North Korea Part II- The Final Naming Scheme

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Ok Update Time:

First, my despairing about the game has not entirely been justified




Demos are looking very nice right now, we're about to grow 2 pop points at the end of the turn. The one major blight is the soldier count, and that is what I'm going to rectify over the next couple turns. And that comes to my next point, new tech path. With Rome on our doorstep, we need to look a whole lot more unappetizing.

Masonry-Monotheism(We're pretty much a lock for Judiasm)-Math-Construction-Currency-Code of Laws-Monarchy

Basically, what I think was happening was that I got locked into a set gameplan, but said gameplan doesn't really mesh well with our game situation. Instead of Caste System for border pops, we can use OR missionaries. Masonry happens to be a pretty sweet tech as well because pre-catapults, walls do a lot to blunt an offensive force. Then Math for better chops and construction for the earliest possible counter to a prat rush. Mind you, if Molach shows up with 8 prats next turn, we're still pretty screwed. But I have good reason to think that's not going to happen.




His closest city is 7 tiles away from our city. If Molach is acting rationally, which of course isn't a given, there's no way he would attack us. His stack would wander 5 tiles in the fog just to attack us and with no road connection and horrendous maintenance once he did take our cities. Again, he may be acting irrationally, but we do have a nice DMZ. Also this:




He is settling North towards our Persian friends. There is a lot of nice land between these two, and conflict seems close to inevitable. And if Molach is rational, he would have that conflict come at a time when his civ is most powerful: the classical age. Also, Molach has not been acting very aggressive towards us. He moved his warrior away from our borders when he could have been annoying and kept him there to make us cover the worker. In return, I'm keeping our warrior there, so Molach doesn't have to move/cover his worker.

Does this mean I think he's never going to declare war on us? Of course not, but if he were planning to go to war with us , I would think he would postured more aggressively. That said, we definitely need to bulk up in military over the next dozen or so turns.

In short, Mindy you were totally right

[Commodore]

Instead of Caste System for border pops, we can use OR missionaries.

[MindyMcCready]

If its right why does it feel so bad?

Demos are looking very nice right now, we're about to grow 2 pop points at the end of the turn. The one major blight is the soldier count, and that is what I'm going to rectify over the next couple turns.

Axes I presume?

And that comes to my next point, new tech path. With Rome on our doorstep, we need to look a whole lot more unappetizing.

Masonry-Monotheism(We're pretty much a lock for Judiasm)-Math-Construction-Currency-Code of Laws-Monarchy

I swear if I ever play an MP game as Aggressive Rome I swear I'm going to blitz someone with Chariots. It would be just so funny to hack through an assembled army of Shock axes. Its low probability that Molach would do a Chariot blitz but there's high odds that he would bring along a couple of Chariots for scouting if nothing else.

Using that nifty Excel calculator that you showed me a C1 Chariot would have 76% odds on our C1 Axe with full fortify + 20% culture. Even with walls the chariot would still have 63% chance. So the gameplan above means that Rome could easily break our toughest walled cities. So you're going to have to slip in hunting and/or archery in there somewhere.

Masonry happens to be a pretty sweet tech as well because pre-catapults, walls do a lot to blunt an offensive force.

Yes, that will hugely help. Even with no fortify our C1 axes will get odds on Shock Praets. That's really important as he could easily fork our cities meaning that getting the required full fortify for odds could be difficult to come by. Good call on that one.

Then Math for better chops and construction for the earliest possible counter to a prat rush.

Need to caution you on this one. I learned from ded-lurking AT in the PB9 game that it takes a lot of catapults to do enough damage to Strength 8 units. More than I would have estimated from my SP experience or even from my other non-involved lurking. So what I'm saying is that attacking out is going to be difficult and expensive. And if we can't attack out, we'd have to abandon cities in the face of a preat + cats combination even with walls.

So if I only had 1 unit/tech with which to counter Aggressive Rome it would still be the Horse Archers. With Shock we have 34.5% victory + 13.1% retreat. Wth flanking II we have 10.6% victory and 44.7% retreat. The flanking II odds look the same for a CII Spear and we're only a little worse off for a Shock HA vs CII Spear (28% victory, 14.4% retreat, 57.6% die trying). Given the spears not terribly better, he's unlikely to bring them along.

Not only does the HA give us near or at coin-flip odds on straight up praet invasion, but it also continues to protect us in the face of a combined praets + catapults. We shred the cats and we can laugh at the Praets from behind our walls. Ok, nervous laugh,....but its better than crying

Rather than simply being hawkish and critical (my 2 fav things), I suppose that I should try to provide you with an alterntive,...

Masonry (80 -20% - 20% = 48B)
Hunting (40B)
-so we're as safe as we can be until Rome gets catapults.
- Given Hunting is a pretty cheap tech this could be delayed in favour of a solid sentry net + some reserve funds in the bank.

COL (350B - 40% = 210B)
Archery (60B - 20% = 48B)
HBR (250B - 20% = 200B)
So I would feel that we'd have a good chance against even Rome with catapults. So that's 546 beakers until we're "safe" from preats + cats and 298 beakers before we have border popping abilities.

Your current Plan:
Masonry (80 -20% - 20% = 48B)
Hunting (40B) I assume that you would want to fit that in?
Monotheism(120B -40% = 72B)
Math (250B - 20% = 200B)
Construction (350B - 40% = 210B)
So that's 570 beakers until we're similarly "safe" from praets + cats (although I still give HA an advantage) and 160 beakers until we have (reduced effectiveness + increased expense) border popping abilities.

Your plan puts us closer to the critical techs of Currency and Monarchy. So that's a pretty important factor. But we lose the early bulbing from an early COL/Caste.

You're suggested path has its advantages provided that we do land Monotheism. So why exactly is it that we 'have a lock on Monotheism'? You feel confident of this?

Also, Molach has not been acting very aggressive towards us.

That makes me more suspicious not less. If I were Aggressive Rome I'd be extracting tribute/concessions from the ones that I don't plan to attack and appearing 'uninterested' to the ones I do plan to attack.

Of course not, but if he were planning to go to war with us , I would think he would postured more aggressively.

As per above I conclude the opposite. If I had an advantage over a civ but war was infeasible for whatever reason I would posture aggressively to exact concessions/tribute knowing that nobody really wants to call Aggressive Rome's bluff. If I wanted to take your cities I'd want them nicely developed by my opponent,...that really helps with the distance maintenance.

But I have good reason to think that's not going to happen.

OMG you need to stop saying things like that - it frays my nerves. I was so complaining to AT about military and chokepoints in PB9. He responded with a 'I feel good about our position' and I don't think that it was 5-turns before a 30-unit stack showed up at his doorstep.

His closest city is 7 tiles away from our city. If Molach is acting rationally, which of course isn't a given, there's no way he would attack us. His stack would wander 5 tiles in the fog just to attack us and with no road connection and horrendous maintenance once he did take our cities. Again, he may be acting irrationally, but we do have a nice DMZ. Also this:

Once again my hawkish POV is going to disagree with this point or at least minimize its influence. That city has gold, wet corn + 2 wines. And 7-tiles is only 3/4 turns with some combat engineers. No way that that's not worth taking.

That said, we definitely need to bulk up in military over the next dozen or so turns.

Excellent. A permanent sentry net can do a lot to discourage invasion. If he knows that we know he's coming, then he's less likely to drive into the teeth of a prepared enemy. Chop all forests!

Also, I want to stress the importance of having early walls in whatever our border city is. I kept harrassing AT in pB9 to put them up but he never would because he felt that he would be able to build/whip them in the advent of war. Later on he/we concluded/realized that, in simultaneous turns if your attacker takes the 2nd half of the timer you might not get that chance. But its even more important that Rome looks out and sees his Shock Praets getting only 27% odds on our C1 Axes. That's pretty demoralizing and enough to make him send his army elsewhere.

[MindyMcCready]

Nothing going on? Did you decide what tech path you're taking?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Sorry, you know how I said things would get better after my finals ended? Now I have training camp which goes from 3 pm to 8 pm, but then after that I'm collapse and sleep until like 10 am so I really don't have a lot of time right now for civ. Luckily, today is the final day of camp.

Anyway, great post as usual Mindy

I still don't know why we should ignore monotheism considering how valuable a self-founded religion is in these games, perhaps you can explain your rationale there.

As for your paranoia, I think we have to take this calculated risk, again if Molach acts irrational we're screwed. That's why I think AGG Rome shouldn't have been included here; it just destabilizes the entire game because there really is no counter to a determined and early prat rush.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

This isn't funny anymore

[MindyMcCready]

Anyway, great post as usual Mindy

Thanks.

I still don't know why we should ignore monotheism considering how valuable a self-founded religion is in these games, perhaps you can explain your rationale there.

I rest my case your honour. Sucks.

As for your paranoia, I think we have to take this calculated risk, again if Molach acts irrational we're screwed. That's why I think AGG Rome shouldn't have been included here; it just destabilizes the entire game because there really is no counter to a determined and early prat rush.

Definately paranoia for now but we're going to have to relabel it if Rome does indeed come a knocking.

And there are options for dealing with Aggressive Rome; ask Azza.
-Cutting them off at the knees is usually a good strategy but given that we only just found out that Rome's our immediate neighbour we couldn't have done that in time.
-Right now our best option is preventing their iron access if we can. We should be exploring their land as much as possible to determine if they have access to iron or not and if we can prevent it.
-The die is cast so with our next 2 techs being math + construction we're not taking any risks, but instead driving for security so no need to discuss that. The 2 tech paths were not particularly different in when we'd have a chance against praets + cats anyway.

Hopefully you've adopted that 'play-to-play' mindset because this is going to be a tough game. We have Sisu in the #1 score and there's nothing that we can do about it currently and the #3 position is our neighbourly ancient age terror.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Retep founded Judiasm

He also has the GLH and a good expansion rate...

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Mindy, are you positive you don't have civ installed?

[MindyMcCready]

Mindy, are you positive you don't have civ installed?

I'm positive that I don't have it installed right now. Why do you ask?