Operation "Sweetheart"

[sunrise089]

Right regoarrarr, so we only want to capture Jerusalem in order to be able to safely found two more cities. Ideally we capture Jerusalem as fast as possible with the constraint that we be able to have all three Jerusalem border cities in place, and then hope that Imperio is slow to capture Templar cities. That preserves our number-of-cities advantage as long as possible.

[Dreylin]

I'm assuming we would want the 50% jungle defense bonus over the 25% hill defense. Where are they gonna go from that one road tile anyway? Further into the jungle?

If we leave the roaded hill for them, they can walk units over the river onto it and attack us in the jungle - 50% defense. If we park the stack on the hill they can only attack us across the river - 75% defense.

Of course they may have built more roads since then, but can't we tell that from the terminations even through the fog?

[mostly-harmless]

Regarding the three filler cities:
We can settle Red straight away.
Blue depends whether we want to honor our treaty or not. If we keep Jerusalem or plan to re-capture soon after, Blue has to go 1W to avoid too much overlap, which means we can settle it also before taking Jerusalem.

mh

[sooooo]

Hmm, what if we apply the lessons from the Cultural Domination games and move blue 2S. That way we have two cities that are both 3 tiles in a straight line from Jerusalem. It's sure to flip .

[mostly-harmless]

That will create a lot of overlap between red, blue, greenish & Jerusalem, while leaving some tiles north of blue unused.

I say we wait whether we get GP this turn (and therefore have to hand Jerusalem over).

mh

[sunrise089]

Hmm, what if we apply the lessons from the Cultural Domination games and move blue 2S. That way we have two cities that are both 3 tiles in a straight line from Jerusalem. It's sure to flip .

Well in that case we can settle that spot and another city between blue and Jericho...after all, we are Organized

[timmy827]

I'm assuming we would want the 50% jungle defense bonus over the 25% hill defense. Where are they gonna go from that one road tile anyway? Further into the jungle?

Actually they are equivalent in defense for general units if the jungle is still unroaded, since if we are in the jungle they can go over the river on the hill road before attacking, but will have to cross the river when attacking on the hill. So its +50 for jungle, or +25 hill/+25 river.

On the other hand, if we don't take the hill, templars may just be clueless enough not to realize that they can avoid the river.

I don't see Templars having many normal units to threaten us though, and probably the best they can do is hit us with whatever cats they have (and the collateral won't be diminished by the terrain). But General Godiva will make that a one turn delay at most.

Hmm, what if we apply the lessons from the Cultural Domination games and move blue 2S. That way we have two cities that are both 3 tiles in a straight line from Jerusalem. It's sure to flip .

Think this is sooooo's cheeky mode, but moving blue 2S probably won't help at all. The southern city will already control the lower 3 tiles so the current blue will do well on the western 2. The double-up min distance is good for "real" culture pushing on a developed city but isn't worth it here since Imperio is starting from scratch.

Yes a flip is silly to wait for when we're planning on killing Imperio, but trying for one could have some great effects. They may put a lot of units in Jerusalem to suppress and if that lets us strike first in war, that's a huge advantage. And we may get lucky with a first revolt that would turn every unit in the garrison into a free kill if we DOW that turn.

[sooooo]

OK, here's my plan:



Sorry that I had to rotate it. North is right.

We are slightly hampered by not having a road on the tile 1SW of Jericho, and we do not have workers who can get to the tile and road it next turn. Even if we could, some of the troops would be a turn behind. Because of all of this, I think we invade Templar lands on T156. Here's what I propose:

T155: 2 of the workers in the north come down and road Jericho's cows. The 2 workers in the south move 1S and road that tile. We split up our troops. About 5 cats and a support of maybe 4 or 5 units head south and prepare to invade by the southern route. This route gets a turn quicker to Jerusalem's borders so it is where we can bombard from. Also we need troops in this area to guard against strikes against the city we are about to build and also to discourage any troops from heading out to Pink Dot. They will be joined by the healing ele and pike in the south and elizabeth.

The rest of the troops gather on the site of the main stack. Thus the main stack remains stationary but is joined by a LB, 2 eles and 2 pikes. The mounted troops that have healed are IMO best attacking from the north, so they head northwards. I think there is 1 HA that will take an extra turn to heal. His job can be to stay and heal that extra turn and then go and kill the quechua.

T156: The 2 northern workers that roaded the cows last turn road the tile 2SW of Jericho. The main stack moves onto the plains tile in Templars territory and is joined by the mounted troops and any garrisson troops from Jericho that we can spare (the cat and the city raider mace, for example). In the south the troops we split off from the main stack, together with the healed ele, pike and elizabeth the longbow head into templar territory via the southern route. Syme and Parsons are free and to the jungle tile 1W of the rice to get the road to our new city complete.

[Dreylin]

Two thoughts immediately come to mind:

1) is a single Horse Archer enough to safely kill that Quechua?

2) It looks like we need some more Workers.

[MyOtherCar]

2) It looks like we need some more Workers.

I was planning to say we would capture them from Templars. But then I thought they probably only have one worker.

[sooooo]

1) is a single Horse Archer enough to safely kill that Quechua?

Err, probably. It's a str 6 vs a str 2 unit. We might be able to afford another unit to head that way too though. Need to guard our settling spot I guess.

2) It looks like we need some more Workers.

Yes, noted. I think we should build 2 more at CB and SF in 2-3 turns when their missionaries complete.

On the upside, we get the 2 workers back from their duties at Green Acres in 2 turns and there are more workers in the north than we will need there permanently. It's just that they were up there anyway after all the chopping so may as well finish off the few jobs that needed doing before coming south.

[sooooo]

An updated picture of the invading forces:



Maybe the southern troops should move 1NW next turn? It gets them closer to Constantinople at least.

[Dreylin]

sooooo: what's going on with the Sugar tile West of Jerusalem? It almost looks like it has a Plantation on it, but also a Jungle border?

[Sullla]

Dreylin - the graphic display for the Incan terrace is showing up on that tile. There's no plantation on that tile. Templars don't even have Calendar! Yeah...

Anyway, I think we should continue SE as planned. Better to occupy the Templar road through the jungle and rule out any chance of them hitting our southern cities. Once Jerusalem is captured, all that territory will be neutral, and we can move along the roads towards Constantinople quickly.

[mostly-harmless]

Yes, I agree with Sullla. Stick to the tile SE.

Also, it is really weird how Templars have ignored the tile improvements around Jerusalem.
Working two forests? Not having at least one Sugar cottaged?

mh