[Lurkers]PBEM 16 Peanut Gallery and Mapmaking Thread

[williams482]

Are levied units counted in your military power ?
In that case hiding the drop of money and increase of power is indeed worth delaying contact.

Levied units are counted in your military power.

[williams482]

So, things are about to get pretty bloody.

Archduke sniffed out Cornflakes' attack very early, and between the defensive terrain and Archduke's tactical skills I'm guessing he'll set himself back a bit but won't lose any cities unless Hungary decides to jump in with a magic army in his backlines.

Scooter though seems to be in huge trouble. He might be attacked before he can build anything stronger than an archer, with one of his frontline cities completely indefensible against four move swordsmen if/when Alhambram finds it. Scooter might be able to save himself if he sets up a bunch of emergency horseman chops, but I do not like his chances.

Regardless of the success of his attack, Alhambram has to be a huge favorite in this game.

[Woden]

Scooter could easily stop Alhambram's invasion. All he would have to do is build the Apadana and then build a couple of other wonders. Each wonder, including the Apadana would give him 2 envoys. Then when Alhambram declares and he meets the levied city states, puts the envoys in to take away his suzerain and he loses control of units. He could easily build the Great Bath, Hanging Gardens, and/or the Oracle quickly for the cost of 4 or builders. Hell, he could build them all at the same time if he had the builders. That would be 8 envoys and probably enough to snatch control of Alhambram's city states.

[suboptimal]

There are a couple of options for stopping it, though I think the best is walls + horses. Trying to get a bunch of wonders up with builders might work but if Alhambram sees what he's trying to do then he can use the 4-move swords to capture builders. I think that scooter (and company) will be able to survive the attack, but I think CMF's latest analysis is right - he'll be too far set back to have a chance at winning.

Ill be curious to see if Alhambram uses levied troops to wage war on two fronts at once and also go after Archduke. Even if he only cripples both scooter and TAD that should be enough to set up a victory.

[Woden]

He could do both. Use his free builder from the pyramids to get the Apadana up then faith buy a few with Monumentality for chopping and other wonders. He could then totally make Alhambrams march south useless by taking over as suzerain and then the army will be upgraded and more expensive to levy.

He will have a hard time spreading his religion to get DotF going in all his cities because I don't think his holy site is done, then build a shrine (not sure why Sullla and CMF think they can faith buy shrines), then spread it. That in itself is a tall order for the next 10 turns. Add in walls and horsemen with chops that you don't really want to do because it will decrease your appeal and take away some faith generation.

I think the game is fairly early to be saying somebody is out. If scooter would increase his faith generation and build enough wonders to get golden ages for the next 3 eras when Monumentality is available, he should be able to out expand the others, even if he wastes a bunch of production now in fending off an invasion. He doesn't know it yet but he probably has the biggest chuck of land to settle. He just needs to scout east.

[williams482]

That Apandana plan is clever. I'd love to see them try it if it occurs to someone in that thread.

[Woden]

That Apandana plan is clever. I'd love to see them try it if it occurs to someone in that thread.

Agree. I totally want to type "Apandana" in his thread but think that would be an overreach form a spoiled lurker and mapmaker. It would be interesting to see how Alhambram reacts.

[pindicator]

Dang, I never would have thought of that in scooter's position. Too bad they aren't, I would have liked to see that defense played out

[Woden]

Does anybody know if losing levied units causes war wariness? Alhambram might be over extending himself if he loses a bunch of levied units and gets crunched by war wariness.

[williams482]

I assume it does purely on the basis that that would probably be the simplest implementation, but I am not aware of anyone who has tested that.