Commitee of Strategic Planning

[Kataphraktoi]

Im still not worried about GS power climbing. Look at vox, they clearly parallel each other. GS is just building up at the moment for taking vox and matching their increase in garrison size.

It is only about 10-15 MP between vox and banana's with roads. From the nearest GS city to our capitol is 30. Even with roads that would be a 15 turn march if they started now.

What is the line of demarcation between ACGS? We must sign a Treaty of Tordesillas The Second and divide the world among us But we had best be spain...

[binTravkin]

treaty should be in place, indeed.

They can't walk to Beijing in 30 turns, even if they build roads, they become useless once troops enter our culture. I believe there's much more distance between them and Msaha too.

[-SafaN-]

well the gates of death would be good (for us)
its that small pass between the mountains some tiles under splitsville

[binTravkin]

We have many cities now, so I think we need some discussion on our plans there.

City		Focus			Excess food*
------------------------------------------------------
Beijing		Commerce/Hammers	+7
Tassagrad	Hammers			+3(+2)
Xian		Hammers			+3(+1)
Hong Kong	Commerce		+10
Bananapolis	Hammers(?)		+3
Msaha		Hammers(?)		+3(+2)
------------------------------------------------------

* - excess food max with current improvements (excess food real with current improvements, assuming full use of bonus tiles)

Some decisions that need to be made:
- What will be the focus of Bananapolis? It has little moderate commerce potential, but little food to work it. It's central position would make it a good manufacturing city amongst the upcoming coastal commerce cities.
- What will be the focus of Mhasa? It has good commerce potential as well as good hammer potential, but again, lacks in food. It could also become a production center to aid the growth of upcoming coastal cities.

We also, apparently have made a mistake in the initial build orders in Mhasa and should not repeat this in Bananapolis - forge goes first. We simply have too little food there for granary to be very helpful and it changes very little if we finish it a little later as the first new citizen grows without it anyway and the second already has it finished upon appearing.

Maniac suggested we should build a grass cottage for both Xian and Tassagrad. Initially I didn't get the point, but now I do - both those cities as well as Banana cities are working 2 bonuses and one citizen working simply and improved tile.
It is no loss to convert a 1-3-0/0-4-0 improved tile into an 2-0-3(4) one, especially with the poor cash balance we have. Eventually we can put the worker back, but we'll have gained a developed tile (grown cottage) which we can use later if needed.
Xian has one such tile (river twist north of Beijing), Tassagrad has several candidates, including the forested silk near river, but I think we should use an unforested tile, just to get it quicker.


Build plans coming up.

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by binTravkin
treaty should be in place, indeed.

They can't walk to Beijing in 30 turns, even if they build roads, they become useless once troops enter our culture. I believe there's much more distance between them and Msaha too.

I counted it from the nearest GS city=30 tiles to our capitol.

I see them as putting a city below the gates of death much quicker than we can. I as GS wouldnt accept a line any lower than above the gates of death.( i assume thats the big mountain formation)

Oh and if you didnt notice, i put up screenshots of all current graphs. My thread view options cuts it off, though

[Impaler[WrG]]

I agree Msaha would be a good hammer city, it can work the nearby copper once its borders re-expands, that along with the cows is a strong hammer base but we will want to maintain decent food production through some farms. Watermills and windmills should also be considered.

Bananaopolis isn't particularly resource rich but its got enough grassland around it that we could make a farming breadbasket when SC gives us irrigation chaining and build up a large population their. That pop can be whipped for production early game and then transitioned into a specialist center, particularly scientists and merchants to synergies with our Representation. The high food would also make it a prime settler factory as we fill out the rest of the continent.

P.S. New name proposal for Bananaopolis -> Bananoi (Banana + Hanoi (capitol of Vietnam))

[Impaler[WrG]]

GS estimated yield outputs

Food - 36 (9/10ths our output, 2nd place) - Given their strong floodplains territory this should come as no surprise, each city is likely operating with a 4-6 food surplus at all times. With monarchy they can now grow cities to the 6-8 range easily but the efficiency of whipping begins to decline as they do so. Given our expansionism we should be able maintain rough parity here until GS starts its own boom phase.

Hammers - 11 (1/4 our output, last place) - they likely work no more then 2 mines (not counting precious metal mines) in their capitol, almost all production must be whip based. They simply can not compete with our early forges and stronger metal supplies in the near to mid term, only a concerted effort to get forges, expand and exploit their untapped Iron would bring them back from their dismal standings in hammers. Because wonder whipping is inherently less efficient they will have great difficulty competing with us on any wonder in the near future so long as we don't fall badly behind on tech.

Commerce - 43 (double our output, first place) - they have likely cottaged all or most of their floodplains and most are now to the town level. Their current research rate is certainly better then our own right now but our smart trading and early Great People and Oracle still give us a residual lead. The next great person can boost that lead once again especially if we get merchant->Civil Service. Still to truly dominate we need to get commerce parity and our sea-strategy can do that for us with 4 commerce on oceans and 3 trade routes per coastal city. Storm on the other hand will face much slower rates of commerce incresse as they expand due to the cottage growth rates. Cottage based economies are also notoriously fragile, one good pillaging can permenently cripple a team. Thus we should be on the lookout for any sign of weakness on their part which could present an oportunity for a raid style attack. An army need only be strong enough to force the defenders to stay in their cities in order to have free reign to pillage.

Our Chuck veterans with spear man and horse archer or Elephant support troops would be a powerful force able to move with relative impunity. With Mace man or Catapults city assaults become viable as well. Such a force could be completely expendable given our high production capacity, so long as a sufficient number of towns are leveled we succeed in taking away GS's only possible means of beating us, an overwhelming tech lead. By my calculations each fully destroyed Town costs them 120 raw commerce before it can be fully rebuilt and thats with reconstruction beginning immediately. Not only that the pillage would likely accelerate us by 30 gold further increasing the advantage. If our losses were 120 hammers in units per destroyed Town it would be worth it in the long run and we can likely do much better. A truce

As the expansionary phase were entering begins to wind down we should look to ramping into a troop surge and concentrate forces for a strike either overland, by water or both. All the time tech trading and friendship would be our public face with Storm, theirs little in the way of military tech that we need to embargo from them, metal casting and Monotheism being the only things I really don't want them to have. If they move towards Feudalism and longbow man all the better for us.

[binTravkin]

Replace 'Commerce' with 'GDP'.
It's commerce - expenses actually.
Our current research output is at 43 actually (8gpt being put into economy).


Regarding strikes on GS. To do that efficiently we need a navy, especially as they don't have one.
A navy consisting of galleys is easily spotted by them, although I'd expect that the islands near their coast give some cover during the last part of the voyage.
Nevertheless, I believe that any raiding should be postponed until we can output a sizable fleet, preferably not of Galleys, but Galleons.
If we have managed to circumvent the globe by that time, the better for us as the strike would be swift and fatal (at least to their economy).

[Mart]

The other 3 civs we have no contact with may have sailing.
So someone can threaten Beijing by sea giving us only few turns warning by appearing close.
We should build a galley an let it sail west.

[Kataphraktoi]

Unlikely that there is a connector from that desert island to another civs continent unless the map maker wanted to screw us over.

Regarding that razing towns plan, has that been used in MP before? I wouldnt know but the outcome sounds rather specious and i say that as a CEer. I would rather raze a major city or three.

[Mart]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
Unlikely that there is a connector from that desert island to another civs continent ...

There is a bigger island/continent to the west. More far away, still the fog of war may hide approaching units.

[binTravkin]

Yes, pillaging is quite a common practice in MP, especially during rushes when you have enough troops to defeat enemy in the field, but not enough to take his cities.

I'm however firmly pro-GS as long as they cooperate in research. That's one thing we need them and need them at least as good as Sara and Mercs (i.e. to have comparable research rate to ours).

Later, if we feel like teching away, we can try to kill or at least damage them.

[N35t0r]

Yeah, unless we want to succumb to the other side, I feel like we need to cooperate with GS.

[Kataphraktoi]

Thats what ive been saying all along
General opinion on the forum before starting was that each continent would unify into 2 civs and engage in a tech war with the other team.

All thats needed to win is to backstab GS just shortly before they backstab us.

There is a bigger island/continent to the west. More far away, still the fog of war may hide approaching units.

I meant a connecting passage running from south of the desert island to that west continent allowing that team to attack our capitol very quickly. As is they need to move along the coast which we can monitor to some extent. But our capitol is dreadfully vulnerable to galleons

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by binTravkin
That's one thing we need them and need them at least as good as Sara and Mercs (i.e. to have comparable research rate to ours).

Mercs claim to be non competitive. Still unorthodox did say that if it ''just happened'' they would accept victory. I imagine they enjoy aggravated relations with horde and sarantium, though.