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Dominae
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Incidentally, another advantage of choosing now is that, with a clear goal and economic focus, many of the decisions that we're endlessly debating would become a lot easier. "Should we short-rush this or that" is a question that will be simple to answer when our Gold is not being pulled four ways at once.
Dominae
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Dominae
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A. Super-builder
1. Sell all Catapults, and a majority (if not all) of our Medieval Infantry.
2. Beeline to Navigation (through Astronomy) to trade Luxs.
3. Stop research at Navigation and spend all Gold on rushing Aqueducts, Harbors and Marketplaces.
4. Double or triple our Worker-force by setting up 2-3 Worker-pumps.
5. Ensure all non-pump cities are at least size 7, to benefit from Commercial bonus.
6. Do not build any more military units!
B. Full-war
1. End the REX phase immediately.
2. Replace Irrigation with Mines.
3. Stop growing cities when each is at efficient spt (5spt, 8spt or 10spt).
4. Join most Workers to cities.
5. Switch Great Wall prebuild to something else (Sun Tzu's?).
6. Disconnect Iron.
7. Research to Navigation then stop; trade for Gunpowder.
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Drastic? Yes. That's the point.
Dominae
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E_T
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Orlando, Florida
Mar 2001
time: 00:33
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With us having only about 13 turns or REX left to finish, IMHO, that is the route that we should take. It really matter not, if we cut a settler or 2 out of this mix, because of the nature of how we are holding back for the palace move.
And where do you see us, currently, building up these forces??
We only have a handful of Barracks, only 2 cities have the SPT capabilities to make a good start on Knight Production.
Our leadership in this world will come, not from going whole hog Mil Production now, but a very well balanced economic build up, that can support the kind of massive build up that you are envisioning.
It will require us to go one of several routes, some much more expencive than the others. We can build lots of Knights and upgrade them to Cav. Or, we can cut our Iron and build lots more Horses and Upgrade those to Knights/Cav, but at a greater cost. The thing is, to support these things, we need cashflow. Also, if CGN is destroyed before they even get to Metal, we will have to take up that research shortfall. This will require us to have a larger reseach capability and the support structure to produce massive amounts of trade.
The thing is, reasonably, that you really can't have one without the other. If you try it without, then we are doomed to failure, either through falling behind in the techs, so that when we are ready to launch, we will be facing Rifles and Railroads.
Being able to produce 14 (5 turn Knights) to 16 (5 turn Cav) to 20+ SPT in several of our cities, to have the throughput to replenish our losses, is a nessecity. But, no matter how we look at it, we are still a long way away from that reality.
And in all reality, I would rather take Cav up against Ansars and Elephants, than taking Knights.
Also, even though we have the Num Merc (2/3/1 at 30 sheilds), we will still need to build/upgrade to Muskets (2/4/1 at 60 Sheilds). A 4 turn Musket requires 15 SPT, 3 turns at 20. Upgrades costs us 60 gold per Num Merc.
Money, research & trade to generate the two, All need to have a builders approach to bring them about. It's not going to happen without those things. But, they DO need to be interlaced with Mil Units and other support. Again, going whole hog the other way, won't do it, either.
But no matter what, over the next 11 turns, the Palace still has to be moved. That is a given. After that is done, then we can look at what we potenitally do and fit it to what we would like it to do.
MoI E_T
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by E_T
With us having only about 13 turns or REX left to finish, IMHO, that is the route that we should take. It really matter not, if we cut a settler or 2 out of this mix, because of the nature of how we are holding back for the palace move.
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I imagine we will be producing more than 2 Settlers in 13 turns. Just looking at 440AD (or was it 460?), we were producing ~5 Settlers, most of them in our best cities. If we really want to implement Trip's plan, those Settlers should not be built.
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And where do you see us, currently, building up these forces?
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Well, all the cities around the Forbidden Palace, of course! That is, all productive cities.
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We only have a handful of Barracks, only 2 cities have the SPT capabilities to make a good start on Knight Production.
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Yes, the Barracks are a problem, something that definitely needs to be addressed if we go the full-war route. Obviously you prefer the super-builder route (as any good MoI should!), but that's not an argument against the specifics of the full-war route if we do choose that path instead.
You're right that we do not have the economic base to build Knights from scratch in a reasonable amount of time. That's why we need to upgrade to them. Stopping research after Navigation, we should accumulate enough Gold to do so.
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Our leadership in this world will come, not from going whole hog Mil Production now, but a very well balanced economic build up, that can support the kind of massive build up that you are envisioning.
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The "full-war" route that I'm proposing requires us to go to war within the next thirty turns. It's only a massive buildup within a very short timeframe. Think of it this way: GWT is invading us, we need to defend.
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But, they DO need to be interlaced with Mil Units and other support.
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Why? Why does the super-Builder approach require us to build military units? Like I said above, we're not a superpower, so we need to take some risks to get there.
Dominae
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Dominae
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I'm with OPD on this. I was just outlining what I think is necessary in each situation.
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:33
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I don't mind dumping the cats, but the mi's worry me. I just don't trust CFC to stand by if we become weak to them. and after this GWT mess and CFC not communicating well, I could see GWT trying to turn them on us, promising them our continent for a war.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:33
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Ok, I think it might work to disband many of our medieval infantry... they have no upgrade path other than guerillas (hardly worth it and very far away).
However, I am hesitant to disband the catapults when they can be upgraded to cannons and be very useful in that role down the road. That said, the shield expense to build cannons or artillery down the road may be comparatively less than the gold to upgrade and upkeep our current artillery units. So I can see the wisdom if we can COUNT on not having to fight for a while.
Btw, one MAJOR problem with building a NAVY to go with Dominae's super-builder proposal...
A navy is not going to effectively defend us in the period between Astronomy and when we have a large force of frigates up. In that period, 1 attack/2 defense caravels give the advantage to the cross-ocean invader once they get Navigation. If we've disbanded most of our home military, we will be woefully underprepared if even a fraction of their forces make it to land (which they will if all we have to attack their caravels with is our own caravels and an insufficient number of frigates).
The situation with galleons and frigates is not immeasurably better. That said, the shield expense would be in our favor if they have to also build the army to be carried in their navy. The problem is INTERCEPTING their naval attack... if they choose to cross down by CGN's current territory and invade CFC first and we don't intercept their fleet before it lands its cargo, CFC gets wrecked and then us... or something similar.
There is simply too much sea to cover. We will be forced to split up our navy into pieces defending different parts of our enormous amount of coast from where GWT/GCA might try to cross to us (wrapping both sides of the map). Meanwhile, when GWT/GCA *do* come, they can put their entire navy and army into one naval stack of doom. Our divided forces all over the place won't have a prayer to do much more than dent it before it can land their army. Once their army is landed, their fleet is largely irrelevant.
This is why I'm strongly tempted to say screw the navy... build an army, primarily of horse-based units. Because we have the benefit of placing such an army on defense in the center of our empire, we can reach any LZ point quickly and with our entire army where all of our shields have been invested. Furthermore, if CFC gives us a RoP, we can also enter their territory with our horse-based army and take on any GWT/GCA invasion force there quickly as well.
Meanwhile, GWT/GCA will be forced to assume that we may have a large fleet and will build a large fleet of their own to protect their invasion. Since we won't even be ATTEMPTING to stop their actual landing, we save all of those shields that they effectively waste (not to mention the shields they spend on the caravels/galleons for the transit ability). We build enough token frigates to create the illusion of a navy and let them outbuild us in that area. We concentrate on a domestic ARMY.
Ultimately, where we beat them is when we beat them to Hoover's and factories. We then use that production advantage to build an IRONCLAD-BASED NAVY that can blow their frigates and galleons out of the water. We can then also build tons and tons of infantry and artillery, build the galleons to carry them (or transports if we're there by then) and think about invading GWT's continent (or just keeping that military at home on our rail network to try to beat GWT builder wise and make an amphibious invasion impossible).
So we should seriously consider that a fleet may be a BAD idea for our defense... the continent is just too d*** big with too much shoreline to defend.
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:33
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what's the cost/benefit of loading each caravel/galleon with a warrior to do the fort trick (if that is allowed still)?
Should we start a prebuild for magellan's asap? I think that would be a huge help to our naval defense.
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Arnelos
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of the Free World
Sep 2002
time: 00:33
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Trip,
Your pickett plan fails to take into account an unorthodox GWT naval strategy... something which is actually quite likely if they're going to put in so many resources as to attempt to invade us.
For instance, all GWT has to do to circumvent your pickett system is build a series of cities along either the East or West coast, all within 1 turn's travel of each other. They can then transfer naval vessels from port of construction to each next city (1 per turn) until it reaches the launching port (which could be a port built in CGN territory). We'd never see a thing.
They then move the bulk of their cavalry/Ansars down there and load onto the ships and launch their fleet. With navigation in hand, they could even sneak the fleet along the base of the map and CFC may or may not catch them by the time they land. Our main intercept fleets will be on the other side of the entire continent and unable to intercept even if CFC catches them before they reach the south coast of CFC.
They then land some obscene number of Ansar/Cavalry on the CFC southern coast or our southern coast and let loose, razing cities as they go.
That's merely one example. They can use a similar strategy to come at us from nearly any direction without us knowing ahead of time out of which port they will come and what route they may take.
The only solution would be to have picketts off of EVERY GWT port that can launch such a fleet, that we may notice their launch. That's a lot of picketts.
Not to mention, a smart GWT commander would include at least one diversionary force whose purpose is merely to SINK our picket off the port and make us think that their entire fleet headed out to ocean from that port. If hey did this off of, say, 3-4 ports, we would have no good idea which one was the REAL launch site and thus where their main fleet really was at sea.
Our fleet would then have to remain weak and divided continuing to try to guard our entire ENORMOUS coastline while GWT could move their ENTIRE fleet (minus the small diversionary ships whose only purpose was to sink a few of our picketts and make us wonder) to their chosen attack point... at that point, their fleet would be so large in comparison to our defense fleet IN THE AREA that they would overwhelm us and make it to the LZ.
The only thing that would stop them is a unit wall along the coast that would force their main fleet to move along the coast while our main fleet tried to catch up. This is a strategy that might work, but we'd need a whole bunch of land units to be in said unit wall (and within range of ANY point on the continent so that they could be in the unit wall then).
Point is, you cannot rely on your fleet INTERCEPT the enemy in time to stop him from making a landing unless you literally have every angle covered and even then GWT can use deception on us by killing pickets from multiple angles and leaving us to wonder about which is the real attack route. This ultimately leaves us with PART of our fleet fighting their WHOLE fleet - not a pretty picture.
Once they land more Ansar/Cavalry than we can easily beat back with our land units: game over.
The point is that this is all about mobility.
A fleet can move 3-5 tiles per turn and must defend us by moving slowly AROUND the continent (or around the continental pieces through the lake). It must, of necessity, be spread out or held in strategic locations that may or may not allow it to intercept the incoming GWT fleet.
An army of knights can move 6 tiles per turn across the INTERIOR of our territory and reach all possible LZ's for an intercept of the incoming GWT forces. Cavalry could do the same, but at 9 tiles per turn across the INTERIOR of our territory.
The bottom line is that we have little guarantee that even if we build a monstrous fleet, that it will actually INTERCEPT the GWT fleet before they can make a landing. An army, on the other hand, can use our road network to intercept a GWT landing made anywhere on the continent.
Under EITHER plan, picketts would be useful. That said, GWT is open to use the same diversionary tactic under both cases as well against our picketts.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Arnelos
Trip,
Your pickett plan fails to take into account an unorthodox GWT naval strategy... something which is actually quite likely if they're going to put in so many resources as to attempt to invade us.
For instance, all GWT has to do to circumvent your pickett system is build a series of cities along either the East or West coast, all within 1 turn's travel of each other. They can then transfer naval vessels from port of construction to each next city (1 per turn) until it reaches the launching port (which could be a port built in CGN territory). We'd never see a thing.
They then move the bulk of their cavalry/Ansars down there and load onto the ships and launch their fleet. With navigation in hand, they could even sneak the fleet along the base of the map and CFC may or may not catch them by the time they land. Our main intercept fleets will be on the other side of the entire continent and unable to intercept even if CFC catches them before they reach the south coast of CFC.
They then land some obscene number of Ansar/Cavalry on the CFC southern coast or our southern coast and let loose, razing cities as they go. |
Such a scheme would be easily detected - and it's not indefensible. As soon as we see this "city chain" popping up along the coast, we only need 1 more boat for every 2 cities they build to fill in our visibility net. Additionally, we could place boats in locations between the cities, preventing them from funneling ships between them without being detected.
For them to create such a scheme would require a lot of time. It would also require them to have either Navigation or Magnetism. They're a long ways away from that. We can start building our pickets now for the job, and have them ready to sail in 15 turns.
Finally, if we're really concerned about them building up a fleet in the old CGN lands, we can land a contingent down there ourselves. All the land would be good for would be launching a fleet of their own. They would also have to be worrying about an invasion from us. This would mean their two main cores would be much more heavily defended than the CGN south, giving us an opportunity to slip a crack force down there to "cut" their chain.
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That's merely one example. They can use a similar strategy to come at us from nearly any direction without us knowing ahead of time out of which port they will come and what route they may take.
The only solution would be to have picketts off of EVERY GWT port that can launch such a fleet, that we may notice their launch. That's a lot of picketts.
Not to mention, a smart GWT commander would include at least one diversionary force whose purpose is merely to SINK our picket off the port and make us think that their entire fleet headed out to ocean from that port. If hey did this off of, say, 3-4 ports, we would have no good idea which one was the REAL launch site and thus where their main fleet really was at sea.
Our fleet would then have to remain weak and divided continuing to try to guard our entire ENORMOUS coastline while GWT could move their ENTIRE fleet (minus the small diversionary ships whose only purpose was to sink a few of our picketts and make us wonder) to their chosen attack point... at that point, their fleet would be so large in comparison to our defense fleet IN THE AREA that they would overwhelm us and make it to the LZ.
The only thing that would stop them is a unit wall along the coast that would force their main fleet to move along the coast while our main fleet tried to catch up. This is a strategy that might work, but we'd need a whole bunch of land units to be in said unit wall (and within range of ANY point on the continent so that they could be in the unit wall then). |
The picket screen I developed was a very rough and bare minimum outline of what we need. We would also want to increase this as time and our resources allow.
I fully expect GWT to try and sink multiple pickets at a time. To expand our defenses, we could increase the number of pickets in a single tile to 2, then add more picket waves behind them. As soon as a picket disappears, one from the 2nd wave fills it in. We either see 1 wounded Frigate (since they wouldn't be able to effectively take our boats out without them... as you said, Galleys and Caravels are not good for trying to rule the open seas  ) or a huge navy heading for us. They could try and repeat this process, but it would cost them more turns and more boats - they can't keep consistantly sinking the different waves of our defenses with only a couple boats designed to take out a single picket.
quote:
Point is, you cannot rely on your fleet INTERCEPT the enemy in time to stop him from making a landing unless you literally have every angle covered and even then GWT can use deception on us by killing pickets from multiple angles and leaving us to wonder about which is the real attack route. This ultimately leaves us with PART of our fleet fighting their WHOLE fleet - not a pretty picture.
Once they land more Ansar/Cavalry than we can easily beat back with our land units: game over.
The point is that this is all about mobility.
A fleet can move 3-5 tiles per turn and must defend us by moving slowly AROUND the continent (or around the continental pieces through the lake). It must, of necessity, be spread out or held in strategic locations that may or may not allow it to intercept the incoming GWT fleet.
An army of knights can move 6 tiles per turn across the INTERIOR of our territory and reach all possible LZ's for an intercept of the incoming GWT forces. Cavalry could do the same, but at 9 tiles per turn across the INTERIOR of our territory.
The bottom line is that we have little guarantee that even if we build a monstrous fleet, that it will actually INTERCEPT the GWT fleet before they can make a landing. An army, on the other hand, can use our road network to intercept a GWT landing made anywhere on the continent.
Under EITHER plan, picketts would be useful. That said, GWT is open to use the same diversionary tactic under both cases as well against our picketts. |
A navy is not all I suggest in this plan. Railroads would be a very important part of it (we should get Steam before GWT can get Magnetism), as well as land-based fastmovers.
Additionally, with a RR net set up (or even without one) we can block their landing sites if we see them coming - giving us time to get our navy in position to sink theirs before they're even capable of landing. This is the biggest boon to the "big fleet" plan over the "big army" one - we pin them off the coast with our fastmovers then hunt them down. They are the ones who have to frantically try and get their operation done instead of us, having to worry about them landing and getting into position to defeat a beachead.
This is why multiple nets of pickets is important. Again, the image I posted is the absolute minimum for our protection. We would want a more elaborate system - whether we go for the big navy or the big army defense plan.
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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:33
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Good God! How many units would that take, to cover all of our coast and CFC's?
Far better imho to build 30 or so ships and either wipe out their armada or discern the range of their landing.
Another point:
Arnelos mentioned defending CFC's territory if need be. If we transfer over BoP, then would that slow us down much? I'm not sure how the turns work, if cfc is between gwt and us, they could gift us the city, but would they?
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22-02-2004 21:11
).
We could build it instead of the Lighthouse to trigger our GA as well.
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