12-05-2005 15:46									#1
	Report 2030 BC - Proposal 1990 BC Increase the size of your Attachments

Actions taken in 2030 BC

worker Rhot: finished chopping forest (chop to U2).
worker McM: finished mining BG.
worker Snoop: moved 2 horse plains.
worker Platy: moved 223 onto plains.

warrior Rex 3/3: fortified on mountain at DR border.
warrior Dog 4/4: fortified in AbbA.
archer Dave Grohl 4/4: fortified in Live.
swordsman Larry Mullen 4/4, moved 44 to U2.
swordsman Bono Vox 4/4, moved 44 to U2.
swordsman The Edge 4/4, moved 44 to U2.
swordsman Mark Knopfler 4/4, moved 44 to U2.
swordsman (unnamed) 4/4, moved 6 from BC-52's.
spearman Michael Rutherford 4/4, fortified in Metallica.
spearman Phill Collins 4/4, fortified in Nirvana.

AbbA: swordsman in 2. (11-10)
U2: swordsman in 2. (4-4)
Nirvana: swordsman in 2. (7-6)
Metallica: catapult in 9. (2)
BC-52's: spearman in 7. (3)
Live: barracks in 12. (1)

Construction in 32 turns @ 30% science
10% luxeries at 6 gpt with 45 gold in treasure


Diplomacy:
- DR, by means of Aqua informed if we were to continue the (useless) war. I have mentioned that we were expecting them to knock on our door with immortals soon enough. Aqua said he'd be awaiting our swordsmen.
- maths and CoL have been given to BOH.


Remarks
- Aqua has acknowledged having been lucky. Although he mentioned they might have had extra troops, I'm almost sure they didn't. We're still strong towards DR (only weak towards BOH). That must have been a bit of a eye brow raiser for DR. While we had 4 swordsmen last turn, 2 warriors and 1 archer, they have shown us to have at least 2 warriors, 5 horsemen and a spearman. For us being strong, I can hardly imagine they had much more, or at least much more striking force. BAD LUCK.
- Paddy has been a bit on my back for our solo endavour against DR, which ended up in a slaughter. Anyway, we'll coordinate our next attack. The rough plan atm is for us to strike at Bactra with about 3 spearmen, 8 swordsmen, and maybe a few cats. This will draw all the attention towards us as we'll be harrassing Inner Sanctum. BOH will accumulate forces near Antioch (iron hill city) and strike after DR has moved forces.
- AbbA is on hold for growth, yielding 11 shields this turn. Next turn I'll shift this around to 10 shields and not growing by asigning BC-52's WF to the cow. I'd like to build a colony for the horse resource with worker Snoopy and have AbbA spit out 3 turn horsmen for a while.
- I also would like to hear some ideas about building catapults as well. I like to use them. However, my experience mainly goes out to using them SP. I just imagine they'll be usefull in stack defense, especially having quite a few and moreover, very usefull in weakening defenses.


Proposal for actions in 1990 BC

worker Rhot: start roading plains.
worker McM: move 2 and start mining grass.
worker Snoop: build colony.
worker Platy: start roading plains.

warrior Rex 3/3: stay fortified on mountain at DR border.
warrior Dog 4/4: stay fortified in AbbA (unless DR moves its warrior into our territory).
archer Dave Grohl 4/4: stay fortified in Live.
swordsman Larry Mullen 4/4, stay fortified in U2.
swordsman Bono Vox 4/4, stay fortified in U2.
swordsman The Edge 4/4, stay fortified in U2.
swordsman Mark Knopfler 4/4, stay fortified in U2.
swordsman (unnamed) 4/4, move 332 towards U2 (unless DR moves its warrior into our territory).
spearman Michael Rutherford 4/4, stay fortified in Metallica.
spearman Phill Collins 4/4, stay fortified in Nirvana.

Diplomacy
- CoL has been traded around by LB. I have had a chat with Ormuzd of AM and I was too late. We have neglected to be more proactive in trading CoL around.
- In my chat with Paddy we also agreed that it might be usefull to inquire with LB (1889) if he's interested in an alliance against DR. Initially he won't be informed of the existence of an alliance with Babs and BOH. Only after he has expressed certain commitment to an alliance (not necesarilly troops, but proclaiming to be on our side at least). We'll have MM and maths to make it interesting. LB is quite close to DR, so it might interest him. Especially, if we inform him that iron has been connected by DR.

Attachment: map - 2030 bc.jpg
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	12-05-2005 22:11									#2
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Agreed on building both horses and cats. A combined arms stack is always better than putting all your eggs in one basket, and cats can certainly help out.

And of course I've been wanting horsies for a while too.

	12-05-2005 22:34									#3
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which reads as a "yes" to a horse colony...!?

	12-05-2005 22:40									#4
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As long as we get some more workers going too.

	13-05-2005 05:09									#5
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I don't personally like colonies, as it's a waste of a worker and easily captured. Although horsemen may be useful, I'm not sure it's worth the worker ... but it's your call.

	13-05-2005 05:13									#6
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Cats/arty are more useful I think in PBEM on defense than in offense - unless you're in a defensive era (pre-cavalry post-gunpowder, or pre-tank post-infantry, or pre-swordsman post-spearman) of course. A catapult costs, I think, the same as a horseman at least if not as much as a swordsman (shows you how often I build them ) and doesn't take nearly as much HP off of a unit, so only is useful if it survives a long time and attacks several times.

OTOH, ask Beta about how nice a small Cat stack is on defensive ...

	13-05-2005 06:35									#7
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Cats are 20 shields, the same as a spear or archer. While they aren't the offensive powerhouses that swordsmen are, a bunch of cats in a slow moving offensive force are murder on an opponent. They are also nice since they don't require a barracks to be more effective so non-barracks cities should be the ones to build them (such as Beach Boys since it is the only one currently, and our next city whenever that may be). The rest should be pumping out other units like swords, horses and spears. I personally love cats (and later artillery types) for pounding a few hp off a strong defender. Just one hp off a fortified defender can often mean the difference.

They don't belong in a quick moving force of course, but we will have slow movers as our main forces for a while...until we get to chivalry and one of my personal favorite units...the awesome Rider.

As to the colony, I'm not a fan of them either, but the choice now is either a new city down there (not necesarily a bad idea with the oasis tiles and putting us closer to DR), a 60 shield temple build in Nirvana, or the colony. Since I don't know when the next settler build or city location is scheduled then I say go with the colony. But if we have a potential settler build coming up then go with that instead.

	13-05-2005 06:40									#8
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We don't have any settlers at the moment in the queue (until our war effort is well underway, I think).

Definitely cats in barrackless cities, I didn't realize we had any decent producers that were barrackless. Beach Boys will be a while until it finishes a catapult, but sure.

	13-05-2005 06:41									#9
	Increase the size of your Attachments

BTW, one possible strategy has now become "force Aqua on the defensive until we get riders" ... we're what, one major tech away (plus BOH's researched other major tech) from the next era, and although no science civ here, perhaps babylon could be enticed into a forward-looking trade that has a 35% chance (and in my experience closer to a 50% chance) at bringing feudalism for free?

	13-05-2005 06:53									#10
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Quick note about colonies though. They are useful in certain other situations. Case in point was the first Mesopotamia PBEM I've mentioned before.

Part of my strategy to hook up iron so quickly after I discovered the technology for it was to colonize the iron that was 2 spaces from my city so I could upgrade my forces and get on with the invasion of Paddy that ultimately led to my win. If I had done the standard "wait until the temple was built and get the iron roaded" then I wouldn't have been able to start the invasion for another 10+ turns. In that instance a colony was preferable.

Also, when snoop stole my one iron resource with a pre-combat settler () my only recourse was to go hook up the other that was somewhat close to me. It was 4 tiles away on a hill, with a stone hill and two plains tiles from my nearest city. I knew Beta was sending units toward me too so I couldn't just colonize it and leave it, I had to protect it too. So I sent a worker that way, with some more workers to road the two plains tiles, and a settler with defensive forces. The settler would have to wait a turn while the worker got onto the iron and colonized it; then I could start the city on the stone hill to overlap the colony and boom, instant road on the iron instead of spending 6+ turns to road it. I was just about to get my iron back when I reached the victory point threshold, but I thought it would have been a very effective method of speeding up the process.

	13-05-2005 15:21									#11
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Thanks for the discussion. Very usefull, to my opinion.

1. I didn't know reg cats were just as effective as vets. Beach Boys should have its orders changed to cats at once. With this knowledge it even feels as a waste having built barracks in Metallica.
2. We're all in favour of some horsemen. If we build the colony next turn, change the builds in 2 cities (U2 and Nirvana) from swords to horses, we have them in 2 turns. (makes 5 swordsmen, 3 horsemen, 3 spearmen). Metallica should go back to a spear. AbbA can make swords/ horsemen in 3 turns. So first a sword to go with the stack, followed by a horseman.

Thoughts..?

BTW, I am gone in about 6 hours for 2 days. Just to let you know, I won't be able to play the save.

	14-05-2005 04:55									#12
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I would rather build more swordsman for the first attack, followed by a concentrated build of horsemen for the second attack. Fast moving troops are truly useful only when they are a force by themselves; giving up the 1AP and 1DP would hurt a lot, if they're not going to get there any faster.

However, if we have a pretty big horse force that is started as soon as the swords head south, and finished 6 turns later, say, around the same time the swords make DR-land, we can have a second strike only 3-4 turns later, about what, 6-8 horses...

So my final suggestion: Keep building swords for now, until we have completed the attack force (8 sworsdmen or so?) (excepting the cats we build); then change to 100% horsemen for several turns (6 or so); then whatever is best.

I can play the turn today/tomorrow/whenever.

	14-05-2005 07:34									#13
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Sounds reasonable to me. Though a few horses in the stack (even moving slowly) would help in my opinion. Having the ability to do the unexpected not only increases your options it forces the other team to think of those options as well or risk losing something important to them.

	14-05-2005 21:06									#14
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Okay. One horse.