AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[MindyMcCready]

yes, I'm thinking of gifitng azza a unit. Cornflakes will never know - Azza can make xbows and, presumably, has a lot.

Recommend against this. It won't affect anything and we need the units too bad. If he doesn't have enough defenders, the crossbow will just be doubled up on and killed. That's just no return on investment for us. If I absolutely had to support Azza, I'd rather feed him gold for upgrades.

I'd like Cornflakes to not be an enemy, but we've been feeding azza tech for sometime now , so more help is fine...

Ok. I'm on the fence about this one. Mixed feelings to be sure since Feudalism will be really obvious who it came from. More help will not be considered fine if it costs Cornflakes an invasion. In some ways we want Cornflakes to be strong enough to threaten Commodore. Like I said, mixed feelings on this one. Tough call.

I should be clear - I want to kill jowy I'm more worried about being able to do it.

We can take Horizon - we'll have 5 maces and a stack of LB/xbow. We'll can make 5-10 cats in the next set of turns.
We can hold Horizon - we'll have CG III LB.

Yay! This is a good start. We'll see how it goes after this.

Next turn, offer peace for Horizon and HBR. if he takes it, good. If he counters with HBR, we should consider it. If he counters with Horizon, take it. if he counters with straight up peace - I don't see why we should take that.

Hit Girl approved!

Settle the other GG in A-Team.

A Medic III GG will turn the recovery rate on a badly wounded unit from 6-7T to 2T.That massively reduces the number of units needed for an invasion and whether you're able to hold a city afterwards. This is the best investment that we can make if we're going on the offensive. You'll be able to attack almost immediately if you do this. And time is against us. In contrast, A-Team is a good city but doesn't have the HE and as our capital will want the most infrastructure possible. It'll won't be making units more than half the time.

I don't know where to settle - I think we should add another city over by SWAT, to bolster the defense against cornflakes. All those are fairly mediocre sites, however.

Well you know my feelings on SSSWWW LALaw. That's the main priority for me and the most likely spot that we lose if we make peace with Jowy or if his culture expands. That is our springboard the the rest of Jowy's empire. I certainly liked that other choke by Cornflakes, but I don't think that it can compare to the potential of taking Jowy's core cities.

I want knights, too, but Jowy is the worst guy to attack with knights. Ballista elephants will shred those guys - remember, no hiding behind pikes against Baliista Elephants.

Noted. But Knights aren't that bad, they get about 20% odds on comparable promotions I believe. And the ability to fork 2 cities means that Jowy has to further stretch his defenses. We'd only want use them in certain situations where we took down a city and then rush to the next unoccupied city. In that situation, they'd be very effective.

My main worries with your ideas are:

Size of forces needed.
Timeframes
Building a fort in what I think is a tile that Jowy currently owns.

Yes. Landing SSSWWW LALaw is a longer term prospect. We can't build a fort there for quite some time, but we should get cultural control of that tile in time. Get the city, defend the forest if at war and open up the future possibilities. Even without the fort, we can still fork Eden Prime and Horizon if we didn't manage to take it. It also allows us to fork Citadel and that south tundra city. Oh, and the peak means that we should be able to see inside his capital at all times.

On its own merits that's not a bad city. Its got 2 food resources and its got 3 lake tiles. It also has 1-3 forests if we can control them. We can get that up to speed pretty quick and it takes the pressure off of LALaw. And we can stack defend both Horizon and that city from a safe location.

[MindyMcCready]

Last thing about Knights and not gifting units and tech to Azza.

We should start making contingency invasion plans for Azza if we get this war with Jowy wrapped up. I don't have any good pics of Azza's land, but I think that we'd want to control it over having Cornflakes control it. Azza's going to have everything in place to defend against Cornflakes. We might get some easy wins in before Azza bites the bullet. This might not be a tasteful way to conduct diplomacy,...but it might be a military necessity.

You don't get diplo penalties against dead opponents like Azza's going to be or against a Cornflakes that you're pissing off anyway. At face value it's a great plan. What could go wrong?

Could you post intel on Azza's land?

[MindyMcCready]

We can take Horizon - we'll have 5 maces and a stack of LB/xbow. We'll can make 5-10 cats in the next set of turns.
We can hold Horizon - we'll have CG III LB.

Can we discuss in more detail what you have in mind? That stack left over from the Battle of the Fork is more than enough to cause Jowy serious headaches. That's 14 units in LALaw? 2 of them Pikes? If that's the case, then I'd say you move immediately to 1SE of Horizon or cows. He can't attack out with elephants and our Crossbows are healthy enough to defend. Leave the Chariot in LA since it can still attack from there once we've roaded.

Its not clear what your intentions are given that you mention 5-10 cats in the next set of turns.

He's been in Caste until recently. He hasn't had much time to whip, and his mfg isn't impressive. Don't give him time to walk whatever troops he has up to that city.

[AutomatedTeller]

The stack is, currently, 3 maces, 2 pikes, and assorted LB and xbow, plus a M1 chariot and it's healing in LA Law. There's a W3 dog near by and a new mace on it's way, plus a couple of cats.

I think they heal in 2 turns in a city, I'm not sure. I really don't want to send damaged units out without proper support or, you know... roads - we haven't repaired the road over the iron yet.

My plan is to heal, get a couple more cats and head out soon - I'd like to build a sentry chariot, as well, to get better info. Right now, healing makes sense, since it takes as long to move out without a road as it would to heal and wait for the road crew to come back.

Attack Horizon is 2-4 turns, depending on what he throws into it - I don't think he has much, though I think there's likely to be another elephant in there, soon.

[AutomatedTeller]

My thoughts for cities:

All military, all the time:

NYPDBlue
LA Law
SWAT

Workers, Workers, Workers:
NCIS
Magnum, PI

Builidng stuff that can make GP:

CHiPs

Generalist (whatever is needed):

A-Team
MASH
V
The OC

Naval:

BJ and the Bear
The new one I plopped up at Mindy's Moai - we have to figure out which of these is Moai. I am not sure.

[MindyMcCready]

The stack is, currently, 3 maces, 2 pikes, and assorted LB and xbow, plus a M1 chariot and it's healing in LA Law. There's a W3 dog near by and a new mace on it's way, plus a couple of cats.

I think they heal in 2 turns in a city, I'm not sure. I really don't want to send damaged units out without proper support or, you know... roads - we haven't repaired the road over the iron yet.

My plan is to heal, get a couple more cats and head out soon - I'd like to build a sentry chariot, as well, to get better info. Right now, healing makes sense, since it takes as long to move out without a road as it would to heal and wait for the road crew to come back.

Attack Horizon is 2-4 turns, depending on what he throws into it - I don't think he has much, though I think there's likely to be another elephant in there, soon.

We can't road 1T the road on the the iron? If we can, you should reconsider.
-He's got to be gunning for defensive military tech --> Longbows. If he gets that tech its going to shut down our invasion real fast. 2-4 turns could mean that we're shut out of an easy win.
-Last you posted he had a warrior (?) and an elephant in there. Unless he's baiting us, 2 pikes will take that city. Given that he's been in caste he's probably not baiting us. Jowy really believed that he'd just smash us to pieces otherwise he never would have made a run at us. If we counter attack with speed we can take advantage of his miscalculation.
-Let's say that he gets 1 axe + 1 ele + 1 warrior in there. That would only cost us 1 pike to take the city. Pike (CR?) dies to axe, pike kills elephant, Crossbows clean up. This is an excellent return on existing investment.

MOST IMPORTANT: If I'm somewhat wrong and he gets 2 more axes in there (or whatever) we should still be able to retreat if need be. He's not going to be able to attack out against 2 pikes and crossbows with his elephants and axes.

Only if I'm hugely wrong and he has a solid stack in the fog could this be any type of disaster. But he won't have a stack in the fog. He sent everything that he had at us; he left 1 defender in his capital; his border city was/is wide open; he's been in caste until recently and has sucky production; he has to continue to defend against Commodore and TT.

[MindyMcCready]

My thoughts for cities:

All military, all the time:

NYPDBlue
LA Law
SWAT

Workers, Workers, Workers:
NCIS
Magnum, PI

Builidng stuff that can make GP:

CHiPs

Generalist (whatever is needed):

A-Team
MASH
V
The OC

Naval:

BJ and the Bear
The new one I plopped up at Mindy's Moai - we have to figure out which of these is Moai. I am not sure.

No real objections here except to say that if we have military objectives, we should stay 100% (or close) on military until our objectives are accomplished (or our objectives change). Whether its my own games in SP or lurking others MP, dedication to an objective is the key to success. I've played SP where I was half dedicated to war and its very difficult to make strong progress unless you have substantial advantages. Check out PB8 Commodore vs Scooter for an MP example of what a focus (or lack of focus on Scooter's part) can do to your chances at war.

I fully expect Jowy to fall victim to a lack of focus on military. That he switched to caste means that he was probably in builder mode that whole time after initiating a war. He *wants* to be in builder mode to catch up after that disaster. Unless you've seen nationwide city whips he's not taking an invasion from us seriously. I think that we should exploit this as soon as possible.

Obviously cities like Mindy's Moai cannot contribute in any meaningful way.

On my head be it. This is your chance to get an easy city from Jowy or at least a solid "told you so" on me.

[AutomatedTeller]

Civstats shows a 3 pop whip and a 1 pop whip this turn from jowy...

We might be able to 1 turn a road next turn - I don't know. I think our workers aren't in position to right now. ok - looked at it. We can get two workers down there - I moved one to farm and it's one tile away. That said, we can road the plains tile SW of LA Law, which he doesn't have visibility on, and then show up in force in 2 turns. I kind of like the idea, honestly. It has panache. I wish I hadn't moved the 3rd worker the way I did, or we could show up right away.

I'm sure he is all in for feudalism, but I'm guessing he's 15-20 turns away. I mean, it took us 7-10 turns to get it, and we get something like 50 commerce from FOOD sources.

he's going to have a 2nd elephant up there soon - he built one in his cap recently.

that said - I'll look when I play tonight - maybe we can get there quickly, I don't know.

the Pikes are C1. 6.6 on 8.5 (axe + 20% city)? Might not hurt it enough for the pike to attack the elephant - we'll see. Heck, an archer might be enough to keep the pike from attacking the elephant and he can whip those.


the reason NCIS and MAgnum PI are on workers is that they really can't contribute to military, since they have no hammers other than the city one - but they have food. And the workers will, indirectly, help our military, since we can make improvements.

[MindyMcCready]

Civstats shows a 3 pop whip and a 1 pop whip this turn from jowy...

We might be able to 1 turn a road next turn - I don't know. I think our workers aren't in position to right now. ok - looked at it. We can get two workers down there - I moved one to farm and it's one tile away. That said, we can road the plains tile SW of LA Law, which he doesn't have visibility on, and then show up in force in 2 turns. I kind of like the idea, honestly. It has panache. I wish I hadn't moved the 3rd worker the way I did, or we could show up right away.

I'm sure he is all in for feudalism, but I'm guessing he's 15-20 turns away. I mean, it took us 7-10 turns to get it, and we get something like 50 commerce from FOOD sources.

he's going to have a 2nd elephant up there soon - he built one in his cap recently.

that said - I'll look when I play tonight - maybe we can get there quickly, I don't know.

the Pikes are C1. 6.6 on 8.5 (axe + 20% city)? Might not hurt it enough for the pike to attack the elephant - we'll see. Heck, an archer might be enough to keep the pike from attacking the elephant and he can whip those.


the reason NCIS and MAgnum PI are on workers is that they really can't contribute to military, since they have no hammers other than the city one - but they have food. And the workers will, indirectly, help our military, since we can make improvements.

OK! Great! I like that plan too! So exciting!

Another attack option might be 2 crossbows to soften Elephant + archer then send in the chariot to take out a defending axe.

15-20 Turns for Feudalism! I was thinking that we might have 5-8 turns that's why I was rushing. We'll play it by ear of course, but we might have his capital by then.

Regarding the workers SW of LALaw. I took a second looks at this and I'm not sure that its a good idea. Jowy may yet show up with horse archers if not chariots, so we'd have to cover with units presumably pikes. But whatever units we use won't be able to make it to the battle in time unless you have a fourth worker in range.

Please double check that this move will definately work without putting our workers at risk.

[AutomatedTeller]

I'll have to do some analysis - I think we can assume he didn't start it until after his attack - I can't imagine he thought he needed to defend, perhaps until the time I killed his stack.

I would be shocked if he showed up with LB anytime soon, though. And if he can, well, more power to him.