The Conscription Thread

[sooooo]

Since it is looking more and more likely we'll get the Taj Mahal on the interturn (with 3 hours to go PAL have not whipped it), I thought I'd start a new thread discussing which cities to draft.

So next turn (T154) I propose drafting:

Green Acres
Mellow Yellow
Something Fishy

We cannot yet draft China Beach and Red Herring because they aren't at size 6 yet. We need to draft Mellow Yellow before whipping its settler so that should definitely be in the first round of drafting. I chose something fishy since drafting that city will not affect its production and it is close enough to the front lines so that the maceman can help the assault on Jerusalem.

Remember: Drafted troops can move straight away, so we gain a large benefit from revolting and drafting before our 16 hours are up.

[dsplaisted]

While we should try to do this before our 16 hours are up, we should also try to do it towards the end of our 16 hours in the hope (however slight it may be) that we can get gunpowder from imperio and draft Oromos.

[regoarrarr]

Okay. Mechanics of drafting, just for the record. You can draft up to 3 units a turn. Nationhood also gives 2 for each city with a barracks. Each draft causes 3 in a city, for 10 turns.

So since we're going to want to spend (at least) 5 turns in Nationhood, we can draft up to 15 units.

• Definitely draft
  • Green Acres - currently at size 9, no cap, 30/38 with a +8 surplus. Should be able to draft all 5 turns.
  • Mellow Yellow - currently at size 7, 12/7 cap, 28/34 with a +5 surplus. Currently working on a settler with 0/100 invested. I believe the plan is to draft once and then whip the settler in 2 turns (triple whip at 12/100)
• Could draft
  • Pink Dot - size 6, 13/9 cap, 28/32 with a +6 surplus
  • China Beach - size 5, 12/7 cap, 23/30 with a +5 surplus.
  • Something Fishy - size 6, 13/6 cap, 31/32 with a +3 surplus
  • Saxon the Beach - size 6, 10/9 cap, 25/32 with a +5 surplus
  • Red Herring - size 5, 9/7 cap, no barracks, 19/30 with a +5 surplus. One of its unhappies is for lack of MP, which we could obviously fix if we wanted.
• Probably don't want to draft
  • Airstrip One - size 12, no surplus food, with a 14/13 cap
  • Cape Town - size 6 and military pump.
• Can't draft
  • Bluebell - size 3
  • Upper Burgundy - size 1
  • Frozen Clams - size 2
  • Jericho - size 3

So, in the next 5 turns, we COULD draft 5 units from Green Acres, 1 from Mellow Yellow, 2 from Pink Dot, 1 from China Beach, 2 from Something Fishy, 2 from Saxon the Beach, and 1 from Red Herring.

That's 14 units. I'm not sure we actually want to do any of those double drafts, but it looks like we at least have the food (and most of the happy if not all) to do that.

[regoarrarr]

Similarly we should probably wait and revolt until close to the end of our 16 hours so that Imperio doesn't realize they're giving us drafted Oromos

[Strow]

When we go to nationalism I can see Imperio not giving us Gunpowder.

[sunrise089]

When we go to nationalism I can see Imperio not giving us Gunpowder.

Fine, as long as they give us peace. Remember, as long as we conditionally to give Imperio Jerusalem for Gunpowder we're better offer if they don't follow through. With 10 turns of peace and 14 more maces we can at the very least capture and keep Jerusalem, which is a BETTER outcome than if Imperio holds up their deal.

Honestly, Imperio aren't fools so I wouldn't be surprised is they DO give us gunpowder just to make it more likely we give them Jerusalem. That is, if they really make peace, which is the real concession to us.

[sooooo]

OK, so I think we will revolt to nationhood next turn, but gunpowder will arrive a turn after that (T157). But next turn we can still draft a macewoman out of Green Acres. Probably it's not worth to draft any other cities with a turn to go on gunpowder.

BTW, I was thinking we should send our draftees to Cape Town. They will be too late for the Templar war, but can serve as defence for when Imperio get angry. If Cape Town builds a catapult per turn then it can have 7 catapults finished at the end of the 10 turns of peace and will have a good number of oromos too. That way we don't have to rush our Templar forces back home.

The way I see it, we do this:

T156: Draft GA (mace)
T157: Draft GA, Red Herring and Mellow Yellow
T158: Draft GA, Saxon and Something Fishy
T159: Draft GA, Pink Dot and China Beach

All of these 10 units can reach Cape Town by T154, the time that the enforced peace runs out. Add that to 7 catapults built from CT and that's a decent defence force if we assume that some of our mounted units can also make it back from Templar Lands in time. Especially since Oromos have no counters in this age and are rather resistant to barrage units.

[Sullla]

OK, four reasons not to revolt to Nationhood until the turn we discover Gunpowder (T157):

- We draft Oromos and not maces (duh!)
- Airstrip One get the full benefit of Bureaucracy while we're researching. This will give us more overflow into our next tech. Basically, if we have 2t research remaining on Gunpowder, let's delay revolting to Nationhood civic until those 2t are up!
- Airstrip One has 2t remaining on a Bank build. That will drop to 3t if we go out of Bureaucracy. Again, things line up perfectly if we wait to revolt: research at huge deficit for 2 more turns, then we complete a bank and revolt to Nationhood civic on the same turn that we go to 0% science. It just lines up really well!
- Finally, the argument to swap to Nationhood on T156 only makes sense if we're planning to go back to Bureaucracy on the last turn of the Golden Age. I don't think we're planning to do that, or should do that. The science loss is more than made up for by the ability to draft an Oromo almost every single turn out of Green Acres, plus a fair amount from our other cities. Our whole impending foreign policy is based upon this logic. And if we're not going back to Bureaucracy, there's no reason to revolt next turn. Why - to draft one more mace? That doesn't make sense!

Otherwise I agree with sooooo, on the cities to draft and the plan to send the Oromos to Cape Town. Based on how the Templar war goes, and the location and composition of Imperio's monster stack, we decide how to play things from there. (The critical thing is getting the first hit on their huge stack. If we can cat them first, then we win the war. It's as simple as that. If not, we have a very long and bloody struggle ahead of us. I don't care if we stain our reputation in the process, we HAVE to get that first cat hit on them!)

[darrelljs]

I agree that we should stay in Nationhood after the golden age ends, and that shouldn't factor into the decision. I 'd like to swap to get the Mace (70H > than the commerce/hammers bonus from Bureaucracy IMO), but Green Acres' food suprlus isn't enough for perpetual drafting. We'd get a Mace now, but 6-7 turns later we'd have to skip drafting an Oromo. So, then it becomes a question of having a Maceman now vs. an Oromo later + the Bureacracy bonus, and that's an easy decision.

Darrell

P.S. I've noticed Sulla has a thing for timing .

[sooooo]

Think we stick to the plan of drafting Green Acres, Saxon and Something Fishy next turn. The latter two cities are furthest away from Cape Town and need to be drafted first so that the troops reach it before our 10 turns of enforced peace expire.

We should try to mass our oromos firstly on a tile Imperio cannot see and secondly where they wouldn't be suspicious if they were to send a unit into our lands. Maybe they could mass on the forest outside Jericho (the cats from CT too). Then when 7/8 turns into the peace we start moving them north to CT.

[Swiss Pauli]

Michelle and Nancy should stop in Pink for a few turns to compare notes and offset

Depending on how big the Imperio SoD is, I think we can station units in Jericho without it looking suspicious (counterattack, , revolt risk), especially as Imperio can't see into the city. If their SoD doesn't look to bad then we can pull them back to form a Nothern Army.

[T-hawk]

Imperio can't see into the city.

We can't assume that with spies running around. But Jericho seems like a fine place to station troops anyway.

[kjara]

Agree that Jericho seems like a reasonable place to muster the troops in the short term.

[sooooo]

GA, Something Fishy and Saxon were drafted this turn. Next turn we cannot draft Pink Due to the hapiness issue. Probably need to wait for it to finish its forge and a whip anger to wear off. It could also build a cheap theatre (1 happy from dyes).

So next turn we should draft GA and China Beach only.

[regoarrarr]

Bump just for an update on if we're still on track for optimal conscription?