The Gathering Storm war-plan

[Mart]

Good questions!

I would conquer GS at this time. We started it, let's finish it. The longer we wait the more difficult it would be later to take over continent.

I think that taking some cities now in GS - building government for lowering maintenance cost (Forbidden Palace, else...) is worth trying. Provided we can do it.

Re cost of war is how long can we afford it? Near extinction GS would not sign peace, I guess. So we would have to suffer war weariness. Pillaging first is a good idea. We damage their ability to build military - with slavery they will have some fast buildup initially. I would discover their forces well before committing to battles with large losses on our side, so we won't turn from aggressors to a prey.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Most improvements are easily replaceable, only their highly developed Towns built upon the rich floodplains around their capitol are really worth preserving. So the destruction of all farms and mines would be appropriate in either case. An argument can also be made that our Sea based commerce makes their Towns expendable and a full scale pillaging is wise even if we plan to capture them.

We should plug all of their know cities into our maintenance spread sheet and see what they would cost if we kept them. I'm personally thinking only the two original capitols will be worth keeping along with maybe one other city if it proves useful as a base of operations.

As for the goal I think I'd state it as reducing GS as much as possible without going into protracted "siege" warfare akin to what GS was doing to Vox. I think we should be turning back to Domestic production (Banks, Settlers & Courthouses) within 10 turns (which is still a huge mass of military production considering our output rate).

In 3-4 turns we should have an idea as to how much of a stand they are making in the next city, we can expect to be through that even if it is defended by 6 turns max. We will then have our choice of targets and I'd recommend we go right for the Jugular and take their capitol. We really need to have 2-3 Catapults to do this with any kind of reasonable losses as their culture will be strong their and they will certainly put the bulk of their defenses their, 6 or more Long Bowman is what we need to be ready for.

Their Capitol's got at least a third of their Hammer production capacity and probably half their Commerce so taking/razing or pillaging its surroundings would effectively knock them out of the game and ensure our eventual domination of the whole of this continent. I'd settle for that kind of 'slow' win but I'd much prefer the fast 'Banana' conquest if it looks like we can pull it off so still having an intact army after their Capitol falls is key to getting a fast mop-up.

[binTravkin]

The weaken variation of war is not very rewarding since we will have made quite a lot of investment by the time we get there in south.
Basically there will be a long row of units going south - if we pillage some and then say let's peace, we will have to upkeep all that army for little further purpose.
I think other aspects as well reduce rationality of pillage attack.

Regarding conquest - all cities that have something unique(religious center, academy) in them should be preserved.

Regarding the overall strategy I think we should take one city at a time and thus I would prefer Taz City->The Voice->GS core type of movement. That would allow us to concentrate our forces on the last part of the chain (since while one army takes on Voice, reinforcements will arrive) and not bog down fighting 3 cities (they are 2 moves away from each other).

[Mart]

we should get engineering to move faster on roads with catapults. I think it's worth it, what's the plan after guilds?

[PJayTycy]

We will have a great person in a few turns, it could be a GE, in which case we can use it to research engineering immediately.

[binTravkin]

Not really immediately, we will need at least 2 extra turns to finish it since it's like 1500 beakers.
In any case Guilds->Banking->Engineering would fit (especially if the GP is scientist or prophet, both of which will allow faster research).

[Kataphraktoi]

Pillaging never seems like a great option to me. On paper it looks good to kill cottages, in reality i find it has little effect on war capacity. short term if refarmed FP could even increase their war capacity by giving more whip ability. depending on their health\happy numbers.

In regards to war intent, for me it would be capturing their main cities and therefore eliminating their capacity to fight, then raze\capture any other cities. Primarily eliminating GS at any cost, but if at all possible seizing as much econ assets as possible. Just march in a straight line through their main cities and take them out. Ofcourse we will check combat calculators before attacking longbows? Though i think chuks will handle them with the collateral damage and all.

[binTravkin]

Chucks should be pretty fine with their 2 fp and collateral.
Also, most of our chucks have 2 Combat promotions and 2 have extra promotions (Cover an option), so at least the first longbows we meet should be in peril.

[binTravkin]

I had some thoughts about the current situation in the south and I think there is a way out of stalemate.

What we know about GS is that their defense is concentrated around the city I mistakenly labeled "Taz city" in the save (forgot it's actual name) with approximately half of their units being strictly defensive (5+ longbows) and the other half or a bit more being offensive (ellies/cats).
Our units on the other hand are all offensive except the upcoming pikemen.

Also, as we saw with the galley+knight example they are pretty willing to stretch their forces, e.g. longbow + skirm was moved unto that hill we landed earlier and 2 ellies were diverted to counter our 2 knights.
I think we also gave them a little bit of scare showing how vulnerable they are - we landed just 1 move away from their city.

What we need to do is leverage the fact that except for the ivory city most of the other territory is poorly defended and that they have little attack potential outside ivory city or they risk stretching themselves too much.

So my idea is to have 2 workers in the south who would continue to build the road along GS border from that hill where a single mace stands now.
Also, the current entrance-guarding stack should be reduced to minimum needed amount for resisting a GS attack there and some units like knights put in the rear to counter attack.
The other part of the stack would then travel to that hill/forest right south to it and sit there waiting for workers to finish more of that road.
We can then move on and continue the road south to The Voice, but the idea is to leverage our better road travelling speeds and get there before GS can relocate from ivory city or at least scare them enough (by quickly and suddenly moving all of our remaining troops by that road) to have them stretch enough to be able to turn and attack ivory city the turn after the feint maneuver.

[Hercules]

Now I have a better idea of what we are at.

[PJayTycy]

It's great you've spent the time to get up to speed Hercules !
Let's hope the turn restarts moving around a bit from now on...