North Korea Part II- The Final Naming Scheme

[MindyMcCready]

Your tech path does not prioritize any techs that will make surviving Praetorians (catapults/HA) or surprise hurting Sisu (HA) reasonably possible.

My unthinking knee-jerk reaction is "that's a long time to go without cataputs'. If Aggressive Rome chooses to go Ironworking and then beeline construction there's really no way that we'll be able to defend.

Also, before that our only defense against invading Chariots are our own chariots. A coin-flip in hammers. That's a good deal for an invading force,....quite tempting really.

Based on your tech path I see a grand strategy of 'wait-see-and-develop'.
Based on your statements I see a grand strategy of 'harrass-and-pillage' Sisu.

I find that there's a disconnect there. It would be unwise to push Sisu's into war mode while having no spears/HA/Cats/Archers for our own defense. Planning to beat up a builder while being a builder .

To do what you're talking about, you'll need to play the contrarian. Push Horseback Riding much earlier and burn Sisu's cities to the ground while he's playing builder. Give Sisu a little time and he's sure to plant along that river. That'll be his frontline city with us which is what he'll fortify. If you showed up out of the fog from that 'wall of invisibility'; burnt 'Woww' to the ground you will have isolated his front line city. Cut the roads and you've got a good chance of taking his unsupported frontline city. Then the slow death spiral begins for Sisu.

I know that you mentioned not being able to do much against Aggressive Rome,....but by taking that stance you're increasing the odds that this will happen. To stay out of that war we need to provide a deterrant. Your standing army might,...but your suggested tech path certainly isn't. While we're sitting there with Code of Laws and Monarchy how could we defend from Praets and cats? We couldn't. And if we realize that, you can be sure that Aggressive Rome will as well. Also, having Horse Archers on hand might allow us to cut and keep iron pillaged.

Both your ambitions against Sisu and the possibility that we'll be the victim of aggressive rome means that you'll need to go more military tech.

There. Serves you right for asking if I'm still reading.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm sorry, I realize that comment seemed exasperated/annoyed when I really didn't mean it that way. Unfortunatly, this game has gotten a little boring recently or at least more mundane, hence the dearth of updates. We actually found WilliamLP to out northwest, so will update with that soon.

I didn't take it that way at all. Just not enough posts/details for me to dive into,...but then I did anyway.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Alright, those are great points ... let me respond to them in earnest

1) I have sort of gravitated away against the idea of sending a harassment force towards Sisu. I know that's a little crazy since I first proposed it, but it just no longer seems like the right call. I guess I'm just flaky like that. We're running pretty light on military until t65ish so I don't think it's worth diverting the hammers into a chariot or two.

2) Noted on the chariot counter, I'll slip in hunting in between priesthood and CoL

3) That said, I'm still not completely sold on revamping my tech path to counter Rome. Remember, even if Molach is our western neighbor, he can't actually see our tech path and has no way of knowing if we're going all military or not. It's a calculated risk, I know, but I still think its the right decision. If we play the game as if AGG Rome is gonna come knocking on our door step soon, we're going to lose. Even with my current plan, I'm pretty dissatisfied with our expansion- currently its 4 on t64, 5 on t75 and 8 on t90. I doubt skipping over the vital Code of Laws and Monarchy techs are worth the possibility of not being COMPLETELY wiped out by a prat rush. And I really do think Monarchy in this situation is a decent defensive tech- if we trade a wines to Molach for 5-6 gpt, war with us becomes much less attractive. He has to fight an expensive war for okish land and lose 1 happy face in all of his cities.

4) I think for the eastern theater, it really depends on how Sisu plays this. If he plays this aggressively and exapands quickly, we'll need to fight an offensive war with horse archers/cats. If he expands in other directions, we can fight a defensive war/no war at all with axes, spears, chariots and archers. I think its a good idea to adjust our tech path accordingly.

[MindyMcCready]

On 1. I'm glad to hear that you've dropped the harrassment strategy. I'd want him to hate us because we took his cities rather than because we stole a worker or something.
On 1. Light on military is okish for awhile so long as we're in slavery and we have a good sentry net.

On 2. Great! But we could also consider Archery; see point 4.

On 3. I think that you should consider this one carefully. Not saying that you're not right (and only time will tell) but that the alternatives deserve due consideration. HBR is a 250B tech with 1 prereq(AH). Archery is 60B with Hunting as a pre-req. FlankingII/shock HA + Axes with culture are pretty effective even against praets,...enough that a knowing Rome will often look elsewhere. So this isn't necessarily a question of 'not being completely whipped out' and only surviving to lose the game but rather of sending the Roman army elsewhere; giving us a *chance* (if reduced) at winning and HA provide a lot of flexibility for making opportunistic stabs at either Sisu or Rome.

The other opportunity that might prevent itself is that we can prevent rome from acquring Iron. These are big considerations that can greatly affect the way the game plays out.

Proposed tech path:
Potter->Writing->Polytheism->Priesthood->Code of Laws-> Sailing->Hunting->Archery->Masonry->Monotheism->Monarchy->Math-> Currency

[Thinking out loud here]
So what's the opportunity cost? Or to ask it another way why do you want Code of Laws? For the faux-creative primarily? Well if you landed a religion and pushed Monotheism earlier that might not be such a factor. If its for the great person generation then the cost of waiting is pretty high of course.

Monarchy is also very valuable doubly so since we have wines. But I do want to cast strong doubt on the idea that Rome is going to look the other way just because we hand over a small happy gift. If I was Rome sitting there with cats and Shock praets against an opponent who only had C1 axes, why wouldn't I just take Malacandra to get gold and wines? Personally, I don't believe that that's going to enter into the equation but probably provide more of a signal of weakness.
[/Thinking out loud here]

On 4. I don't mind the idea of chopping Sisu off at the knees. But to be most effective it needs to be a proactive plan more than a reactive decision. Builders like to build. Early HA have a very strong chance of catching him off guard. In conjunction with the Roman threat, this is a strong option.

Anyway, I think that this decision should be parked for awhile at least until we have a greater sense of what/who lies to our West. The need for HA drops significantly if Azza's our neighbour,...on second thought I really, really need HA if Azza's our neighbour.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm going to go back and review your tech bulb plan. I've never been a fan of the specialist economy so I've never worked it to its potential so I'm probably underestimating the value of COL quite a bit.

Regardless, Polytheism seems like a decent choice over Writing. Delays the Academy a bit but we'll make use of the extra food and hammers in developing. Having said that I've also never been that good at putting out early academies.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Well, I really doubted that Hinduism would be available by t55, so originally half the reason for pushing Code of Laws was an early religion for happy cap purposes. That being said, I give us roughly a 70% shot at Hinduism, due in 6 turns. It's no big deal if we miss it, we'll just go to Code of Laws next. The one thing is, that code of laws is EXTREMELY powerful for a spiritual civ. It really can not be underestimated. Half of my dot map would be crap without free artist pops, if I chopped monuments instead, the development of the cities would be delayed by 11-15 turns. I guess we can delay monarchy a little longer, but I really want monotheism for the powerful Organized Religion civic, and with the double pre-req bonus monarchy is a rather cheap teach to pick up after that. So yeah, I think your proposed tech path looks great.

As for the wine deterent, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it can't hurt and we do have an excess of wine.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ok, some reaaally potentially awful news

http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=2572

Molach just whipped three times, I don't think he could have IW and iron hooked up this early, but this has the potential to fuck up our game...

Wait, it looks like civstats double counted one whip? Is that a known bug?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Other news, Boldy/Brick/Xenu founded their fourth city this turn, on turn 58. They actually founded their third on turn 56, so I really doubt they have the worker labor to sustain that, but it's still impressive with a size 5 capital and the stonehenge build. I'm gonna stop worrying about how other teams are expanding though, I'll just keep grinding away, again I do think my expansion plan is pretty good.

I'm pretty annoyed with the high quality play in this greens game though

[MindyMcCready]

Yeah. It seems like the days where attentive micro handily won someone the game are long gone. Many years plus many posts from Sulla-types and Krill-types have levelled the field. This is largely why I think that it's more likely that you catch someone underprepared militarily rather than underdeveloped. A farmer's gambit is largely the norm now. Which is why I've been pushing for an early HBR.

Boldy/Brick/Xenu hardly seem to be greens to me. I'm not sure that these guys belong here. Azza's not green either though,...but I'm not sure that he's graduated from this field yet.

So just to verify,...your current tech path is:
Pottery -> Polytheism -> Writing -> Priesthood -> COL -> ?

Well, make sure that you keep the posts up if at all possible. I do think that we'll need to reevaluate the tech path depending if we land that religion or not.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Yeah, that is the current tech path, I apologize about the lack of updates, in a week I'll be all done with end of year exams and should have free time again. Anyway, I proposed open borders to WilliamLP and he declined...that's a little hostile. I guess he didn't want my scouting out his territory? Still considering we have a convinient river between our territories, I was just more concerned with foreign trade routes. I'll move away my scouting unit and ask again I guess.