RP Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Darius I of the Holy Roman Empire

[Nakor]

Thanks DMOC, things are looking good!

How about going for Chem - Steel after Theo? Cannon's shuld help against possible Grenadiers, right? You're right about Dantski being 2 techs away from them.

Changed one build (Port Natal to Mace since it would have completed a Treb withouth the extra exp).

Drafting... well, let's start with the cities that have barracks and are close the the health limit or are working water/sea tiles.
I think we need to whip a LOT! We can draft 4 times a turn I believe and with some whipping we should be able to get a good military soon.

The main problem for me is that Dantski has Privateers and a lot of his cities area on islands... we need to deal with those as well. Or do you think that we can clean him up slowly once his main land cities are gone?

[Jabah]

As any 'advanced' boat, Privateers need Astro, which is quite expensive and has at least optics as a pre-requised, so unless I missed something from your reports, I highly doubt Dantski had tech all that ...
on top of that, Privateers don't need to ba at war to be a pain

[DMOC]

I doubt that Dantski has privateers too.

Also, his island cities are not as important as the mainland ones. In a war you want to get the most important cities first, not the insignificant ones. The island city next to Magrave's Port is an exception since it's easy for us to take if we play our cards right.

[Nakor]

You guys are right, sorry.

We'll get theo next turn (could get Chem in 1t as well and then Theo the next but not the other way around, is that an option?)

Ordered some rifles as build.

Athlete gifted us 4 workers on Centralia and a LB. Don't know what's going on there.

Where do you want to park our attack force?

[Cyneheard]

We can draft 4 times a turn I believe and with some whipping we should be able to get a good military soon.

Standard maps allow 3 drafts a turn.

[DMOC]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 205 - 1450 AD[/SIZE]

One of the best turns in the game, and it's on the night when I have a paper due tomorrow.

I'll try to keep things short for now.

Here's what I did this turn.

• Put the workers athlete gave us to work and micromanaged a bit.
  
• Loaded 2 of Margrave's port's axemen onto the ship to hide our unit supply.
  
• Whipped Sethanon for a confucian missionary that will go to Yabon next turn. Ideally I'd like to use Port Natal first for confucianism but the missionary needs to get there the turn it is created for maximum effectiveness.
  

NEXT TURN, THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD DO IN ORDER:

• Convert to Nationhood and Theocracy.
  
• Convert to Confucianism.
  
• Whip Crydee's catapult for 2 popuation ponits. [It will receive the Theocracy bonus due to Confucianism.]
  
• Start on a trebuchet in Rolan and slow-build it. [It will receive the Theocracy bonus, but lack the Bureaucracy bonus.]
  
• Darkmoor needs a lighthouse to grow faster, and hopefully we may draft once in that city.
  
• Have the worker south of Hawk's Hollow road the forest that is "9"-"9" or NE-NE of Hawk's Hollow. We need that road for a "backwards route" that Dantski can't see.
  
• Load the Landsknecht by Darkmoor onto the galley, so we can shield our units from Dantski's view.
  
• La Mut's worker can build a lumbermill on La Mut's forest - more production!
  
• The worker southeast of Port Natal needs to go to the forest NW of Stardock so it can chop into the Globe Theatre.
  
• I know we need a worker - unfortunately Sethanon will have to create a second Confucian missionary instantly to send it to La Mut, since La Mut needs Confucianism as well. THEN after that we can do the worker. We may have to have La Mut build its first Riflemen withotu the Confucianism bonus since Sethanon won't be able to get a missionary in 1 turn.
  
• We can draft three times. Therefore, after studying the game a bit, I think that the best thing for us to do right now is to draft in (a) Land's End, (b) Carse, and © Yabon. Unfortunately for us, only Yabon will have a riflemen capable of being promoted due to Theocracy and a Barracks. The idea here, though, is to use up the cities that are out of the battle front first in drafting, and saving the ones close to the front for the last draft, since those units will be right there with little to no transportation costs.
  
• I'd gather the military garrison on the spices tile south-east of Crydee. Why? Dantski can't see it, and no military unit of Korea or India also can see it. This way, we can move our stack from the spices tile ONTO the forest tile south of Gao on the first turn of the war, thus surprising Dantski completely. However, DO NOT DO THIS JUST YET. Dantski may move a chariot or another unit into our territory before we can cancel open borders. We should probably keep most of our troops in our capital right now, then the turn before the war starts, move those troops onto the spices tile.
  
• As soon as the riflemen are drafted from the island cities, put them into galleys and begin to move them to the main ring.
  

Screenshot of Romali, so we can see which cities have whipped.



The big question in this war is - do we go with one main stack or two? Personally I was going for 2, but Dantski may have some surprises so I'd go with one, that will attack Gao. First turn, it can go on the forest (yes, forest, thank you Dantski!) south of Gao, then attack next turn. After that - march north?

This may change if we can see the garrison of Kumbi Saleh.


LAST THING:

We need to cancel open borders with Dantski. We don't need his chariots in our lands (one is at Krondor now). Alternatively, we could cancel them AT THE END OF THIS TURN before Dantski plays. This is actually the better option, so it's time to pull a Spealer/Sullla move (remember what they said in that email/tech thread about holding the clock when Jowy wanted to attack) and run down the clock to the end and make sure we cancel them at the end of this turn.



But BEFORE we cancel open borders with Dantski, this is what we have to do (and this is why we have to play after him). See this spearman? Next turn, right before we're done, we need to move him south of Kumbi Saleh to see that city's garrison. Then, once we see it (and screenshot it) cancel open borders with Dantski. The spearman will be catapulted out the city.

I know this is a lot of information to absorb, Nakor. Tell me what you think of it, and we can see if this is the way to handle the future. I can play the next turn (or more accurately, finish it if we're the last ones to play)

[DMOC]

After looking at the second screenshot in the post above, the worker north of Krondor may want to road the tile that is directly south of the jungle by Kumbi Saleh, rather than where I put the sign.

Our NAP with Dantski expires on turn 210.

[Nakor]

Ended the turn without doing the spearman scouting and closing borders.
As far as I can see things, the Chariot left our lands AND we had enough EP's to get visibility into Kumbah.
Don't know where Dantski's surprise stack is, but I'm not that impressed with what I see.

Left the revolts for you to manage, just did some worker and build actions.
Confu spread to Yabon.
Research at 50% to still get Chem in 1t.

Feel free to party, but remember that we must end the turn playing last again.

[DMOC]

Excellent - wasn't sure if we would ever get the visibility to see Kumbi.

I'll log in the game in about 1-2 hours hopefully.

You can check if the chariot is in our lands by F5.

I'll do some drafting of course, as per my plan above.

EDIT: I have not logged in. I want to play our turn after Dantski, and we should keep doing so so we can get the 2nd half of the turn timer since that is when cities that are whipped produce their troops. (At least, I think that's one of the benefits of going second.) Do you remember what India's reason for going 2nd in the turn timer was? I don't think they ever said.

If you are the last to play be sure we wait so we can decide which cities are best to draft the next turn.

[DMOC]

At the moment, the turn timer is 11.5 hours, so the turn flips smack dab in the middle of my civ playing time. Excellent!