Turn 57, 1600 BC

[nbarclay]

Under Despotism, military upkeep costs are a non-issue unless a civ exceeds four units per city. GoW might possibly be doing so, but I seriously doubt that RP is.

And frankly, thanks to all the disease we've had to contend with, our production to date hasn't been particularly impressive. We're probably better off than we would be if the civs that can outproduce us focused on civilian rather than military uses for their production, but even so, we're not in the superior position it would be nice to be in in terms of building of nonmilitary improvements. Edit: better off in the short term, anyhow. In the long term, we'll need to establish some semblance of military parity if we don't want to invite a naval attack.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

We didn't get anything at all from Vox this turn?

[Harovan]

No.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I 100% disagree.

Please explain (other than the part about upkeep, I overlooked the 4 free upkeep per city under Despotism; thanks Nathan).

[DeepO]

Shiber, I don't particularly like it either. We might become a very juicy target for a combined, mainland invasion, certainly as Vox doesn't seem to build any units. we should get our rating up soon...

Nathan has a point, though. The disease has cost us a lot, not enough to get behind, but enough to keep us from having a far superiour position. I still consider us amongst the best, and the border treaty with Vox gives ample opportunity to build up a very decent empire by the time the tension between the two continents will rise.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

re Military, our primary concern is still a Vox mass-upgrade of Warriors to Immortals.

My vote would be to proceed with turning EotS into a Worker/Military camp and keep Bolderberg on course. One of the next cities should also begin a Barracks.

[DeepO]

Power graph: I'm a bit confused. How far are we from a border increase around EotS? It looks like GoW has gotten a serious power jump 3 turns ago, while RP got a minor one.

There are a couple of reasons possible: GoW could have built their 4 th city (likely), could have upgraded an insane number of warriors (not sure about this, is military strength for score related to # of units, or also to quality?), or could have gotten a border increase in their capital, as they already have a temple there.

RP the same: I don't think they have built another city, but either they had a border increase, or they upgraded warriors to swords.

The military advisor went down for both of them this turn, right? Maybe this is part of the reason the power graph behaves the way it does.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I think EotS is too good a worker pump to throw that away trying to build military units there any time soon.

If you missed DeepO's and my plan, we're planning to found a city at the #4 site (using the old numbering rather than Aeson's scheme), start a barracks, send a couple workers down to improve tiles, and then add one of the workers to the city to give it an extra production boost. We'll also add an extra worker to boost Bolderberg's size, although I'm not sure when the best timing for that will be. That combination should give our military a nice boost over what we could expect otherwise.

[nbarclay]

We're somewhere in the neighborhood of half a dozen turns away from a border expansion, give or take a little. Teams that have had a temple in their capital for any length of time should already have expanded by now.

[DeepO]

Nye, as far as I know, the plan is to build the next city at #4, 66 from Cyclone, and start a barracks in there immediately. I'm not sure if anything is decided about Tempest, though...

DeepO

[DeepO]

OK... this would show in the score graph. The comparison of score and power should give us the difference in border upgrades vs. new cities, territory isn't a part of power.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Call me crazy, call me paranoid, call me an alarmist...

We are at far too much risk of adverse military events.

In other words, follow Aeson's advice: What would / could the other teams do to f-ck with us?

We are Gathering Storm... to an extent, the Strat forum guys.

You think there aren't agitators against us out there? Anyone want to bet there are threads and chats about combined efforts against us? Including Vox' Immortals?

We've still got the Spinebreakers pointing like an arrow into our heart; we still have mountain landings undefended. We don;t have a sufficient military road network, nor sufficient defenders and attackers.

Man, am I uncomfortable. I feel like we are playing SP next to Germany, but acting like we are next to India... times 10.

I may not state the next thought well, but damn are we lucky that none of us are part of Vox (understand?)... "boom, f-ck you GS, buh-bye." Hell, in their position, I'd be reaching out to the other teams for a UN Security Council resolution for pre-emptive anti-GS action, including financial contributions.

[notyoueither]

Nathan,

If Tempest builds Workers and EotS builds Worker/Unit/Worker/Worker/Unit, we will not fall far off Worker needs.

What I am, and others are, concerned about is our overly light military commitment IF Vox pulls a fast one. I think it would be best if we are prepared for the eventualities rather than overcommit to REX and get caught with our pants down.

Myself, Sir Ralph, and Theseus (and perhaps others) are very concerned on this front. Is there a reason why our concerns cannot be addressed and that we have to commit fully to your and DeepO's (and perhaps others) REX plans?

[Harovan]

I agree with Nathan, EotS should do what it can do best, and that is producing settlers and workers. But we need to build a rapid response force ASAP.

I partially agree, that an attack from the main continent is not very likely, but we should be prepared for the unlikely as well. We're not playing the AI with it's well known behavior. We're playing humans, and humans don't always act by logic and reason. Or does anyone call Luxes attack on ND reasonable? Balance, people, balance. I am not voting for joining an insane arms race. I'm not voting for warmongering either. I vote for a rock solid, balanced empire. This needs a good economy as base, undoubtly. This needs good and reliable diplomatic contacts. And last but not least, it needs to be backed by a decent military force.

My proposal is: Finish barracks in Bolderberg and let it produce a couple of veteran warriors first. We could disband a few of our regulars, for instance if Bolderberg makes 4 shields, disbanding a regular warrior makes a veteran in 2 turns. Then, after the horses are connected, let's produce at least 4-5 war chariots. Finally, all our cities should get veteran spearmen as defenders. They are a good investment, since they are upgradable to better defenders, while warriors are not. I'm aware, that under a Republic (what we're aiming for) defenders aren't a necessity. But let's produce the defenders anyway and declare the surplus as some kind of "reserve".

I would dedicate Bolderberg and the new city at site #4 fully to a military buildup. One of the next cities after #4 should get a barracks as well. In case of a war, not only the number of units is important, but also (to a huge amount) the number of barracks available to produce a steady stream of reinforcements.

[notyoueither]

City 1 as Worker pump.
City 2 for Wonders.
City 3 for Settler pump.

OK, I give up.