[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

I spent a bit of time sorting out a spreadsheet to plan the attack force:

Essentially by EOT126 we get:
Unpromoted:
8 Knight
1 Galley
1 Xbow
2 Cat
1 Archer

3XP:
3 Mace
1 HA
1 Knight

5XP:
3 Knight
2 HA

To add to our existing force of 5 HA, 3 Chariots, a handful of axes and very few spears. All but one of the knights can get to the staging post t128, so t129 can be our attack date, by which time the closer cities could whip some more units. If we get Engineering eot 127 then we could probably attack t128...

The best thing about this is that our power goes up very little before we attack - I think graphs are delayed two or three turns, so Azza gets very little time to respond:
t122 - 15000
t123 - 8000
t124 - 5000
t125 - 47000
t126 - 70000

What do you guys think of the force mix? I suspect Azza has been building a few horse archers over the last few turns to add to his Axes...

Edit: Answers to Fintourist's city suggestions:

Lots of micro comments for OH and some thoughts about the war. Spoilered for boringness, carry on casual lurkers!

Alfie (t121-t124):
I think the city should work the new grass hill cottage only once. Partly because we have tech on and adding a village would bring nice value, partly because the city will grow to size 15 in 4 turns with 6+6+6+5 food surplus combo

Will do.

Butterscotch:
I think we should change the build e.g. into HA. If Englbert's missionary heads for BS the city can 1-pop whip SA already with existing 55/90 hammers. 37-whip + 3 normal production mean that the city gets to 95/90 and those 5 overflow hammers will be rounded nicely to 4 base hammers

Done.

Cornelius:
If we don't whip anything here we should drop the grass mine and work 2 new cottages once the city reaches size 9. However, we probably want a decent unit out of the city so this does not matter. I think we could 1-pop whip a HA into auto-upgrading knight that does not complete and on the war declaration turn we 1-pop whip the city again and next turn complete the road S-SW of the city so that the knight can join our troops at Hello Joe once the city is captured

I want to get two maces and a spear out of Cornelius - hopefully it won't set the economic development back too far...

Daisy:
I like the axe pre-build We probably get a HA out of here before Guilds in time to pre-build another one.

I went back to the HA so as not to waste the Stable XP.

Englbert:
Another missionary + knight or HA + knight?

Mish + Knight please! I think OR is going to be valuable in the new cities especially.

Flossie:
You had a spear plan for the city right? This is another city that is visible to Azza so I think this city should also 1-pop whip a HA on the turn when Guilds comes in, but not finish it until the war declaration turn.

After (or before) building a Mace, yes.

Gertie:
Mostly in infra duties I guess, but the city has so much food surplus so let's squeeze a knight out of here via two 2-pop whips or something

Will do!

Hazelnut:
You have a worker 2W of the city on the forest, do you want the missionary from Englbert here instead of Buttescotch so that we get OR bonus for the chop into forge? Otherwise let's use the remaining two forests in the BFC for knights?

The forge is the last infra that H will build, so I think religion is more use in B.

Izzy:
Galley + knight/mace for our southern invasion?

I thought a crossbow after the galley might be handy... But that could be a knight instead.

Jelly Bean:
Another Missionary + knight?

Knight then mish...

Kirby:
Wants infra, but should probably produce a trireme on the turn we declare so that Azza can't pillage our nets.. Probably we need to squeeze another Missionary out of here as well! Whip hard! At least the city has nice food surplus and partially built SA to get rid of it..

I thought some Cats would be handy...

Lucky:
Maybe that Buddhist Missionary that we are about to start isn't that important. One monastery for Alfie might be enough for now, Grocer and Bank will be on Alfie's menu very soon. I left an in-game note/suggestion for archer-auto-upgrade-into-Lbow, but we could be even more aggressive and say screw defenses and get a knight out of here instead

Archer then Knight?

Marmalade:
The city want a library out for its GPP production, but I see that you already started a HA/knight, which is good.

Library and SA can start after the knight

Nina:
At least one knight out of here, maybe even HA+Knight?

HA+Knight sounds good to me.

Ophelia:
At least one knight

It's so far away and so poor at production... Also I don't really want to whip it before size seven, as all the tiles it works are three food...

Pickle:
Needs to squeeze a knight out as well

Didn't think about this one, but I'm sure it'll be possible.

Quentin:
Knight!

Should be doable.

"R", "S" & "T" are probably still too immature and can't contribute for the first wave of units and just focus on basic infra.

So that is ~15 knights + some other units that will be available when guilds comes in or soon after.

So maybe we attack at ~T130 with ~10 knights, ~5 HAs, 2 chariots + some other units in the north (with couple of knights following close behind) and with 2 galleys, 3 knights and 1 mace in the south? Possible upgrades are not factored in here, we can do a couple, but let's not spend a huge amount of gold unless it's really necessary..

We probably want to finish ~3 cats somewhere just before the attack too so that we have those available if we need to face Azza's big stack and they will be useful also in case he turtles somewhere.

Well, that's enough for now. As a reminder, immediate changes could make sense in Lucky and Butterscotch.

Including Pickle and Quentin we'll have 12 knights by eot 126, then we can get more for the main attack from Daisy, Gertie and maybe Cornelius and reinforcements from Hazelnut and Daisy.