Turn 94, 690 BC

[DeepO]

BTW, tonight is another chat with Lego, do we want to mention their luck? It could make them proud (which is about all good it could do, I think).

DeepO

[FrustratedPoet]

I don't think we need to mention they beat us to it by 1 turn. We should make sure to congratulate them on being the first team to build a Wonder, though.

[DeepO]

Well... they will find out quite soon, and normally every team would prefer the pyramids over the lighthouse. In that respect, it might best to mention it, simply to keep an 'open' relationship with them.

DeepO

[DeepO]

A question I'm not sure about: The moment we get Feud, we can go into F3, right? If we then upgrade spears to pikes, are these considered before the turn, or not? I mean, can we next turn move upgraded pikes, or if we upgraded 'inbetween turns', did the new pikes moved already?

I would assume we can't upgrade and move, however it wouldn't surprise me if this it was the other way. In which case, we could defend that mountain 9 from Arashi with pikes instead of spears before they can reach it with an immortal (we will need to leave 1 spear, of course, to protect the worker).

DeepO

[DeepO]

Something else: Maybe it wasn't too bad that we didn't build the pyramids. If we would, it would have meant total domination of this game for sure, but it would also make other teams look at us as the team to beat, and make alliances much easier to form against us. Now that Lego has build the pyramids, they have become a likelier target for invasion then us, I hope.

But still, it's a shame. I was looking forward to burry Grog beneath a decent tomb stone.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Next tech: I would vote for Invention, once we get Engineering from someone (I think RP was researching it, I wonder how they're doing). It lets us build Leo's, and opens Gunpowder, which I'm sure that all the Bobians left by then would be very interested in (and so would Lego, if they can expect an invasion).

It seems that the vet immortal on the east ran away. One option would be to move one vet WC 9 this turn and 8 the next, to force the immortal to go through the jungle. It would tie up one WC, but it would also mean that Vox will be getting a vet immortal some turns later, and immortals are more expensive to Vox than WCs are to us, I think.
Another option would be to just pull back and let the immortal take the fastest route to wherever he wants to go. Alternatively, we could try to lure him off the mountain with one vet WC (move 8 and fortify) and move the other WCs 2. The immortal could strike at the WC, probably kill it, but then face a retaliation and most likely die. Of course, he might get promoted to Elite and then we might be in trouble.

Btw, what's in the stack 9 of our iron warrior?

[Harovan]

Well, true, we have invested in some barracks, but being at war, wanting to conquer enemy land and having a barracks in every city (even just captured) for the advancing units to rest and restore is, of course, priceless. OTOH, a valuable, unit producing city would be unavailable for another 7 turns or so.

[DeepO]

I don't know about Sun-Tzu. Of course, it can be a good tech to have in a war, but is this war really going to take so long? I would assume that we aim for a one-strike-kills-all approach, at least until we conquer Elipolis. In that case, a barracks everywhere isn't that big a gain. We have dedicated unit cities, most of which have barracks already (remember, those free barracks would only be ready in 8 turns). The other cities have no need for them, so the only gains we really would make are the new, still to be conquered cities, and this probably doesn't include D-ville, as it can be ours before the 8 turns.

The alternative Lighthouse has the same objectives: it let's us invade RP with galleys, as there are multiple 4-move crossings, but no 3-move crossings between us. And frankly, this looks to me as the next target of ours. Further, we could scout better, possible finding islands, or even continents for peaceful expansion. Because even if we don't have granaries everywhere, we will grow faster then we can settle the coming 20-30 turns. And we should expand, if we want to outbuild Legoland.

Colossus is the wonder in between. I seriously like it, and if we would lose only 50-100 shields it would be my first bet, but losing 200 shields? Ouch. If we don't build it now, though, I doubt that we'll build it, someone else will switch prebuilds if they can.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

I say go for the lighthouse.

The Library, besides being useless, would also make it extremely easy for RP to get people to ally against us. no one likes the guy with the library, no one.

Colossus-too much waste. I would prefer it over the lighthouse, but the waste is the killer.

Sun Tzu- small continent, we already have barracks in our large cities, and will have more by the time we would get this. and I bet vox has barracks in at least 3 of their cities.

Why the lighthouse-
I love the reasons DeepO gave-gives safe crossing to attack RP. Who should be the next target.

I think we need to form an alliance with GoW against RP as soon as this Vox business is over.


Oh, and to lessen the blow of the loss, if its mentioned on the forum, we can say that yes we lost some shields, but we still had a few turns to go to the pyramids, so it wasn't a total loss. And that the sole reason we were getting it was for the peaceful GA, which thankfully Vox took care of for us

[Harovan]

Sun Tzus is worth at least 10 gpt during the whole game (10 cities producing units in long wars -> 10 free barracks), the lighthouse only provides free sea travel and will be worthless after Astronomy (there are several 3 tile sea-to-sea crossings between us and RP, the extra move won't be necessary). A no brainer, IMO.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Sun Tzus is worth at least 10 gpt during the whole game (10 cities producing units in long wars -> 10 free barracks), the lighthouse only provides free sea travel and will be worthless after Astronomy (there are several 3 tile sea-to-sea crossings between us and RP, the extra move won't be necessary). A no brainer, IMO.

The lighthouse is obsolete at magnetism. The extra sea turn would greatly help a war. Since no doubt we would shoot for cavalry long before magnetism, the lighhouse would aid us considerably.

And I would rather have Hurricane producing units now, or the colossus if units are not needed. I don't like the idea of tying it up for another 7 turns.

OTOH, its only 7 turns and this invasion force isn't very large.

And it would render our existing barracks free, saving us a lot of money over the course of the game.

So I guess I would be ok with either.

[nbarclay]

The Lighthouse would also shave a couple turns off the time it takes us to cut off Vox's iron. And if I remember right, it would let us trade over sea tiles, negating Vox's cultural border blockade against our trading iron to GoW and opening up the possibility of luxury trade with Lego earlier.

[Shiber]

Alright - I vote the Internet!
Just kidding, Sun Tzu's.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The Lighthouse would also shave a couple turns off the time it takes us to cut off Vox's iron. And if I remember right, it would let us trade over sea tiles, negating Vox's cultural border blockade against our trading iron to GoW and opening up the possibility of luxury trade with Lego earlier.

Both great points. Insertions North immediately prior to the battle of Dissidentville will be crucial in this war (well, I know thats a stretch) we will be able to transport units much, much faster. maybe shaving a turn or two off the entire transit north.

Hmm. now the question is, would vox think that that was the purpose of the lighthouse? Granted there isn't much they could do about it, as they need immortals more than galleys at this point.

Luckily the small invasion force will allow us to hide our true capabiltiy, and may allow us to shift many units around d'ville to the iron and further without them suspecting. if we wiped out a stack of 10 on one turn, then they would know their fate, but this way suprise is on our side.

build the lighthouse, rush a harbor, guarantee GoW trade of iron in exchange for chivalry and an alliance against the BS of RP- I like

[nbarclay]

Short rushing a barracks in EotS would cost us 44 gold. It's a good chance to turn gold into shields, although it will mean we can't upgrade as much next turn. We're turning research down to 80%, have 136 gold cash, and will lose 23 gold researching (assuming tile changes don't change the situation). If short-rush the barracks, we can do three ten-shield upgrades (spear to pike or sword to medieval infantry). If we don't, we can do five.

After that, we'll bring in about 120 gpt cash plus whatever we get from selling Feudalism for further upgrades.