14-02-2004 13:25									#1
	Planning For The War Increase Your PM Length

Ok, the Latin Lover War is quite certain to start in the near future. We are woefully prepared for that, whether the target is us or Tabemono.

After the chat with Tabemono, here's what we can at least do with them...

* We poprush a harbor in IchBinEinStinker in about 5 turns (or less if we get to the 1 pop rushpoint before then or more if it won't overly hurt us).
* Once we have a harbor, and Tabemono will have one in about 5 turns themselves, they can give us a luxury and IRON.
* Tabemono may also be willing to give us money to speed our Republic research.
* When Republic is done and we have at least 1 lux from Tabemono (another from SS if they can hook up more than one source?), we go to as close to 100% tax as we can and start upgrading Jaguar Warriors to Swordsmen
* Every Jaguar Warrior out scouting comes home (this actually starts NOW).
* Our cities build CATAPULTS, which are critically short on. Because of the superiority of Legionaries to Swordsmen, we're going to probably want almost as many catapults as we have swordsmen. Since we're DEAD LAST in manufacturing on the planet and catapults are CHEAP, this wouldn't even be that bad of an idea.
* Between now and the time that Tabemono gives us a source of iron, we build more Jaguar Warriors for later upgrade. Once we HAVE iron, our cities build mostly catapults and spearmen. We upgrade Jags to Swords as money becomes available at 100% tax (and any additional funds SS or Tab want to send us).

Now, as for when the war starts...

1. IF LL's Target is MAST:

* We should have a strong force of swordsmen, spearmen, and catapults to meet their force of primarily legionaries. Because we are using catapults, we can afford to knock a stray LL unit down to 1 pip and try to get lucky if we have a stray jaguar lying about... that said, I'd actually prefer to upgrade jags to swords and just forget the GA (the coming assistance of Tab and SS will help more than a GA at this point anyhow).

* If we are already in Republic and we think LL is coming for us, we throw a single unit (probably a spearman, but we could sacrifice a worker) out for LL to kill. They probably get to start their GA (which was already going to happen), but we get the WW positive benefit (which, given our situation, we're going to desperately need).

* We keep build primarily spearmen and catapults, depending on the city building the unit.

* We pick a tile we think we can stand on (a hill?) and bring along a crapload of workers... we build a fortress on the tile if we have Construction (or poprush a city wall if its a city, which would be ideal to conceal our numbers). When their stack of legionaries moves next to us, we hit them with our many catapults (emphasis on MANY... we need A LOT of catapults!!!!!). They then attack, taking defensive catapult fire from us as they try to hit our spearmen behind city walls (unless they have enough cats themselves to knock down the walls). They should do some nice damage to us, but fail to wiped us out. We then use our cats to attack their stack AGAIN on our turn. We then attack their wounded legionaries with all of our swordsmen in an attempt to wipe out their stack.

It's a simple strategy, but it can work. Only way I've ever found to stop Legionaries, frankly (short of Mounted Warriors, of course...). Horsemen won't do jack to those things. MASSIVE numbers of archers can work as the counter-punch, but I prefer swordsmen, obviously. The purpose of horsemen or jaguar warriors in such warfare is as flanking and reconnaisance forces.

2. If LL's Target is Tabemono

* We take all of our workers and build a road through the jungle to the chokepoint. We lay siege there and break through the chokepoint. We then start marching on LL's capital while LL's armies are marching on Tabemono. We use our alliance with Sunshine for the SS army (to the extent that one exists) to march on our road network (assuming we trust them with a RoP to do so...) to our Northern border and to stop LL from turning around and flanking our homeland. The armies of Tabemono and Sunshine can take care of the LL army in the field. We march on LL's homeland.

Sunshine will want to go along with this because it hurts Tabemono and LL while they can mostly continue building off to the West while MAST is stuck doing the grunt work against LL (most of whose cities would be horribly corrupt to us). It'll take some convincing of Sunshine that we're still good guys if we actually start succeeding against LL, but I think it can be done. At the very least, we claim the LL chokepoint, raze some LL cities in their homeland while Tabemono and LL main armies duke it out near Tabemono's homeland, and the entire situation eventually grinds to a stalemate. In the treaty, we keep the chokepoint. After the war, the MAST-Tabemono Alliance continues. I'm not sure if I would trust Sunshine in the next war.

	14-02-2004 23:38									#2
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Well I've outlined what I think concerning the LL threat before but I'm going to do it again anyway,

The best/only way to deal with the threat from LL is to convince them not to attack us.

Like I've said before we are seriously outproduced, they have a better class of units (we have no iron or horses ) and they have a powerful UU aswell. Then they also already have a much stronger millitary than us.
Even with the help of Tabe I don't think we'd have much chance. Catapults could do it yes, the only problem being that they can have 2 legions for every 1 catapult we have, before even considering the production advantage they have.... 1 cat will do nothing against 2 legions, perhaps if the legions were to stay in the same spot for 10 turns while we bombard them, preferably inside our culture to prevent healing, but that's not going to happen. The reason cats were so effective in the GS-Vox war was there were mountains to put pikes on to guard the cats, that and the fact that Vox did indeed just sit there while GS bombarded them.

We have good relations with LL, infact I'd say were likely the best friend LL have in the game. We also have an unwritten NAP. They will be needing Republic from us in a few turns, although we do have a trade worked out for it I'd still like to use it as leverage to get a more concrete NAP with them. Also the trade will be Rep for construction with LL still owing us some tech points. If it's ok, I'd like to offer LL a deal where they give us a solid NAP for about 30 - 40 turns instead of repaying this difference.

	14-02-2004 23:47									#3
	Inflate your Upload Space

I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks but if we can get a NAP with LL I'd see no reason to have a MPP with Tabe.

Like I've also said before building a load of millitary would be good for our defences in the short term but I think it would seriously harm our long term growth and potential.

Getting a harbour and a lux from Tabe on the other hand would be very good, we're going to need either lux or the use of the lux slider when we enter republic due to not having the millitary police.

Also Arny we do have some gold, about 200, but we've given it to SS for safe keeping while we sort out the barbs.

So what do people think about these issues? If anyone else thinks we should ally with Tabe and start building alot of millitary then we should do it. Also does anyone have any objection to me pursuing a NAP with LL in exchange for the tech difference they'd owe us from the Rep trade? It would mean we wouldn't be able to help Tabe if LL attacked them.
LL have offered us construction accepted this turn, I think we should put off taking it untill we talk with them about a NAP, we can just put it down to the person playing the save not knowing whether to accept it or not.

	14-02-2004 23:50									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

LL is going to attack someone in the very near future - count on it.

Convincing them not to attack at all is not an option. The only option we have is to convince them to attack Tabemono rather than us. The only problem with that is that our ability to encourage them to attack Tabemono if we're going to rely on Tabemono to provide us iron (which they are willing to do!), money, and a lux would be tricky.

Personally, I recommend that we roll over and play dead for LL as much as we can. We encourage them to find a target in ANYONE other than us. Their obvious target would become Tabemono.

Meanwhile, we get Tabemono to send us their iron, lux, and money (via a harbor in IchBinEinStinker) as I've nearly convinced them to do... they seemed downright EAGER to provide us this aid.

In terms of meeting the military gap between us and LL, it's really quite simple... we build plenty of Jaguar Warriors, we then accept iron from Tabemono, and we upgrade all of them to swordsmen. We then build nothing but catapults and spearmen (spearmen in cities with barracks). We have all of our workers build MINES, MINES, and more MINES to increase manufacturing, our most critical disadvantage.

Then we just hope and pray that LL listened to us and will go after Tabemono rather than ourselves. When and if they do, we wait for the opportune moment and attack LL!.

We use Sunshine to attempt to guard our core from any LL force in Tabemono territory that tries to turn around and attack us.

This is really our only shot as I see it... that said, even if LL comes for us, we can at least put up a fight... and the only way to do that is to build the harbor, accept iron from Tabemono, and upgrade Jags to Swords - then build cats and spears. Sure, we'll probably get bowled over, but at least we'll have a fighting chance, we can write our wonderul Muhammad Al-Sahaf propaganda while losing the war, and have some fun while going out. Fighting with nothing but Jaguar Warriors against Legionaries won't be nearly as fun...

	16-02-2004 17:40									#5
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

As far as divining LLs intentions - what about their cities next to Tabe? It's a forward staging area if ever there was one.

Scenario 1: They attack MAST. They have no road through the jungle (unless everyone has neglected to mention it), and nowhere to heal injured units aside from the jungle, at least until they take their first town. Meanwhile with their forces moving south, their two western cities are vulnerable to Tabe 'adopting' them and using the road to attack the chokepoint, or at least disrupt LL forces enough to stall their attack south. LL arguably gain surprise value by attacking south whilst building west, but given the disadvantages and the fact they'd expect us to have Jags watching the jungle areas, I don't think the good outweights the bad in this plan.


Scenario 2: They attack Tabemono. They have a forward staging area (presumably with barracks by now) for amassing troops in 'secret' and healing in safety (with extra defense) close to the combat arena. They know we lack iron and horses for now, so figure they are safe from a significant counterattack against their chokepoint or road (and given that there is a lot of jungle to get through to get there, they have several turns of freedom before any counterstrike can arrive through the jungle). The road lets them get reinforcements to the front quickly. The downside is that they teleghraph the move long in advance, although with a large enough stack of legions, surprise isn't that important.

If LL are looking for a northern war vs Tabe, speed is their strength. They can quietly amass units in their border towns without provoking the same kind of reponse they'd get from slowly amassing 15 legions just outside our borders, and Tabe are potentially several turns from either direct or indirect help - a short war that punches through the core of Tabe land would work for LL quite nicely.

If LL are the target, then us building catapults won't help anything except our defense. We won't be able to get them through the jungle to help any kind of offensive operations. To help LL we really need to break the road to the front, and then block it.

What kind of scope do we have for some sort of naval action to land pillaging forces behind the chokepoint, to break the road at a position they might not expect. It'd be a suicide mission, but might slow them down by a few turns?

Come to think of it, do we have any way of gauging just how strong LL are, beyond being way tougher than us? An assault from their border towns, coupled with an amphibious landing of legions further north could put Tabe in a pickle. LL assume their legions will be seen, and hope we will think they have more in the borders than they do - while the bulk of their forces secretely go on galleons to gut Tabe from the north while their forces are defending a non-event in the south (or just as much fun, LL use a fake invasion fleet of 5 galleys in the north to keep Tabe guessing). I've not seen a world map now that most of the continent is exposed - is a naval attack of Tabemono by LL viable? Is a naval response from us to catch them off guard viable? (I'd guess not for the latter - we don't have enough to defend ourselves conventionally, never mind launching weird attacks).

	17-02-2004 12:47									#6
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Been looking at the map...LL can indeed launch a seaborne-invasion into tabes homeland, tabe will get a minimum 2 turns warning though: turn 1, they spot the galleys, turn 2 , galleys at their beach, troops landing, turn 3, ATTACK!!

As for LLs defence...that chokepoint will serve them good, they can easily defend it. With a couple of scouts, a surprise attack is close to impossible.

Everyone assumes that LL will attack, what if the opposite is the case? They got 10 cities in a 5 tiles RCP pattern, and they are commercial. They are already at the point where they can peacefully outbild us. Those legionairs also happens to be excellent on the defence. Those two cities of could of course be a forward staging point, but they are also for resource grabbing. 2*spices and horses.

Oh, the 'only' place LL could place a second core is in tabeland....our land are too crappy and SS is too far away.

	17-02-2004 17:43									#7
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by bongo Everyone assumes that LL will attack, what if the opposite is the case? They got 10 cities in a 5 tiles RCP pattern, and they are commercial. They are already at the point where they can peacefully outbild us. Those legionairs also happens to be excellent on the defence. Those two cities of could of course be a forward staging point, but they are also for resource grabbing. 2*spices and horses. Oh, the 'only' place LL could place a second core is in tabeland....our land are too crappy and SS is too far away.

When I spoke to him last MZ from LL did make exhaustive comments to the fact that they weren't going to play millitarily this time. Even considering an agreement of non-aggression an irrelavence.

	17-02-2004 18:12									#8
	Put an end to popups!

Call me a cynic, but when was the last time anything MZ said could be taken as unequivocally true?

	17-02-2004 18:36									#9
	Suffering from ads?

yeah I guess so, lousy non-trustworthy MZ

	17-02-2004 19:05									#10
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'd like to send this as a response to the pm Neissuh sent recently.

quote: Thanks for construction we will accept it and send it back to you. We will likely have Republic in 5 turns. In terms of the difference between the tech cost we agreed we'd sort something out for the difference in cost between the 2. The most valuable thing LL could offer to mast is the continued assurance that you will not attack us. From the map it is clear that your nation is far greater than ours and the fact that we have neither horses nor iron should also be aparent to you. Therefore we'd be delighted if you were to simply agree not to attack us rather than some other way of repaying the cost difference. If possible we'd like to have it in writing that you would not attack us for say 40 or so turns, also we hope to have a harbour soon as perhaps set up a trade for luxuries.

	17-02-2004 19:16									#11
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Is the lack of any reference to us attacking them deliberate?

I'm not convinced. It seems to send out the message that we are small and easily conquered (which is true), which rather invites attack in the not too distant future (maybe after they've seen off Tabemone, and can divert the resources elsewhere). What is the strategy here; what impression do we want to make on LL?

	17-02-2004 19:55									#12
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Tricky, any recerence to a defensive alliance against them may encourage them to attack earlier.

	17-02-2004 22:30									#13
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

ok how about

quote: Thanks for construction we will accept it and send it back to you. We will likely have Republic in 5 turns. In terms of the difference between the tech cost we agreed we'd sort something out for the difference in cost between the 2. The most valuable thing LL could offer to mast is the continued assurance that you will not attack us. Mast desire peaceful building more than anything else and we'd rather not have to put all our efforts into building millitary units so as to be ready for any possible conflict. Therefore we'd be delighted if you were to simply agree not to attack us rather than some other way of repaying the cost difference. If possible we'd like to have it in writing that you would not attack us for say 40 or so turns, also we hope to have a harbour soon as perhaps set up a trade for luxuries. It goes without saying that an agreement would be 2 way, more of a NAP than just you agreeing not to attack us

	17-02-2004 23:54									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I know MZ pretty damn well... my assessment is that their team intends to attack. I agree with vulture about those 2 forward cities... they are forward camps for the purpose of allowing LL to get the jump on Tabe before SS or MAST can come to help.