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

[MindyMcCready]

he will not see us.

Visibllty rules are basically: You can see the next tile from flat. you can see two tiles from hills, except over hills. You can see two tiles from mountains, even over hills). With Optics (which we have) you can see two tiles over water.

Jowy can see our borders - he cannot see into them, though.

And yes - I'm moving another mace over there and another LB - actually, i may delay the attack by an additional turn - we can get a GIII LB, instead of a CG II LB, in there, and the G3 LB is better on attack. then we can go back and pick up the CG II LB and another mace (which will be shock instead of CII cause I'm an idiot)

the nice thing about a 1 galley attack on Noveria is that it's easy to abort without Jowy even knowing it was there. By now, the trireme is just part of his life down there. For him to reinforce Noveria with anything that could hold off a mace and a LB is kind of nuts. I'm completely sure we can take it, short of him getting feudalism out of nowhere.

Excellent. Yeah, my SP gaming, where the AI sees 3 tiles away or whatever and has uniform defense, means I'm a little weak on the visibility rules. Thanks for clarifying.

Ohhhhh, G3 LB's a good move too. You could rip up the roads, cut that mine, or even take down an elephant with reasonable odds right next to his capital. Nice.

Oh yes, and I think that Noveria's probably only +2 f so he's unlikely to be able to whip much of a defense now that its half size. Makes quite a few hammers though so that'll set Jowy back. Yay!

[AutomatedTeller]

so, it looks like we'll have some time - I wanted to talk about Moai.

We have 2 sites that are obvious candidates: BJ and the bear and Quincy, ME.

BJ has an extra 4 food (sheep and whales), plus 2 farms that can be +6. it also has 4 hammers from horse and whales, plus 1 for a irrigated plains.

Quincy has 5 extra food (2 for the rice, 3 for clams), plus farms, plus it has 3 forests and a hill (which cuts it's food by one). The forests are the big thing - if we can trade for stone and put buddhism there, that's basically Moai - 202 hammers out of 250. that said, that's also not 200 hammers being used for other infrastructure (like a granary, barracks or lighthouse) or military to support SWAT.

BJ has the advantage of being in what is essentially a backwater - sure, we are in a hot war with Jowy, but he's not a big threat - honestly, barbs are a bigger worry right now. The problem, of course, is that it will take a lot of time to build it, probably fueld mainly with whip overflow.

There are alternatives - V would be interesting, LA Law, MASH - but those have other responsibilities (mainly military and putting 250 hammers into them seems to be a poor use of resources.

I dunno - my gut is saying BJ and the Bear, here - I think conflict between us and cornflakes is kind of inevitable. we'll have to create channel to get ships into Lake Superior, but that's not hard...

Any thoughts?

[AutomatedTeller]

GG Medic Unit:

We have 3 candidates for a GG medic unit:

1) An M1 chariot. We can split it's xp - get the chariot up to 14 xp (and m3) and giving 10 to something else (probably a mace for CR1 and 2). its fast, though it cannot be used in a stack in the open against Jowy - or we can give the whole thing to the chariot and give it mobility, as well.
2) the WIII Dog. Has 10 xp - with 10 xp, it gets to M1, which stacks with W3 to get 25%. Not quite M3 and not as mobile, but does not actually require the GG to be attached (so, it can be attached to another unit for free upgrades). Or, can attach for 20 xp, giving it M3 and only needing 8 xp for the holy grail of M3.
3) The WIII Mace. Added for completeness.

I dunno - I can see both the dog and the chariot.

[AutomatedTeller]

One last question:

if jowy says "hmm, I don't like those odds" and offers Horizon and HBR for peace... do we take it? I think the answer is yes - 10 turns won't matter all that much in terms of prep and getting a city has all sorts of cultural implications - plus it's easier on the weariness.

I don't think he will, mind you - but now that there is a threat, he might. or, of course, he has 6 catapults behind horizon and we are going to get ripped apart. I don't think that's going to happen, though.

[MindyMcCready]

so, it looks like we'll have some time - I wanted to talk about Moai.

We have 2 sites that are obvious candidates: BJ and the bear and Quincy, ME.

BJ has an extra 4 food (sheep and whales), plus 2 farms that can be +6. it also has 4 hammers from horse and whales, plus 1 for a irrigated plains.

Quincy has 5 extra food (2 for the rice, 3 for clams), plus farms, plus it has 3 forests and a hill (which cuts it's food by one). The forests are the big thing - if we can trade for stone and put buddhism there, that's basically Moai - 202 hammers out of 250. that said, that's also not 200 hammers being used for other infrastructure (like a granary, barracks or lighthouse) or military to support SWAT.

BJ has the advantage of being in what is essentially a backwater - sure, we are in a hot war with Jowy, but he's not a big threat - honestly, barbs are a bigger worry right now. The problem, of course, is that it will take a lot of time to build it, probably fueld mainly with whip overflow.

There are alternatives - V would be interesting, LA Law, MASH - but those have other responsibilities (mainly military and putting 250 hammers into them seems to be a poor use of resources.

I dunno - my gut is saying BJ and the Bear, here - I think conflict between us and cornflakes is kind of inevitable. we'll have to create channel to get ships into Lake Superior, but that's not hard...

Any thoughts?

BJ and the Bear's a great city for Maoi. I think that my original concern with BJ is that I thought that it would be less secure. But now, whether Jowy lives or dies right now he's ceded control of Lake Erie. So this is probably our safest Moai location which is my paramount concern for this type of an investment. I guess I'll have to adopt the term "Quincy's" over Mindy's Moai.

[MindyMcCready]

GG Medic Unit:

We have 3 candidates for a GG medic unit:

1) An M1 chariot. We can split it's xp - get the chariot up to 14 xp (and m3) and giving 10 to something else (probably a mace for CR1 and 2). its fast, though it cannot be used in a stack in the open against Jowy - or we can give the whole thing to the chariot and give it mobility, as well.
2) the WIII Dog. Has 10 xp - with 10 xp, it gets to M1, which stacks with W3 to get 25%. Not quite M3 and not as mobile, but does not actually require the GG to be attached (so, it can be attached to another unit for free upgrades). Or, can attach for 20 xp, giving it M3 and only needing 8 xp for the holy grail of M3.
3) The WIII Mace. Added for completeness.

I dunno - I can see both the dog and the chariot.

Agree with 1 and give it mobility. Mobility will help in ensuring that the GG unit is always in a city and not caught out in the open. There's also the 'heals while moving' promotion, although I believe that only works in neutral territory.

Those WIII units are really useful right now for keeping those forests unchopped and not into Jowy's military.

[MindyMcCready]

One last question:

if jowy says "hmm, I don't like those odds" and offers Horizon and HBR for peace... do we take it? I think the answer is yes - 10 turns won't matter all that much in terms of prep and getting a city has all sorts of cultural implications - plus it's easier on the weariness.

I don't think he will, mind you - but now that there is a threat, he might. or, of course, he has 6 catapults behind horizon and we are going to get ripped apart. I don't think that's going to happen, though.

No I don't think that we should. Jowy's cast the die and we've moved into his territory. We've already taken the risk. If he's willing to give us the city that means that he has *NO* chance of holding it. And I want to emphasize that. If he proposes that offer, that means zero, zero, zero chance of him holding it. Jowy doesn't want to accept a loss. It's not his nature. He's more likely to do something stupid that we can take advantage of and then rage-quit than make a sensible (but distasteful) deal that keeps him alive for longer. Jowy's a Bull if ever I saw one. I know its a long time ago but his PB2 mindset was 'fight the power' whether it made any sense or not. I suspect that he hasn't changed too much. This is why he's likely to keep on trading hammers with us to his detriment.

We need a payment for something that's not something we can take on our own.

Also the 10 turns do matter. A lot:

Reasons:
1. 10 Turns from now Commodore or TT could own quite a few cities of Jowy's. We'd be locked out of that opportunity.
2. 10 turns from now he could have feudialism. That will make military progress much more difficult.
3. Continued war forces Jowy to whip more defenders now before he gets LB or other units.
4. 10 turns of whipping and 10 turns of forest chopping can make a very good army. Don't underestimate what he can produce if left alone. He hasn't whipped every city into the ground and he's leaving border cities unguarded. That suggests that he's still in denial.
5. Jowy's appears to be willing to exchange hammers with us on the defense. We win with every even hammer exchange. No reason for us to stop.

#4 and #5 means that if left alone he will achieve the critical mass necessary to blunt or turn back our offensive. Combined that with #2 and its probably not worth invading him.

6. In general we have a tech advantage and a production advantage. We could lose that tech advantage soon, but until we do its a good time to be at war.
7. Noveria's a good city and we have pretty reasonable odds of taking that city. Why lose that opportunity for something that we should be able to take.
8. If we take Noveria or threaten Citadel, Jowy will need to garrison that city which opens up a possible opportunity for us for Eden Prime. Now that's a prize worth fighting for. Take that city and we've prevented a huge amount of whipped units from being produced.

I rest my case your honour.

[MindyMcCready]

Oh and lastly, you might be overconcerned with the unhappiness that hasn't happened yet. Maybe we can trade tech for happiness? Or gpt for happiness? We've got the #1 economy I believe.

Also there's the incense that we'll be getting if things go well.

There's also the issue that we'll be only in his territory for 3 turns to perform the fork. Even if all of our cities fall to unhappiness, that's not that bad considering the possible prize.

I guess if, and how quickly we can make a run at Eden Prime would depend on how the Battle of Horizon goes and on how many reinforcements are incoming. We'll have to play it by ear

Finally, there's also the whip solution to unhappiness.

[MindyMcCready]

Next Topic: Research Path.

I have come to realize that we're doing well technologically against Jowy largely because we were the ones to research Feudialism and that we pretty much traded to everyone (due to desperacy). That has prevented him from acquiring that tech from anyone else.

This really makes me believe that we should continue to be the ones to tech military. The other civs kindof hold back on something already researched which has likely forced Jowy to self research Feudialism.

Master Commodore is likely going to take a stab at Jowy in the near future. With his 15+ cities he's probably crashing his economy compared to our 50% and making money. Our future conflict with either Commodore or Cornflakes could very much depend on us being the first to Cuirassiers and then trading to others which then forces them to follow suit rather than making advantageous trades. Part of the strategy would be to sell to everyone except our top opponent so that no one else has any reason to research that tech. Force them into a follow path with our tech advantage.

Something to think about.

[AutomatedTeller]

BJ - check.

Sorry about Quincy - maybe I'm adhering to slavishly to my naming convention and shoudl change it! though, if it's not going to have Moai...

Still not sure about the medic thing - i'll mull it over some. I'm leaning to the chariot, too, because of the flexibility. the ultimate M3/W3 medic is nice, but I kind of think the 3 move medic is better than a 1 move super-duper medic.

I'm concerned about unhappiness mainly because we have a lot of whip anger stacked up - the incense will help and the whales will help (and we will be able to trade whales for gold, which we are getting from a tech deal now. But, really - taking the lion's share of Jowy's land is well worth the unhappiness. I'm guessing that each city will cost us 10% unhappy or so, from the city and the fighting we have to do to keep it. Commodore taking Jowy's elephant city will make life easier for us, of course.