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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:31
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Posted as a thread entitled "Military Strategy" in the CGN ISDG Embassy forum.
quote:
I'm starting this thread to give some advice to the Netatolian nation regarding military matters, as it is currently in a dire situation and the blue hordes must be stopped by any means possible.
Right now, the survival of Netatolia depends on one thing: the ability to stop GWT in order to be able to launch an effective counter-attack. This will almost certainly have to include an eventual Sipahi counter-offensive, but it may be achieved through other means as well. However, the most important thing is defeating the army that is on your doorstep now.
Getting Muskets was a good (and pivotal) step in achieving this. Some people from Apolyton think it would be wiser if you had simply cut your iron in order to get more Knights instead of Muskets, but I believe Muskets will have a good enough "shock value" in order to stop GWT cold, and buy you more time to prepare.
Now I will discuss more lower-level planning -
GWT has ~25 Ansar on the front line, and soon they will all be healed and ready to move again (next turn or the one after). They may or may not send these straight forward to try and capture the chokepoints, or they may wait and send their slowmover stack with their siegers in order to pound away slowly. A lot of this may depend on one thing - them knowing you have Muskets or not. Keep in mind GWT has no way of knowing HOW MANY units you have in any city… they can no longer use GCA to spy for them. This means if they see a 4/4 Musket in Agincourt this coming turn, they have no way of knowing whether that's 1 Musket or 20. They won't be able to afford the risk of sending the Ansar alone, since Ansar against Musket is a very ugly result. I know that you had planned on making a fake city in the central desert to try and dupe GWT as to where your saltpeter is, but what's more important now is stopping them from advancing. A single Musket upgrade in Agincourt may do that - if they should press on Agincourt in the next couple turns. If they DO NOT, then you have more time to set up the faux saltpeter city. It depends on what they do this coming turn. If they do press onward, I strongly suggest you upgrade at least 1 Pike in Agincourt, simply to get them to stop advancing.
Another vital part of stopping GWT will be getting another city to cover the chokepoint at Waterloo 8-9. I'm aware that you have a Settler heading for this site right now… that is a very good thing. That city needs to get built ASAP. If GWT sees Muskets in Agincourt, they may try to go around and slip through that chokepoint. They won't be able to if you have a city (and Muskets) there. Another advantage that city will afford you is greater naval flexibility. Once both chokepoints are sealed off, GWT may try to do a naval landing behind them. That means having all Galleys able to cover both your east and north coasts will be a very important facet of your defense. Keeping about half your Galleys in the lake between Agincourt and Waterloo, with the other half around Columbus will probably be the most flexible and effective use of them. You can use the Galleys in the lake to shuttle units between the two chokepoint cities (since GWT will most likely cut the road between them, whatever they do).
Now then, the actual land defense…
It is probably best to split up the defenses as best as possible between the two cities, keeping a fastmover reserve behind in case GWT penetrates the line or something else unexpected happens. First off, the Muskets should be split between the cities, up to about 8 or 10 each. With a loan from Apolyton, you should be able to reach this amount fairly soon. Keeping 1/2 your remaining Pikes and MIs in each city is also probably best. Behind the slowmovers, your Knights will be the second most important part of your defense (behind the Muskets, of course). Unfortunately, there is no location that allows you to get Knights to either Agincourt or the Waterloo 8-9 chokepoint city in a single turn. However, it is close. From Arlington 9 you can reach Agincourt or 1 tile away from the Waterloo 8-9 city, which may be as close as you can get. Luckily, the two cities can't be attacked from the same tile, so if GWT wants to lay siege to your cities, they will give at least a 1-turn warning on which city they want to hit with their slowmovers. Your Musket/Pike/MI defense should be able to hold out an Ansar-only assault (though both cities will have to be reinforced as time goes on). As I mentioned earlier, the Galleys in the lake can also be used to ferry units between the two cities in a single turn. With, say, 5 Galleys, 10 Knights could be transferred in a single turn (if things somehow go sour).
Once the initial defenses are set up, you'll have to plan how you want to bolster those defenses in the future. GWT will not simply stop if you seal them off with this first level defense… more needs to be done, obviously. Once you get an initial outer-shell of 8-10 Muskets per city, your best units after that will be Knights and more Knights. They will be necessary to launch any counteroffensives on injured GWT stacks, they move fast and they're also pretty good defenders. They will also be essential in case GWT tries to go around your chokepoints with a naval landing. Once the first Muskets have reached the line, your focus should be Knights… this means you should cut your iron and begin building Horsemen for upgrading as you go 0% science to build up gold. When you have enough gold and Horsemen, you do a mass-upgrade, and bolster your defenses. Muskets will save you in the first stage, Knights will have to save you in the second.
As time goes on, you can gradually increase the number of Muskets in each chokepoint, all the while focusing mainly on Knight (upgrades) to prevent a successful naval landing, for more flexible defense and counteroffensive purposes. And of course, they can be upgraded to Sipahis when the time comes. 
As I and the rest of Apolyton see it, this is the best way for you to defend against GWT, and we strongly urge you to follow these suggestions. If you have any questions or comments, please post and I (or other Apolytonians) will answer you as soon as possible.  |
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:31
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Responses to my thread:
quote:
Originally posted by Furloaf
 Good post. Should start some discussions.
Is there any rule that the CGN Minister of Defense has to be on the CGN team? |
quote:
Originally posted by Trip
Miccofl told me that some of you might not like the idea of cutting your iron...
It only takes 3 Workers on a hill and 4 (?) on a mountain to rebuild the mine in a single turn with no loss of SPT. This means you can cut the iron, and have Workers immediately begin rebuilding the mine. With enough Workers, the mine will be done at the start of the next turn, ready for the city to use the following turn.
Also keep in mind that while building Horsemen, the magic SPT #s are 8, 10 and 15. If you are over or in between these SPT values, you are wasting shields. So if cutting the iron would take you from 18 to 16 shields per turn, it won't affect how long it takes to build Horsemen. |
quote:
Originally posted by Emperor
I'm not worried about the shields, but about running 0% science for too long. Two reasons:
1. We want Sipahi asap
2. We have a lot more libraries than marketplaces, so our economy is much more effetive with a high science rate.
So we should calculate carefuly how much faster we can get knights by cutting the iron to find out if it's worth it. |
quote:
Originally posted by Trip
Building Knights from scratch is always more expensive than upgrading... even if you have a ton of Libraries and few Markets.
Look at it this way: If you have, say, 140 GPT that allows you to upgrade 1.8 Knights per turn (by building Horsemen). Certainly though, you'll be able to average building more than that per turn, so you can also have certain cities focus on other things (Muskets, Catapults, Galleys, improvements) in addition to the Horsemen you're upgrading. Over ten turns you'll also have added 18 Knights to your ranks. How many Knights have you been able to build the past 10 turns? I'm almost certain it's not at least 18.
Yes, getting Sipahis are important, but saving your nation right now is even more so. I would say as soon as you have this first GWT wave defeated, or when you have 12 Muskets in each city and at least 30 Knights behind the line you should start researching again. That may seem like a lot and look expensive, but we're talking about your survival here. If GWT penetrates those lines, then you'll be very hard-pressed to defeat them at all... Sipahis or not. You need to dedicate everything to get military parity with GWT now, if only to delay them. Yes, you could research 100% now and get Sipahis in 15 turns, but would there be any cities left to build them by then? As I'm sure you all respect, you have to balance upgrades and research. Right now, upgrades are the most important thing to worry about. |
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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Good posts, Trip. They clearly don't fully comprehend that GWT really can break through and destroy them before they can get to their UU.
Let's keep pressing them to take drastic measures *now*
Something else I've been thinking of:
Having lots of muskets is all well and good, but after this round of ~5 muskets completes, I don't think they should build any more. Further, once their existing pikemen are upgraded, I think the saltpeter should be cut. EDIT: perhaps not, actually, given my thoughts concerning how many defenders they already have below...
Frankly, pikes are more efficient. With a decent number of muskets on top, pikes down below are fine. What they really need, as you've pointed out, is a LOT more knights, and some more cats. A static defense with next to no counterattacking ability is a bad thing.
If these are their numbers:
35 Pikes
15 MIs
12 Knights
5 Catapults
They're fine on the defender numbers for now (especially with +5 muskets, and upgrades to the 35 pikes... which of course is 2100 gold, of which we are going to loan them 600). PLENTY of musketmen, IMO. But 12 knights is bad.
The need for them to go max tax is so obvious I'm having difficulty understanding why any of them don't see it.
-Arrian
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Having lots of muskets is all well and good, but after this round of ~5 muskets completes, I don't think they should build any more. Further, once their existing pikemen are upgraded, I think the saltpeter should be cut. EDIT: perhaps not, actually, given my thoughts concerning how many defenders they already have below...
Frankly, pikes are more efficient. With a decent number of muskets on top, pikes down below are fine. What they really need, as you've pointed out, is a LOT more knights, and some more cats. A static defense with next to no counterattacking ability is a bad thing.
If these are their numbers:
35 Pikes
15 MIs
12 Knights
5 Catapults
They're fine on the defender numbers for now (especially with +5 muskets, and upgrades to the 35 pikes... which of course is 2100 gold, of which we are going to loan them 600). PLENTY of musketmen, IMO. But 12 knights is bad.
The need for them to go max tax is so obvious I'm having difficulty understanding why any of them don't see it. |
I agree that Pikes are fine. I told them that they should have 10 Muskets and 10 Pikes per chokepoint city. That, backed with some Cats and Kniggets will certainly be able to stop anything coming by land for some time to come... but there's always the sea, which is why they need even more Knights.
They're going to stop building Muskets after the next 5 according to miccofl, who, if you read my chats with him, really liked the iron-cutting idea after I threw it out to him.
I believe all will end well and they'll eventually come around with some more posts and prodding from miccofl.
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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I'd say they need to do a comprehensive survey of their cities, noting SPT counts in each and whether or not there is a barracks.
Cities producing 4, 5 or 7 spt build catapults. Cities at 6spt probably lack barracks anyway, which is not good because 6spt works best for horse/pikes. Those cities should work on civilian builds, I guess.
8spt cities w/barracks = horsemen. Without barracks = build barracks.
9spt cities... anything that can be done that trades shields for higher commerce or growth, dropping them down to one of the other shield counts should be done. This is just a bad spt count.
Cities at 10spt w/o barracks also build catapults, UNLESS there aren't enough barracks cities (define enough, tough to say). Cities at 10spt with a barracks build horse or pikes once SP is cut (if it's cut). EDIT: spears, actually, if iron is cut most of the time. Probably horsemen anyway, though.
11spt - trade 1spt for higher growth or more trade, then see 10spt.
12spt - with barracks, prior to cutting SP, might consider musket builds here (5 turns). Otherwise trade shields for commerce or food if possible and treat like a 10spt city.
13spt - same as 12spt entry.
14spt - 5 turn knights while iron is connected. Worth doing, actually. They can set things up to average 2 horseman builds/turn elsewhere, but prior to cutting iron and perhaps (if they can work out the timing) each time iron is reconnected, this city can work on knights normally.
15spt - 2 turn horsies. No question.
16-17spt - 2 turn horsies, trading away shields for other things if possible.
18spt - 4-turn knights while iron is connected.
19spt - ditto.
20spt - 3-turn muskets or 1-turn catapults.
Ok, enough.
-Arrian
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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IIRC, Miccolf said they can bring in 135gpt at max tax (is that low, or is it just me?).
That's 405g every 3 turns, which means 5 horse -> knights per 3 turns. I'd suggest a 6-turn cycle for turning the iron on and off. So every 6 turns, they upgrade 10 knights. This begins in 5 turns.
That's fine, they have other pressing uses for cash in the next 5 turns. They are building a city on the southeastern chokepoint that will need barracks, walls, and maybe a library (I forget the culture border picture over there). 76g for the walls, 156g for the barracks = 232 gold.
Hopefully they have 2 cities at 15spt with barracks. That would cover the horseman production just fine. Actually, considering that they also need money for pike -> musket upgrades, all they really need to do is produce 1.5 horsemen per turn - that's plenty. So that's 1 15spt city + 1 10spt city set to horsemen.
The rest can do other things, like build catapults. What do you think is a good number for them to aim at? 20? That would put 10 at each of their fortress towns.
-Arrian
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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Another thing for them to consider is that if they have some flotsam and jetsam units lying around (old warriors or archers) those units can be very useful in the defense. One of their difficulties is going to be stocking enough units in each of their frontline cities to prevent Ansar breakthrough in either one. Now, obviously a unit with a defense rating of 1 isn't going to do a very good job of fighting Ansars, even fortified on a hill with walls, but its presense may prevent disaster.
GS did this with Vox at one point, Trip, if you remember. They had a large immortal stack next to Arashi. We stocked Arashi with more units than they had, total. Even though some of our units were war chariots or regular warriors, the fact remained that they could not, under any circumstances, have taken that city.
Keeping GWT from breaking through those chokepoints is paramount. It's absolutely huge. Crappy old units aren't going do much damage, but they can be used to prevent a bad run of RNG luck from ruining CGN's day.
-Arrian
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
IIRC, Miccolf said they can bring in 135gpt at max tax (is that low, or is it just me?). |
Well, miccofl said they don't have many Markets, they have more units than us, and they also have fewer rivers. That having been said, our 190 GPT after the Palace jump (8 turns) completely blows them out of the water...
quote:
That's 405g every 3 turns, which means 5 horse -> knights per 3 turns. I'd suggest a 6-turn cycle for turning the iron on and off. So every 6 turns, they upgrade 10 knights. This begins in 5 turns.
That's fine, they have other pressing uses for cash in the next 5 turns. They are building a city on the southeastern chokepoint that will need barracks, walls, and maybe a library (I forget the culture border picture over there). 76g for the walls, 156g for the barracks = 232 gold.
Hopefully they have 2 cities at 15spt with barracks. That would cover the horseman production just fine. Actually, considering that they also need money for pike -> musket upgrades, all they really need to do is produce 1.5 horsemen per turn - that's plenty. So that's 1 15spt city + 1 10spt city set to horsemen.
The rest can do other things, like build catapults. What do you think is a good number for them to aim at? 20? That would put 10 at each of their fortress towns. |
Sounds good. I know that Arhus is at 18 SPT, I don't know if they have another 15 SPT city or not.
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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Trip, considering their cash flow limitations, perhaps they should only upgrade a certain number of musketmen (let's say 15) and then start using cash for knight upgrades, not pike to musket.
15 muskets + the 5 completing over the next turn or two = 20, enough for 10 in each fort town, with 10 pikes underneath. Once they have that type of defense, I think the immediate need shifts to knights.
The knights will be important not only for counterattacking, but also defense - particularly because getting from one of their fort towns to the other isn't easy, IIRC, and the knight's mobility might be key to being able to properly reinforce one or the other.
We're paying for 10 musket upgrades. 5 more is 300g. Add in the rushbuilds I mentioned above, which I assume they will do (they sure need to) and it comes to 532 gold. 135gpt * 4 turns = 540g. So that eats up the next 4 turns of revenue. After that, it all needs to go to the horsies.
-Arrian
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E_T
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Orlando, Florida
Mar 2001
time: 00:31
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Well, the actual fact that we are actively helping CGN is out. CGN published their "History" weblink at the UN (http://www.miccofl.net/Civ3/netatol...ry/history1.htm). On Page 6, they have this little bit:
quote:
Anne: This is true. We believe that this happened for two reasons. Firstly, the Netatolians struck up an Entente Cordial with Apolytonia and Fanatikou. Hardly surprising that the Netatolians would choose to join an alliance of strong rather than of righteous. This alliance included scientific and technological co-operation. Secondly, war tends to focus the scientific and productive elements of a society at the expense of other things. Netatolia probably went bankrupt funding their war, but the result was a boon to development, at least in the short term.
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IIRC, from looking at the Unofficial version that was released only to the Consuls/Ministers and other selected Chat people (Miccofl didn;t want the link passed around in our Private forum), this part has been changed from what it was originally.
Anyways, the word is out that we are actively helping CGN. Audin is either going to have a very boreing Ambassidorship with GWT or he's going to have a very interesting time....
* E_T does NOT envy him his job, especially if CGN looses.
E_T
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:31
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Well, if you're in GWT's position, and you see your enemy crowing about musketmen, what do you do?
I think I know what their reaction is likely to be:
CHARGE! Break through, NOW, before Netolia can upgrade too many of those damn things!
Some people might hesitate, but if I understand GWT as well as I think I do, that is unlikely to be their response. For their part, the die is cast. Their GA is underway, their UU is in the field. They need to use it.
If they throw everything they've got at one of CGN's frontline cities, it's very possible (likely, even?) they could break it, despite the muskets.
Speed is of the essence for GWT now, and CGN just gave them a heads-up to that. Every turn that goes by allows CGN more time to pull in money and upgrade muskets.
WE NEED TO GET THAT MONEY TO THEM ASAP.
-Arrian
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28-02-2004 10:45
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