Strategic directions - long-term planning

[Fintourist]

Assuming we stick with our plan to go into war with Germans we need mobility in enemy lands and thus I prefer the following tech order:

1. MC (forges)
2. HBR (Stables + Elephants)
3. Machinery
4. Feudalism
5. Guilds
6. Alphabet (let's produce a spy or two for war purposes)

If we get the GS (or are about to get) for Printing Press bulb we can always finish Alphabet in a turn. I know that Alphabet is a cheap tech, but do we really need it yet? It lets us see what techs our opponents have, but it also works vice versa. I doubt we are going to be building Reseach and I see no real use for the spies before our war actually starts. I would rather be able to build knights one turn earlier (we don't know yet whether that's the case).

If we are happy with settling our own backlines and skipping the war (or just capturing couple of German border cities):
We can delay Guilds and go for Engineering. Just taking couple of easy cities and leaving WPC again in a stalemate is not a terrible option, but of course a decisive strike...

[pindicator]

My aversion to Guilds is a matter of timing. We're attacking circa t150, correct? (And if i'm wrong on that then throw this whole point out.)So could we get Guilds and have knights ready by then? Or would they come early enough in a war to make a difference? Or would we delay an attack to wait for them? If these answers are No, then I would stress PP ahead of Guilds. If yes, then Knights ahoy!

[kjn]

We really need a decisive strike, preferably knocking the Germans out of the game in one go.

First, a quick decisive war that eliminates a player will lessen the diplomatic impact of the war. As long as the Germans are in the game, they can work against us diplomatically. Granted, they had everyone against them at the start, but they might have managed to pick up their game there lately, just as they did with their execution later on.

Second, all the border cities will be culturally crushed for quite some time. We can pretty much assume that every German city up to their most recent ones (say from Warendorf forward) will be at third-ring borders, and their cities are close together.

Third, leaving the war early will mean that we first backstab the Germans, and then leave WPC out to dry. That's pissing off two teams and leaving them to tell about it.

[Fintourist]

With the direct beeline and current tech speed we need very roughly 5600/325 = 17 turns to reach guilds. But of course we are improving all the time and spend a good while in Golden Age (fingers crossed) so my rough ETA for guilds is... T144.

So yeah, maybe we want to delay the start of the war by some turns, but if we beeline Guilds we will get knights on field in time.

[Shoot the Moon]

In other words Metal Casting->Machinery->Alphabet->PP (part-bulbed)->Feudalism->Guilds.

I like this tech path. We want knights. Having Machinery soon, before other people may also dissuade them from trying for ND.

Kalin

I like this path as well, although I would slip HBR in before Feud and Guilds. We need that for knights obviously, but if we want to use knights we need stables in at least a couple cities so it makes sense to slip that in earlier to get those up.

The other option I see would be to cut out the entire guilds line and research gunpowder instead of feud, guilds and HBR. It's cheaper, and while knights are indeed better for war, I'm not sure the difference between knights and drafted muskets will make much of a difference in a war against the Germans (and no one is going to be able to attack us for ages if we have muskets, so I don't see a war in which the difference is important starting anytime soon). We could then go to engineering and immediately start on the communism beeline. That tech patch would also likely get us engineering early enough to both land ND and get a military unit in time for our impending war.

[kalin]

I think the value of knights is not as much in the strength as in the two moves. The difference between maces and muskets on offence is not that great given that maces can take city raider promos. Other than that I agree that HBR is needed obviously not only for knights but for elephants as well of which we'd want some.

Kalin

[Ubercannon]

I think the value of knights is not as much in the strength as in the two moves. The difference between maces and muskets on offence is not that great given that maces can take city raider promos. Other than that I agree that HBR is needed obviously not only for knights but for elephants as well of which we'd want some.

Kalin

That's true but it may not be applicable in this case. We won't have time to build too many knights if we invade at turn 150. We can't just send out a small stack of knights, because the Germans could just mob them with spears, and we'll rob ably want siege support to break through city walls anyway. So the knights will mostly be stuck walking along with the 1-mover stacks.

I'm sure we'll find a few situations where knights are useful, I just don't think they're good enough to justify bee lining two expensive military techs when we can 1 pop draft mace men instead, against an opponent that will be using ancient era units.

[kalin]

Even a small stack of knights (say 6), can fork cities forcing the opponent to guard them better. However, I am not involved enough in the micro to be able to comment authoritatively.

Kalin

[Speaker]

I think the value of knights is not as much in the strength as in the two moves. The difference between maces and muskets on offence is not that great given that maces can take city raider promos. Other than that I agree that HBR is needed obviously not only for knights but for elephants as well of which we'd want some.

Kalin

That's true but it may not be applicable in this case. We won't have time to build too many knights if we invade at turn 150. We can't just send out a small stack of knights, because the Germans could just mob them with spears, and we'll rob ably want siege support to break through city walls anyway. So the knights will mostly be stuck walking along with the 1-mover stacks.

I'm sure we'll find a few situations where knights are useful, I just don't think they're good enough to justify bee lining two expensive military techs when we can 1 pop draft mace men instead, against an opponent that will be using ancient era units.

How many spears does it take to kill 5 Knights? They would have to keep that many units out of their front city just to deal with a small second stack of fast movers. Remember that drafted Macemen are pretty weak since they do not get city raider II. They are good for cleaning up, but bad at killing top level defenders. 10-strength Knights with two-promotions are great at that, and they are especially good at rushing up the line after capturing a city and threatening another city that was previously safe.

[Ubercannon]

I think the value of knights is not as much in the strength as in the two moves. The difference between maces and muskets on offence is not that great given that maces can take city raider promos. Other than that I agree that HBR is needed obviously not only for knights but for elephants as well of which we'd want some.

Kalin

That's true but it may not be applicable in this case. We won't have time to build too many knights if we invade at turn 150. We can't just send out a small stack of knights, because the Germans could just mob them with spears, and we'll rob ably want siege support to break through city walls anyway. So the knights will mostly be stuck walking along with the 1-mover stacks.

I'm sure we'll find a few situations where knights are useful, I just don't think they're good enough to justify bee lining two expensive military techs when we can 1 pop draft mace men instead, against an opponent that will be using ancient era units.

How many spears does it take to kill 5 Knights? They would have to keep that many units out of their front city just to deal with a small second stack of fast movers. Remember that drafted Macemen are pretty weak since they do not get city raider II. They are good for cleaning up, but bad at killing top level defenders. 10-strength Knights with two-promotions are great at that, and they are especially good at rushing up the line after capturing a city and threatening another city that was previously safe.

Well to kill 5 knights in the open would require about 10 spears (or less if they use cats). To just defend a walled city against a forking attack would require 5. So each knight would only pull away 1 additional unit, while costing almost as much as 2 catapults. And with overwhelming numbers, we could just split the stack and go after the other city with 1 movers, too.

Their "top level defenders" will only be axemen or archers, weakened by catapult collateral. Mace men will chew through those easily, even without promos. And they'll gain promos as they go, so even if the Germans do tech feudalism late in the war, we could have city raider 2 or 3 by then.