29-04-2003 11:40									#1
	Evil Plan v3.0 Beta Remove this text

guess what time it is boys and girls??


EVIL PLAN TIME



Ok, here's the deal this time. We're getting Iron Working pretty quick. That means, we might just get lucky and get iron in our territory, especially in our northern hills. If that is so we would try and connect it ASAP.

In the meantime however, is anyone in the mood for a mass Swordsman rush if that possibility were to exist? Since we practically have knowledge of all of CDG's territory, we can set up an embassy and see all the middle ground that's missing. If they have no iron, they have no immortals. If we have iron, it means we get swordsmen and they not.

THAT PEOPLE, IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO WIPE OUT CDG, AN OPPORTUNITY WE MIGHT NEVER EVER GET SO OVERWHELMINGLY IN OUR FAVOR. IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY WE WOULD BE INCREDIBLY FOOLISH NOT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF.

Best of all, if we do this as a purely Swordsmen affair, we don't even need to involve our NMs which would save off our GA in case people decide we could better use it in a later date.

As for the diplomatic aspects of this, we'd of course have to figure out a little ruse or something, just so we don't like like evil aggressors. If we can get GCA or CFC to offer even minimal support, it would be good, but IMO Poly must make the greatest effort and thus take the most spoils.

I was thinking of about 8-10 swordsmen for a crippling early strike. If we were to wait a little longer we might push for 15-20. CDG is weak compared to us right now, we would have nothing to lose, and a lotta jungle to win

-MZ

	29-04-2003 11:42									#2
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With iron, then we can do whatever we want.

Without iron, then we can't effectively do anything until A) we get some, or B) Invention.

	29-04-2003 11:46									#3
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With their city placement, I don't see them having iron as a large obstacle. You have to have productive cities to be able to produce something. They have their capital, and 2 basket cases.

	29-04-2003 11:49									#4
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Iron very handy would be good, it opens the warrior upgrade door and speeds an offensive. I do not see it as vital though.

	29-04-2003 11:56									#5
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NYE, I fail to see how you can be so confident in us being able to achieve our offensive goals with 10 NMs in 40 turns. With iron, those 10 NMs could turn into 30 Swordsmen if you take the per-shield cost of each unit, assuming you upgrade those Swordsmen from Warriors. The difference beween 10 units with attack of 2 and 30 units with attack of 3 is immense. What goals would you even have in mind for this kind of war?

	29-04-2003 12:01									#6
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How much gold do we have, Trip? 12 per turn? How many turns for 30 upgrades? Even increase it to 20 gpt income. That is a lot of turns with 0 research.

A couple swords? Yes. They would be welcome. They are not necessary though when our opponent is crippled in productive ability.

	29-04-2003 12:03									#7
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"BigFurrySwordsman" ? - hmm, I like it.

	29-04-2003 12:06									#8
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why bother to cripple them when they have only 3 cities in the middle of the jungle with hardly any settler-pump ability. By the time we have 10-15 swordsmen, we can wipe them out permanently.

Crippling is for when you don't have an outright chance of an overwhelming victory. If we get iron and they don't, we will have it.

	29-04-2003 12:08									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Master Zen why bother to cripple them when they have only 3 cities in the middle of the jungle with hardly any settler-pump ability. By the time we have 10-15 swordsmen, we can wipe them out permanently. Crippling is for when you don't have an outright chance of an overwhelming victory. If we get iron and they don't, we will have it.

They are crippled now, MZ. That is shaping my thinking.

If we do anything, we take them out. You do not leave an opponent like CDG in the game longer than need be, especially after attacking them.

	29-04-2003 12:11									#10
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if we start a war with NM we usher our GA... I would rather we wait a while before we do that. I hate very early GAs. That's why I want a Swordsman war, not an NM war.

	29-04-2003 12:31									#11
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NYE, by turn 85 10 NMs won't be much of a force to be feared. To be honest, I think we may actually soon be passing by the time when I would even recommend using 10 two-attack units for an offensive to try and crush someone from existence. What makes you think they will fold so easily to 10 units with an attack of 2? Sure, they may not want to attack our stack with its massive defense, but it will be us that is on the offensive, and it will have to be us to take and hold ground, not them. If they stockpile 5 Spears in a city when our NM SOD shows up, what chance of success do you think we have? I don't think them having 5 Spears by turn 85 is anywhere near unreasonable. Hell, they could have 10+ Immortals by then. If our 10 NMs attacked a city with 5 Spears, then things wouldn't be pretty. Even if we took the city, we would have only done just that... taken one city. They would then have time to mount a counter-offensive against our weakened forces. I doubt they wouldn't have some offensive forces lying around also.

	29-04-2003 17:05									#12
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No, the Apocalypse is not upon us, and yes, I'm about to argue against war.

What exactly are we to gain from the prompt demise of the Completely Directionless Gamers? The distance issue hasn't changed- we will get nothing from their cities (assuming the cities even stand after we raze them.) The Clueless Dufus Gamers have a start that appears even worse than ours, and seem bent on going headling from a nightmare into the Inferno itself. Let's examine their city placements for a moment.

Do you realize that the placement of their 2 cities means a group of people - more than one - sat down together and said "Yes, this is the best possible place for our city." The staggering intellect displayed there is only intimidating in its possibility for reproduction in later generations. We can *SEE* better places for those cities even with what WE know.

Currently Dumbfounded Gamers has a large and probably hungry neighbor to their south. Let's not confuse our paranoia with what we know - which is very little. We FEAR that they may ally and come for us- but that makes no sense for GCA (they gain nothing and strengthen CDG by removing us) and CDG will face the same corruption-over-distance issues we would, were we to attack them. GCA has every reason to smear Confounded, Dazed and Geekish for space while we may actually have every reason to wish to keep them afloat- and in GCA's face!

Let us not forget what Carthage does BEST- build and DEFEND. If Persia has iron, then perhaps - and only perhaps - we have another situation. (Where are they going to produce their Immortals? In that masterpiece of a city, "OurGoatsAreTrained2Kill?" What cities are giving them the money to upgrade? That commerce giant, "Zergawhazois?" Where are the barracks, other than possibly their capital? This is not a MIL/SCI civ we face!) Our diplomatic corps has a prime opportunity here- let us support CDG and let them know their north flank is safe, and sturdy. Keep them in GCA's face, and let us build the kind of infrastructure that Carthage is known for. 30 swords? No sir, let us build Num Mercs to defend our holdings, Settlers to expand them, and Workers to improve them. With jungle cleared and terrain improved, we can but snap our fingers later if we wish to summon a force capable of dismissing CDG - and in the meantime they can hamper GCA. Irrigated plains are perfectly good production squares, and in the midst of what is now jungle, a fine river awaits us!

CDG is no threat to us. GCA may be.

Let us therefore meat-puppet CDG against GCA, and turn our efforts to the (admittedly dull) function to which Carthage is best suited- building a massive, world-crushing infrastructure.

Ignore the Crazed Drooling Goons - direct them diplomatically to GCA. The jungle is our real enemy- there are still five more civs out there to deal with, some doubtless much stronger than the two close-huddled neighbors we have here.

	29-04-2003 17:30									#13
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I agree with Fried-Psitalon a war with CDG would largely benifit GCA at the moment we should be concentrating on the true enemy, the jungle.

CDG's start position is absoutely horrible we should easily be able to out expand them. Their only chance is if they have iron without it they will be reduced to being either our or GCAs puppets.

As far as SOD are concerned I normally use 10-15 swordsman backed up by 3-5 NMs when playing as Carthage. For this game I would prefer the truely terrifying force that is 16 workers backed up by 2 NMs.

Last edited by jim_steer on 29-04-2003 at 21:25

	29-04-2003 17:51									#14
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F-P, you raise some good points, but one thing does not sound right to me... if Cwhatever Dwhatever Gwhatever really are that dumb and lame, why should we expect them to attack in a "reasonable" way - that is, against GCA instead of us? The "head of Apolyton" would be a trophy much shinier than that of GCA... which may very well be a reason good enough for them to strike at US.

I always hesitate to believe that someone is THAT dumb and THAT lame, if it looks so obvious... I do not say your points are not well thought. Just that we should keep in mind they do not necessarily HAVE TO be that kind of suckers we suppose them to be... we still know nothing about most of the area about their capital - this may eventually explain why they placed cities the way they did.

Underestimating our (potential) enemy would be the worst mistake we could do - that's why I am adding this post of mine, trying to soften that air of "CDG suckers - no threat"... perhaps to an extent that does not truly correspond with my own feelings about the CDG's level of experience...

Especially because they seem to have a very poor starting location, they are bound to wage war to keep at least the slightest chance of survival into the later game. And striking them now may be cheaper and easier than waiting for them to choose their terms.

Agreed, wiping CDG out would help GCA. But would help us as well - at least in the sense of not having to fear an immortal rush later on.

I myself am not decided regarding any early war yet. I do not think making a justified decision at this point (prior to knowing where iron & horses are) is actually possible.

	29-04-2003 18:35									#15
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As long as we can keep up a decent production of Numidians and a road network to get them where needed swiftly, why do we need fear an Immortal rush at all?

The production potential of C'mon, Dufuses are this Good is *pathetic* at the moment, and our intelligence folks should be able to spot any trends (because they will have to be slow, growing trends) of military buildup.

One would think that if they want to survive, they'll attack the person who's cities they can use. As far as making them want to attack in a specific direction, that's where our diplomats could come in. We can be very frank and open, potentially:

"Look, we both know that attacking US is a bad idea for you. Num Mercs can deal with Immortals, and we're big and productive. (We ARE 2nd in manufacturing at the moment.) Instead, we can offer you a solid north border you need not worry about, in exchange for you helping us with something we both want- a weakening of GCA, who is big but vulnerable to your Immortals."

I think it really might be worthwhile to put that on the table with CDG. We can always deny it and say they were lying if they tell GCA about it- and we might actually get the response we WANT. It really *does* go along with their best interests, after all.... in fact, to go even further out onto a limb, we might consider trading them the iron if we have it and they don't, to FACILITATE such an attack! GCA would never know it was coming, and if we impress repeatedly on CDG that their best interests - war against GCA - is our best interest, we might just get exactly what we want here.

Sometimes brutal pragmatic honesty can persuade people, even if they aren't the swiftest folks around.

	29-04-2003 18:43									#16
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What intelligence do we have on CDG, economy-wise? Do we have any evidence that they've built a Granary? Do they have a Food bonus? Maybe they have room for some more good city-sites that we cannot see.

By the way, I'm against such a war. In MP, you simply cannot go to war and expect something to come of it unless you have a super-economy. I know I'm the MoI and that's what I'm supposed to say, but it also happens to be true in this case. Look at our core cities as turn 45 and tell me (in spite of that fact we have access to NMs) that we're ready to mount an offensive.

In general, I agree with Fried-Psitalon. The only part I disagree with is the decision we make in case CDG does or does not have Iron: if they've got Iron, there is no way a war against them is a good idea, our economy simply cannot support a preemptive war against Immortals; if they do not have Iron, the issue is clouded somewhat, but I still think attacking them is not a good idea. This last case could use some debate, though.


Dominae

	29-04-2003 20:46									#17
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Funny... in the chatroom Togas asked me why I couldn't be like Fried-Psitalon and support this war.

Dominae: I believe someone in the chatroom pointed out that CDG's capital city expanded in 5 turns. Take that for what it's worth.

While I'm not of the belief that CDG is inept no threat, and won't go wacko and attack us, I agree with F-P in that we can spot their efforts coming a mile away. Their terrain is terrible, and it would take excruciatingly long to build an army of Immortals from that. Upgrading would take a lot of commerce, which they really don't have access to. With our Warrior screen up we can spot anything coming a long time in advance. A tight city pack will allow us to move NMs from any city to any other in 2-3 turns. Our road network will be key in our defense, and I think some priority should be placed that - after hacking the jungle away - to allow our units maximum mobility.

We also would have to deal with the same economic problems if we wanted to attack them. Dominae is right. Our meagre economy can't handle expansion/growth at the same time we're trying to build an army we'll be sure will give us victory. As I've said earlier, if we have 10 NMs for defense by turn 85, then we can basically stop anything CDG throws at us, excepting them starting a buildup now, which would absolutely wreck their economy even more than ours would be. And that's only if they have iron! If they don't then they're already on their way down to the bottom of the hill.

That coupled with the fact that without our own iron, we can't build (or rather, upgrade) a sufficient force that could achieve victory (as I've pointed out, 10 units with an attack of 2 is starting to slip by turn 50... by turn 85 they're an obsolete attack force).

That in addition to the fact that we give GCA more by this war than we have for ourselves, in addition to losing a trading partner who has very little chance at ever becoming a superpower...

Even though I'm MOW, and maybe I'm supposed to want to fight any and every war... all considered, I can't support this war.

	29-04-2003 21:45									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Trip Dominae: I believe someone in the chatroom pointed out that CDG's capital city expanded in 5 turns. Take that for what it's worth.

I would ask that the Intelligence officers keep an eye out to see if it grows in less than that; 5-turn growth can mean a Granary or an irrigated Cattle or Wheat. If they grow in any less than five turns, they've got a Granary and a Food bonus, and they're do better in REXing than we're giving them credit for. Although they put themselves back by prioritizing sites that would cut us off, this may have been a wise decision if their growth is above average.


Dominae

	29-04-2003 22:18									#19
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I've taken the Celts with my French sword and horse in the ancient age when he had the dreaded swordsmen.

I built as many cities as possible on productive sites then switched to barracks and units. He did not focus so much on units. When I hit, all was swept away before the onslaught. The battles with those swordsmen were fun as hell though.

The point is, it can be done. Especially when you have a productive advantage, and your opponent is unaware of your intent. However, I do note that the flow of debate seems not in favour of the project. Very well. I will put this on my back burner at least until we can see the horses and iron.

	29-04-2003 22:23									#20
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Especially when you have a productive advantage, and your opponent is unaware of your intent.

Our productive advantage will be negligible. CDG is probably expecting us to make a move.

And, most importantly, Gallic Swordsmen are not Immortals.


Dominae

	29-04-2003 22:32									#21
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Have a good look at their 2nd and 3rd cities, Dominae.

And you are correct. Immortals would have been worse for the Celt. The Battle field was wide open for the most part.

	29-04-2003 22:40									#22
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How odd- Dominae and I agree twice in one day.

The Gallic Jesters are decidely NOT the same as immortals- the manueverabilty of the Gallic Jester vs. an Immortal is a non-issue as well, since the Immortals would simply wait comfortably within the city walls until we arrived and then lash out. In fact, we might not even know if there WERE Immortals lying in wait until we approached, and found 4 attack units hitting us from a position where a barracks might heal them afterwards.

	02-05-2003 10:55									#23
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Gallic jesters attack and RETREAT if they are at disadvantage. With enough stacks there wont be Immortal counter attacks and there may be no casualty.

Anyway, its not supposed to be about Gallic VS immortal so ill stop here.

I say we attack CDG if they have Iron and we dont, first of all, its kinda unexpected and secondly having no iron really really puts you at disadvantage. I think it would be easier to attack with horsemen +NM then longbow + NM although in theory using combo of same mobility is much prefered..

Thank god we dont have to worry about having pikemen at least... because otherwise I'd demand attacking neighbors in order to get iron.

	02-05-2003 11:03									#24
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If they have iron and we don't, early warfare is almost a no brainer from our POV. Unless we want to wait for the Knights and War Elephants to come for us.

	02-05-2003 11:31									#25
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I agree with nye on this. CDG doesn't seem to be the type to play "nice" until we reach the end Middle Ages. They will know whether we have Iron or not, I think they scouted North of Apolyton and may even have a unit up there now!

	02-05-2003 18:20									#26
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They didn't scout north of Apolyton and they have no units up there. We are the only ones who know anything about that terrain (thankfully).

	02-05-2003 18:38									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Trip They didn't scout north of Apolyton and they have no units up there. We are the only ones who know anything about that terrain (thankfully).

I'm not sure if I'm glad you are so certain of this; there were plenty of turns in which they could've slipped a Warrior in behind Apolyton and ran up behind WBetahound, just out of sight. When WBetaHound passed away, we lost the chance to see if there was a CDG warrior there. The possibility exists that they did; whether or not it happened we don't know.

	02-05-2003 18:39									#28
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quote: Originally posted by BigFree I'm not sure if I'm glad you are so certain of this; there were plenty of turns in which they could've slipped a Warrior in behind Apolyton and ran up behind WBetahound, just out of sight. When WBetaHound passed away, we lost the chance to see if there was a CDG warrior there. The possibility exists that they did; whether or not it happened we don't know.

The only Warrior anywhere near us during that time period was Morris, who a few turns later we found exploring the eastern peninsula.