The T120 Imperio NAP Expiry Crisis

[mostly-harmless]

In case they pull off something funny with galleys going west, can I suggest we train another alley ourselves and send it around the Imperio coast to intercept anything surprising coming our way.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

With Imperio marching their main army east, there is an opportunity opening up for us to grab Chichen Itza.
The all important tile 2NE of Cape Town will flip to us on turn X (T128). Engineering and +1 road movement will be available the same turn (T128).
At turn X we declare war & move RB Army I (4 cats & additional units) to the tile 1S of Chicen Itza.
CI is guarded by 2 Lbows & 1 Holkan and only 20% culutral defense. 4 suicide cats and 3 maces/phants/HA should do the job and net us CI on turn X+1 (T129). CI will not be encroached by Mutal culutre. Both important tiles (farmed/roaded wheat & mined/unroaded gold) will be available to us. Culutral borders will still allow for unrestricted movement between CT and CI.
CI will come with Christianity, Lighthouse, Granary & Barracks.
Loosing CI will cost them 29gpt
Imperios main army will either be on galleys by then or do whatever it is they were planning to do in the east. Their 1movers will need 3-4 turns to reach the front line.

Thoughts?

I am not sure I like Imperio grabbing 4 more silver mines on top of their 4 gold mines.

mh

[Sullla]

And what happens after we capture Chichen Itza? This is a human team we're facing, not an AI who will simply make peace.

Remember the plan, mh. We want peace now so we can continue to push for our drafted Oromos. Only another ~35 more turns, and then we'll have enough force to eliminate Imperio or Templars completely, not just snag a border city off them.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, plans are made to be changed if an opportunity arises, no.
I don't see how capturing Chichen Itza prevents us from spamming Oromos in 35 turns.

What do we loose by attacking them before Bloodbath? It's not that we have any trade routes, resources trades or tech deals in place with them.

mh

[sooooo]

It's an interesting idea - let's see what Imperio are up to first.

[regoarrarr]

If we are wanting to patrol our west coast and stop any invading galleys, wouldn't a trireme (or 2) be better?

[mostly-harmless]

Yep, I was not aware that the trireme is available as well. Never built one.

mh

[Sullla]

What do we loose by attacking them before Bloodbath? It's not that we have any trade routes, resources trades or tech deals in place with them.

We lose if Imperio brings Templars into the war to defend against the horrible RB aggression.

That said, if Imperio really does send half of their army over to the eastern continent, and we get some kind of NAP in place with Templars - sure, it's worth thinking about. Let's not put the cart before the horses as yet, however. Peace at this stage of the game is extremely good for our long-term plans. And we really don't know quite what Imperio is up to yet.

[sunrise089]

If we want to pursue the M_H plan we do at least need to make sure we get workers to the area, right? Or are the relevant tiles already roaded?

The main risk (aside from a Templar declaration - if we go this route we should offer very compelling NAP terms to Templars) is that Imperio goes crazy and slaves all of their cities. In that case we might have to do the same to keep up, and that lets PAL run away even more.

We COULD certainly try to leverage such an opportunity though - take the city and sue for peace by compensating them with a tech and NAP. Call it retribution for their spy actions. My worry would be they would still be more military-centered and make the eventual Oromo attack more difficult.

[mostly-harmless]

All tiles are roaded (thats what tipped us off in the first place, way back).
Imperio does not run Slavery!

mh

[Zeviz]

The biggest cost of early attack is that Imperio will be better prepared for the real one. I'd rather surprize them with an overwhelming force that captures all of their cities, than surprize them by stealing a city now and facing stronger opposition when the time comes.

[mostly-harmless]

Not necessarily.
They lose one of their core cities now, which will significantly hamper their tech&production advancement.
Chichen Itza will be the first target in the Bloodbath anyway, but now we can surprise them with a quick move, when that tile flips (I doubt Imp is monitoring it) and them no in Slavery, rather than have Imperio see the danger of the flipped tile and stockpile loads of defenders in CI.

Obviously we want to see what they actually do with their units and whether Templars will agree to a NAP.
I merely wanted to point out the opening of an opportunity here.

mh

[darrelljs]

Is it even possible to surprise a human? They'll know when we switch to Nationhood, and they might not have our cloak and dagger department but it doesn't take a lot of info to realize someone is drafting like mad.

If they declare on PAL, I'd be in favor of whipping out an army and going on a major offensiveagainst them, they surely can't handle a two front war at their size. I would not be in favor of just trying to snag one city.

Darrell

[Swiss Pauli]

Imperio & Templars saw fit to question whether we had Literature after we'd built the Great Library, so unless our army is in sight they might just overlook our drafting frenzy for a while at least...

[sunrise089]

I am more in favor of getting on city on the cheap than an all-out attack on them now.

@Darrell - They can see things coming a mile away, but if we have more cities AND nationhood we can out-produce them. MP players always see the attacking coming, but aside from tactical surprise, attacks still work if the attackers have overwhelming numbers.