14-03-2003 02:46									#1
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Greetings! I hereby call for an Apolytonian senate meeting to discuss and vote for some basic stategies of this phase, also concerning our response to a meeting with eventual opponents. This is mainly medium term strategies so votations will lasts for a week, but please don't vote before you read the thread.

- So which startegy do you find most appealing?


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1. Moderate military expansion:
Balance military, settler, worker prod. This is a medium mode of expansion, but will secure us better if we meet an offensive civ close to us.


2. I wanna go bonking heads now: We need a much stronger military asap. Building some settlers but most military and create a stack-o-doom and intimidate them as soon as we meet someone. This is a medium/slow expansion strategy but will make very close neighbours tremble in fear. (if we got them near that is)


3. I want more land, so rapidly expand: Building settler+merc. Typical REX strategy. (Rapid EXpansion) Once a city reaches 3 it should soon pop out another settler. Goes for all cities until we have about 5. We can get many production bases fast this way, thus resulting in the best prodution capability. However, this can leave us a victim of a close civ that chose 2.


4. Infrastructure and passive defense:
Build many merc & workers asap. e.g. after we get another city, just build more workers, then roads and mines and irr. This will enhance the internal city capabilities and give more trade, but not our total production capability as we won't get as many cities fast this way. Numidian merc is not only passive defence, though.


5. Cultural priority and hegemony: Building mostly city improvements. e.g. after we get another city, build a temple there and then perhaps a wonder in the first. This makes us vurnerable to attacks, slow expanding and low prod.base, but gives a cultural head start.


6. Moderate cultural expansion: Expanding at medium/slow rate,
and building Temples asap in each new city, and starting a wonder before 5 cities are founded. The military will have to suffer, leaving us weak for a long time until the wonder is created.


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Got more strategies? Post them here, and I'll make them ready for the next survey.

Last edited by ThePlagueRat on 14-03-2003 at 02:57

	14-03-2003 03:05									#2
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I voted for 1; until we know more about who are neighbors are and how close they are, it is best to hedge all bets.
A middle of the road policy serves well in cases where circumstances are unknown.

	14-03-2003 03:22									#3
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Warrior, Worker, Settler flood. With enough Merc support that if things look grim, we give ourselves enough time to really start pumping them out. Maximize 'safe' expansion.

We look to only have 1 real border SW. We may also have a border SSE, but it's much less likely. In the case of 1 border, just a couple of Merc's should suffice. We'd then need to build our military up (hopefully by connecting Iron) more by Map Making.

	14-03-2003 03:24									#4
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I would want to wait 3 or 4 more turns before voting, because if we're going to run into someone, it'll probably be on the south side of the jungle. Seeing there situation will give us a better idea of what strategy we may wish to adapt in response.

	14-03-2003 03:26									#5
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Burn and pillage!

Err... I mean... I vote for number 1...

	14-03-2003 04:25									#6
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I voted 1. If we found better land, I would go for rapid expansion. If we find better land with someone else sitting on it, I would consider the standard rape and pillage deal.

	14-03-2003 05:23									#7
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Aeson beat me to it, but I would like to see a focus on growth, involving only Warriors, Workers and Settlers (and a Granary or two). This requires a peaceful border with the Persians. If this becomes a reality, Warriors-Workers-Settlers (WWS - why not acronym it?!) is the best way of increasing our potential.


Dominae

	14-03-2003 05:27									#8
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I'll vote for number 3, but I've notice that ThePlagueRat has but Mercs. in nearly all the options, including this one. Mercs. and a Barracks require relatively a lot of Shields at this point (compared to 40 turns down the road). I would like to see what happens with Persia (diplomatically) before supporting such an expense.


Dominae

	14-03-2003 05:30									#9
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Aeson and Dominae are correct.

REX as much as possible and is safe. Either the second, or third city should go Barracks immediately though.

The 2 warriors is better than 1 Merc is also wise, on the periphery and as settler escorts. Veteran Mercs should be held back a little away from the enemy and moved forward in the event of hostilities. This removes any temptation for opponents to 'pop' our GA.

	14-03-2003 05:45									#10
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We must also be sure not to go over the unit support limit. If we get too many Warriors, then we'll have to build more cities solely for the purpose of supporting more units. I think a good mix of Warriors and NMs is ideal. Keep the Warriors on the border and for escorting, with NMs in the interior, in case anyone gets a bit aggressive... Right now, we can't afford to dip too much into our science, since I don't see us having a godly economy for some time...

	14-03-2003 05:46									#11
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We have a barbarian farm (N of the Mountains) to upgrade our Mercs/Warriors with if we want. To me, an extra Merc+Warrior (or 4 Warriors) makes more sense early on than a Barracks unless CDG shows an agressive nature (not agreeing to a border treaty, sending units to scout our land, ect.)

	14-03-2003 05:50									#12
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There is a point to building a bunch of warriors.

The granery gambit has severely stunted our scouting. Maybe city 2 should go war/worker/war/war/war...

	14-03-2003 05:54									#13
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We would have to try very hard to start paying support costs in Despotism. I had 27 units (Workers/Warriors) by 1000BC and 40 free support. That's with 2 cities set to build the next turn for 48 free support.

	14-03-2003 05:57									#14
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I think city 2 benefits from a Granary as well, war/worker/granary/settler. We need a ton of workers, and having 2 granaries will pay off well before we (or CDG) can settle half of the jungle.

	14-03-2003 05:58									#15
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Does free support depend on difficulty level?

In a "Prussia-type" game (where I made Barracks, then Swordsmen/Spearmen my priority) I ended up hitting the support limit very quickly when I had 4/5 cities. Of course that was a deity game, so that may not apply to this situation...

	14-03-2003 06:07									#16
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It's 4 units per city in Despotism. A Swordsmen rush aside, we'll want more cities than just 4/5.

	14-03-2003 06:31									#17
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How do we justify 2 graneries while our scouting is pathetic at best? Where are we going to build those cities?

Isn't it inviting destruction when the nearest neighbour, who has Immortals soon, looks at the Mil Advisor and sees we are easy pickin's?

Unless... Poly should be an 8 turn settler, right? Would we be anywhere near being able to build warrior, warrior, settler every 8 turns?

	14-03-2003 06:39									#18
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NYE is right. An appropriate balance must be struck between expansion and defense. I'll be the first to say that I'm going to be adopting a conservative stance until we have a stronger base with which to work with.

Having a start like most of the teams did in the PTW DG might make make it seem fine to take that kind of approach (i.e. risk), but I know from my experience with Lux that when you start out with a sub-par start position, defense is your priority, not building more cities, not blocking opponents expansion, not acquiring resources. An extra city does you no good if you can't defend what you have to begin with.

	14-03-2003 06:42									#19
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Poly can go Settler Settler Settler... forever. It's a risk for a few turns, but we have more units rather quickly. We can go warrior/worker ect. in city 2 until ready to build a granary as well. By the time we start the Granary, city 3 can be pumping out warrior/warrior...

For what it's worth, the military advisor is something of a hack. If CDG looks at us and see's a weak military, and starts their immortals over... the 5-10 turns they take getting here could see things completely reverse. They would have limited their growth while we expanded, and so we have more cities to respond to the threat than they do to sustain the thread.

Remember that they need to hook up Iron first, we just need BW. That should give us enough time for the granaries to really be paying off.

CDG, unless they have very good terrain (not likely being on the S edge of the Jungle), will be behind us in another 15-20 turns because they seem to have gone Settler first. If they have a Cow (looks like they went with a 14 turn Settler, so +3 food), this gives them a max of 3 Warriors at the time the Settler was produced. If it was a Wheat, they might not have any units at all.

	14-03-2003 06:45									#20
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The main thing we have to do is block their scouting. If we can seal off the northern peninsula, no one but us will ever know what's up there until Map Making. That will be a huge advantage. For that reason I would ask that our 3rd city be placed west of Apolyton to block them off.

	14-03-2003 06:48									#21
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ACK...never mind... was looking at the wrong city. Looks like they went with a Granary as well in Elucidium. They are working with a +3 food tile though.

	14-03-2003 06:51									#22
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Not sure where Dominae was planning city 3, but 214 would be my choice. It doesn't block it off completely, but we can see anyone who passes.

	14-03-2003 06:58									#23
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I plan to put up a poll about the exact city placement, now that the important issues can all be addressed. I'm not big on placing cities just to deny them access to the North, to tell you the truth, since we're hurting our growth just to hide nothing. Hiding nothing is sometimes useful, but given our lack of good tiles I would rather focus on the good ones we have for now.


Dominae

	14-03-2003 07:08									#24
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Dominae has hit the nail on the head. There is nothing there to protect, and thus sacrificing an once of city potential to protect nothing would be far from the best course of action.

	14-03-2003 07:18									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson Not sure where Dominae was planning city 3, but 214 would be my choice. It doesn't block it off completely, but we can see anyone who passes.

Oops, I just posted something to the same effect in the Ministry of the Interior thread. Why did you use 214 instead of 222!? I think this is a good site for our second city, in fact.


Dominae

	14-03-2003 07:20									#26
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What's wrong with 2-4-4?

	14-03-2003 07:46									#27
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244 will not have access to the Game tile, does not chop any Jungle for free, and sort of messes up the positioning of all the other cities if we hope to make maximum use of the River.


Dominae

	14-03-2003 07:48									#28
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Could someone send me the latest save (turn 18)? I'm not sure how to get it on this forum, but I remember it requires some sort of authentification (which I never did...).

a underscore petryk at hotmail dot com


Dominae

	14-03-2003 07:52									#29
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214 just follows our roads that will be in place by then... 222 though? You mean 111?

	14-03-2003 07:56									#30
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Oh I see (I guess I just think better in terms of straight lines). And yes, I did mean 111. Sigh...


Dominae