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[binTravkin]

Turn's in, I will play it in a while.

In the news - we have circumnavigation bonus at last.

We talked that we should move the galley back to core, but I think there's no use - it will not be useful in shuttling units from there since it will soon be faster to move by road.

I think we should circumnavigate that island to see if we can settle there.

[PJayTycy]

I'm opening it now...
The barb sword attacked our mace and lost, our mace didn't suffer any hit and received XP (new promotion possible)
We got circumnavigation bonus
GS didn't attack us
GS' ivory resource is undefended
The barb archer (near the new xian) marches straight south

We should move one of the units from our big attack stack next to the city, so we can look at the defenders. It will be a lot more usefull in discussing what to do.
Perhaps the explorer could move in first, he can always go back (although I don't think that will be necessary).

[PJayTycy]

So, I moved our explorer forward, next to the city...

It seems there's only longbows defending it, no attack units at all:




Also, it seems this is a holy city...

[PJayTycy]

I have my doubt though about GS having no offensive units anymore... That would mean they threw everything they had at us last turn, which is simply unbelievable.

There will be attack units underway to Carnero Tempest.

But:

• when there are just 2 units sitting on their only ivory resource
• while the city is garisoned well enough (6 longbowmen if they upgrade their 2 skirmishers) against our attack stack

==> Where would they send their attack units? I guess our 2 ivory-units will be killed.


I think we kind of hoped they would have to chose between defending the city and recapturing their ivory, but this seems not the case. Their city is well defended and they must have some attack units left somewhere to easily recapture the ivory.

So, what can we do ???

[binTravkin]

Perhaps we should wait for reinforcements?
3 maces, chuck, cat and 3 knights can arrive in 3-4 turns.

I think now it is clear that going past that mountain was a bad idea - had we sticked to the original plan, they'd be pretty stretched to kill 2 stacks approaching their capital from 2 directions.

[PJayTycy]

Let's assume GS has some attack units left. They will kill our 2 units on the ivory. Let's assume the same tactic as their previous strike : cats+ellies. We would probably survive 2 cat-attacks and maybe one of our units would kill another ellephant. It would mean 1 elephant will be located west of their city, 1 elephant will be located on the ivory (probably together with some defense units).

If we move our attack-stack forward this turn, we will be able to kill these stray units and hopefully re-capture the ivory resource.

All-in-all, I think our current stack should not focus on the city, but stay together and focus on the ivory resource. We will most probably loose the initial 2 units, but hopefully our attack stack will be able to recapture it and kill some of GS' units along the way.

If we don't capture the ivory resource with our 2-unit stack, I think they will be attacked (and killed) also, so we could as well try...

By the time our 7-unit attack stack has a firm grip on the ivory resource (probably reduced to a 3/4-unit stack by that time), some of our other units will arrive.


----------------------



About the movement speed:

circumnavigation bonus (now) ==> galley = 3 movement points
engineering (in 3 or 4 turns) ==> roads = 3 movement points

So, the speed for normal units is the same, only knights will travel faster over roads. I still prefer it to travel back north.

We might also use it to drop off some other units that are approaching, on the same tile where we dropped our current 2-unit stack. It might help in strenghtening the defense of the ivory resource without having to pass by their city.



In any case, for the attack units, I would just move on normally, like we planned to do : the 7-unit stack moves to where the explorer is now; the 2-unit stack moves to the ivory resource, then we'll see...



What will we do with the worker on our south-eastern road segment? Should he continue or move back ?

[Maniac]

I agree with PJay.

[PJayTycy]

I think I did most of the stuff, just didn't move the attack stack yet.

Some pictures from the other continent...

explorer on land


caravel south


caravel north


culture overview




So, I did brief walk through the cities, but I don't think anything needs to change. In my opinion, just move in the attack stack on the spot the explorer is (and leave the explorer where it is), then send on the turn...

[Zeiter]

Wow, exciting! Looks like Team AC is dominating! Now that I'm out of school for the summer, I should be getting my hands on a copy of Civ IV so that I can actually contribute and be more than just a lurker/occasional cheerleader.

[binTravkin]

Way to go Zeiter!

I agree with your plan PJay, I will review the cities though, during lunch.

Sorry for being inactive - Poly was off for me yesterday.

[-SafaN-]

Zeiter, you can get civ on steam, if thats a possibility

[PJayTycy]

bt, please also check the promotions of the units on the ivory resource. I think I forgot to promote that mace and/or chuck.

[binTravkin]

Here's the endturn - 3 cities needed little changes, units moved, promotions put.
Next reinforcements - mace, chuck and cat arriving near GS in 3 turns, then 2 knights and a mace in another turn and then another knight in a turn, followed by a chuck and cat.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Whats all this about 'capturing' Ivory, we just Pillage the stupid Ivory if they don't kill both units in the stack this next turn. Then start pillaging road left and right so they cant reinforce effectively. The only way they can prevent us from pillaging that Ivory is by sending 3 or more of their longbow men out of the city or if they have a large stack sitting on the cows RIGHT NOW within striking distance of the Ivory.

It looks to me they are clearly going to defend this city to the hilt seeing as of how its Holy and we will want to capture rather then burn it.

According to my math their long bows will be defending at around 10 strength. 6 * (1 + .25 (ability) + .20 (promote) + .05 (fortify) + .20(city)) = 9.6, giving them an advantage over most chucks (not including the extra first strike we get) but a bit about even with our mace men (and here the reverse holds as they have a first strike advantage).

Unfortunately they will likely have 7 unit in the city next turn and we would need to win every single combat to capture the city with the main stack, thats unlikely. We would probably lose 2-3 chucks as we would need to wear the longbow defenders down to 4 strength with collateral damage and or direct combat damage before a chuck would have parity. The mace men could then clean up and we could kill around 2/3rds of the defenders.

If the catapult an knight re-enforcements are only 3 turns back we should consider waiting for those to arrive and focus on encircling and cutting off Carnero from reinforcements then conduction a more traditional bombardment and siege. Lastly I'd recommend upping our military production and focusing on Chucks, Knights and Catapults.

[binTravkin]

Impaler, our military production is already near top.
DongJing adds in next turn as a mil-producing city and we have 3 other cities already doing pretty rapid production.
For instance, Tassagrad alone produces as much hammers for military as entire GS (chopped forests not counted).

We need to completely obliterate that ivory - pillage 2 of those roads plus the camp itself, so even if the odds turn against us, they have to spend several turns to get it back online.