ELECTION: Minister of Defense

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Ive played enough SAP games to know that until you either find a diplomatic civ, you exchange maps on the turn you meet them or you pay them tribute for a long time you wont get their map for a very very long time as long as theyre more powerful.

That's funny, 'cause I've played SAP a lot as well and I know they *will* give their maps in exchange for a small gift of gold... as long as you don't piss them off in any way.

Having their map would little change our goal anyway, if we were nice to them for a long time just to get their map they would be even more powerful than they are now, what good would a map do us then...

A map tells us if they're powerfull at all (maybe they only have 2 cities and both in very low-production area? maybe they have 6 already in high-production areas and also already have a size 4 army of archers and hoplites roaming around?) and where to strike. And since I'm pretty much certain that we *will* get the map within 2 turns (1 turns to give gold, one to ask for the map), it will prove *very* valuable, regardless of what course we follow.

[Dinner]

someone should post a picture of the various graphs. That way we can see exactly how powerful we are in relation to the Austrians. Tech & Military maps are the two most important.

[Locutus]

Someone already did

[Turambar]

Having their map would little change our goal anyway,

Actually it would give us a goal. The first rule of any military campaign is to know your enemy! We know next to nothing about them.

Their map will show us how many cities they have, where they are, how big they are, what terrain they've built on and how many units they have out exploring etc.

It'll allow us to gauge their strength and may show where their weak points are. It'll give us a choice of targets to strike at!

Entering a war with them blind is a very bad idea IMO.

how would you try to get their map. (Being friendly by every price or using threats if necessary.)

I agree with Locutus that a small gift of gold will be enough to get their map from them.

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Turambar

Entering a war with them blind is a very bad idea IMO.

Of course, a blind fight, is a terible idea , but I don't think that anybody is suggesting such a thing... From what I can tell about the two candidates, they basically believe the same general strategy. The only difference that I'm seeing is that Turambar would prefer to focus primarilly on Defence while Maquiladora is primarily focused on offence. The latter is the best choice when dealing with the frenzy AI. One should try to weazel their map from them through diplomatic means, and almost immediately (assuming we have 3 or 4 fairly productive cities, ie the ability to pump out a military) attack there silly a$$es. Now I certainly don't believe that anyone would be foolish enough to leave our cities unguarded, but with the frenzy AI, the best choice is a preemptive strike... knock them out early. As the old saying goes, the best defence is a strong offence, this is espescially true against the frenzy AI.

[Ãskallin]

We don't have that gold!
And besides we should be using our gold to rush buy settler or a warrior

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Ãskallin
We don't have that gold!
And besides we should be using our gold to rush buy settler or a warrior

Agreed.

[Turambar]

Turambar would prefer to focus primarilly on Defence

Again no. I said that attacking with all our force now would leave us defenseless.

What I want to do is to basically turn Lemur City into a Warrior factory from now on. Get their map, scout about to find huts and once we feel we've enough warriors attack and take their weakest cities.

At the end of the day though it will be the people's decision on when and how to attack them and I shall respect that.

[H Tower]

everyone agrees that our main focus is on the austrians, but what do the candidates plan to do about further exploration?
How many military units would you spare?

Describe your ideal build order.

We started with Warior-> Warrior->???
Go on for another few units.

[Turambar]

but what do the candidates plan to do about further exploration?

We use the current warriors we have to look for goody huts in the unexplored areas away from Austria (as we'll have their map hopefully).

Describe your ideal build order.

We started with Warior-> Warrior->???

->Warrrior-> Warrior-> Warrior-> Warrior ->.......

I 've tried out a few similar situations on SAP to ours like iskallin has done and found (like he did) that building a settler now is a very bad idea. Whilst building it the Austrians would just get stronger and by the time it's built the area would be crawling with Barbs.

We just need to churn out warriors for now and then go get some Austrian cities. Making sure we take their newer cities which will be less well defended than their first few which would mostly likely have 1 / 2 Hoplite and an Archer defending.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by H Tower
everyone agrees that our main focus is on the austrians, but what do the candidates plan to do about further exploration?
How many military units would you spare?

Describe your ideal build order.

We started with Warior-> Warrior->???
Go on for another few units.

Well i would explore the surrounding area with the existing warrior while building one more warrior, fortify the new warrior on the river either side of the capital in a strong position (to stop quick routes for barbs) making sure the vision range covers as much land as possible outwards.

Then i would build a settler, place that city and build only units until the Austrians were crippled enough not to fight back. We could realistically have 12+ units in 40-50 turns after the 2nd city, it would take twice that with only one city. Yes we could build units then instead of that settler, but one city wont be enough support while we're in the middle of a war.

[Turambar]

As Locutus mentioned in another thread our city will soon go up in size meaning we can produce a warrior every 4 turns.

This means that in about 25 turns we'll have a total of 8 warriors.

That would allow us to send 6 warriors to attack (two to defend) one of the Austrians more recently built and less well defended cities. Whilst on the march there more units would still be produced to send to reinforce the army.

Thus in 30+ turns we have two cities (both producing warriors), an army with reinforcements constantly on the way, the Austrians down a city and we can go on from there taking out their weakest cities and building up our strength.

If we wait to build a settler we may find ourselves surrounded by barbs / other civs with nowhere to go.

But of course the citizens will decide when to attack with how much force.

[Maquiladora]

Youd be surprised how many warriors it takes to kill a couple of hoplites and an archer. I say we build our own 2 cities first.

[Turambar]

Youd be surprised how many warriors it takes to kill a couple of hoplites and an archer.

Not really as I was playing a few games on SAP today and 6 warriors is plenty believe it or not.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

well, i was so sure to vote for turambar, and now on page 3 i'm more for maq. will have to wait a little more to decide though actually i don't think the MoD job is to decide about settlers, only the wise use of what warunits the senate (i know we don't have that ) gives him.