We are in a major state of emergency. Strong steel and sharp minds will prevail, we will not panic.

I'm opening up this thread to seek suggestions, feedback, *tactical plans*, cries against the war, thoughts of targets, etc.

This thread is specifically geared toward our citizens. All cabinets members, especially the Military, will be following this thread, I'm sure. Others may spawn as polls as questions arise.

With this vehicle for the people to be heard, I must ask your indulgence in **NOT** posting in the Military Department thread for this Great War. We must have low noise ratio, sanity, and clear answers for our president there.

Thank you, my fellow Phoenaticas!
General Charis

first and foremost, we should have all of our cabinet ministers have some input as to what we should do. I would like it if all of our goals are made clear and concise for the enxt time we play. It is imperative that our function is set before we play or the war will cost too many lives and end in stalemate with out own humiliation.

Originally posted by Charis
This thread is specifically geared toward our citizens. All cabinets members, especially the Military, will be following this thread, I'm sure. Others may spawn as polls as questions arise.

With this vehicle for the people to be heard, I must ask your indulgence in **NOT** posting in the Military Department thread for this Great War. We must have low noise ratio, sanity, and clear answers for our president there.Does this incl the other leaders? Preferably, everybody shld post here in regards to the military matters and leave the Mil thread exclusively as the Mil Dept's formal reporting piece. I notice that other leaders too clutter the thread much with inter-dept discussions. :(

Our Vice President has suggested (in the military thread) that we rush build a spearman in every city that can't complete one in 5 turns. Assuming he is excluding Fox Nest from this plan that would be include every city except PDX. I don't think we need to do that.

He has also suggested walls and barracks. PDX has a barracks, Pherris will have one next turn and Shailonegha in 3 turns. I wouldn't start any more. By the time a city made a barracks then a spearmen it could make 3 spearmen. 3 regular spearmen are better than one veteran spearman. A city could make 5 warriors in the time it takes to build a barracks and a warrior. We've got to gets units in the field. They will have plenty of opportunity to become vets.

Walls may be needed in a couple key cities, I'm not sure.

It may be time to put settlers on hold or we may need one more. That's a tough call. We have one now.

Immortal... well said.

Knight... the other leaders comments in the Mil thread have been appropriate and helpful so far, so no, I'm not suggesting making the thread completely "read only". Just trying to stem off what I expect could otherwise be a flood.

Donsig... any new barracks would be whips I imagine, not via shields (too slow, and as you said, worth 2-3 spears)
In my mind, walls are a measure of pure desperation, with zero value past the size-6 stage. Then again, if we see 6 legionaries, 5 hoplite-swordsman pairs, 5 horses and 7 bowmen coming at us, darn right we'll want walls. (And personal bunkers :P )
Walls won't save a city defender by warriors or one spear, but they can help a city with three spears hold off an army of 6 pretty handily. Add a barracks to heal those three every turn and you can really hold off a much bigger force. Rough priority would be: *a* spear, then a barracks, then two more spears, and only then walls (I speak of border towns). If we find for some reason one city becomes a magnet for all forces, that's another special case for walls. On settlers, imho they absolutely must wait. They suck dry two more defenders and take 30 shields. We couldn't hold the new cities if we wanted to.

Question -- what to do with the just-hatched settler in Eyr?

The NW or SE question just got *REAL* dire!!
- Horses would make a LOVELY addition to our arsenal. The "Hill" sight catching horses, coast, spices and wheat is a super site. But it will be on the VERY front line and would need 2-3 spears, a rushed barracks, walls. May as well name it "Alamo"!
- The lovely verdant area NW of the capital is far, far safer, and could be held with a warrior or a spear for quite some time, and it would out produce the other town. Just no resources from it.
And *NO* one is going to settle back there now. Before there was a concern "would hate to see someone settle there." The would receive the full brunt of immortal wrath now if anyone dared settle in our backyard now.

I'm leaning about 52% to 48% toward NW and wonder what others think. Basically, if someone DOES settle the horse spot, we let it grow to size 2 or more, go with full throttle mil (including the NW city gettng involved) then go TAKE rather than found there. Of course the AI tends to not pick the exact best square you would have. Hmmm.... Egypt has a settler near our eastern town. Going for the iron right there, or further to the horses?

General Charis

I noticed those Egyptian squatters, too. We'll have to check and see if the Eyr settler could even beat Egypt to those southern horses. It might be worth trying to beat them - the settler could always move back north if it loses the race. It would be a shame to waste time moving back and forth but this settler may be our only hope of a southern city for quite a while.

I know I have a reputation as a warmonger but I'm really a softie at heart - I never whip my citizens! That's why I always think in terms of shields. I do like the idea of spear then barracks then more military units. By the time the first spear is built we'll have a better idea if anyone's going to actually send forces into our country. And if they show up early we can always switch from spear to barracks and (cringe) get that whip out.

I really think that once we get some warriors retained and these other countries see our true strength we will be able to make some peace treaties.

You know, I tried that gpt deal trick one time on the Persians of all people. They took the deal and attacked me anyway.:(

For a start I would like to see some more detailed information on what actuallly happened during the last session. I thought this was what the presidential thread was for, but when scanning it I only found a statement that we are now at war with all of our neighbours. Could someone who participated in the chat please write a more detailed summary? And could we please make that a tradition, something for the one responsible for the chat to do after all sessions? :)

you can see it in the chat-log

we should really urgently make ally with the egyptians.
maybe not against the babs, but the americans? this could keep our backyard clean as they would be very busy fighting each other.

i propose switching from wonder to something else. maybe we can capture a wonder during the war, but we need the shields in fox nest for warfare

im happy i live a bit off the frontline!

Could someone who participated in the chat please write a more detailed summary?

A quick summary from memory. Please check the chat log for details:

1) Citizen worker in Shailonegha adjusted for more shields.

2) Discussion about what to build in Eyr. Temple was switched to warrior(?) then a settler was built there.

3) Embassy established with Aztecs with an eye towards allying with them per General Charis's advice. The embassy was 59 gold. Monty asked for well over 200 gold for the alliance against Babylon. He would only go as low as 217 gold and it was decided not to pay that much as it would seriously hamper the retraining of our warriors as immortals.

4) The Domino Alliance: Babylon allied with Iroquois. Next turn Iroquois allied with Aztecs. Next turn Aztecs allied with Americans. Next turn Americans allied with Greece. Next turn Greeks allied with Romans. That's where the turns stopped.

5) There was discussion about what to build in Civanatoria and PDX but by then the war had widened so spearmen were started.

Those are the points I remember.

I concur with the majority that we need to ally with Egypt. The question is who to ally with them against. I vote for Rome.

WHAT?! Rome? Is the Foreign Affairs Minister smoking something?

Nope. Here's the skinny: We are currently border threatened only by America. It will be a loooong time before any of the other civs we are at war with will be able to present troops. By the time they do, we should be in a position to sue for peace favorably. Our target was and still is America. The most important thing regarding Egypt is to make sure they don't declare against us. Our second goal with Egypt is to put a bunch of their troops away from us and their homeland. This way their home defense will be weakened if we need it that way later and their troops will be out of place when that b!tch Cleo decides to backstab us (Cleo ALWAYS backstabs me - she's worse than Haburabi).

Putting Egypt against Rome should divert Roman troops (the closest to us) to Egypt instead of our own fair lands. It will also bring Egypt into contentious contact with several of our enemies. Cleo is not likely to back down to demands that she leave foreign territory so we will likely get Egypt to war against some of our other adversaries.

Foreign Policy Plan Recap:
Embassy with Egypt
Alliance with Egypt vs. Rome
Egyptian troops march to Rome, cause conflicts with lesser powers, possible Egyptian conflict/DOW on lesser powers.
Roman troops divert to Egypt (closer for them).

Any thoughts? Criticisms? Alternative ideas?

this could work. is there still someone else we can ally with? maybe we can get another war going between 2 ai-civs. as they search allies, we could indirectly start a world war. as we are far off, we could attack america without loosing reputation, and the other civs fight each other further south

Originally posted by disorganizer
is there still someone else we can ally with?
There are others we could ally with but right now we have only enough cash to buy one ally if we want to upgrade our warriors to immortals. Egypt is the must have ally because we must prevent them from being brought into the war against us.

Originally posted by Shaitan

There are others we could ally with but right now we have only enough cash to buy one ally if we want to upgrade our warriors to immortals. Egypt is the must have ally because we must prevent them from being brought into the war against us.

I completely agree that we need to get Egypt on our side. I believe this should be done on the next turn, and that they should be brought in against the Greeks. I think it is worth considering that we also get them to ally against Rome, and pop-rush a few immortals rather than upgrading all at once. This would probably divert the second wave of Roman soldiers away from us, so that once we fought off the first wave, we would have some time to concentrate on America.

On a military note, I strongly suggest we send a couple of our regular warriors into the southern wilderness to watch for enemy stacks coming our way, so that we might be prepared for them.

Originally posted by eyrei
I completely agree that we need to get Egypt on our side. I believe this should be done on the next turn, and that they should be brought in against the Greeks.
Setting them on Greece would let them get their troops in action faster but would mire them down right there. Rome would eventually get their assault force to us. Bringing them in against Rome not only gets the Roman Legions off our back but also puts Egyptian troops across the Greek path - much chance for mischief and we don't have to pay for it. We can likely get Egypt to DOW on Greece for free.

Any specific pros for Greece that I'm overlooking?

We need to check to see if Greece and Egypt have a ROP agreement. If they do, it is imperative that we get them to fight, or we will have Greek soldiers at our borders in just a few turns. I believe the Romans got a pretty crappy starting position, so they are probably not very powerful. Also, Egypt will probably use the money we give them for the alliance to bring in another civ against their new enemy. This could well be one of the civs at war with us, but not actually allied with Greece, which would cause quite a bit of chaos, and effectively take Greece and that civ out of the war against us. If we could get Egypt to war with Greece and Rome, this would compound that effect, and may almost entirely prevent any large force from making it to our borders.

I think that we should make the Egyptians ally against Greece. Greece was the 3rd most powerfull nation in the world, and if they can really fight some with each other. If we would send Egypt against Rome (which seem weak on their starting location), they would probably sue for peace before their soldiers even reached Rome (if they would even send any). But if a war brakes out between Egypt and Greece there would deffinatly be some fighting. Even some cities exchanged.

The ones with the biggest changes of coming to our lands (except for america) is the Aztecs and Greece.

Good points Eyrie and Grey Fox. One problem though is the cost. If Greece is significantly more powerful than Egypt it will cost an arm and a leg to get the alliance. I'd say we should indeed try for an anti-Greece alliance first. If that looks too expensive, go for an anti-Roman alliance. Since Egypt and Greece are neighbors it's possible that there is already bad history between them and Cleo will jump at the chance to attack.

We will run into the same problem trying to ally with Egypt that we had in trying to ally with Monty. We wanted the Aztecs as allies but there was no debate about how much we were willing to spend to procure that alliance. The president had to make a descision on the fly. We're setting the poor guy up for that again.

How much are we willing to pay to get Egypt to ally with us? Let's decide as a nation before the turn chat so Grey Fox will know what we want.

Remember, we will need to spend to establish an embassy in Thebes first. It cost us 59 gold to find out Monty wanted over 200 for an alliance. The cost of the embassy must be figured in to the cost of the alliance.

I also urge everyone to remember that we need gold to retrain our warriors. That has been our plan for a long time and switching now is not a good idea.

We may want to upgrade some warriors before approaching Cleo. If she's gonna want half our money for an alliance we might as well spend some of it first.;)

Originally posted by donsig

We may want to upgrade some warriors before approaching Cleo. If she's gonna want half our money for an alliance we might as well spend some of it first.;)

Unfortunately, in a few turns I almost guarantee that the Egyptians will sign on against us, if we do not ally with them first. I think we need to spend as much as it takes to get an alliance with them. We make enough gpt that we will recover pretty quickly.

We have 3 warriors in Pherris and the barracks will be done next turn. we could upgrade those before talking to Cleo...

...unless the consensus is to establish the embassy and talk to Cleo before we end our current turn.

Conflicting ideas and they all have merit. Time for the polls!
Who to ally against (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20169)
How much to spend on an alliance. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20170)
When to get the alliance signed. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20171)

Another thing about the Egyptian alliance. If we get them to declare war against the Romans or Greeks they MIGHT call in more people against Egypt, diverting more forces AWAY from us. While this isn't guarenteed it is a potential benifit.

Originally posted by donsig

...unless the consensus is to establish the embassy and talk to Cleo before we end our current turn.

I think it is almost too risky not too. If the Egyptians join this war against us, we will be in very serious trouble. I have lost games on monarch level because of situations like this.

. I have lost games on monarch level because of situations like this.

If we lose we will learn from our lesson. I think the situation is not as bad as it seems but I do agree that each step we take now could be a crucial one. I've been thinking about ways we could improve our descision making process. One idea I had was giving the President an administrative assistant, someone who could pull the relavent info together and get it to Grey Fox in a form that would help him to prepare for the turn chats.

One useful function this person could perform would be simply listing the upcoming descisions that will have to be made. For instance, we have a settler - where will it go? If all the talk is about who we will ally with any talk about the settler will be difficult to find in the posts. Yet, when turn chat time comes that settler will be there waiting to move. The settler is just an example.

Originally posted by donsig


If we lose we will learn from our lesson. I think the situation is not as bad as it seems but I do agree that each step we take now could be a crucial one. I've been thinking about ways we could improve our descision making process. One idea I had was giving the President an administrative assistant, someone who could pull the relavent info together and get it to Grey Fox in a form that would help him to prepare for the turn chats.

One useful function this person could perform would be simply listing the upcoming descisions that will have to be made. For instance, we have a settler - where will it go? If all the talk is about who we will ally with any talk about the settler will be difficult to find in the posts. Yet, when turn chat time comes that settler will be there waiting to move. The settler is just an example.

I don't suppose you are volunteering for this position?

No, not volunteering. I'm just the idea guy. I don't like actual work.:lol:

I was hoping someone out there would find the idea appealing and be enticed by an official title.:D

I will in any event continue to give my advice at no charge...

Any word on how much the Egyptian embassy will cost?

Shaitan, the Department of Culture (DOC) would vote to have an alliance with Egypt against Greece, IF an aliiance with Egypt were to be drawn up. The reasons for this were posted in the last DOC posting.

@Donsig. I do not approve of the AA position as, if the President were to become to busy to keep up with all the current affairs, then the AA could feed the President a list of questions that may have been supplied by an outside influence. Not being an elected position, the AA would have less responsibilty towards the public and could be persuaded to steering the line of questioning away from the issue that are at hand. This would also detract from the power of the Leaders as the President may also start to rely on the AA for direction more than his cabinet. I believe another course of action is called for.

Yeah, the AA would have the pitfalls Cyc points out. Bureaucracy! Well, it still seems like the Pres needs some help. I know I'd hate to be responsibile for going through all the threads and figuring out what's what.

Perhaps one of the new cabinet members could be the one to summarize things for the Pres - or wouldn't that be appropriate to their duties. (I must confess I haven't read much about the new positions.)

Please note that I am not insinuating that Grey Fox is not doing a good job. Just thinking we could make things easier on him during the turn chat - so he will continue to have fun like the rest of us. I'm also not suggesting that Grey Fox be solely looking at something from an AA type individual. I'm just thinking that if he saw some (unbiased) summaries somethings might catch his attention that otherwise wouldn't. Last note: the 'unbiased' thing refers to cabinet members - who are supposed to be a bit biased towards their respective departments!

I hesitate to bring up more ideas that will take gold away from upgrading our warriors but it may be worth trying to buy maps from those not yet at war with us. We bought America's map for only 7 gold. Any other maps under 10 gold should be seriously considered for purchase (before the civ Dominos!)

If we could get a GOOD WORLD Map, it might be really good.... for the right price though.

Originally posted by donsig
Yeah, the AA would have the pitfalls Cyc points out. Bureaucracy! Well, it still seems like the Pres needs some help. I know I'd hate to be responsibile for going through all the threads and figuring out what's what.

Perhaps one of the new cabinet members could be the one to summarize things for the Pres - or wouldn't that be appropriate to their duties. (I must confess I haven't read much about the new positions.)

Please note that I am not insinuating that Grey Fox is not doing a good job. Just thinking we could make things easier on him during the turn chat - so he will continue to have fun like the rest of us. I'm also not suggesting that Grey Fox be solely looking at something from an AA type individual. I'm just thinking that if he saw some (unbiased) summaries somethings might catch his attention that otherwise wouldn't. Last note: the 'unbiased' thing refers to cabinet members - who are supposed to be a bit biased towards their respective departments!

I am hoping the City Summaries thread will help a bit. Might I convince you to at least become a mayor? I promise it wouldn't be much work....:)

With Gray Fox's Permission I established an Embassy in Egypt so that we can be well prepared for the next turn chat Sunday night.

It looks like Greece will be CHEAPER than Rome. However it still EXPENSIVE.

To attack Greece it will cost our World map, 436 Gold (all of it), and 4 gpt. This is with no bartering. When I tried to barter the issue it didn't really improve much. None seemed acceptable to me.
I took the deal down to, our World map, 273 gold, and 10 gpt, this is the BEST I was able to come up with.

Keep in mind we already have a policy not to give maps away. Even ignoring that they want more than HALF our gold, we would be left with roughly 140 gold, only enough for 3 Immortal upgrades, and out of our 15 gpt profit we'd be left with only 5 gpt. While, I wish there were a way to garentee Egypt as an Ally, it seems like the cost is WAY too much.

That is an expensive alliance. It is great to have this information now.

eyrei: re mayors - I'd like to hold out for a conquered city but if all the mayor spots aren't claimed before the turn chat Sunday I will volunteer for one because your city summary thread is a great idea.:)

So, where's the official statement on this?

The official statement is: "Gross!" ;)

That's terrible. Worse than I had feared. I had expected to lose the treasury but not cripple the economy as well. My gut reaction is "no deal" but the poll results say to go for it. The highest poll count is for 6 immortals in 6 turns (we'd have 5) and the second highest is for getting the alliance now at any cost.

Cyc, if your wondering if I REALLY got permission for this, it was in the Chat room. So the only real verification that I had permission can be gotten from Gray Fox and Eyrei.

We have a settler in Eyr. The Eyptians have one to the east of Lake Phoenatica. Egypt does not have horses. Are they going for the horses to the west of our big lake? Should we use our settler to race them to the spot? Do we leave the horses for Cleo since she might be our ally?

What we do with the settler has a bearing on our Great War effort. If we send it south it will have to be escorted. If we send it NW then it can go alone.

Originally posted by Falcon02
Cyc, if your wondering if I REALLY got permission for this, it was in the Chat room. So the only real verification that I had permission can be gotten from Gray Fox and Eyrei.

Yes, he did have permission. As Grey Fox was going to bed and I was going out, we asked Falcon to do it. It will avoid our having to do that, and that only in the next session, because, opinions may change with this new information. It did not require even ending the current turn, so it is perfectly legal.

The deal with Egypt is VERY expensive. We may want to explore other options, such as attempting to undermine the alliances against us by signing peace treaties. Babylon is already willing, which would undermine the alliance with the Iroquios, which would undermine another alliance, etc. The cost would probably come out to be about the same, but it would have the additional effect of ruining the reputations of all these civs.

The cost of an alliance with America is also exorbitant, as in:

400 gold
7 gold per turn
WM

I think we should explore the cost of buying peace from Babalyon.

Bill
Trade Leader

Yeah, peace is sounding good at the moment, so long as we can get a good deal.

And as Eyrei pointed out our reputation will be clean, while everyone else's will be ruined. That is so long as the Alliance breaking does produce a domino effect. Even if it doesn't it will ruin the reputation of the Bab's at least, and they're the ones who started this whole thing.

As requested, a new poll for the Great War has been posted. Subject is what our basic Foreign Policy in regards to the Great War should be. See the poll here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20225).

Yes, i can see how extending the next chat session an extra day has given us more time to discuss our future moves.:D In the sticky Department section we went 8 straight hours without a response. (does anyone know cpr?). In the citizens section i think we had three posts, so they're still kickin'.:p cya later...

Okay, so let's already defeat the Americans, before anyone else starts a massive invasion of Phoenatica.

We have become complacent - the Great War thread is getting buried!

General Charis: As mayor of Fox Nest I urge you to reconsider the current defenses of our great city. We currently have a band of veteran warriors and a unit of regular spearmen guarding us here in Fox Nest. Normally this would be an adequate defense but our scouts have reported two bands of Roman warriors in the hills to the south. Under these circumstances I think a temorary third unit to guard the capitol is appropriate.

I humbly suggest that the General exercise his constitutional priviledge of over-riding production orders in time of invasion to change the production of Eyr from a barracks to a spearman. The spearman would be ready to leave for Fox Nest in 3 turns.

I further suggest that a settler be produced in Eyr after the spearman. This is so that the NW may become civilized. I consider this a military need given the recent loss of our workers to NW barbarians.

I also suggest that the immortal currently guarding Pherris be transferred (once Pherris's spearmen are ready) to patrol the area between Fox Nest and our soon to be new city in the SE. Once the immortal is patrolling, two defenders for the capitol should be sufficient, releasing one Fox Nest defender to escort the newest Eyr settler to the NW.

The chance of those warriors beating your precious spearman is only 0.057. So the chances of aforementioned unit surviving the attack of BOTH warriors is 88.6%. After that, Fox nest has an additional 2 defenders.

It should be noted that this also indicates the importance of building the barracks (or better: building veteran units). If aforementioned spearman was a veteran unit, it's chances of survival would have been 96.4%.

The chance of those warriors beating your precious spearman is only 0.057. So the chances of aforementioned unit surviving the attack of BOTH warriors is 88.6%. After that, Fox nest has an additional 2 defenders.

First of all, Fox Nest has only two defenders right now (one vet warrior and one regular spearman. If the spearman did get killed there would be only the warrior left to defend Fox Nest.

Second, I know the odds are very small that the two warriors would be able to defeat the garrison in the capitol. However small though there is that chance. Are we so willing to risk our great project when we could easily add a third defender to Fox Nest. Note that with three defenders the two warriors would need to be even more lucky and would need a second turn to take the capitol.

It should be noted that this also indicates the importance of building the barracks (or better: building veteran units). If aforementioned spearman was a veteran unit, it's chances of survival would have been 96.4%.

Yes, but a regular spearman that is here defends much better than a veteran yet to be built. Fox Nest needs another defender now and the quickest way is to build a regular one in Eyr.

We should rebuild the road that leads southward out of Pherris. This will speed our newly upgraded immortals to their assigned duty stations.

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8568/pherris1mc.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Present force of immortals:

5 (2 vet, 3 reg) en-route to Philadelphia. ETA, 3-4 turns.
1 reg en route to pillage horses. ETA 2 turns (1 to move, 1 to pillage).
1 reg in Pherris on garrison duty.

Upcoming units:

Assumptions:
PDX continues to built immortals
Shailonegha continues to build warriors
The 1 hp vet warrior near Pherris moves immediately to that city for upgrade

Turn 2: (New) Vet in PDX ready. (Garrison) Reg in Pherris can move since spearman now guard Pherris. The 1 hp warrior reaches Pherris and upgraded.

Turn 3: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 6: (New) vet in PDX ready to move.

Turn 7: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 9: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 10: (New) Vet in PDX ready to move.

Turn 11: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 13: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 14: (New) Vet in PDX ready to move.

Turn 15: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 17: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Turn 18: (New) Vet in PDX ready to move.

Turn 19: (Upgraded) Vet in Pherris ready to move.

Summary over next 20 turns:

5 new Vet immortals from PDX.
9 upgraded immortals in Pherris (all bu one from Shailonegha warriors).

Total cost of upgrades: 9*40=360 gold.
Total gold available: 184 in treasury + 20 turns * 25/turn = 684 gold.

So, General Charis, where should they all go?