14-01-2004 21:47									#61
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missed the end of the last sentance, which should read :

"or starting to fortify the seawall in preparation for Marines. as asleepathewheel suggested"

	14-01-2004 22:00									#62
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TS, I'll echo your analysis of Lego too. They must be bookies' favourites by a mile.

What's good, is that I still find the game interesting despite our having little chance of winning. Maybe for some of us the thought of being an also-ran is intolerable - and I'm not looking forward to getting destroyed in the late game, if that is to be our fate, but until then it'll be fun to still be a part of it, and to do the best we can.

Even if we had been 'successful' in the Bobian War, and seized Alamo and the rest of the south - could we have held it in the long term? Lego might have fully joined in to defeat us - or we'd still be meatgrinding now while Lego soared on unscathed.

	14-01-2004 22:04									#63
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian As to how to deal with them, well, have you seen the stuff H_E posted about his PBEM amphibious assault on Tiberius? It was, I admit, brilliant. Unfortunately, Tiberius is a Legolander, and will undoubtably now have an intimate awareness of the dangers of such a move. Also, that move could be used on us as well!*

Link please, or a brief explanation. Damn the map for putting us within one turns launch from Bob.

	14-01-2004 22:15									#64
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Link: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...126#post2636126

Last page of "On the Utility and Use of Marines" in the strat forum.

****ing scary.

-Arrian

	14-01-2004 22:49									#65
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Cort, thanks for the worker analysis.

Some of this depends on what Cyclone is doing. Is it actively pumping?

Re: sandstorm, is it a fully-capable 2-turn worker pump (+5 food, 5 spt?). If so, I say switch the current build to a library, finish that, and then pump workers.

If not, we should still use it to build workers, but we need to fit in other builds in between (cats?).

It looks like we have 6 workers poised to join cities soon, which would bring us down to 16 workers. That's not TOO bad. Throw in some worker builds from Cyclone and Sandstorm, and we should be ok.

Re: fortressing the coastline... the problem for us is that once Marines roll around it probably makes the most sense for them to hit us in cities anyway. Holding our coastline once marines are out there seems counter-productive.

The basic problem is that when marines show up, if one of the big boys really want to take us down, they can.

The best we can do is to have a ton of artillery and infantry lying around so that we can garrison the hell out of cities that are at risk + coastal mountains. Then they either have to hit heavily defended cities, accept nasty casualties going up against units foritified on mountains, or land on flat ground, and let us counterattack. edit: given this, if we build fortresses, I propose we do so only on our coastal mountains.

It's still an ugly situation.

-Arrian

	14-01-2004 23:09									#66
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WOW!

That could ruin our whole day.

Forgive me if this question has been asked and answered, but does control of all/most of Bob plus control of all/most of Stormia meet the land tile requirement for a domination victory? Likewise, does Lego's continent (name?) plus Stormia make a domination victory possible? (Set aside the pop requirement for now.)

If so, we are ideal targets, and the only question will be which rival tries to kill us first (my guess is a Bobian). Other than sustained defenses, which will be increasingly difficult to maintain given the productive capabilities of the other three powers, I can see no military solutions to this problem, at least until MI (and even then it's iffy.)

	14-01-2004 23:13									#67
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Memo to self : always write long posts in Notepad, not the 'poly box. I use 2 PC's, and trying to exit a city with the wrong keyboard clears the text field in the browser with no undo. That's twice in a row I've lost everything.

I'll be concise. Cyclone can get +5 food per turn (or rather, +10 food in two turns) and is producing workers every two turns.

Sandstorm cannot get +5 food. It has two flood plains but no other decent food tiles (mnt and desert) - being squeezed between Arashi, Tempest, Hurricane and EotS. If it was smaller it could maybe produce workers every three turns.
It already has a library, in fact, and could have a settler in 490AD. (should have 22 shields next turn, I think)

	14-01-2004 23:17									#68
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I see two possible reasons for the major powers to invade us:

1) Someone trying to trigger domination by taking Stormia.
2) Someone trying to preempt such a move by someone else, by taking Stormia first and holding it, hoping to win via SS.

That's if Stormia + Bob and/or Stormia + Legoland is enough.

When figuring that out, one should probably also include Vox's section of Legoland, because I'm sure Lego could roll over them without much effort.

-Arrian

p.s. I agree, TS. In the end, we simply don't have the production power to be truely safe. All we can do is make invading us really expensive. But the problem is that invading anyone else would be even more expensive.

p.p.s. At some point pre-marines, RP is going to need to beef up their defenses. Their cities are the logical invasion point (sorta like Calais in WWII, and even though that didn't happen, it only didn't happen because the Germans fortified the hell out of it).

	14-01-2004 23:23									#69
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If I recall from my tile-counting days during the GoW negotiations, it's :

Stormia : ~ 200 tiles
Bob : ~ approx 750 tiles
Lego : ~ 400 tiles (exluding approx 80 New Voxia)

So Lego plus Stormia is not enough. Bob plus Stormia is. We can be sure that if ND eat GoW then come for us, we will not be facing ND alone! Count Vondy won't have it.

	14-01-2004 23:25									#70
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Memo to self : always write long posts in Notepad, not the 'poly box. I use 2 PC's, and trying to exit a city with the wrong keyboard clears the text field in the browser with no undo. That's twice in a row I've lost everything. I'll be concise. Cyclone can get +5 food per turn (or rather, +10 food in two turns) and is producing workers every two turns. Sandstorm cannot get +5 food. It has two flood plains but no other decent food tiles (mnt and desert) - being squeezed between Arashi, Tempest, Hurricane and EotS. If it was smaller it could maybe produce workers every three turns. It already has a library, in fact, and could have a settler in 490AD. (should have 22 shields next turn, I think)

Interesting. I guess the question is how valueable is that marketplace going to be for us? If SS is set up to produce workers every 3 turns, what size would it be at, and how much commerce would that market bring in? Hmm, I bet turning it into a worker producer is best. I say build the settler and turn it over to 3-turn worker production.

So a worker per 2 turns in Cyclone and a worker per 3 turns in SS. 5 workers every 6 turns, or thereabouts. That's quite a few, isn't it? Well, first task then is to grow cities completing aqua's straightaway. Forget what I said about hanging on to a bunch of workers. If we're replenshing that fast, we can use 'em up.

What I do, Cort, is periodically copy what I'm typing via ctrl+c, so I can just paste it back in if something bad happens.

-Arrian

	14-01-2004 23:33									#71
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If we are the Great Power's designated dinner, then we'll have been general target in the early game because we were strong, and general target in the late game because we're not. Marvellous!

	14-01-2004 23:33									#72
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quote: Originally posted by Tall Stranger Forgive me if this question has been asked and answered, but does control of all/most of Bob plus control of all/most of Stormia meet the land tile requirement for a domination victory? Likewise, does Lego's continent (name?) plus Stormia make a domination victory possible? (Set aside the pop requirement for now.)

I think the answer is, yes for a united bob, no for lego, triggering domination that is. So I think lego would have to capture a bit of Bob, not sure how much, maybe what GoW has in the north now.


I honestly can't remember the tile counts that Aeson and NYE and others did so long ago...

I have a pic of the C3C f8 screen, but can't remember if it was pre rp N.S. or after, plus it would have some of our bob holdings included, but it had us at 15% of the worlds land. So maybe all of stormia is ~12%? we could load an old save to figure that out.


edit: believe me, I didn't just copy what CH said above...really

	14-01-2004 23:38									#73
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian Re: fortressing the coastline... the problem for us is that once Marines roll around it probably makes the most sense for them to hit us in cities anyway. Holding our coastline once marines are out there seems counter-productive. The basic problem is that when marines show up, if one of the big boys really want to take us down, they can. The best we can do is to have a ton of artillery and infantry lying around so that we can garrison the hell out of cities that are at risk + coastal mountains. Then they either have to hit heavily defended cities, accept nasty casualties going up against units foritified on mountains, or land on flat ground, and let us counterattack. edit: given this, if we build fortresses, I propose we do so only on our coastal mountains.

Arrian, I'm glad you're still around Another case of me posting before thinking (and to think, I've taken quite heavy casualties in a recent sp game in a similar situation)

I think from now on we should just build cats and pikes, to upgrade to rifles (infantry) and artillery.

Artillery is really our only ace in the hole. We might get royally screwed again by the rng and get no rubber, but at least we can have a ton or arties to fire on the landers.

God help us if we don't ahve coal. we desperately needs rail moves to defend ourselves. otherwise....

	14-01-2004 23:42									#74
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus If I recall from my tile-counting days during the GoW negotiations, it's : Stormia : ~ 200 tiles Bob : ~ approx 750 tiles Lego : ~ 400 tiles (exluding approx 80 New Voxia) So Lego plus Stormia is not enough. Bob plus Stormia is. We can be sure that if ND eat GoW then come for us, we will not be facing ND alone! Count Vondy won't have it.

Perhaps true. But if Stormia is the battleground (even if it's just a standoff), we will definitely not win this game. I know, our hopes of winning are already quite low, but that would clinch it.

The only hope we have is the major powers fighting - elsewhere, and that fight being long and bloody. This would allow us to sit around and build and/or intervene to make sure nobody hits domination.

Bob+Stormia for domination would require that ND or GoW take over the entire continent and then strike us. Most people believe ND to be the stronger Bobian, and I agree, though everyone should remember that GoW has a big equalizer for now: Leonardos. Given time, however, ND will get strong enough that Leo's will not save GoW (ND got that leader, and I'm pretty sure it became a FP down south). Ah, but perhaps Lego would. Lego's protection of GoW from us could easily become protection of GoW from ND. I doubt it's in Lego's interests for ND to overrun GoW. Or vice-versa.

In short: unifying Bob would be very difficult, because logic would dictate that Lego would intervene to prevent it. Unless Bob is unified, it makes no sense for a Bobian civ to invade us. It also makes no sense for Legoland to invade us. So, unless one of the Bobians manages to conquer the other, fighting Lego at the same time, we will most likely be left alone.

That is, of course, if logic is the basis for decision-making. We've been wrong about such things before.

-Arrian

	14-01-2004 23:45									#75
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian Interesting. I guess the question is how valueable is that marketplace going to be for us? -Arrian

Not very - I just did those sums too. Another 25 workers by the Industrial era sounds like just what we need.

	14-01-2004 23:50									#76
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Sleepy,

I'm glad to make a contribution of a military nature for once. I feel like I made (or allowed to be made) a bunch of mistakes in our Bobian adventure. One of them led to the final slaughter of our slowmover stack (I'm the one that ordered it out onto the flats southeast of the Alamo). I also failed to notice Toledo2 (probably the single biggest oversight we've made in the game), and argued for massing our knights for an attack on the Alamo, which led indirectly to the 2nd massacre near Pamplona.

I agree that any future unit builds should be of the footslogger or bombard unit variety. I also pray we have coal (and rubber). My current long-shot hope is that there is Coal inside Hurricane's radius for the Ironworks. Probably more likely is Dissidentville, but I can dream, right?

-Arrian

	15-01-2004 00:28									#77
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian In short: unifying Bob would be very difficult, because logic would dictate that Lego would intervene to prevent it. Unless Bob is unified, it makes no sense for a Bobian civ to invade us. It also makes no sense for Legoland to invade us. So, unless one of the Bobians manages to conquer the other, fighting Lego at the same time, we will most likely be left alone.

For Lego, I agree with you. For the Bobians, not necessarily. They must understand what our most logical strategy is: namely, we turtle up, encourage/ support a clash between ND/ GoW and Lego until both sides are devastated, and then try to make a move. If you're a Bobian, the last thing you want to do is plan a brilliant invasion of Lego, destroy much of the Legonian threat, only to be outmanuevered and beaten by those hot-shot strategy forum guys. They may feel that they don't dare make a move on Lego until they know that their flank (Stormia) is secure. In fact, both ND and GoW may very well know that, at some point, they will need to fight each other if either is going to win. It wouldn't surprise me if they agreed to postpone such a battle until we and Lego are out of the picture.

Sadly, I can think of no way to trick them into thinking that we won't try to stab them in the back. I don't see any other choice for us, and they may know that.

Just some thoughts to depress everyone.

	15-01-2004 00:34									#78
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus If I recall from my tile-counting days during the GoW negotiations, it's : Stormia : ~ 200 tiles Bob : ~ approx 750 tiles Lego : ~ 400 tiles (exluding approx 80 New Voxia) So Lego plus Stormia is not enough. Bob plus Stormia is. We can be sure that if ND eat GoW then come for us, we will not be facing ND alone! Count Vondy won't have it.

Aeson did the same when we first had a world map... no, Bob + Stormia is not enough for domination. I don't remember the exact tile counts anymore, but it was some 20 or so short... more if there still are unexplored islands out there.

BTW, would it be possible to share maps with ND or GoW? Lego will never do it, but the others might. we could learn something

DeepO

	15-01-2004 00:35									#79
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At first, we set D-ville up as a settlerpump, I don't know if it had its granary built, and what the current status of that town is. Maybe it can build a few workers?

DeepO

	15-01-2004 00:46									#80
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I'm not so sure on us being a target for invasion. Sure, marines could help, but if we take appropriate measures (i.e. not leaving our inner cities defenseless, and covering most mountains with defenders), they will not be able to succeed with an invasion easily. I'm not sure if we don't need to keep that seawall present even after marines, it will be a burden for them.

The one thing we have to do is to scout the seas, and not allow any foreign boats in our neighborhood. And we might need to go for Maggelan, to prevent the others from using it against us, even if we don't plan on building huge navies. Besides, it will trick them into thinking we do have a large fleet, hidden somewhere.

One thing I think is going to become quite interesting later on are spies, and spying... we'd better safe on cash by the time we get there

DeepO

	15-01-2004 00:47									#81
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TS:

Damn, that does make some sense.

So where does that leave us? Exactly where we started: anything can happen. We look to our defenses as best we can.

-Arrian

	15-01-2004 00:54									#82
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One thing we have going for us is the itchy trigger fingers of GoW. Can they sit on their army of riders (and Nd their ansars) until marines?

How many turns estimated for marines? They are more than a full age away, so maybe, 75, 100 turns? thats a long time to keep the peace. With aggie in charge, they could make it. with zen? Why can't Hotenamel be in charge there in this phase

(its funny how an otherwise mundane turn thread has turned into an epic long term strategy session )

	15-01-2004 01:00									#83
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good point Re: itchy trigger fingers. And there's another factor: they used Leo's well, so far, but if they want to take it further, they're going to need to upgrade their riders. Next upgrades are far away, apart from the defenders.

So, they need cav, and they need to use them if they want to use their leader well. If ND and GoW keep sharing techs towards Mil Trad, we know the next target: Lego.

DeepO

	15-01-2004 01:06									#84
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO At first, we set D-ville up as a settlerpump, I don't know if it had its granary built, and what the current status of that town is. Maybe it can build a few workers? DeepO

DVille has mountains all mined now, so after its aqua (11 turns) it can irrigate the grass and let rip - it's got a lot of land. In fact it can get irrigated next turn to speed up growth and the aqua build, I think. I just noticed the wheat - hmmm.

22 workers now plus 25 from Cyclone & Sandstorm in the next 30 turns (ETA for Industrial Era)...

7 workers and 4 settlers will take the first three aqua cities (Monsoon, Sufa, Blizzard) to size 12 (sea-commerce bonanza). That'll be within six turns.

The next 3 (OG, Typhoon, Diss) would take 15 workers (9 to 15 turns from now) - which totals our initial 22 - and we'll still have about 25 with maybe 10 turns until Steam.

	15-01-2004 01:13									#85
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Steam is a bit of a problem, though. If we want ToE, and have a shot at Hoover, we can't research it ourselves before going for ToE. OTOH, we can use the production... tricky.

30 turns for Industrial era looks nice, however it could be speeded up considerably if we can get some trades going with Bob. But I agree with you we have enough workers.

Oh, and the wheat was of course why D-ville was going to be a settler pump, once we had half of Bob secured

DeepO

	15-01-2004 01:30									#86
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I don't understand, Deepo. Everything goes through Steam except Hospitals and Rifles. Industrialisation is the heartache, as that's not in the path of the ToE.

If anyone fancies the diplo with ND/GoW to get tech deals then by all means. My efforts haven't got anywhere so far so I'm thinking they don't want to know.

	15-01-2004 01:36									#87
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D-Ville:

As I said, it's got potential to be a big boy - unlike Cyclone and Sandstorm, but it could pump 2-turn workers - adding another 15 to our estimate.

If we did that, and eased off on some of the other city-boosting (leaving some at 10/11) we could have over 50 workers when steam arrives. Think what we could do with that...

	15-01-2004 01:40									#88
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus I don't understand, Deepo. Everything goes through Steam except Hospitals and Rifles. Industrialisation is the heartache, as that's not in the path of the ToE.

Oops... of course you're right... it shows it's been a while since I last played, I switched the two

DeepO

	15-01-2004 01:44									#89
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Assuming Coal ... (if not, we go merc, I say!) Could our strong commercial & research power, plus 50 industrial workers give us an edge - a short-lived but potentially sharp edge? Not enough, I expect, as Lego will have had their Smith's GA and probably been there and done that and built the Hoover Dam before we get to say "Charles Darwin".

We might get a jump on the Bobians, though. We could build the rail spine in a few turns then jump from one city to another, turning them almost overnight into powerhouses and praying to the RNG for rubber.

	15-01-2004 01:48									#90
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Something else might give us an edge: we're religious, and democracy is near. The others will have to spend ~6 turns in anarchy if they want to benefit. I doubt Lego will be doing it if they want to build Hoover, which means that for all their might, they won't be the best researchers. If, we can get demo asap, it wouldn't surprise me if Vox wants to cling to it.

DeepO