As many of you have noticed, we're about to be attacked by 3 nations from turn 170 onwards.
The stakes:
For too long, Team RB has been top dog, and in response to that a dogpile by our neighbours has been brewing. The in wake of the too-fast collapse of the German/Incan team, the situation is desperate, they must do something to drag Team RB back into the pack or else the game is forfeit.
The Good Guy:
We have: a ton of land, a laggard tech rate that will improve as we start working German cottages.
Our strengths: we are close to rifles. Time is on our side, we just to hold them off until we get to rifling and make ourselves nigh invulnerable, and once that occurs time is completely on our side to develop our German holdings.
Our weaknesses: a knack for overconfidence. Do not expect something like the PB2 dogpile, we should always assume the worse and that
The Bad Guys:
In the Northwest, we have Team Apolyton:
What they have:
18 cities, Rifling, Nationhood.
Threat level: High. They have the potential of throwing together an immense army of rifles within a very short period of time using drafts, that we will have a difficult time of dislodging. The are taking The Gauntlet, and are then capable of threatening several fairly new cities with underdeveloped population and cultural infrastructure. They also have access to Knights, but I expect the bulk of their hammer production will go into Catapults.
Their expected goal: take Old Germania for themselves, PB9 style. Make the massive war undertaking that we went into not worth it, and force us into so many whips and drafts that our tech rate suffers and never makes it to or past rifles.
How to deal with them: Expect that Gauntlet will fall, and once they land on flatland, we ruin their stack with Barrage I Catapults and kill the remainder with drafted macemen and muskets. Force them to suffer draft anger and SoZ war weariness until they capitulate to a favourable peace deal. Afterwards, I dunno how good they are at military management.
In the Southwest, we have Team Civplayers:
Threat level: Medium. They have (or will have) similar tech to us. If anything, they'll be behind thanks to the gold gifts to Apolyton. They have a decent amount of production going thanks to continuous Sacrificial Alter whips.
Their expected goal: Brick-by-Brick. I expect (in their minds) that BbB belongs to their sphere of influence thanks to that strangely placed lake, no matter how close it is to our capital. Afterwards, take what they can, Ditchdigger and Seven Tribes are also under threat. And thanks to the oddly placed lake, we're going to have a hard time responding. If we want to guard against both Apolyton and CP at the same time, a good location for a tile to run zone defence is 2N1W of Ditchdigger, as it can respond to any thrusts along that axes. Unfortunately, there's no way we can keep it a secret, Apolyton and CP probably have a gazillion spies running roughshod through our land.
How to deal with them: Hold BbB at all costs, because the SoZ will be crucial to fending off our opponents. Other than that, just kill what we can.
Team Civfanatics:
Threat level: Low-Medium. Thanks to a hot(?) war with CivFR, they are currently distracted. Whether or on they will remain so is unclear. I'm reasonably sure that CFC is completely in the loop with regards to the attack by the two teams mentioned earlier. Yes they were thinking of a NAP with us until T200, but they are still on the fence about it and will happily wait for as long as they can until they can or can not swing a good peace deal with CivFR. And CivFR aren't an existential threat to CFC right now, they'll pull out once they feel their honour is satisfied.
They have nothing to fear from us, as they know were are distracted by our rifle-wielding foes to the west.
Otherwise, their tech rate sucks as much as ours and they don't have anything special over us. They also want time to develop their Spanish holdings and make it productive, which makes it think they'll only be in it for quick gains.
Their expected goal: Wither Starfall or Eastern Gem Dealers. Starfall is under threat from 2-movers, so we'll want muskets and pikes and a Castle holding that city. If they go for EGD, they'll need to spend at least one turn within our territory.
How to deal with them: another stack of cats and hitters, zone defencing from the tile 2S1E of Forbidden, where they can cat any tile they land on. The danger is if they move a big stack of 2-movers 1E or 1SE of Lakambha, as that would pin down a stack inside Starfall, and then they are capable of moving north towards EGD, where the units in Starfall will be tied down.
What else we need to do: Fend off their attacks, buy time, and use the sheer size of our empire to run everyone else over. Churn out more cats. Don't draft for another 2 turns until Gunpowder comes in, as Maces aren't that useful. Build some spies and start scoping out our opponent's stacks.
The stakes:
For too long, Team RB has been top dog, and in response to that a dogpile by our neighbours has been brewing. The in wake of the too-fast collapse of the German/Incan team, the situation is desperate, they must do something to drag Team RB back into the pack or else the game is forfeit.
The Good Guy:
We have: a ton of land, a laggard tech rate that will improve as we start working German cottages.
Our strengths: we are close to rifles. Time is on our side, we just to hold them off until we get to rifling and make ourselves nigh invulnerable, and once that occurs time is completely on our side to develop our German holdings.
Our weaknesses: a knack for overconfidence. Do not expect something like the PB2 dogpile, we should always assume the worse and that
The Bad Guys:
In the Northwest, we have Team Apolyton:
What they have:
18 cities, Rifling, Nationhood.
Threat level: High. They have the potential of throwing together an immense army of rifles within a very short period of time using drafts, that we will have a difficult time of dislodging. The are taking The Gauntlet, and are then capable of threatening several fairly new cities with underdeveloped population and cultural infrastructure. They also have access to Knights, but I expect the bulk of their hammer production will go into Catapults.
Their expected goal: take Old Germania for themselves, PB9 style. Make the massive war undertaking that we went into not worth it, and force us into so many whips and drafts that our tech rate suffers and never makes it to or past rifles.
How to deal with them: Expect that Gauntlet will fall, and once they land on flatland, we ruin their stack with Barrage I Catapults and kill the remainder with drafted macemen and muskets. Force them to suffer draft anger and SoZ war weariness until they capitulate to a favourable peace deal. Afterwards, I dunno how good they are at military management.
In the Southwest, we have Team Civplayers:
Threat level: Medium. They have (or will have) similar tech to us. If anything, they'll be behind thanks to the gold gifts to Apolyton. They have a decent amount of production going thanks to continuous Sacrificial Alter whips.
Their expected goal: Brick-by-Brick. I expect (in their minds) that BbB belongs to their sphere of influence thanks to that strangely placed lake, no matter how close it is to our capital. Afterwards, take what they can, Ditchdigger and Seven Tribes are also under threat. And thanks to the oddly placed lake, we're going to have a hard time responding. If we want to guard against both Apolyton and CP at the same time, a good location for a tile to run zone defence is 2N1W of Ditchdigger, as it can respond to any thrusts along that axes. Unfortunately, there's no way we can keep it a secret, Apolyton and CP probably have a gazillion spies running roughshod through our land.
How to deal with them: Hold BbB at all costs, because the SoZ will be crucial to fending off our opponents. Other than that, just kill what we can.
Team Civfanatics:
Threat level: Low-Medium. Thanks to a hot(?) war with CivFR, they are currently distracted. Whether or on they will remain so is unclear. I'm reasonably sure that CFC is completely in the loop with regards to the attack by the two teams mentioned earlier. Yes they were thinking of a NAP with us until T200, but they are still on the fence about it and will happily wait for as long as they can until they can or can not swing a good peace deal with CivFR. And CivFR aren't an existential threat to CFC right now, they'll pull out once they feel their honour is satisfied.
They have nothing to fear from us, as they know were are distracted by our rifle-wielding foes to the west.
Otherwise, their tech rate sucks as much as ours and they don't have anything special over us. They also want time to develop their Spanish holdings and make it productive, which makes it think they'll only be in it for quick gains.
Their expected goal: Wither Starfall or Eastern Gem Dealers. Starfall is under threat from 2-movers, so we'll want muskets and pikes and a Castle holding that city. If they go for EGD, they'll need to spend at least one turn within our territory.
How to deal with them: another stack of cats and hitters, zone defencing from the tile 2S1E of Forbidden, where they can cat any tile they land on. The danger is if they move a big stack of 2-movers 1E or 1SE of Lakambha, as that would pin down a stack inside Starfall, and then they are capable of moving north towards EGD, where the units in Starfall will be tied down.
What else we need to do: Fend off their attacks, buy time, and use the sheer size of our empire to run everyone else over. Churn out more cats. Don't draft for another 2 turns until Gunpowder comes in, as Maces aren't that useful. Build some spies and start scoping out our opponent's stacks.
