900 BC The First Step To Enlightenment

[binTravkin]

Events:

- obtained Maths
- obtained Archery
- Oracle has been built!
- Imhotep has been born in Beijing!
- scout visits the iron hill and discovers a GS scout on the next hill right SE, GS - to sea river in sight.

Sightings:
- noone has Judaism yet, we can have it at the next endturn.
- noone has Pyramids yet, we can have it at the next endturn.

Misc:
- Axe moved SW, to probably reveal more fog and to set up a patrol for barbarian disturbance - it's not needed right atm at the city site anyway.

Proposals for next turn:
- land the Engineer as worker for 2 turns, we need growth before we start on Settler.

[-SafaN-]

/me mutters in a "the mummy"-zombie sound

Imhoteb Imhoteb Imhoteb

i feel the tension rise

[binTravkin]

The shot of GS scout healing on the hill.

On the other side, I checked how long it takes to land next to 2nd Banana city - 7 turns, 4 more to actually take it (we should be able to do it in a single assault).

The plan could be to build 3 galleys (IIRC 50 hammers or one chop + 2 turns production each), load 6 troops (say ax, sword and 4 chukos) on it and go.
I think we should even pull it off with 4 units, 3 of which chukos.

[Lacero]

Nice score

[binTravkin]

And it's only going to get bigger

[Impaler[WrG]]

BOYA!! Watch out world here we come

Were going to have to plan the details of the attack plans, I'd sumarize a few of the potential plans

Operation Banana Peel: Our earlies plans for an all out rapid blitz on Bananas, conducted in an over land fashion along a road we will be building, one stack will move towards their capitol and a follow up will take the southern city. The third city would then be an easy mop up. Only one city is likely to be kept the others being burned.

Operation Desiccation: A fully Storm oriented assault conducted by either a massive landing on their undefended coast or a two pronged attack utilizing an overland force that would move into Vox territory and combine with their army to create a two front attack.

Hybrid plans are also likley, BT seems to be in favor of a navel landing of Bananas southern city with that force then continuing to sail south to bolster Vox's defenses. Meanwhile a second force blocks any counter attack from Bananas and a third force is built for a landing on Storms coast.

Clearly the rate at which we can build Galleys in the Capitol will be critical, the more we can re-use them the better, Galleys are most important for passing through the Panama-like neck ware jungles force everything to a crawl. Most of the space between us and the southern Banana city could be roaded to achieve comparable overland speeds and reducing demands on our Navel transport pool. The Capitol still has to finish the Colossus a Settler and a lighthouse so we can begin raking in commerce. It looks like the Great Lighthouse will be on hold for the foreseeable future as well.

[PJayTycy]

Re: 900 BC The First Step To Enlightenment

Originally posted by binTravkin
Events:

- obtained Maths
- obtained Archery
- Oracle has been built!
- Imhotep has been born in Beijing!
- scout visits the iron hill and discovers a GS scout on the next hill right SE, GS - to sea river in sight.

Sightings:
- noone has Judaism yet, we can have it at the next endturn.
- noone has Pyramids yet, we can have it at the next endturn.

Misc:
- Axe moved SW, to probably reveal more fog and to set up a patrol for barbarian disturbance - it's not needed right atm at the city site anyway.

So, next turn we'll have machinery too (due to free tech from Oracle) ?

Proposals for next turn:
- land the Engineer as worker for 2 turns, we need growth before we start on Settler.

Why exactly ? Weren't we planning to use the GE for the pyramids ?

[binTravkin]

Why exactly ? Weren't we planning to use the GE for the pyramids ?

The engineer, not Imhotep

So, next turn we'll have machinery too (due to free tech from Oracle) ?

No doubt!

Operation Banana Peel: Our earlies plans for an all out rapid blitz on Bananas, conducted in an over land fashion along a road we will be building, one stack will move towards their capitol and a follow up will take the southern city. The third city would then be an easy mop up. Only one city is likely to be kept the others being burned.

Operation Desiccation: A fully Storm oriented assault conducted by either a massive landing on their undefended coast or a two pronged attack utilizing an overland force that would move into Vox territory and combine with their army to create a two front attack.

Hybrid plans are also likley, BT seems to be in favor of a navel landing of Bananas southern city with that force then continuing to sail south to bolster Vox's defenses. Meanwhile a second force blocks any counter attack from Bananas and a third force is built for a landing on Storms coast.

Clearly the rate at which we can build Galleys in the Capitol will be critical, the more we can re-use them the better, Galleys are most important for passing through the Panama-like neck ware jungles force everything to a crawl. Most of the space between us and the southern Banana city could be roaded to achieve comparable overland speeds and reducing demands on our Navel transport pool. The Capitol still has to finish the Colossus a Settler and a lighthouse so we can begin raking in commerce. It looks like the Great Lighthouse will be on hold for the foreseeable future as well.

I'd propose Operation Silver Nitrate, as Impaler dubbed it already:

The facts:
- it takes 7 turns to sail from Beijing to the point form which we can land and attack Banana southern city, 4 more turns to take that city.
- it takes 10+ turns to get to the Banana capital
- we can build at least 2 galleys by chopping in Beijing
- we can make our chukonu builds interlapped, so that they are only finished in consecutive turns (almost finish first chukonu, start on second, then finish them both in 2 turns)

The plan:
1. Build chukonus so that they only notice them 2 turns before they are loaded into galleys, we can build galleys that way too, but wont be much diference.


1a. On diplomatic front, we resume contact with Bananas, arrange a tech deal for Monarchy and are somewhat warmer in overall, as they helped us obtain Oracle.


2. Load chukos onto galleys and sail as fast as we can to take Banana second city. If Bananas will be alerted, they will think we'll run at their capital first, even if they get to know our plans (extremely unlikely), they will need to produce 4 archers in 10 turns in that city - a feat they're unlikely to achieve, especially as they even dont have Hunting for now (but this can change, if GS trades it and Archery to them while we build up).


2a. we could make a feint by building a scout and sending it to scout the outskirts of capital. It must be visible enough for them to get at least a bit suspicious. Scout should be then built next turn in Tassagrad. We could also use axe here, but that would look too suspicious or even dumb.


3. While galleys travel, we build up yet more troops (we should be producing 1 chuko per 4 turns in each Xian and Tassagrad without chops) and commit two of our workers to lightning-build the road up to Banana capital, once we declare war, all these troops run towards Banana capital. We could use at least one of our existing axes too - garrison duty isn't so important in Tassagrad and Xian.


4.We land, on next turn dow and move in their territory, second wave arrives at capitals' borders ~10 turns later.
We will likely need prolonged siege to take capital.


5.Our southern troops having taken the city leave 1 troop as garrison (likely to attract attention as easy target) and move south. 2-3 chukonus should be enough to hold GS out for some 5-10 turns more. Meanwhile our galleys would be returning home too, we can load more troops on them and come back south with more reinforcements in around 10 turns.


The cons:
- we might not take the capital in first strike, as there will be more buildup done, but I think 5-6 troops, 4 of which chukos (but we could actually build 6 if we commit Beijing to the task too, leaving GL for later) should be enough to take it on 2nd turn at least.
- plan is less beneficial to Vox, but I think with additional 3 chukos and all the useful tech we can give them they should be doing just fine for a while (10-15 turns while the second wave of reinforcements arrives).

[PJayTycy]

What defense do you expect in the southern banana city, taking into account cultural, terrain and units defense bonus (add 3 archers if they are alerted on time) ?

How many chuko's (with 2 optimal promotions) would we need there for atleast 75% chance of taking it ?

Also, roads in foreign territory don't count as road, so it's only usefull to build up roads to their border, not beyond it.

[binTravkin]

What defense do you expect in the southern banana city, taking into account cultural, terrain and units defense bonus (add 3 archers if they are alerted on time) ?

I think there's one warrior there now.
Being alerted most we can expect is 1 warrior + 5 archers, but I doubt it'll be more than 1 + 2.
Thing is they'll most likely attempt to ship at least some archers north to defend capital.

How many chuko's (with 2 optimal promotions) would we need there for atleast 75% chance of taking it ?

We'll have only one promotion when we get there, so it's like
6 * 1.1(combat) vs 3 * (1 + 0.5(city) + 0.25(fortified) + 0.4(culture max))
6.6 vs 6.45 -> the worst possible odds

Which means we can take that city in the first turn if we manage to have equal count of attackers as there are defenders. Second turn aint that bad too - they wont be able to bring in more reinforcements quickly enough.
As we're planning to have 4, I think it'll be more than enough.

We could also mix in a sword, but if they have any axes, he aint gonna achieve much, while chukonu is going to achieve double vs ax.

Also, roads in foreign territory don't count as road, so it's only usefull to build up roads to their border, not beyond it.

Yes, and we should do that, it will help our troops to traverse that distance much quicker. I think it's some 7 turns on road until Banana territory and 5 more turns while we get to capital.

[PJayTycy]

foreign intelligence :

Gathering Storm :
second city grew from pop 3 to 4 (+6 points)
received alphabet from us (era2 tech:+13 points)

[Impaler[WrG]]

Lets do a full Intel calculation of the total power score of both Storm and Bananas. We know their Techs and when they hit them so we can factor those out of the score to get the Units and buildings and do some rough calculations of the total size of their military.

I'm looking at creating an operational travel distance map essentially connection various key 'node' tiles that would be likely paths for southward movement. This can help us get an idea how long an Attack on Strom will take to move into position.

I don't think we will be able to completely eliminate both Storm and Bananas before we have Catapults. We can at best conquer Bananas outright, Protect Vox and Cripple Storm by burning down all their precious floodplain Hamlets and Villages and perhaps taking one city which will put them back on Research enough that we can easily beat them with Feudal units if necessary.

P.S. I got it backwards Silver Nitrate is supposed to cause rain, a powdered gelatin like desiccant is drooped into clouds to suck the water from the air thus operation Dessication (its got a nice ring as well). The plan BT proposes is a Hybrid.

[binTravkin]

I could create that map today eve/2moro morning.

I don't think we will be able to completely eliminate both Storm and Bananas before we have Catapults.

I think we should trade Construction from GS before we commit to war. It's certainly possible as their ETA for the tech must be ~15-17 turns.

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Lets do a full Intel calculation of the total power score of both Storm and Bananas. We know their Techs and when they hit them so we can factor those out of the score to get the Units and buildings and do some rough calculations of the total size of their military.

I'm working on that. I'm already finished with the population power for AC, GS, Vox and Banana. Tech-power for Banana and AC is finished too. For GS and Vox, not all techs are filled out in the foreign intelligence yet. If somebody can help me to try to fill in the ?'s in the tech discovered items for GS and Vox, please post your thoughts about which techs were discovered when here.

[binTravkin]

I'll check if I can deduct that from the gnp graphs (gnp sum for the tech research period), but that will be in the evening.
Also, let's hang around in #ac when we can.