14-12-2003 15:03									#1
	turn 71 1250bc Support Apolyton

The save is in, will look at in 30-60 mins I guess.

Orders....?
Build new city

Have to look at the save and other threads first..

	14-12-2003 16:14									#2
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

LL offers HBR and polytheism, do we offer CoL in return?
Tabe gives us 48g

Capitol builds settler.
Popped settler builds city

	14-12-2003 16:27									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Offer CoL to LL in return for HBR and Polytheism
Send CoL to SS accepted

Set research to 90%(philosophy in 8 turns, +1g), tax@10%

Units.
Danger-w,s
steve-n, more mountains...possible shore to the west
Jaguars-n,s, sees two LL warriors
lada-n,n
Today or uday-w,w
Asskicker-sw, next to barb village, other barb warrior 2 tiles away
New settler-s,s
Other-s,s,s(one tile ahead of settler)
Spearman#14, into capitol

LL makes jump on F11 powergraph

	14-12-2003 20:12									#4
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by bongo LL makes jump on F11 powergraph

Tabemono and I have discussed that we believe that LL is building warriors for a prepared mass upgrade to legionaries. We need to start building our military force for stopping the LL advance.

We also need to coordinate with Tabemono and Sunshine about a coordinated military campaign to prevent LL from using a mass legionary upgrade to wipe out each of our empires 1-by-1. The fall of MAST would not help these other empires at all and they have an interest in helping us, that the fight never has the chance to make it to their own borders.

We'll get our OWN chance to stomp on someone soon enough... but in this situation, we're going to need help. That said, we need to start building our military for our defense.

Btw... since LL is working on Map Making, it is my suspicion that they intend to perhaps use (or at least leave open the possibility that they might use) a galley landing to attack either us or Tabemono rather than slogging through the jungle terrain in the viscinity of the chokepoint. If we can indeed get Map Making from them, we could post a defensive galley picket to watch for any galley advance, but they may attack long before that's an option.

We're going to need to develop a military strategy able to cope bith either a land advance through the jungle (and to give us early warning of its coming) OR a naval advance via galleys (and give us early warning of that as well). Finally, we need to encourage Sunshine and Tabemono to work on ways that would most aid us in defending ourselves and we'll need to find to a way to help defend Tabemono if THEY are the target of attack (or at least find a way to attack LL if they lunge for Tabemono ).

First order of business, as I see it, is the rather expensive project of constructing a road between Tabemono, MAST, and Sunshine. Such a highway would allow each of us to send military aid to the others in the event of a legionary attack by LL with best of speed. Such a highway could allow transportation of forces behind our lines that could compete with LL's ability to use the chokepoint and their earlier research of Map Making to use galleys as their safe means of transporting their troops to different fields of battle.

Unfortunately, it may not be possible to finish such a project before LL attacks. We're going to need to look at that as well. It may be necessary to find ways to delay LL's attack until such a road can be in place or to instead use our workers to improve our own terrain and make it harder for a legionary attack to succeed against.

Lots of things to think about and discuss.... we had better get to it.

	15-12-2003 00:18									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

How do we defend against legionaries then? Spearmen, catapults and archers? If we can build a decent sized defensive force we can shift them fast around on our internal road network...

We already have a road to city #5, it can be extended to hippieland.

	15-12-2003 04:43									#6
	Tired of ads?

Against a legionary attack, probably the most critical unit is the catapult. Of course, we need enough spearmen to protect our catipults and enough archers/horsemen/swordsmen to take advantage of any damage done by our catapults, but the cat is probably the most critical unit (and the one we can't afford to lose too many of).

Optimal situation is to face the legionary force with a number of catapults and spearmen of equal number, along with a number of offensive units (archers, swordsmen, horsemen, even Jaguar Warriors if we want to start our golden age). When the legionaries are next to our stack, we bombard them with the cats, then fortify everything. They'll attack and kill a number of our spearmen, but the damage they took in the bombardment will prevent them from killing all of them (especially since our spearmen have cat support on DEFENSE, too). When we get our turn again, we bombard the legionaries AGAIN and attack them with our offensive units in an attempt to finish the stack off.

The units we'll need to constantly be building are spearmen to replace our losses defending against legionaries (since many spearmen will be killed despite the legionaries getting bombarded twice by each catapult)

The largest issue is going to be having enough PRODUCTION to build such a force, as LL's method of doing a mass warrior to legionary upgrade may give them more units via upgrade than we can realistically product via shields. That's the main reason why I think we need the allies. Even with the stack I want, we may have a difficult time defeating LL's legionary stack.... and there's something of a "critical mass" of spearmen and catapults you need for this strategy to work, as otherwise you just lose all of your units and the enemy captures your catapults and turns them on you.

If the enemy has, say, 6 legionaries, costing them roughly 60 shields and 180 gold, we'd need about 6 spearmen and 6 catapults costing 240 shields, on top of any defensive forces we can scrounge together.

Thankfully, IF the initial confrontation goes in our favor, the odds don't look too bad for us. For every 30 shields LL will spend building another legionary, we can spend another 20 shields to build another spearman... and we'll still have our catapults to slow them down and any remaining offensive units to finish off any wounded legionaries in a second or third wave.

The absolutely critical point is STOPPING that first wave. If we don't have the forces to stop that first wave, we're probably sunk unless either Sunshine or Tabemono can somehow bail us out (which may be quite unlikely before LL can burn down or conquer some of our cities). If we CAN stop the first wave, the momentum will be very much in our favor, DESPITE their golden age. We can maintain a force parity with them and stop succeeding waves of legionaries while our allies are sending their own forces to substantially turn the tide and begin the counter-offensive with us against LL.

Now.... the BIG question is what exactly we need to do in order to have such a force prepared by the time LL strikes. It's not clear to me how long we can afford to REX rather than building spearmen and catapults or how long we can get away with REXing so that when we DO start building spearmen and catapults, we'll have more of them by the time LL arrives.

That's the area where I think we need a lot more discussion.

	15-12-2003 18:27									#7
	Full PM-box? Change here!

It's painfully clear that we will need help here, Perhaps we can strike a deal with sunshine? They build catapults, we build spearmen. If LL arrives, we declare 'war' on SS to borrow their catas. In return, we make sure LL can't get past us to get to SS.

Oh, is the 'catapult gifting' trick outlawed in this game? Can we trust SS in this matter?

	15-12-2003 20:44									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

The situation with LL is dire indeed.

1. They have better production,
2. Their units cost less,
3. Their units are better.

We simply wouldn't have any chance at all. For every spear/catapult combo we can build they can build 4 Legions from warrior upgrades. 4 Legions vs 1 spear and 1 cat is a contest.

The only defence we have against LL is to get them to not attack us.

Not that I'd be willing to let them know this at this point in time but, I'd be more than willing to give them tech and future tech for a NAP.

	16-12-2003 01:35									#9
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Just remembered some vital quote from Sun Zu, The best is to win without fighting.

If we let LL know that we are aware of what they are up to and are building an alliance against them. It would possibly be enough to keep tham away for a while.

We shouldn't mention this until we actually have an alliance, but we can use the diplomatic card long before we have an army.

	16-12-2003 03:18									#10
	Remove this text

Another option is to ask LL what they might want to consider receiving from us in return for not attacking us... if we're so certain that they're going to wipe us out, perhaps we might convince them into us paying them "protection money", only to then join up with an alliance of other nations to WIPE THEM OUT

It's an idea...