17-02-2004 20:58									#1
	Ironless, what to do? Support Apolyton

Ok, we have no iron. We need more military force, soon.

My suggestion:

We switch any cities currently building spearmen to prebuilds for horsemen, and try to get Python to give us our horses back very soon (say, 2 of our turns from now). Obviously, our chariots get recalled for upgrade. production. Silesia & Izzardia (once its barracks is up) can pump 3-turn horsemen, w/o rush assistance. Swindon is capable of what, 8s? 4 turn horsies. But Ciao is making ~5spt. That's 6 turns for each horse... too slow. We can shave off 3 turns via a shortrush from 5s to 20s (60g). We have a lot of upgrade cash lying around, and we need more horsemen, I think.

We also rush the catapult in Corinth. All three cats can be given to Python for the main invasion. They will make the best use of them, and we will save 3gpt in upkeep.

We should also earmark 116 gold for a rush of a galley out of our western port city, one turn after the city is built. LL has admitted there is a crossing, and I think we want to get a galley going the other way, to meet the other civs.

So that's 80g for chariot upgrades, 116g for a galley, and 60g each time shortrush in Ciao. Let's say we do that in Ciao 4 times, for 240g. That's 436gold.

Now, what to do with the 12 warriors? I think at least a couple should be sent back north (via Plymouth/Silesia). When we pull the chariots out, we will want a couple of units to replace them in the west. We can eventually put the regular warrior in the west on our galley. Let's move 6 of the vets north. That leaves 6 in the south. I think it is prudent to hold those in the Corinth area, with a couple in the city itself, and a couple out on the mountains as lookouts for incoming barbs or Monkeys. A few can be sent out towards Frustrated Poet, to relieve him of his post and possibly do battle with 16 or so barb horsemen.

-Arrian

	18-02-2004 19:10									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

The catapults won't be of any use to Python until they build a road through that last tile of jungle at Silkfest11, so we have a little time to get a couple more to them if we wish.

Plymouth can rush one next turn for 76 gold, in addition to polishing off Corinth's (I think it's less than 5 turns away anyway, so it should be cheap).

-Arrian

	18-02-2004 19:44									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Yes, Python could use the cats well in their SOD.

There is another, slightly mad scenario : After Python dispatch the border towns and head south, when they road the jungle (3 turns?) we could follow with our own SOM (Stack of Modesty). The Spears, Warriors, & Cats beeline for Pri-Cent, while Python attacks the outer core. Our initial pillage team should zap some production before getting wasted, and the SOM could continue. Get to a central tile in the core, then split up into 3-4 substacks for pillaging.

EDIT - cats can pillage too- and no need to move to the tile first!

	18-02-2004 19:57									#4
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

OTOH - we don't really want to be handing promotion-food to Numids. I think a SOM would only be effective when (a) not stepping next to a city and (b) closely supported by an fast-mover stack who could counter attack Numids who hit the stack.

	18-02-2004 21:59									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Well, if we're still doing a galley landing, that's what I was going to use as a pillaging crew.

The reason I was going to bring 1 horse, 3 spears is that the horse can move and pillage all in the same turn if on flats, and then be covered by 3 spearmen. If attacked by Numids (or archers), the spears have slightly better than 50% odds of survival (10% defense bonus on flats).

They could try to block that force or kill it, but that will likely cost them units they would otherwise use to fight the main threat: Python. And of course every tile pillaged hurts their capacity to produce more units, and move them.

Our SoM would be made of horsemen, I think. We currently have 1 horse not slated to be sent off via galley. The 4 chariots get upgraded as soon as we have horses back, for a total of 5 horsemen available. Add in the sword from Silesia, and the regular archer from Corinth, and I'd say those troops should be able to take down Mandril, rest up (and be reinforced by whatever we produce up north), and then march down to assist Python's main stack.

-Arrian