Commitee of Strategic Planning

[Mart]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
But our capitol is dreadfully vulnerable to galleons

So patrolling our cost navy should be in the plans. Any estimate for caravels?

[binTravkin]

Mercs are actively trading tech, so they're still in the tech war.

About this whole capital endangered stuff - c'mon guys, be reasonable. The only civ knowing where our cap is is GS and they have no coastal cities and not even Sailing yet.
Others would still have to find us first and it's not like Galleons are right around the corner from now.

[Mart]

yes, but it's strategic planning forum.

Let's plan for having caravels before others have galleons. It may seem early for this, but from my single-player games I remember that when I stayed away from navy techs, it was difficult later to get them on time.

The truth is, that Beijing is hauling Centaurians now, and quite exposed to attack (from sea). It is a uniqe city cause of world wonders. We are relatively safe now, but I would plan ahead tech beelines for having strong navy to defend it later. Sea exploration takes time too.

It's a reminder, but I think important.

[PJayTycy]

caravels might be available pretty soon for us (we only need to research 1 800-beaker tech). But for all others, there's almost certainly still Machinery before it (1000 beakers). Galleons only come with astronomy, that's still a very very long time before we get there.

So, we can do currency->code of laws (civil service by great person) and then do optics to have caravels to defend and explore. I don't know if we already had other plans for after civil service?

[binTravkin]

We need two techs for caravels actually - Optics requires Compass which is 588b IIRC.
Yes, we have advantage in caravel research, it's actually 2 techs as no one else has MC too (at least I doubt it ).

We should make a tech plan what to do after CoL. We also need to get to know where GS is going with it's tech now.
If it's Feudalism, we should trade for it and have Guilds and then Banking to instate Mercantilism long before anyone else.
Other than that our tech priorities should be like:
1.CS
2.Calendar
3.The caravel gambite (Compass->Optics)

There's one problem with Galleons, however - Astronomy obsoletes Colossus, which might be a massive drop in our coast based economy, and thus be avoided for as long as possible. If we base our defenses on Caravels + circumvent the globe first, we might be able to fight off until some later naval tech.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I think you nailed our research priorities their BT, after CoL CS should be top priority and ideally we can get it through Great Person but in need be we research it directly. Next Calendar to develop silk then into the Compass/Optics pair and push for major navel power dominance of the world and gobbling up any strategic islands we can find.

[binTravkin]

How about attempting a Guilds->Banking move whereas GS researches Feudalism for us and exchanges for Machinery?

I reviewed the build plan in

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4963976#post4963976

And apart from a little change in food(we've accumulated 5 less than planned due to move to finish Literature quicker) we are doing by the plan.
Library is due in 13 turns, around the time of CoL.

[binTravkin]

Here's short-term build plan for Msaha:

400 BC	Granary 12/60	+4	12/22	+3	0
400 BC	Forge	0/120	+8	15/22	+3	0
375 BC	Forge	8/120	+9	18/22	+3	0	religion
350 BC	Forge	17/120	+9(+67)	21/22	+3	0	chop
325 BC	Forge	93/120	+9(+30)	2/22	+3	10	whip
300 BC	Granary	12/60	+6(+7)	5/22	+3	9
275 BC	Granary	25/60	+6	8/22	+3	8
250 BC	Granary	31/60	+6	8/22	+3	7
225 BC	Granary	37/60	+6(+45)	11/22	+3	6	chop
200 BC	?		+4(+18)	14/22	+3	5

I think we should improve this city first as it has more potential than Bananapolis and we'll need to build Forbidden Palace there.

[binTravkin]

Movement plan for attacking Splitsville:
1.Move the 3-stack SE into Bananaland, heal Chuk Jeger at Msaha
2.Split the 3-stack into 2 with 2 going SW to mine(including the wounded and least experienced chucks), 1 going E to horses. Chuck Jeger moves 2 tiles S of Msaha
3.Both substacks pillage, one unit of the southern substack can be used for a further move south if there's good opportunity. Chuck Jeger is in the forest from where 3-stack started. The chuck from the rear has caught up on him.
4.Both substacks join in the jungle hill NW of Splitsville, Chuk Jeger + Chuck Rock heads into Bananaland
5.The 2 of the 3 stack attack, one heals, Chuk Jeger and Chuk Rock unite with them
6. 5 chuks attack Splitsville.

*Note the 2 crosses near Splitsville - they indicate forests cleared by Bananas, though it's unclear how we got to know it if we haven't visited the site in a while.

[Kataphraktoi]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Mercs are actively trading tech, so they're still in the tech war.

About this whole capital endangered stuff - c'mon guys, be reasonable. The only civ knowing where our cap is is GS and they have no coastal cities and not even Sailing yet.
Others would still have to find us first and it's not like Galleons are right around the corner from now.

I cant seem to find a balance for acknowledging the threat from galleons then and the lack of a threat now. I was just saying that overall our capitol is extremely vulnerable to naval attack whereas banana\GS are well inland. I dont see any real rush on getting a galley out if that clarifies my position

/ deleted contents /

Kata, its illegal to talk about things you have seen while not playing the official turn!
Next turn we can discuss about it. Until then, keep it for yourself

[binTravkin]

Umm, where did you get that?

[binTravkin]

We should initiate talks about GS about what they're researching now. Our and theirs research interests should be quite similar for this time period, for that matter if we can get them do Calendar or Feudalism and later trade for any of those, would be excellent.

I think a chat is needed - diplo messages seem to ineffective.

[Kataphraktoi]

That was legit, but whatever
That was a estimate i made turns ago!

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by binTravkin
How about attempting a Guilds->Banking move whereas GS researches Feudalism for us and exchanges for Machinery?

Could you please tell why this would be better ?

There was +/- consensus the next techs to focus on were :
Code Of Laws -> Civil Service
Calendar
Compass -> Optics


Suddenly you come up with 2 completely different techs without telling why you think that would be better. There will need to be very clear advantages before I change my vote away from the naval stuff.

[binTravkin]

Pace down PJay, it's just a proposal.
Now for the benefits:

1.Guilds
- Grocer could be useful
- knights are nice

2.Banking
- mercantilism very early -> an extra engineer (+2h +3b) in each of our cities!
- banks

3.Gunpowder
- having it we're quite safe from the other continent

4.Engineering
- +1 road movement
- Hagia Sophia

5.Chemistry
- Frigates (!!!)
- Grenadiers

6.Steel
- Ironclads
- Cannons
- Drydocks

Each of the techs in the b-line has it's benefits of course and some are rather good.

The Compass->Optics b-line doesn't seem so good as it only gives Caravels to us and little more.

But the whole idea under this is to have +economy improvements.
Why can be explained by a single example - let's imagine Beijing has 60commerce/turn by the time we arrive there, which is easily doable as it has 30+ now already and growing.
Now, if we had +100% gold there and were running 50/50, we'd be having +60g per turn. With courthouses in the old cities that is enough to support 5 new cities.
And that is only for Beijing (and without Bureaucracy ), Hong Kong is likely to have very similar gold figures soon and other coastal cities will be no weaklings either.
Also, bear in mind that with Mercantilism + GL + Currency those new cities are gonna bring in +8 commerce/turn (3 of which will be raw beakers), kinda paying for the expansion.

In short - ICS 2.0!


The counter arguments is that the tech allocation will be low, and it's the most serious of all arguments I think and even then, while having twice as much cities as your enemy, you don't worry about running 50/50 while he runs 100/0.
Plus to that you can have twice as much troops.


Now I'm not saying we should drop anything and go ICS crazy right away, but:
1.Compass->Optics should be thought twice of - it's rather expensive (1300+ b) together and it might not be worth it right now.
2.We should engage in heavy talking with GS ASAP and try to persuade them into researching either Calendar (which I doubt they will as they don't have happiness problems) or Feudalism (which they might as well be doing already, given their military focus of late)
3.Meanwhile we should continue on the very good and well established CoL->CS path and when we finish it see if we can get Calendar somewhere or probably skip it if we don't feel a real need for it at the time and attempt either the Optics move alone or the Guilds move in cooperation with GS (here much depends on their willingness to coop, which we should do the best to improve).