[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[scooter]

Basically, I think all that's really come of this war is that Plako has gained ground on both of us. So it's probably in both of our best interests to let this cool off so we can at least guarantee this is a 2 horse race rather than 3.

[Cyneheard]

Basically, I think all that's really come of this war is that Plako has gained ground on both of us. So it's probably in both of our best interests to let this cool off so we can at least guarantee this is a 2 horse race rather than 3.

I'm tempted to agree with you - we can munch on a neighbor as well, and just need to keep our eyes on mackoti because he'll be back for sure in 10t.

[pindicator]

Um, very tempted to take. For me this opens up the opportunity to go after Commodore with amphib grenadiers. I see Bacchus more as revenge/shakedown than a landgrab. Commodore's land would nicely consolidate our borders

[scooter]

Um, very tempted to take. For me this opens up the opportunity to go after Commodore with amphib grenadiers. I see Bacchus more as revenge/shakedown than a landgrab. Commodore's land would nicely consolidate our borders

I've been thinking about this. I'm starting to think the same as you, except hit Bigger. General thoughts:

1) Bigger's Azza cities aren't ready to contribute yet. They will be later, at which point he'll be dangerous, but for now they aren't ready. He's kinda vulnerable right now.

2) Bigger is way behind us and Commodore in tech. Commodore has Rifles (right? If he doesn't, he will any turn now) and I'm sure Astro is next, AND he's in Slavery, so he'll at least be able to mass whip out modern units and give us some trouble. Over half of Bigger's cities are coastal. CR Amphib Grens would decimate his longbows. I realize Grens shrug off Rifles, but the point is we would only be able to make progress by ocean, and Commodore has Astro. He has the techs and the pop available to make things nasty for us, and I'm not super sure that's true of Bigger. His best unit right now is a Str10 Knight. Cannons/Grens laugh at those.

3) We can grab steel next for Cannons. Bigger's Knights can't flank Cannons. Knights/Cannons up the middle, amphibious Grens picking off his coast on BOTH fronts (since those boats/Grens in the Bacchus shakedown waters will need something to do)... I don't think Cannons is nearly as big of an advantage on land against the neighbor with Rifles compared to the damage they would do to Bigger's Medieval army.

4) I think Commodore is a better and more determined tactician than Bigger. No offense to Bigger at all who is definitely not a bad player or a slouch, it's just the truth. (Please don't read this as Commodore = unbeatable or Bigger is a pushover, neither are true in the slightest.)

5) Bigger has a way longer coast to defend, which means our tactical advantage with super ships/raiders is a bigger advantage. He can't push all his defenders to the center of the continent when it means it opens his over a dozen southern cities to Grens on boats. Commodore would have the same tactical issue, but his land is far more compressed at least.

6) Bigger will be a much tougher opponent in 40T - just like we got way better after we got to rebuild the cities we captured. Right now he's vulnerable and hasn't economically recovered yet. Nice time to strike.

What's your thoughts? My general feeling is that if we waged a successful war against either of our continent neighbors, we probably win the game. I think the time is pretty ripe since we're one tech away from Cannons, and I don't think Bigger even has gunpowder yet. With them picking up Banking/PP, they're beginning the road to economic recovery, but they certainly aren't there yet.


Regardless, I think we should take the peace deal.

[scooter]

For example:



6 nice cities, defended by longbows from what we've seen. We could capture these with minimal effort and then defend them with our boats (Bigger can't even build Caravels last I saw) while we go raid the rest of the east coast. Also, with the beauty of Free Market, these cities are all instantly profitable just by coming out of revolt, not to mention they're well developed and not easily choked by culture by nature of being islands. We would get odds on every attack - only the southernmost one is even on a hill.

[pindicator]

Don't take peace yet, i'm not convinced its a good idea

[scooter]

Don't take peace yet, i'm not convinced its a good idea

Ok, I'll hold off. When you get a few spare minutes, I'd like to hear what the upside of refusing peace is. I'll mostly be around tonight, so you should be able to catch me on chat whenever you end up getting home.

[pindicator]

Ok, I'll hold off. When you get a few spare minutes, I'd like to hear what the upside of refusing peace is. I'll mostly be around tonight, so you should be able to catch me on chat whenever you end up getting home.

We're giving mackoti the green light to go after OldHarry if we take peace. If we keep in war then we are at least making him keep resources on our border and not letting him transfer those to Old Harry.

If we take peace we have to do it with one of the following goals in mind:

1. We are going to tech up and pass mackoti while he uses his resources in war
2. We will be able to gain land against a neighbor faster than mackoti will against OldHarry.

I'll address attacking a neighbor later, after I get home. But you really misrepresent the situation in your post comparing Bigger and Commodore. I dunno if that's just confirmation bias or because you have been away and haven't been in the game much lately.

[scooter]

We're giving mackoti the green light to go after OldHarry if we take peace. If we keep in war then we are at least making him keep resources on our border and not letting him transfer those to Old Harry.

If we take peace we have to do it with one of the following goals in mind:

1. We are going to tech up and pass mackoti while he uses his resources in war
2. We will be able to gain land against a neighbor faster than mackoti will against OldHarry.

I'm looking at it as #2. OldHarry is a genuinely tough challenge. I think he will be tougher to crack than either of our neighbors. For instance, take a close look at Bigger and Old Harry, and tell me you think mackoti can lift cities off Old Harry at a quicker rate than we could off Bigger. I don't think he can. All we really need to do is maintain our total city count edge, and we'll eventually overcome mackoti, and I think that's easier to do at peace than while at war.

I'll address attacking a neighbor later, after I get home. But you really misrepresent the situation in your post comparing Bigger and Commodore. I dunno if that's just confirmation bias or because you have been away and haven't been in the game much lately.

It's possible I'm misrepresenting a thing or two (it is possible I'm wrong on tech situation), so I'm open to being corrected. But overall, attacking Commodore just has a lot more drawbacks. Mackoti ran into this with us - he had the numerical and tech advantage short-term, but the defender bonuses and our economic ability to get crucial techs quickly negated his advantage. Commodore has those same bonuses, but Bigger does not. He won't be getting Rifling or Astronomy for ages, and those are the key techs you need at minimum to beat back the kind of units we have. What happens if Commodore quickly snaps up Military Tradition & Rifling, which his strong economy could get him pretty quickly. Cavs would be a serious problem for us.

Besides, we know a Commodore war could not be won in 10T. What do we do in 10T when Mack re-declares war while all our units are up north? This is the main reason we shelved the idea despite discussing it weeks ago. We don't have that problem with Bigger.

To be clear, again I think conquesting one of our two neighbors wins us the game, and I'm in favor of playing to win here while we're completely dominant by seas. I think I prefer that to trying to tech and just hoping Mack doesn't eat OH too easily. I just want to make sure that if we do that, we pick the right neighbor.

[scooter]

Checked in-game, so a few clarifications:

Bigger does have Optics and Gunpowder now, so he can build Caravels/Muskets. He does not have Astro or RepParts. Judging by GNP graph, his GNP is probably about 1/4th of ours right now.
Commodore has Rifling. He does not have Nationalism or Astro - assuming one of those two are coming next. We don't have his graphs, but given that he's into Free Market and the like and the rate at which he's grabbing techs, I'm guessing his tech rate is probably below ours, but not significantly below.