The war has started.

[Zeviz]

Update with 3:00 left in turn - Templars declare war! Their only units moves are a stack of 2 ha, 3 char, 1 spear, and 1 cat moved onto the grass hill east on Pink Dot and inside our territory.

So we have a few metagame decisions to make:

1. Do we wait for Imperio to declare, or start diplomatic efforts now?

2. What do we say in public forum?

3. We need to draft messages to PAL and Banana.

4. Should we pause all infra builds and put in a round of units in each of our cities?

5. We need to upgrade remaining spears to pikes before losing Iron.

6. Anything else?

The wait is over. Now let's show Templars why they "have chosen unwisely".

[sunrise089]

5. We need to upgrade remaining spears to pikes before losing Iron.

I feel bad using all of our cash so I didn't do this. We probably should upgrade the one remaining spear though....although I'll also be pushing to upgrade the Cape Town mace and the Pink Dot archers soon.

[mostly-harmless]

I feel bad using all of our cash so I didn't do this. We probably should upgrade the one remaining spear though....although I'll also be pushing to upgrade the Cape Town mace and the Pink Dot archers soon.

There is also the alternative to upgrade A1 warrior to a pike for 155g. Costly but a warrior is really useless now. Whatever we decide the pike upgrade has to take place immediately. IMperio has not yet declared, so they can log in any time (and scout us out for Templars btw.) and close borders (ie. denying us Iron).

mh

[sunrise089]

Unit upgrade options (we don't have to do only one, but we only have the cash to do one more upgrade this turn.

Axeman in Cape Town
*Reason to upgrade - If Imperio moves their big stack in this turn they may wait to promote it. If so we're going to hit it with everything, and every strength-8 unit will help.
*Reason to wait - Only needs copper, so if Imperio doesn't move in this turn, or if they promote and then move in we can wait a turn with no cost.

Spear in Cape Town
*Reason to upgrade - Needs iron, which may soon be unavailable. My tests show even a strength-6 unit will be useful when we attack Imperio.
*Reason to wait - Same as above - Imperio hasn't moved in yet. Also while the upgrade is more timely, the spear is more useful than the axe if one of the two units must stay un-upgraded.

Warrior in A1
*Reason to upgrade - Helps cover the approach to our interior by enemy mounted units. Lets us move the Pike between A1 and Pink south.
*Reason to wait - A1 can't be attacked for at least 2 turns. In 2 turns it will have another horse archer in the city. If we choose to upgrade the warrior to a mace we can safely wait a turn and not worry about loosing access to the resource.

Archers in Pink Dot
*Reason to upgrade - Longbows - provides an additional safety margin to Templar attack. 2 longbows let us attack out with all of our other units and still know the city is safe. Crossbows - they are likely to have good odds on Templar units next turn if they don't stack all of their units together on the hill.
*Reason to wait - Longbows don't require a resource, so as long as we keep cash on hand we can always upgrade defensively as needed.

My advice: Any of the above options can be justified. Starting next turn though I advise keeping at least 150 gold on hand at all times. This is so we can do an emergency upgrade of an archer in Something Fishy or a warrior in A1 (will 150 be enough?) if Templars move units towards those cities that we cannot intercept, or an emergency Pink Dot or Cape Town archer upgrade if battles don't go our way and we need to strengthen the city garrison.

[mostly-harmless]

One thing to keep in mind. I believe an upgrade will lose the 25% fortify bonus a unit has accumulated. Archer to Longbow at PD might still be the better call (Thinking Athena here)

mh

[mostly-harmless]

T133 (early):
RB: no war wariness
Tem: no war wariness
Imp: no war wariness

GG arrival 12/30

(is that interesting / the right place?)

mh

[Zeviz]

Yes, these stats are good. Why didn't Templars get any WW for losing 2 HAs? Or does it not show up until next turn?

[mostly-harmless]

1. Do we wait for Imperio to declare, or start diplomatic efforts now?

Haha. What diplomatic efforts? With Imperio?

2. What do we say in public forum?

We ask all progressive nations to condemn the attack especially in the light of apparently misguiding diplo action before.

3. We need to draft messages to PAL and Banana.

I am not sure what we would have to say.

4. Should we pause all infra builds and put in a round of units in each of our cities?

No, I think we are fine for now. We have to see what mischief Imperio is up to, of course.

5. We need to upgrade remaining spears to pikes before losing Iron.

-> sunrise's call.

6. Anything else?

[regoarrarr]

I do think it's important to do anythign we can to try and win in the court of public opinion, so I agree with m-h's #2 above

[ruff_hi]

see draft open letter to Templar in Templar thread.

[T-hawk]

I'm most in favor of upgrading a spear in Cape Town. Imperio has lots of elephants, and pikeman is the only unit with an advantage over them. Also, we have to do that now, we can't wait for Imperio to declare, since we'll have no iron.

"What can wait must wait". Maces and longbows can, pike can't.

On attacking Templars, I don't see us having enough units to do that profitably (they did get Feudalism, right?) until Nationalism. I expect we'll just hold them off to a draw before that, unless we catch Jericho with its pants down.

On another note, shall we start planning what to do with the first Great General? I guess the options are a Medic III unit or an instructor in Cape Town. What do MPers usually do?

[sunrise089]

GGs - Medic III, but then we normally get them with under 50 turns left in the game. Early GGs get settled in cities in MP, and I imagine that makes the most sense here (2 promo units out of Cape Town without a civics swap).

[ruff_hi]

I'm thinking an Instructor. It seems that MPs usually promote a 1 mover into a 2 mover. We have no need for that at present and the extra XPs will come in handy. However, if the GG is born anywhere else than The Cape - we have no way (no galley) of getting him there without exposing him to enemy action.

[Zeviz]

For diplomatic moves, I was thinking more along the lines of talking to PAL and Banana about evil Imperio-Templar alliance.

Here is how I see our diplo options:
- If Imperio declares this turn, we do all we can to scare PAL with power of Imperio-Templar-Rabbit alliance.
- If Imperio doesn't declare, we can talk a lot about Templar's treachery and try to negotiate a trade embargo against them.

Either way, I would avoid public posting unless we make "Templar Treachery" thread, where we list every grievance we've had with them since the game started: Stalling on negotiations until we had useful tech to sell, double-moving settler to steal Iron site while negotiating border agreement, agreeing to a trade deal they had no intention of honoring, pillaging roads in neutral area, after telling us we could build them, and a sneak attack without declaration of war.

[sooooo]

If we try to list our grievences then we are in danger of coming over as a bunch of whiny dorks. Game is meant to be fun - the templars attack, the templars get smashed, we make fun of the templars is how I forsee it.