Learning Capria FFH SG

[kjn]

And a map for how we can deny Amelanchier most of the benefits of his worldspell, if he uses it against us:

By placing units on the marked tiles (all can be one-moved from within our borders) Treants can't spawn there. An assault stack next to Evermore would then only be vulnerable to the two red tiles, and could retreat before being touched by the Treants from further east.

We should probably also use this "trick" if we invade Bruti. Having eight Treants on our borders could be quite painful. The ancient forest on our borders should probably have an unit more or less permanently stationed on it.

[Brian Shanahan]

I think our response needs to be more axes, and more warriors, right away.

I'll echo this, I haven't the save to look at atm, but with a 2v1 going horsemen is probably faffing around too much. Go defensive against the Elves for the moment. They do not have the forces to truly hurt us and neither we them. Hit Os hard and maybe even take a temporary peace after Grottiburg. Then we can start building a horseman force to take out the elves (probably better with upgraded warriors and straight builds mix than pure building every one, we can halt science for a while at the appropriate time).

[Hart]

I'll echo this, I haven't the save to look at atm, but with a 2v1 going horsemen is probably faffing around too much. Go defensive against the Elves for the moment. They do not have the forces to truly hurt us and neither we them. Hit Os hard and maybe even take a temporary peace after Grottiburg. Then we can start building a horseman force to take out the elves (probably better with upgraded warriors and straight builds mix than pure building every one, we can halt science for a while at the appropriate time).

See, I agree about the horsemen being a bit of faff right now. But the thing is that Os-G's new capital can still probably 2-turn warriors, which is pretty much all she's going to do until she gets PZ's.

Priorities:
1. Secure Oxford by getting more defenders, as well as some for the copper tile.
2. Gather some more forces and RAZE Bruti, if that will be enough to make Amelanchier back off. If not, then ignore them and simply build a slightly larger garrison in Oxford. 10 turns of enforced border security is better than nothing.
3. Rebuild the strike team of axes, warriors and thanes and go take Grottiburg.

[kjn]

Priorities:
1. Secure Oxford by getting more defenders, as well as some for the copper tile.
2. Gather some more forces and RAZE Bruti, if that will be enough to make Amelanchier back off. If not, then ignore them and simply build a slightly larger garrison in Oxford. 10 turns of enforced border security is better than nothing.
3. Rebuild the strike team of axes, warriors and thanes and go take Grottiburg.

This plan will pretty much ensure Amelanchier will never forgive us, but then:

He Has Chosen Unwisely!

Right now Bruti is defended by three archers and a hunter, defending at 7.25 (this will go up to 8.5 as they fortify). Thus we need at least eight units to take the city. Preferably more. A C1 axe has 19% odds on the archers right now, an unpromoted one has 7%.

We have currently available:

In and north of Oxford:

1 axeman (can promote), 1 M1 warrior, 1 G1 warrior, 1 thane, 1 scout (with Subdue Animal, pegged for Hunter upgrade in 4 turns). Oxford can easily 2-turn warriors. Bologna can 2- or 3-turn axes (we will add deer+banana+life mana relatively soon, so growth is possible).

In and around Coimbra that can move north:

3 M1 axes, 3 C1 axes (can promote), 1 M1 C1 warrior, 1 M1 warrior, 2 thanes, 1 scout

Turn 139: move 3 M1 axes, the HotS axe (with M1 promo), one promoted C1 axe, the M1 warrior, and a thane onto sheep hill NW of Coimbra. That's seven of the needed units.

Turn 140: The stack from Coimbra move to the tile NW of Bruti. There they can put pressure on Bruti, play zone defense in the border area, and maybe pick of exposed units.

Meanwhile, Bologna builds a force of C1 axes. They can stage on the copper, out of sight of Amelanchier. Say we get those on turns 142, 144. Thus we can have the forces assembled to attack Bruti on turn 147. We can expect to lose all units in the initial wave, and make losses in the second wave to.

Perhaps its better to pick up a few Cover promotions? They have 61.7 odds right now, but it will get worse as the archers fortify. We can get three of those next turn on sheep hill this turn (2 C1 ones, and the HotS one with C1 M1 Cover). They can assault Bruti on turn 142-143, at about 50-50 odds, or wait for further reinforcements and attack later on slightly worse odds.

Support them with 3 or 4 mobility warriors, the C1 M1 axe, and the Thane from Coimbra. We can get a C1 (or M1) axe from the north, an M1 warrior, a Thane, and a fresh warrior. A total of 5 axes (3 cover), 5 warriors, and 2 thanes.

My conclusion: having a few Cover axes will be absolutely critical to take Bruti early on and without excessive losses.

[haphazard1]

Lots of good discussion to read and learn from.

I agree that waiting for horsemen is not the right decision. More units now and striking quickly will be better than waiting and diverting hammers into the stable. But the Ljos world spell is potentially a big problem. Putting units on the nearby forests to prevent treant spawns is a nice idea, but spreading your forces out like that would leave them vulnerable and prevent the concentration of strength needed to attack cities.

Also, due to the Ljos dextrous trait their archers are stronger on the attack than standard archers and can be used to pick off non-stacked units. Add their forest movement bonus and Amelanchier has more options than a different opponent would have in this situation. Not sure how well the AI can actually use these advantages, though.

The Illians can convert their lands to ice, so I am not sure how much the quality of his starting land would matter in the longer term. I guess Auric hasn't reached that tech yet?

[kjn]

I agree that waiting for horsemen is not the right decision. More units now and striking quickly will be better than waiting and diverting hammers into the stable. But the Ljos world spell is potentially a big problem. Putting units on the nearby forests to prevent treant spawns is a nice idea, but spreading your forces out like that would leave them vulnerable and prevent the concentration of strength needed to attack cities.

Yes, it would leave units vulnerable. That's why I imagine we'd use cheap disposable warriors for this, mostly. It is also intended to be a temporary thing. He won't pop the world spell unless he sees himself in imminent danger.

So on turn T we move disposawarriors onto his forest, and move our main stack into his land. If he pops his worldspell then, fine, we can handle the losses among the warriors to the east, and preserve our main stack. If he attacks our warriors with standard units that's fine, then we won't have to deal with them in Evermore. We probably should have some mobile units ready to counterattack any such attackers, however.

If he doesn't pop the spell, then we can attack Evermore the next turn, take the city, and suppress resistance.

Also, due to the Ljos dextrous trait their archers are stronger on the attack than standard archers and can be used to pick off non-stacked units. Add their forest movement bonus and Amelanchier has more options than a different opponent would have in this situation. Not sure how well the AI can actually use these advantages, though.

The AI is generally terrible at manoeuvre warfare. Hart identified a weakness in our defences in his comments on my turn report, exactly due to the elf forest movement bonus. For that matter, it's quite probable that he doesn't have visibility on Bologna.

The Illians can convert their lands to ice, so I am not sure how much the quality of his starting land would matter in the longer term. I guess Auric hasn't reached that tech yet?

Don't know - at least I haven't seen any mention of it. Perhaps it's time for another peek from the ancient tower? White would probably also allow us to get better visibility on his land, and then there's always hawks.

[kjn]

Another thing: our economy.

Right now we are down to 30-40% breakeven research rate. We need to either get a bigger total pile soon, cut costs, increase gold income, or tech differently.

A bigger pile is hard for now. We can grow our cities a bit relatively soon (ale for happy, and more health in Bologna), and add cottages, but it will take some time for this to take effect. Deruptus will also add about 3 commerce in Paris. With us due to start research on Arete soon (I hope), we probably should convert to RoK too, for more happy.

Cutting costs is also hard. God King gives us a pretty big edge in production. Our army is our big cost driver right now, and we need to get it even larger (and thus we need God King).

However, we have ways to increase gold income. RoK in a city will add 1 gpt. A Temple of Kilmorph will add a further 2 gpt, and provide a merchant slot, for a further 3 gpt. A merchant in Bologna will add 4.5 gpt.

Running some merchant (or other) specialists also allows us to bulb earlier. Right now we get Sage GPP in Oxford, and Engineer GPP in Coimbra. A great sage would bulb KotE right now, while a great merchant would bulb CoL or Currency. Using a great prophet to bulb towards Priesthood would probably also be quite helpful.

Ie, I think we should run a merchant ASAP in Bologna. Spread RoK in Coimbra and Paris, and convert to RoK for more happy. The next builds in Coimbra and Paris should probably be ToKs (assisted by chops), and then we might turn Coimbra into a minor GPP farm? (Banana, sheep, farm, reagents, for 18 food at size 4.) Salamanca should finish its ToK too, probably after the lodge and a hawk.

Then we can run merchants in Bologna, Salamanca, and Coimbra. Paris should focus on its cottages, and Oxford has a pretty low food surplus and several cottages to grow. That should add 19.5 gpt to our economy relatively soon, and we could reach breakeven at around 70%. Saving our current thanes isn't that critical now, since we're not production constrained right now, and can get new ones in two to five turns.

(Why not use sage specialists and a low slider? Paris is set for high-commerce high-science, and the sage bulbs are pretty mediocre for us, unless we go magic-heavy. The prophet, bard, and merchant lines are better, IMO.)

[Tasunke]

(Why not use sage specialists and a low slider? Paris is set for high-commerce high-science, and the sage bulbs are pretty mediocre for us, unless we go magic-heavy. The prophet, bard, and merchant lines are better, IMO.)

I think the idea is that Academies and Tech Pops are the best long-term/short-term use for Great Sages ... although in this case I think I would agree with you (to settle sages in Paris).

Still, I could be biased because I only recently learned that settled sages are not as efficient as academies.

(honestly I think settled sages are the "medium term" best usage because instead of getting 1 tech or greatly enhancing a late-game city ... you are immediately enhancing the tech and hammers of your only good science city ... thereby allowing other cities to focus on things other than science/commerce.)

[Brian Shanahan]

The Illians can convert their lands to ice, so I am not sure how much the quality of his starting land would matter in the longer term. I guess Auric hasn't reached that tech yet?

Problem with his starting land is that the long term becomes the even longer term. Ice is good for Auric, tundra is still terrible.

[Brian Shanahan]

Running some merchant (or other) specialists also allows us to bulb earlier. Right now we get Sage GPP in Oxford, and Engineer GPP in Coimbra. A great sage would bulb KotE right now, while a great merchant would bulb CoL or Currency. Using a great prophet to bulb towards Priesthood would probably also be quite helpful.

A GPriest would also be very nice for building the Empy shrine, gold is gold, sun mana is sun mana, and free viewing of hidden units is free viewing of hidden units.