What's the Plan?

[Togas]

When will turnchat #6 be?

What's the plan at this point?

Do we archer rush the Ottomans now, or build a few more cities, get iron, and use that?

Where do we put the "iron city"?

What do we want to do about the Iriquois and the Zulus?

How will we get horses?

Will we actively techwhore and contactwhore?

Let's get some discussion going on! This game is winable, but at the Deity level it requires a heck of a lot of participation and planning to stand a chance.

--Togas

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Togas
When will turnchat #6 be?

Yes, we need a schedule! I think we'll need elections soon, too... we're already going to have a slightly extended term as it is.

What's the plan at this point?

Do we archer rush the Ottomans now, or build a few more cities, get iron, and use that?

So far as I know, the plan is still to Archer rush the Ottomans. After that, we probably will need Iron to keep the attack up... maybe on the Zulus next, or perhaps a pruning of the Iroquois. Once our Archer force is away, we should build some vet warriors to upgrade once Iron is connected.

Where do we put the "iron city"?

I'd say we should just take it from the Ottomans. We have workers out east right now who can connect it up (though we do need more workers).

What do we want to do about the Iriquois and the Zulus?

How will we get horses?

Don't know about horses. We can either take them from the Ottos and spend a long time connecting them up, or go to war with the Zulu and take them from them (also with some connect time, but not quite as long). I'd go with the Zulu horsies myself, but that's because I'm leaning towards war in the east with the Zulu rather than the Iroquois or continuing the war against the Ottos.

Let's get some discussion going on! This game is winable, but at the Deity level it requires a heck of a lot of participation and planning to stand a chance.

--Togas

Agreed. We need much more discussion.

[OPD]

I'd say let one city build stlrs and the rest build millitary units to take some cities, not necessarily the Otts but someone.

[Kloreep]

Here's my personal opinion: We need either Iron or Horses to be effective warmongers throughout the ancient age. To secure horses, we'd either need to conquer the Zulu city (attacking an expansionist & militarist AI whose land we don't know much about), or conquer the Ottomans all the way up to their cold NW. If we go for Iron, on the other hand, the Otto city that has it in its outer radius would be one of the first taken, and we could then use swords to attack the Zulu, who we will have scouted out more; and we'll be using what's probably the best Impi attacker (Horses lose one of their important advantages, retreat ability, when attacking other fast movers like Impis). Furthermore, we will only have to deal with the deity bonus when mounting our first big offense against the Ottos, and we can save worrying about fighting a GA-backed AI till our Zulu attack.

I think we'll also get better land from the Zulu and Ottos than we will from the Iroquois. While the Iroquois do have some grasslands (and two Iron resources!), their land has a lot of inhospitable terrain like tundra.

Also, let's make sure we buy Mysticism from the Iroqouis this turn (by selling IW and some gold); that way, we can change research to Polytheism, a more costly tech than Alphabet, and thus a better use of the 40-turn research max. With England in the contact loop, we should be able to just sit back and wait for Alphabet to be whored around and cheapened.

[joncnunn]

Don't we also need lots of Vetran archers to be built so that we can upgrade them in masse to berserkers in the early middle ages?