Operation "Backstab"

[Zeviz]

Sulla's plan sounds good. The only correction I see is the worker move pointed out by Sooooo. Do we have any 2-mover to cover our workers on turn 168? If not, we'll have to save at least one pike for it, because if Templars decide to send their last HA to capture our workers out of spite, the whole operation will fail.

As for canceling horses, we need to give Banana a warning to pause their builds, but I agree that an extra Curassier would be very good.

[Zeviz]

Imperio has 17 units and 9 cats in its SoD. We have 23 healthy units in Constantinople area. However, we have to leave at least one unit for defense. (More if we don't want Imperio to get suspicious.) We should move pike from Jerusalem to staging area to get one more good unit there. Jerusalem is far from front lines, so we'll get plenty of warning if any enemies approach.

EDIT: The two hurt maces can also join the stack, and heal via promotions later. If we are very lucky, Imperio will have only the Cats left when we are done with them.

EDIT2: It's too late for the horses: Curassier would take 3 turns in Cape Town, which would make it late for the attack on turn 169.

[mostly-harmless]

A good plan.
I am with Iamjohn on the horses issue. We need them now to make a substantial change to the game (razing Mutal). Donovan kind of messed things up with just 3 knights.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

I was looking into the possibility to actually hold on to Mutal. We could decide on it depending how many mariner Oromos are left alive after Chichen Itza.
Mutal is not enveloped by any other city's culture. In fact the 1 ring is free, except for the tile SE.
The very nice thing about taking or razing Mutal is that Imperio will lose their Iron source and can kiss their Curaissiers good bye.
That said, we have to cancel the Banana Horses to get better chances on Mutal.

mh

[Zeviz]

I was looking into the possibility to actually hold on to Mutal. We could decide on it depending how many mariner Oromos are left alive after Chichen Itza.
Mutal is not enveloped by any other city's culture. In fact the 1 ring is free, except for the tile SE.
The very nice thing about taking or razing Mutal is that Imperio will lose their Iron source and can kiss their Curaissiers good bye.
That said, we have to cancel the Banana Horses to get better chances on Mutal.

mh

In this case, we should train an Oromo in CT now. A CG2 (or maybe Drill 4) Oromo should be able to guard the city from the couple of units Imperio might be able to send in as reinforcements until our own reinforcements arrive. We can't train a Curassier in time for the capture of Mutal, but we can train an Oromo in time to garrison the city.

[Sullla]

Seriously, we're not going to be able to hold on to Mutal, nice as it would be. Might as well give up on that notion right now. We'd have to concentrate huge forces in the north to do it, and that wouldn't leave us the chance to eliminate Imperio's main army in the south.

You've got to remember that we're playing against humans here, and not the AI. The city has to be razed.

[mostly-harmless]

As far as I understand we are planning to destroy Imperios forces in the south and attack Mutal. Assuming we can wipe out or significantly weaken their main army, a handful of Oromos should be able to defend Mutal, no?

I know that I was among the people how lobbied for the razing of Mutal to break Imperio's spirit, but if we remove Imperio's main army we stand a chance to defend Mutal.
After all, Imperio has to defend an awful long front line.

As I understand the plan, we are attacking their army on T169 and attack Chichen Itza on T169. The attack on Mutal will be scheduled for T170. So we will see how much harm we inflict on their main army on T169 and how many Oromos are surviving the Chichen attack and then decide whether to hold or raze Mutal.

mh

[sooooo]

I can understand both sides of the argument. I think the odds are that we will have to raze but we can reevaluate the situation on T170. We still have a stream of oromos coming into the area that can help if needs be.

[sunrise089]

I also believe we're going to have to raze the city, but it's true that we can re-assess after T169.

What will the cultural situation be like at Mutal? Holding Cape Town tied down a large army just because of how quickly Imperio could hit the city. If Mutal can be one-moved from several directions we'll either need a very large garrison for the duration of the war or a large spy network.

In other news, watch how large of a spy/sentry network I advocate putting in PAL lands once Banana is conquered

[mostly-harmless]

What will the cultural situation be like at Mutal? Holding Cape Town tied down a large army just because of how quickly Imperio could hit the city. If Mutal can be one-moved from several directions we'll either need a very large garrison for the duration of the war or a large spy network.

Well, the 1st ring is uncontested, except the tile 1SE, which is 3rd ring Mayapan & 4th ring Lakamha, so that should be cleared pretty soon by us.
However, we will have problems with securing the 2nd ring, I blieve, as we have multiple clashes with 2nd rings from Uxmal, Oxihuta (whatever), Maypan and 3rd ring from Lakamha.

So, if this is the criterion for keeping or razing Mutal, then I think we have to raze it.

What is actually our plan for the next steps after we initiated "Backstab"? I think Lakamha is city we must keep for the shrine income.

mh

[sunrise089]

The plan for the next steps is to try to build military as fast as possible while still not crashing our economy. Basically the RB/Imperio military situation will be zeroed out, but we will have a huge production advantage. Working against us will be the fact that Imperio will get PAL tech and will follow the Templar path and slave/draft their economy into oblivion, which we cannot do. Our advantage, aside from production, is that Imperio has a larger empire than Templars, and so we can possibly achieve tactical surprise when we move into their land.

[Swiss Pauli]

The main reason to keep Mutal would be the wonders, but Stonehenge will soon be obsolete, Oracle yields little benefit to the conqueror, and Sistene is great for cultural wins. We can look at keeping it, of course, but we shouldn't get too greedy at this stage.

Another city we should seriously consider keeping is Damascus to get the AP, and thus the hammers from Chrsitian temples and monasteries.

[mostly-harmless]

Another city we should seriously consider keeping is Damascus to get the AP, and thus the hammers from Chrsitian temples and monasteries.

Those get awarded even if we are not the AP resident, iirc from looking at PD.
Question is, will they vanish if the AP gets lost?


mh

[Swiss Pauli]

Dunno. Instinct tells me the benefits should be lost, but experience tells me this might not be the case. Maybe we should test it?

[Zeviz]

Perhaps the decision on Mutal should depend on how many of our troops survive after annihilating Imperio's main army, assuming we do manage it. If we have a significant enough offensive forse left, we can keep lightly-garrisoned Mutal, tempting Imperio to send their new units north, while our southern army captures Damascus and advances on Lakhama. Then we can recapture Mutal back.