[SPOILERS]A new adventure of Vanrober always guided by chumchu

[vanrober]

Mmmm sorry chumchu but i dont really understand if you think that going straight to machinery making colossus would be worth or not.

Also i would like you to tell me about the lighthouse/greatwall dileme i have now on the capitol what do you think? we can make some workers when the capitol is at 6-7 pop.

[chumchu]

Crossbows:
+ It counters mjmd:s. Praetorians (and other old melee units)
+ We get drill 1, cg1, guerilla 1 on them for free which makes them good on defense
- It cost around 1500 to get to machinery which means later war and later currency.
- They are 1 movers which gives opponent more time to react, takes longer to reinforce and to switch fronts.
- Countered by horse archers which are quite cheap to tech or longbows.
- Will probably also need catapults to be effective.

Horse archers
+ 2 movers, we can strike fast and threaten multiple cities
+ counters archers by ignoring first strikes
+ cheap to tech at 350 ish
- Tech has no economic benefit
- Countered by spears which are already available

To sum up: Horse archers should be the option if you want war soon. They can give a faster, cheaper war. It is not a sure success but relies on outmaneuvering or surprising your opponent.
Crossbows comes later when opponents have more time to build up. They are slower but also harder for the opponent to counter. They are best at a grinding methodical conquest where their ability to defend the territory you take shines. The risk here is that they come to late and face longbows or very good archers. They are worse than swords or horse archers when attacking those and needs lots of collateral to do the job.

[vanrober]

Okey, lets think about timing, we are getting 20sh gpt at 0% and we waste 45 at 100% now we need 5 turns at 100% so its around 200 gold. Thats 10 turn of getting gold, but we already have some gold in the bank. so lets say 7 turns. thats already 12 turns, then making some HA lets say we whip one on every city so we get 8 HA and some turns to get in grapes, so maybe 15 turns to have a decent amount of HA but then we need some axes and probably also some spears and chariots which are cheap and kill axes. If we start building now it will be obvious and we will get some expenses too, so im not sure how to make the atack succed. If we start prebuilding axes and chariots to pull them out on time it would be a way, bu with the decay and just being able of prebuild 2 of them im not sure how much time we need and how to make it.

Does it seems like 7-8HA 5-7 Axes and 3-4Chariots good enough for an atack at turn 90sh. Since he has just 3 cities it might be, i would like him to build some more cities so he split his forces.

[chumchu]

I do not think production decay will be a problem, there is 10 turns until we lose hammers which is enough time.

Purely hypothetical example: a city with around 7 hammers can build axe to 34 hammers turn 75, then we build say spear to 34 hammers until turn 80, then a chariot to 29 hammers until turn 84. Turn 85 we get axe, turn 86 spear, turn 87 chariot and turn 88 we get HBR and can start getting horse archers.

Build priorities: 1) barracks can be prebuilt right now with the longer decay for buildings and helps a lot (if completed as they show power, shows if he looks at our cities, but at least they cost no gold).
2) Axemen are good against spears and decent city attackers.
3) Chariots are 2 movers and good against axes.
4) An axe stack needs 2 spears. They also protect our cities against surprise 2-movers. We already have some so we do not need as many.
5) Archers are our best general purpose defenders to hold down conquered cities and can also shore up the mjmd front.

Ideally we want to hit him while he feels a bit more safe and starts to expand. That army sounds good enough but the more 2 movers the better. It is crucial we get the capitol to kill him so that should be the main goal. If we stage on the stone by grapes and road on the diagonal we can get to the tile N, NE of grapes which forks Madrid and his capitol in turn 1 of the war. As many 2 movers as possible should be allocated to that.

The one-movers will threaten madrid to bait him from defending the capitol. If they fool him into thinking madrid is the main target then we are happy. I think he has most of his forces there which is good for us as it less defensible with lower culture and no hill. That city can be takes with superior numbers. The stack he has on the forest should be ignored as it is out of position to defend. If he moves it it must go to flatland which means that it can be killed with axes or horse archers.

Do you know where his third city is? We want to threaten as much as possible and know where reinforcements might come from.

Mjmd front: I think 2 fortified archers + dun should hold as a minimum garrison in all cities. Maybe add an axe in Lemon as it is so good a city.

[vanrober]

I do not think production decay will be a problem, there is 10 turns until we lose hammers which is enough time.

Purely hypothetical example: a city with around 7 hammers can build axe to 34 hammers turn 75, then we build say spear to 34 hammers until turn 80, then a chariot to 29 hammers until turn 84. Turn 85 we get axe, turn 86 spear, turn 87 chariot and turn 88 we get HBR and can start getting horse archers.

Build priorities: 1) barracks can be prebuilt right now with the longer decay for buildings and helps a lot (if completed as they show power, shows if he looks at our cities, but at least they cost no gold).
2) Axemen are good against spears and decent city attackers.
3) Chariots are 2 movers and good against axes.
4) An axe stack needs 2 spears. They also protect our cities against surprise 2-movers. We already have some so we do not need as many.
5) Archers are our best general purpose defenders to hold down conquered cities and can also shore up the mjmd front.

Ideally we want to hit him while he feels a bit more safe and starts to expand. That army sounds good enough but the more 2 movers the better. It is crucial we get the capitol to kill him so that should be the main goal. If we stage on the stone by grapes and road on the diagonal we can get to the tile N, NE of grapes which forks Madrid and his capitol in turn 1 of the war. As many 2 movers as possible should be allocated to that.

The one-movers will threaten madrid to bait him from defending the capitol. If they fool him into thinking madrid is the main target then we are happy. I think he has most of his forces there which is good for us as it less defensible with lower culture and no hill. That city can be takes with superior numbers. The stack he has on the forest should be ignored as it is out of position to defend. If he moves it it must go to flatland which means that it can be killed with axes or horse archers.

Do you know where his third city is? We want to threaten as much as possible and know where reinforcements might come from.

Mjmd front: I think 2 fortified archers + dun should hold as a minimum garrison in all cities. Maybe add an axe in Lemon as it is so good a city.

I dont know, we have no explorers, maybe making a chariot with that purpose would be nice, I am 99% sure that he has it around the seafood at his east. but i have no probes.

I see your point with prebuilds, now almost all the barracs are done so it might be good to do that with axes chariots and archers, i dont feel that need of spears, we have 2 and it sohuld be good enough, ,abe 1 or 2 more at most.

Thanks for the time chumchu!

[chumchu]

You are welcome.

[vanrober]

Played the turn, i cant report right now. I am going to make "Mazamorra morada" for this night and it needs around 4 hours to be made. Also will make the rest of the diner. I ll try to update later if i have time.

I just wanted to ask you how many turns/hamemrs should we leave on mids. I think we have to turn into barracs and units soon.

Also thought about try to sign a war peace with mjmd on 6 turns to be safe on that border.

Ruff builded his 4th city

[Kaiser]

I want pictures of Mazamorra morada :D

[chumchu]

If we can get a war/peace then we are safe but so is he. As said earlier, do we want this?
Also this signals very clearly that Ruff is the target of any build-up we do. We will have to weigh the decreased surprise against the increased safety.

Hopefully this 4:th city also needs a garrison. Do you know where? We could build a scout as a cheap non-threatening way to find it.

how much we into pyramid failgold vs. units depends on how much we value the prebuilt units over better eco after the war.. Have you started it yet? if not we could built it in city far from the front like raspberry where prebuilding 1-movers makes less.

[vanrober]

I want pictures of Mazamorra morada :D

I dont know if its because you know it and you want to see if i do okey or if it is because you want to know what it is. So im going to think its the 2nd and explain a bit.

Its a dessert of Peru with a mixture of flavors that i really like. It's not common on Spain at all, there is noone (out of family of course) i know that has knowledge of this recipe.

My father has an aunt on Peru and went visit her some years ago and brought some of their recipes. I really enjoy exotic food, entrails, basically everything, i also like to try new things. 

Anyway, this recipe is based on purple corn, this corn is easy to be confused with black corn but this one is white in the middle and the purple is always purple.

This is the purple corn:

   

In Spain is hard to find, its not in supermarkets, its kind of obligatory buy it through internet.

So it is basically put the purple corn into the pot with some other fruit, for example the skin of the pineapple, quince... Also some spices like cinnamon, clove,...

   

After some boiling, you filter it, then you can use those leftovers to make some more extraction with some water.

That purple water called "chicha morada" gets thicker with some potato flour, you can cut some small pieces of pineapple, apple or any other fruit so you have more textures when eating, also some sugar to be sweeter, you mixture well while still heating. I used just pineapple.
And finally it looks like this. It can be eateng either hot or cold, i enjoy it more cold, thats why i started that soon. I made 4litres, 3 people ate that and we have barely 1,5 l left hahaha. Delicius!