholia, that the Adam Smith Foundation would have the most influence. So Nathan does only his job, and based on pure economy most, if not all of his decisions are absolutely correct. But the game is more than pure economy. This is not an SP game against the very predictable AI. We have to deal with human brains.

And here stand I (mostly alone, sometimes with help) with my "what if"s. I'm by God not a warmonger, but I don't like that paper thin defense gamble either. If the barbarians were not at Chieftain, they alone could cause us big trouble, not counting the other teams. All I can do is to sermon "this is not SP, people". MP games have to be balanced in growth and strength. The fact, that the main continent runs out of room soon, makes a war more likely. They have a small productive core, while we (REXing) have a widespread network of undeveloped and half corrupt size 1 cities. Our productive core is busy to build settlers, workers and a few weak defenders, not a match for the other teams.

So if you decide "not to post, because it makes no difference", you are hurting our common cause, because in this case the "doves" will soon see me just as something like Kassandra, and their reaction will be only "yea, , you already told this". In fact, it starts already to be so. So if you also want a more balanced game, please, let your voice hear more often instead to resign.

What concerns Nathans sometimes, well, "dominating" way to discuss, I still can take it. If I can't bear it anymore and lose the fun, I will let the team know. But this moment is not yet close.


Nathan:

Most of our warriors are regulars. They are good as barbarian hunters and to rig the statistics, not more. Do you really want multiple times to shell out whole 40 gold to upgrade a regular warrior?

[nbarclay]

Conqueror, I've had the, "Can we handle it if Vox sends in immortals?" question in mind all along. We definitely need enough forces that what we have, plus the warriors we can upgrade to swordsmen in a reasonable amount of time, plus whatever units we can build, will be able to meet a threat.

But we do have time and distance as allies. We'll see Voxian forces a number of turns before they can hit us. Similarly, an overseas civ can't just teleport units to a new city it founds on our continent.

I definitely want new cities with barracks to be a high priority for us because in the longer term, we'll need a stronger defense and then a potential offense. But I hate losing time on our city that's in the best position to compete for ancient wonders, because we need to look not just to our defenses now but also to building up the economic and scientific base to go on the offensive later.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Most of our warriors are regulars. They are good as barbarian hunters and to rig the statistics, not more. Do you really want multiple times to shell out whole 40 gold to upgrade a regular warrior?

Do I want it? Definitely not. Am I willing to accept it as a contingency plan for events I view as not particularly likely? Yes. The real question is how likely are foreign civs to send a settler to another continent where any city they might found is likely to be highly corrupt, and where the mere presence of a city could easily start a war. Personally, I consider such a move crazy, but then my own relatively conservative style of play is almost certainly biasing my expectations to some extent. If even a large minority of the team considers it likely that someone else will try to send a settler and spearman our way in the first few turns after discovering Map Making, I'd be willing to defer to that judgement and base our planning on the idea that it is more than just an unlikely contingency we need to be prepared for just in case.

Also note that what we're doing is not going to be a classic REX where cities always build settlers practically the moment they hit size 3. I envision getting the vast majority of our settlers and workers out of EotS, Cyclone, and Tempest, and probably never letting another city drop below size 2 to build a settler (and then only if we're reasonably happy with the shape our military is in). So we'll have almost as good a production in our core cities other than the pumps as we would if we didn't keep REXing, and even the pumps could serve as production powerhouses in a pinch (although disease creates periods when EotS is temporarily unable to serve in that capacity).

Nathan

[Harovan]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I envision getting the vast majority of our settlers and workers out of EotS, Cyclone, and Tempest, and probably never letting another city drop below size 2 to build a settler (and then only if we're reasonably happy with the shape our military is in).

This would leave Bolderberg as only producer of units, opposed to 3 cities to produce settlers/workers. I consider this to be not enough. Let Tempest build a barracks and defenders/WCs too, as NYE and others suggested. Then Hurricane could start a wonder as was planned.

and even the pumps could serve as production powerhouses in a pinch (although disease creates periods when EotS is temporarily unable to serve in that capacity).

I know this and am practizing it in one of my PBEMs (Dominae, you aren't reading this, are you?). My settler factory makes 3 turn swordsmen without a time needed to fit it to military production. This helps a lot, but doesn't compensate other cities with barracks though.

[nbarclay]

Under Despotism, Tempest is not an efficient barracks city. It needs a mined hill for each irrigated FP, and the combination only yields the production that two mined regular grasslands would bring. I view pumping out workers as a much better way to play to that site's strengths. Further, once we get out of Despotism and get Construction, Tempest becomes our best potential wonder city and will likely be too busy to get much use from a barracks.

In another ten turns or so, we should have the #4 site settled. That's going to be a much better place for a Despotism-era barracks, especially once we get a worker or two in the area to help out. I'm not thrilled with the delay, but I think the long-term advantage of getting extra workers out of Tempest outweighs the short-term risks.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Another delay, sigh! Where is the #4 site? I haven't access to the map or our mails right now. Is it halfway productive? In how many turns (including the 10 turns delay) will it have a barracks? I guess it's 25, if not more.

[zeit]

Think about the big picture, guys- Tensions are high in the continent (take note of thef the pics from the main board, hopefuly they are not a fake) and military buildup race will swallow some of the teams production capabilities- they won't spare them to this adventure like you envision. We have a non threatening neighbor who repeatedly said how he fears us with whom we have a tech partnership. We sit on an island which is pretty far from the mainland (although only few water tiles sperate us, we are still very far from the starting position of most civs).

The conclusion is simple- focus on economic buildup, thus using our isolation and pacified neighbor to gain an advantage, and not waste our effort on an early military which we probably not use for a long while.
The chances for foreign invasion is so small IMHO, that i don't think its worth considering right now- we should build military powerhouses, but there is no need to rush it nor to delay any wonder building or other projects for it, not with the situation as it is now.