12-02-2003 08:06									#1
	Final Decision: Barracks or Horseman? Support Apolyton

Right now we can either have a Horseman in Regio Equorum in 2 turns, or Barracks in 6. Since I saw the veteran NDE Swordsman in their northern-most city, I've been a bit worried. Waiting to build Barracks might cost us more than it provides us. We need units, and fast. We can worry about their quality later on. The time to act is now.

	12-02-2003 13:45									#2
	Suffering from ads?

It is my opinion that we need Veteran troops to beat them.

	13-02-2003 00:39									#3
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I want at least one horsemen right now. then build barracks and vets. I dont want to risk them attempting an attack while we have no units to attack the advancing swords.

	13-02-2003 00:42									#4
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Think about it. If we finish the Barracks, the soonest we could have a single unit from Regio would be in ~26 turns. By then, NDE will have no doubt attacked, and Regio and our horses may have already been lost. We need to get out some units before that situation even has a chance to arise.

	13-02-2003 03:54									#5
	Support Apolyton

I'm with civerdan on this one.

	13-02-2003 04:08									#6
	Tired of ads?

Alternate plan that may work better for us. Multi-stepped, and perhaps a bit difficult to pull off, but possible.

Returning to Barracks. Why you say?

We'll upgrade our 3 warriors in Regio to Swordsmen. 3 Swordsmen are much more potent than 1 Horseman and 3 Warriors.

However, this takes a bit of work.

• First, we need to pull all our Warriors back to Regio. That probably means we need to move a Spearman from Regio to Invictus, since we won't have any forces defending the motherland.
  
  
• Finish the Barracks in Regio. 5 turns.
  
  
• Link the iron somehow. We can do this one of two ways:
  - Build City #4 on or near the iron tile.
  - Use our worker to build a colony on it.
  
  Each of these has benefits and drawbacks:
  
  Building a city means the loss of a massive manufacturing center and the potential loss of a city, but we gain a stronger base to hold the iron from.
  
  Building a colony means that losing the link to the iron (and our worker) is very probable, but we gain a very powerful manufacturing city that's deep within our empire, and we won't need the iron for very long.

	13-02-2003 04:15									#7
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Oh, and since I didn't mention it, I advise we switch back to Barracks and use our Worker to make a colony ASAP. We won't need the iron for very long, and we NEED that 4th city to be a good one.

	13-02-2003 20:18									#8
	Support Apolyton

In light of recent events...perhaps we should do something different:

Barracks via forced labor, will take only 3 turns??? then upgrade warriors...but some are far away...so just build Horsemen/Archers by the ton to meet and destroy NDE.

A colony to the iron would be great, but I don't think we could defend it.

	13-02-2003 22:16									#9
	Suffering from ads?

Not a bad idea, rushing the barracks. If we can connect the iron, then we'll be able to get 2 swordsmen in about 4 turns. That should be enough to take a big chunk out of their army, if nothing else. Our priority right now is to get that iron though, at any cost.

We may have to work with Archers, but we'll see...

	14-02-2003 02:59									#10
	Suffering from ads?

I agree...hook up the iron. If we do get attacked soon, one horsemen just isnt going to cut it. Not only that, if they attack, they will probably feel they have to attack the colony to take away our iron. I am sure they would rather have horsemen attacking their swords rather than Swords. At the very least it will either delay any attack or require them to divert units.