Turnplayer Thread No. 5

[sooooo]

Market's a pretty good build for us in A1 - the hammer decay is negligible. With science at around 50% it's not worse than a university. Plus it can restart the market after the university is finished because I doubt A1 will be the last of the 6 cities to finish its uni.

[sooooo]

So next turn with the troops. I'm not sure what your plans were sunrise, but here's what I would do:

Leave all the troops on the cows where they are. The injured ones heal.
All the healthy troops from Jerusalem join them on the cows.
The cats on the tile 1SW of Jerusalem go onto the cows (cow-tipping party!).
The injured troops at Jerusalem heal.
General Godiva goes into Jerusalem, allowing her to help the healing of all the troops.

[regoarrarr]

How injured are the troops on the cow? They'll heal faster in Jerusalem, but if they move into Jerusalem, they can't spend that turn healing.

Depending on how injured (how many HPs) either way can be faster

[sooooo]

They are injured to different extents. But I thought with a medic III on hand it would be quicker just to heal this turn even if it's in enemy territory.

[Sullla]

I pretty much agree with sooooo, although we may want to move one or two critically injured units (ones with less than a third of their health left) back into Jerusalem and fastest healing. But most of our injured units have only taken about 25% damage, and they can get that back even in enemy territory. Keep the main stack on the cows tile, IMO.

Here's a related and very important question, which I hope we can have the whole team discuss. We captured Jerusalem, now do we take the fight on to Constantinople? At first I thought "no", but with Imperio doing nothing whatsoever to intervene in the war, I'm starting to change my mind. Here's a look at this theatre of our continent:



This does a good job of demonstrating why Constantinople is so important for us. Between the city itself and that range of hills to the direct south, it controls the entire south. We can keep a force here and another at Cape Town and be very secure from invasion. Without Constantinople, we have to defend at the Cape, Jericho, and Jerusalem, which you can plainly see from the picture is enormously more difficult logistically. Furthermore, Constantinople ALSO controls additional copper and horses supplies, which would allow us to send off an extra horse to Banana and keep one for ourselves. Finally, we could slip in yet another fishing village further east if we control this spot, where there's a clams resource Templars never bothered to use. Yes, another one!

Plus, our army is in prime position to make this happen. We spend one turn healing up on the cows (T161), then it's a pair of easy moves north (T162) and northeast (T163), with our huge army ready to attack on T164. Plus, we could send some units currently defending in Jericho SE (T162) and E (163) to join the main stack in their attack, including several of our new Oromos. It would be a slam-dunk attack, just like the one we pulled off at Jerusalem. We want the city, we have the forces to get it - so let's go take it!

Ahh, but what about our agreement with Imperio? Well - what about it! They certainly haven't held up their end of the bargain. The treaty that we signed said:

Definitive Proposal:
- Peace agreement

- NAP for 40 turns

- Nationalism for gunpowder

- Alliance against Templars
It is important that you do not mention this alliance to PAL, Banana, or the Templars. They should not know that we are allied. We will say it is our unilateral decision. It is OK for them to know that there is a NAP between us. This is very important because we have to explain this to those who have been our friends up to this point in the best way possible. For example we do not like you sending three-way diplomacy to Banana, Realms, and Imperio.

- The Templars' four cities are ours. You only need to capture Jerusalem and give it to Imperio once it is under your control.

- We will belatedly declare war on the Templars once you have captured Jerusalem. Although if we can we will do it beforehand. This is important to prevent our image from deteriorating too much and this way we will hide the alliance a little and better surprise Templars.

- The agreement will be accepted and closed next turn, not this one.

They did NOT send us Gunpowder. They have NOT declared war on Templars, as they promised. We signed that treaty with them on June 10, it's now July 3, and I don't think they've even sent us a single email in that span! We can claim - with some degree of versilimilitude, and a heck of a lot of spinning - that Imperio hasn't been faithful to us. There certainly hasn't been any partnership to speak of!

Most importantly though, what's Imperio going to do to stop us? Declare war? We were already planning on doing that to them anyway! They are in the middle of a major infrastructure push, and their forces aren't close to any of our cities. If the worst happens, we're in a much better position to face them now than we were originally, facing a 2 vs. 1 earlier. But hopefully we can placate them diplomatically, stall for time, etc. until we have the opportunity to stab them in the back.

At the grand strategic level, I think the best thing to do is eliminate Templars as quickly as possible so that our continent becomes a 1 vs. 1 matchup, one that Imperio can't possibly win. (Which they also know!) It would be different if they were willing to help us and work with us... but we all know that they're not. Anyway, what does everyone else think?

[sooooo]

Yep, heal a turn and advance on Constantinople. But we should be wary that the templars have drafted 9 macemen over the last 3 turns.

[Kodii]

Anyway, what does everyone else think?

When can we start the Operation thread for Constantinople?

Operation Mehmed II?

[Sullla]

Two in Jerusalem, three in Constantinople, two in Damascus, and one in Acre my by count, sooooo. (We killed the two in Jerusalem already.) Really though, drafted maces are not a serious problem. Once the walls are down and 2-3 suicide cats have done collateral damage, our own units can mop them up without issue. We had the insane bad luck at Jerusalem (losing 99.1% and 99.9% combats!) but if that had NOT happened, we would have taken the city and lost nothing but the two suicide cats. And every fight was 90% or higher odds. The same thing will likely happen at Constantinople; in fact, if our Drill II Oromos can get into the action - with their immunity to first strikes - we may be able to get even better odds.

Certainly, we'll kill a lot more of them than they do us. (Templars can't attack out of their cities, because they are crippled by lack of happy resources and draft unhappiness. Only HR keeps them functioning at all.)

[kjara]

Consider if we are going to go back in that direction(east) after we are healed, it costs us 2 turns to heal in Jerusalem, one turn to move in, and one turn to move back out. With a medic III it should be faster to heal in place.

[Dreylin]

When can we start the Operation thread for Constantinople?

Operation Mehmed II?

I approve this name!

Back to the matter at hand; how much does it cost us to advance all the healthy units out onto the Cow tile? Would it be economically better to hold the majority of the 2-movers at least in Jerusalem?

[Zeviz]

Do we have enough healthy units to advance on Constantinopole without waiting for Jerusalem forces to heal?

Also, since we have a massive overkill, can we afford to split the stack and attack both Constantinopole and Damascus at once?

[Sullla]

Splitting our forces is asking for trouble. And Damascus is not nearly as important to us from a strategic perspective. I believe that there's a good chance we'll see Imperio enter the war sometime soon and go for Damascus. A post-war scenario in which we took Constantinople, Imperio took Damascus, and Banana snuck in and grabbed Acre would be a really good result for us.

Maybe time to chase up Banana and ask if they are planning to jump in and attack Acre? They can see into the city, and know it's basically undefended.

[sooooo]

Was logged in while the turn passed over. I selected education as tech, catapult at CT, library at FC, courthouse at Pink, courthouse at Saxon, forge at RH and set CB to worker.

[Dreylin]

and Imperio has missed playing 4 of the last 5 turns....

[sooooo]

Oh, and banana got a GS and their golden age ended.