The T120 Imperio NAP Expiry Crisis

[Swiss Pauli]

Kinda like the Cuba Missile Crisis, only with Jumbos instead of nukes I started a new thread as there seems to be a lack of discussion about what to do about the ominous development of our powerful neighbour.

Depending on how people feel, it might be worth updating this post with agreed actions, as well as mentioning discussion points. I've taken some ideas from the turnplayer thread, but this list is by no means exhaustive, so please weigh in with your thoughts

Action Points

- Ask PAL to cancel Ivory deal. Status: PAL rejected, but proposes to gift us Ivory 'soon'.
- Research path (post-Monarchy): Maths => HBR.

Discussion Points

- Propose alliance with Imperio against Templars - no.
- Get Templars to agree a new NAP - proposal sent.
- Galley use (explore or unit-ferry)
- Try to trade in a military resource from overseas

[Swiss Pauli]

My thoughts:

- Research: if we're looking at a choice between Feudalism and HBR, Maths and Construction then I favour the latter as we'll get more benefit out of the three small techs than the one large one.

- Propose alliance with Imperio against Templars: I think there's too much risk of this backfiring. Such a proposal could be forwarded on to Templars, and would surely seal an alliance against us. If Imperio wants to take out Templars then they don't need our help.

- Get Templars to agree a new NAP. I know the mood in the camp is quite anti-Templar, but I don't think we can survive a two-front war, so some minor concessions (e.g. a new map) to try to keep Templars out of any war with Imperio would surely be worthwhile.

- Galley use: in the medium term, I'd like to have a couple of Catapults on a galley in the Fjord to avoid HA flanking, but this would mean training another Galley, or sending the explorer back to home waters.

- Military resource trade: would be great, but may be tricky to achieve. We should also be sure that an Imperio DoW doesn't sever the trade route.

[mostly-harmless]

Ha, I was about to start a thread exactly like this. I will post a C&D "special" here shortly.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

If we want to do the CS trade with PAL, then we have to research Maths next.

[sunrise089]

- Research: Maths next for the Bureau trade (probably worth it even militarily for production bonus if we go the Golden Age route with the first Scientist)

- Propose alliance with Imperio against Templars: Agree this is very risky. Defiantly possible as a last resort though, like if Templars refuse to agree to a NAP and both they and Imperio start to pump units.

- Get Templars to agree a new NAP: Seems like high potential upside

- Galley use: Only necessary once we actually have units to ferry. And remember, cats on the ship can't actually attack an enemy stack, so this only makes sense if we have cats in the city AND on a ship, AND we expect Imperio to bombard us for a turn.

- Military resource trade: I have no idea how overseas trade routes work. Does anyone?

[mostly-harmless]

Ok, some thought from C&D.
The earliest they can come for us is T120.
On T109 Cape Town will finish Heroic Epic.
From then on it can put 32hammers into military units.
Thats 362hammers worth of military. For comparison thats 10 spears or 10 axes or 12 chariots or 14 archers or 7 horse archers or 7 cats, so plenty to make Cape Town very hard to take. On top of that Cape Town will pop their cultural defense to 40% on T113.

Unfortunately we cannot turtle up in Cape Town as we have to protect our horses and copper in the open. So Horse Archers are definitely a must. Thats why I think HBR should be next on the list and not Mathematics. We need some time to get a HA stack together.

I have to admit that the recent lighthouse in Chichen Itza does not look like imminent danger, but I'd rather have us prepared. After all Imperio is not coming back to us regarding the NAP for 4 turns now!

I also must say I have the same thought like Dreylin. IMperio must know that they can't take us on all by themselves. even if they rae just after Cape Town. So a coalition of IMperio and Templars is possible, especially in the light of the latest tech trade and the absence of any progress on the diplo front.

The border pops of Cape Town and Airstrip One will give us some additional forewarning for approaching troops but we should strengthen Pink Dot's garrison.
A line of sight into Templars other 2 cities is needed to get a better feeling for their production capacity and builds.

mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Might as well put this here as well:

T104:
Major news. Templars researched Metal Casting and traded it together with Monotheism to Imperio for Mathematics & Monarchy!!!

[Swiss Pauli]

- Galley use: Only necessary once we actually have units to ferry. And remember, cats on the ship can't actually attack an enemy stack, so this only makes sense if we have cats in the city AND on a ship, AND we expect Imperio to bombard us for a turn.

The thought was to move them in, unload then attack on the same turn, assuming we hold off an initial attack from 2 move units thus avoiding flanking damage.

I think we now have to try to make nice with Templars, conditional on a NAP in order to try to see whether they're in cahoots with Imperio, or whether Imperio are simply imposing a trade embargo on their main rival (us).

[ruff_hi]

The best counter for elephants are other elephants. The only way we can get elephants is if we self-research horse riding and maths and then trade for construction from PAL (they will have to self research it) and trade for elephants.

If Imperio don't have elephants, I think we can hold our own with a nice stack of horse archers so getting that deal canceled is critical to us.

The other option is that we ask PAL to assist us with a back door attack against templar. We tech towards war elephants as fast as we can and then we both (us and PAL) move against templar (who will be without war elephants). If we agree to this, then we need to stop researching monarch (get happy from somewhere else - phant trade from PAL or religion) and start teching down our war path.

[mostly-harmless]

The more I think about it the more I believe we can outproduce both of them, especially with Heroic Epic. As far as C&D knows we are the only ones on the continent with Heroic Epic. Also we will pull even with the happy cap soon, further increasing our production capacity.

I think the way out is a proper show of deterrence. Once the Heroic Epic is up, we will churn out units non stop from Cape Town and stack them visibly near Templars and Imperios borders. This together with the happy cap increase and subsequent pop increase will see our soldier points skyrocketing.

[sunrise089]

@Swiss - I didn't know you could attack out of a city that way using units on a boat. Good to know.

@Ruff - The best counter to elephants are spears. They're cheaper and get defensive bonuses. Considering the possibility of a mixed stack, I think (down the road) we want to build spears, cats, and horse archers.

[ruff_hi]

@sun / swiss - units can be offloaded from a boat in a city and be ready to move that turn providing they spend a turn on the boat. Units stuck in a boat (ie moved onto the boat that turn and then the boat moved into the city) cannot attack that turn, but they can defend.

Spears are ok against War elephants providing they don't get the shock promotion.

[mostly-harmless]

I am actually missing T-Hawk stepping in saying:

Lets not run around like headless chicken just because Imperio built a road towards us.

It feels a bit weird, that I am trying to step on the breaks here,being known for my more hawkish view of things, but recent Imperio behavior does not really point towards an imminent all out attack on us.

So lets not stare transfixed on that turn 120. Imperio cannot pull 10 phants & 10 cats out of nowhere in that time.

mh

[sunrise089]

Ok, I'll keep being the unabashed hawk then. Imperio hardly needs 20 units to critically hurt us. All they need is (5?) units to take our Cape city and closed borders (unless we know this won't cut off PAL trade) to hurt us very badly. Couple an Imperio sneak attack with an all-out Templar rush on Pink with all of their units, and things would be even worse.

[mostly-harmless]

5 units?
Surely not. With Heroic Epic done in 6 turns we can get 10 units out of there.

An all out attack from Templar would not amount to much at the moment. Sullla is closely monitoring their units and they only have 3 and a half cities.

Come on guys, we are not a push over on our continent.

mh