OK then I say we cancel OB with Liz immediately and OB with KK. Anybody object?

Will cancelling OBs with all Hindus and having OBs with Buddhists favor getting Buddhism spread to us? What happened to Liz's settler?

What do we want to do if we get demads from, say Izzy or ALex?

Keep the ob with liz then. Gives us a chance for plus 1 with kk

Will cancelling OBs with all Hindus and having OBs with Buddhists favor getting Buddhism spread to us? What happened to Liz's settler?

klarius said earlier OB's have nothing to do with religion spread.

I meant to check the settler - thanks for reminding me. It's on the tile E of our furs, meaning it's headed for the seafood - another reason to close borders.

klarius said earlier OB's have nothing to do with religion spread.

I meant to check the settler - thanks for reminding me. It's on the tile E of our furs, meaning it's headed for the seafood - another reason to close borders.E of the furs? WHere in teh world is it going. It should be W of the sheep.

Wait, I thought we wanted that settler to settle to get us a trade connection. Hm...

Keep the ob with liz then. Gives us a chance for plus 1 with kk

We don't need a +1 with him though, do we? We'll both be running HR sometime soon.

E of the furs? WHere in teh world is it going. It should be W of the sheep.

Wait, I thought we wanted that settler to settle to get us a trade connection. Hm...

Oh shoot I meant E of the deer. Not the furs. I'm sorry about that.

Only 3hindus rather peaceful hindus vs some more agg buddhists. I think we should side with the buds

Only 3hindus rather peaceful hindus vs some more agg buddhists. I think we should side with the budsWell, klarius' strategy keeps all of our options open. Problem is, what about ALex and Izzy?

Oh shoot I meant E of the deer. Not the furs. I'm sorry about that.E of the deer doesn't make any sense either. LIz is bonkers.

How many of the buddhists can we bribe to war? Against say, liz or wash

Okay. Izzy is only annoyed with TOku and Alex isn't important. I'm okay on closing LIz's borders, I guess, and OBs with KK. We're going to have trade connections as soon as we connect the furs.

How many of the buddhists can we bribe to war? Against say, liz or wash

Alex is below liz. And right now can get to wash directly though that might change when York expands borders. Everybody else is blocked by Asoka and HC.

EDIT: Ok I'm continuing and will close with Liz.
EDIT2: Or not. It hasn't been 10 turns since we opened. Duh.

Ok, do what you think is best. Hopefully there wont be any difficult demands.

EDIT2: Or not. It hasn't been 10 turns since we opened. Duh.Lol. That's funny. So does that mean if KK demands it, and we accept, they won't get closed?

Lol. That's funny. So does that mean if KK demands it, and we accept, they won't get closed?
No, it will be closed and we will gain the penalty.

BTW, reject demands by Toku and Alex. If somebody ask to stop trade with Alex, do it. These 2 are of no concern in this game (except as beating boys).
Izzy's worst enemy should be Toku currently, so no problem there.
Huayna-Freddy relation, don't know what to do.
Freddy is a potential ally - Huayna could be a good friend with Hindu and HR.

No, it will be closed and we will gain the penalty.

Huayna-Freddy relation, don't know what to do.
Freddy is a potential ally - Huayna could be a good friend with Hindu and HR.Okay.

Judging from your excel chart, it'll be a whole lot harder to maintain good relations with HC than with Freddie, so maybe that's the decider. Favor HC.

Should be able to close with LIz on T38 or T39, not sure which.

DO we prefer either Washington or Asoka (or someone else) settling on the west seafood?

Okay.

Judging from your excel chart, it'll be a whole lot harder to maintain good relations with HC than with Freddie, so maybe that's the decider. Favor HC.
Well, we will have to decide at some time. One friend the other enemy.

Freddy as friend will be easily bribed to go after HC, making him a potential final ally.
HC cannot be bribed soon, but could become a friend even w/o that (if we really go the Hindu way at some time and revolt to HR).

At -2, HC will be annoyed and refuse to trade with us, right? Maybe something to concern in the short term.

DO we prefer either Washington or Asoka (or someone else) settling on the west seafood?
Asoka would maybe trade us fish and clams at some time, while Washington will keep them for himself.
Other than that, I see no difference.

But as even Liz doesn't settle there (which I don't understand - it should be a perfect location for her) :crazyeye:.

Asoka would maybe trade us fish and clams at some time, while Washington will keep them for himself.
Other than that, I see no difference.It would take Wshington from about 9 bordering tiles to 13 with us. But I was more thinking that Asoka has the copper and if we decide to go with him as our partner, then he'll have that much more commerce and 1 less city to conquer.

Everyone check the turnset report - we just met another civ - who's buddist and worst enemy is liz.

JC, great! We gift him our iron and set him on a hindu :)

I'm okay with closing her borders. Keep them open with Izzy for a buddhist missionary.

At -2, HC will be annoyed and refuse to trade with us, right? Maybe something to concern in the short term.
I don't want to decide now, if we don't have to. But if we cancel trade with one of the 2 he will not talk for a long time, so is out of trading anyway

It would take Wshington from about 9 bordering tiles to 13 with us. But I was more thinking that Asoka has the copper and if we decide to go with him as our partner, then he'll have that much more commerce and 1 less city to conquer.

Washington having a few more bordering tiles is of know concern. We will have -1 close borders with him anyway after Washington and NY expand, but will never reach -2. For him with only -2 close borders that would mean 20 stolen tiles = tiles in his city radius owned by us.
You get 40% for being a land target (8 adjacent tiles). Add stolen tiles * 3 %. Only at 100% we would get the -2 with him.

OB or not? And do we cancel with Liz for sure now? Otherwise there's 2 civs that might ask us to.

JC, great! We gift him our iron and set him on a hindu :)
Or on a bud he doesn't like too much - like Freddy :).
Religion isn't all, you know :p.

OB or not? And do we cancel with Liz for sure now? Otherwise there's 2 civs that might ask us to.
OB with JC is fine. Everybody gets along with him just fine currently.
I think, really better cancel with Liz.

We can close borders with HC now, with Freddie on T43. IT would be nice if we've seen all of their land before closing.

We can close borders with HC now, with Freddie on T43. IT would be nice if we've seen all of their land before closing.

I can see all fred's land by t43 if I go N with the scout. I can also get him out by then so that he's not teleported N of HC when we close. I can also see almost and maybe all of HC's land but we have to keep borders open another 3-4 turns. What do you guys think?

What is it with the relation between Julius and Kublai. Is there a close border penalty on 1 side, as the value is mutually different.
That would mean a good chance for a cheap war.

I can see all fred's land by t43 if I go N with the scout. I can also get him out by then so that he's not teleported N of HC when we close. I can also see almost and maybe all of HC's land but we have to keep borders open another 3-4 turns. What do you guys think?
I still want to see all the land of Kublai and Julius also (before alpha if possible), so wouldn't go out of the way to trace back, just to be able to close borders.

What is it with the relation between Julius and Kublai. Is there a close border penalty on 1 side, as the value is mutually different.
That would mean a good chance for a cheap war.

Probably. KK's overlapping 2 tiles in Antium's FC and Antium hasn't expanded yet.

This is my ppp for the border situation: This turn: close with Liz + HC, open with JC. Move scout N towards HC, get out by t43, close with Fred. I would like to go through HC before closing, but if we're asked while I'm inside we can't get the scout back down if it's teleported N. Any way to tell where it's gonna go if we close with HC while it's inside?

EDIT: off of klarius's post, I can't do that and go N w the scout. So if everybody is in agreement the priorty is to explore KK and JC, then I need to continue S. We can see most of Fred's and half of HC's anyway. Unless somebody objects (quickly) that is what I'll do. So I will cancel OB's with Liz and HC this turn and Fred on t43 - yes?

Definitely. If we haven't seen the Antarctic yet, keep going south. MIght be more AIs.

How far south have you gone? (This is vanilla so we still know where the equator is.)

How far south have you gone? (This is vanilla so we still know where the equator is.)

Scout is 18 tiles S of Murkyopolis adn 1E. KK is still below us and I can only see his border color. Heading S.

EDIT: not closing with HC this turn. Will close if Fred or Izzy asks.

Scout is 18 tiles S of Murkyopolis adn 1E. KK is still below us and I can only see his border color. Heading S.Look slike the map is 34 tiles high, so that scout could have 10-13 tiles further south to go. We can alway scout HC later if we can get OBs again. I think first priority is meeting all people. DO what you think is right. YOu can see the map.

Edit: Btw, we only need to close borders with HC if he is Freddie's worst enemy.

Manchester United 4-1.

Can the scout still make it to the tile 2 NE of Kyoto, before border expansion.

Manchester United 4-1.

Thx. I checked online too - I love this new router.

I can maybe get the scout over there. I thought about that and for some reason didn't follow through - got confused about JC's iron I think - and sent it in the other direction 1 movement turn :(, but I see no harm in doing that now.

BTW - Izzy just asked us to stop trading with Washington. I want to decline. We'll have a trade route with him in 3 turns, and he and HC directly between us and won't offer her OB so she can't get to us. But it will give us -1 w Izzy.

EDIT: Asoka between us too - can't look at the map right now obviously.

Anbody object to that? Will take 5 min break and if don't hear anything reject the demand.

Reject.
Rejection's -1 is only temporal, isn't it?

Reject.
Rejection's -1 is only temporal, isn't it?
Second rejection.

It's temporal, but may take a long time to go away.
Still, for sure don't piss off Washington.

Still, for sure don't piss off Washington.I wouldn't want to piss him off either. You know how he, undermanned, beat the British, right? His highly sophisticated spy network!!! Pretty nifty for the 1700s.

Excellent play, FiveAces! :goodjob:

Wow, what an interesting situation we have now. :)

We might need to gift Writing to a couple of AIs to get them pleased enough to do some warring for us. Toku or Isabella looks like good targets, but who should we get to attack?

Excellent work, FiveAces! :goodjob:

who should we get to attack?

Julius Caesar.

I'm 100% convinced that Gyathaar the Viking intentionally placed JC in the Deep South, with iron, safely far from our borders. He's pushing the envelope on the HOF fastest finish. We should be striving for a Communism/PA finish. About 500ad? Dare I issue...yup, I dare: The First Annual Murky Waters 500ad Domination Challenge

As always, the rulez is simple.

1. Figure out how we can bribe JC to war at Alpha+1 and get him up to Friendly with us by the time we complete Communism in 500ad. (Julius promises to do us the rest...:lol:).

The situation is a bit complex.
I don't see that we can afford a war soon :cry:.
The only cheap war (against a land target), I see possible is Freddy against Huayna. Doesn't look like that buys us a lot.

Julius is a no go currently. We need to gift him first to get him pleased, but don't have anything.
Even if we keep alphabet and hope that we can get his attitude up by minor trades (religious techs).
Alphabet is probably not enough to bribe him against a distant target (have to still calculate exactly what's needed). And he has IW, which would be a tech we might get in time to bribe others.
Edit: Ok, Tokugawa, the powerless, should be possible with alphabet, if we declare first on him.

His only close target (in CIV terms - 8 adjacent tiles) is Kublai, but he is pleased with him.

Another problem is that we probably cannot trade for poly next turn. Only Asoka and Izzy have it, that means even Asoka wants to keep the monopoly. Only if somebody else gets it Asoka will probably (not building Parthenon) trade. Izzy with 60% iTechKnownPercent is a lost cause for interesting tech trades anyway.

Also sailing is still in the monopoly problem.

As we will not trade any interesting tech from Izzy anyway, I would trade writing for masonry with her.
Note, lots of civs are currently not trading masonry, because they are building pyramids or GLight. Before the rest goes also in this category, better do the easy trade now.

The First Annual Murky Waters 500ad Domination Challenge

Forget about that.
We cannot hope to drive research fast and at the same time have somebody (and I'm even not sure that Julius is the best - he is a loser in my experience, despite his top unique unit) conquer most of the continent.
Note also, even though domination on our continent is possible, it's tight. There are several bad placed cities. If we just keep all, domination might take a long time after conquest of our continent.

Ah ha! So you want me to be real, huh? No sooner said than done. My domination stats are as follows:
Total tiles = 554
51% rounded up = 283
Tiles on our continent = 293 292
Tiles covered by known city fat crosses = 271 270 (includes Murky 3x culture, JC 2x in capital)

So we need 12 13 tiles from 2x culture expansion of captured JC cities.

One possibility:
Antium 2x => tiles 20, 21 22 (see pictures below)
Cuzco 2x => tiles 13, 14, 17-21
Kyoto 2x => tiles 6, 7, 11, 12
Total = 14 tiles.

Potential alternative to Kyoto would be not-yet-existing Marble City => tiles 1, 2 Total = 12 tiles

So early capture of Cuzco + Kyoto (or not if Marble city) and us spreading Taoism to double its culture growth gets double expansion in <= 50t after religion spread.

But Kubla, with his city attack units and creative, etc., is still my favorite.

I got it.

Isabel and Toku are OCC and have the least power.

If we OB Lizzy we con't get a trade route, she's the one having sailing, not us.

We have just traded for Myst this very same turn, how comes we can see who can research Poly and who can't? Is just because we saved and loaded the game? That would be a bug, almost an exploit.

Getting JC to dow Toku might prove difficult, since they don't know each other.

I'm going to think a bit more about the situation.

Ah ha! So you want me to be real, huh? No sooner said than done. My domination stats are as follows:
Total tiles = 554
51% rounded up = 283
Tiles on our continent = 293
Tiles covered by known city fat crosses = 271 (includes Murky 3x culture, JC 2x in capital)

So we need 12 tiles from 2x culture expansion of captured JC cities.

One possibility:
Antium 2x => tiles 20, 21 22 (see pictures below)
Cuzco 2x => tiles 13, 14, 17-21
Kyoto 2x => tiles 6, 7, 11, 12
Total = 14 tiles.

Potential alternative to Kyoto would be not-yet-existing Marble City => tiles 1, 2 Total = 12 tiles

So early capture of Cuzco + Kyoto (or not if Marble city) and us spreading Taoism to double its culture growth gets double expansion in <= 50t after religion spread.

But Kubla, with his city attack units and creative, etc., is still my favorite.

Thank you! You saved me a lot of work.

I can't see your picture. A question, please, if no city at all gets a second border expansion, can we win with a single bombed GA?

I imagine we should get a common war before everybody enjoys a +1 peace with everybody else. When does that happen, around 1000BC?

klarius, please, would Kublai attack HC if we gift him Wri and then bribe him with Alpha?
EDIT1: Both Kublai and HC have axes. I can't find HC metal, though.

If we don't trade Wri to HC nor Wash, their units can't reach us.



I don't plan to play till we have 2 things ascertained:
- Who to bribe.
- What trade deals to make.

I'll then probably play 1 single turn and look for advice again.

EDIT2: Are we in so bad a position that we should gift Wri just to get BW in exchange for Alpha?
Or maybe we should trade Medi from Aso, Isab or Washm, then the following turn get BW for Wri+Medi.
Do we know if enough AI have IW?

Pre-Play-Plan OVERVIEW T45-T55

Most important goals, actions, and intent: Advance towards a GS, set up a common war, trade as efficiently as possible

BUILD QUEUE
Barracks till pop5, then...
either change to Worker or continue Barracks (?)

UNIT MOVES
Scout explores small patches of unfogged tiles
Warrior back home.

WORKER ACTIONS
End road T46.
Move to furs T47
Furs connected T49
Start quarry, will be finished T56, just after my turnset.

CITY MM
T45, deer+clams, 2sci
T46, 2clams+deer+fur, no scis
T47, 2clams, 2sci, press avoid growth
T48, 2clams, 2sci, unpress avoid growth
T49 onwards, 2clams, furs, 2sci
I have valued 1 hammer more than 1 commerce, but 2 hammers less than 3 commerce. Do we all agree?

DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS
Dow HC (timing yet TBD)
Get Kublai to join the fun
Give in to demands from Kublai and hindu civs. (We will convert Kub to h later on) (?).
Do not stop trading with hindu civs.

TRADE SCREEN ACTIONS
Monitor AI war plans each turn
Monitor AI attitudes for shifts each turn
Tech trading yet TBD

OTHERS
Research: Drama (partial). Change to Lite asap.
Civic change: Revolt to slavery asap, while researching Drama and building Barracks. (?)
Religion change: Will stop and discuss if religion spreads.
Mid-turnset break: T46, to discuss further tech trading.

Stopping points:
Spread of religion
Any DOW
Contact with a new civ
Someone gets enough on their hands

I imagine we should get a common war before everybody enjoys a +1 peace with everybody else. When does that happen, around 1000BC?

klarius, please, would Kublai attack HC if we gift him Wri and then bribe him with Alpha?
EDIT1: Both Kublai and HC have axes. I can't find HC metal, though.

If we don't trade Wri to HC nor Wash, their units can't reach us.



I don't plan to play till we have 2 things ascertained:
- Who to bribe.
- What trade deals to make.

I'll then probably play 1 single turn and look for advice again.

EDIT2: Are we in so bad a position that we should gift Wri just to get BW in exchange for Alpha?
Or maybe we should trade Medi from Aso, Isab or Washm, then the following turn get BW for Wri+Medi.
Do we know if enough AI have IW?
Years of peace will come T60.

Kublai should do HC. But we have to declare first.
Though I wouldn't do it w/o also let Freddy go after him.
HC's metal is down by Tiwanaku. He will not keep that for long, if at war with Kublai and Freddy.
It's not save to just not trade writing. HC wouldn't even give archery for writing, so is researching it with quite some progress.

I would now trade masonry from Isa. Gift writing to Freddy and Kublai to get them pleased.
Gift writing to Asoka and Liz as they anyway don't value it much (don't give archery) anymore.
Even the meditation trade next turn isn't easy. Only Asoka will trade it and we could then get it only by alpha.

Freddy might throw in BW, when we bribe him against HC (land target, so relatively cheap).
Then we can see the IW situation, but I think it's already spread quite a bit from the power graphs.

BTW, switch off the exotic foreign adviser, to get the can't trade column. It's easier to see who has which tech then.

I don't think Julius is feasible anytime soon and by that too late for praetorians to make a difference. He might jump the bandwagon on his own, but that's a minor hope.

BTW, there is also a danger. We might get dog piled.
.1% chance by Washington and Asoka, but 1.2% chance by Liz. Pleased would fix that, but we know these people so long that gifts will not easily do that.
Another fix for Liz would be if Alex would be at war with a strong enemy, as she would then prefer to dog pile him.
But declaring on Alex will piss off Kublai and we would still need a partner (maybe Freddy would do both), as our power is probably not high enough.
A dog pile war comes out of the blue. No preparation with any hands involved.

To the MM:
Julius has 2 gold and is not trading any currently (Asoka trades his spare gold away to Liz :cry:).
We are connected next turn (after units moved the worker job will be done) and might get a trade. That means we would want to be faster at size 5 (and 6).

But Kubla, with his city attack units and creative, etc., is still my favorite.
Well, creative and aggressive is very good.
I'm less impressed that he favors city suicide units :crazyeye:.
Attack units form nice stacks (with one attack city unit as stack head). Attack city might go to suicide on their own.

klarius, is iTechTradeKnwnPercent is rounded down or not? For example, if Asoka knows 11 AIs, including himself, does he trade when 2 or 3 players know the tech?

On tech trading, we would like to be able to trade Alpha to Asoka for Poly as soon as someone else researches it (right?), so we don't want Asoka to get Alpha from us or anyone else.

Questions:
1. How many times can we trade Alpha and still bribe KK to DoW HC? Once? Twice? (Nonce?)
2. How many times can we trade Writing and still get KK and Freddie up to Pleased by gifting it?

How about:

T45 (now)
Trade Alpha to JC for Masonry and BW
Trade Writing to selected AIs, per klarius' plan

T46
Now we can trade Alpha for IW, and two war bribes.

Here is the southern map for KK. Works out the same as JC: we need 12 13 tiles from 2nd border expansion, given cities currently on the map.

We can get those from:
Kyoto: tiles 6, 7, 11, 12
Cuzco: tiles 9, 10, 13-17
GA bomb in Murkyopolis: tile 2 or City founded to the West, but not on Murkyopolis 3W.
CIty founded by someone to the west would gets tiles 3,4

comments on PPP:

1) suggest we road stone first - we need it to hook up stone, there is no yield difference between mine or quarry, and it means if we need to move the worker for some reason before both are finished we might save a turn when we come back. EDIT: ignore this we're quarrying the marble duh i need to think more before I speak!
2) Agree with your valuation - same reason I worked the deer instead of the sheep to finish the wb,
3) I don't that it assumes a particular religion will spread to our only city, though I agree hindu is most likely due to missionary from Asoka and proximity to Bombay. That said if we do get it (whenever that is) we have to a) get lucky that it spreads to KK or b) build a missionary, get it down there when we don't know the OB state or what wars are going on, c) successfully spread it or repeat b, and d) bribe him and hope hindu isn't "against everything he stands for" so I still don't like it (but that doesn't mean it might not be our best option, I just hope we can find a better one)

JC got stomped by Liz in one of my test games. I don't know whether he had iron or not. Something to keep in mind. I wish he didn't have those 2g which allowed him to get writing before us though.

I'm still considering the best tech/diplo path, though LC's suggestion sounds promising.

EDIT2: also bear in mind if we bribe a DOW with aplha, that civ may then bribe someone else with it +extra techs possibly to join them. So let's not trade alpha to civs we want to be able to be bribed (e.g. KK) unless it's our only option for IW.

TechTradeKnownPercent condition does not include the civ itself or the civ who is asking.
So the number in question is (or will be shortly) 9.

(number_civs_with_tech*100)/9 >= TechTradeKnownPercent is the condition.
Meaning one civ other than self per 10% necessary in most cases.

1.) Once, twice or even 3 times shouldn't be a problem next turn. The price should be around 480g (Kublai) or 220g (Freddy). The value of alpha still 490 even if all others know it. 660 at monopoly. We should also still have myst on both next turn. And Freddy should still chip in the 390g BW also.

But note DoW gets more expensive every turn. And there could be the freak accident that they start to research alpha themselves.

2.) The question is less how many times we trade it, but if they will research it themselves. That's why I say do the gifting immediately only trading for masonry before.
Then the question is how many turns that will be enough for how many points and what are the exact hidden modifiers at that time (and did we do anything crazy in the meantime).
I'm confident for next turn.

From whom you want to get IW next turn?

d) bribe him and hope hindu isn't "against everything he stands for" so I still don't like it (but that doesn't mean it might not be our best option, I just hope we can find a better one)

Half his cities rounded down (or number of cities with state religion -1, but there's Izzy ;)) have to have the religion for bribing, otherwise he tells that BS.

Ok, recapitulate my tech trading - bribing plan.

T45: gift writing to KK and Freddy. Buy masonry from Izzy with writing. Writing is now pretty worthless, gift to Asoka, so we can get poly as soon as he is ready to part with it.
T46: DoW with HC and BW from Freddy for alpha and maybe myst .
DoW with HC from KK for alpha and maybe myst.

T47:
IW (he may throw in pots also) from JC for alpha, look around for other trades, but don't give alpha to Asoka unless there is poly on the table.

Edit:
Alternative plan a bit more aggressive:
Freddy against HC, but then KK against Freddy.

Ok, I like klarius's plan. Are we not gifting writ/Alpha to Wash to get him pleased (removes risk of DOW, right) b/c of another -1 from Izzy?

EDIT: klarius, why KK against Freddy in your alternative? We won't get mutual war relations or turns unless we DOW Fred too. Your post didn't mention that - is that what you meant? But then we won't be getting mutual war from Fred then, and if we're at war with 2 civs does that increase the risk of a dogpile?

2.) The question is less how many times we trade it, but if they will research it themselves. That's why I say do the gifting immediately only trading for masonry before.
Then the question is how many turns that will be enough for how many points and what are the exact hidden modifiers at that time (and did we do anything crazy in the meantime).
I'm confident for next turn.

From whom you want to get IW next turn?Obviously, it's cheaper your way, except for the delayed turn. Plus it gives Alpha to one less AI.

I'm not clear on your plan for trading writing though. Which comes first, second and third:

a) gift writing to KK
b) gift writing to Freddie
c) trade writing to Izzy for Masonry.

EDIT: Do we want to avoid archery or any other tech to keep WFYABTA down?

I agree with klarius on planning for growth in 2 turns, assuming we'll trade Alex for his gold next turn. Either way we're going to not work the scientists for a turn or three, so let's grow first. I'd work all four developed tiles starting this turn. No scientists this turn and then see what happens. Growing to pop6 asap is also high priority because we'll be able to work 4 improved tiles and 2 scientists.

Considering we have a lot of research to do and we don't know if we'll be unlucky with Poly, we need to have as many citizens as possible producing beakers asap.

XTeam and Smurkz built the Pyramids. Fifth Element (WastinTime) followed our route, building the library the same turn or maybe a turn later than us, but they didn't get Alpha before T47.

Edit:
Alternative plan a bit more aggressive:
Freddy against HC, but then KK against Freddy.Berlin is also one of the Big Three Cities (along with Cuzco and Kyoto) that can cover a bunch of tiles with the 2nd cultural expansion, so if we could figure out a way for KK to grab it early, along with Cuzco, that would be very good.

jesusin, I hope you are not in a hurry to play your turnset, because I need to catch up a bit (have been using my mobile phone to read the forum the last 4-5 days...) :)

Where can I find the leader attitudes vs us and vs target that are required for a successful bribe? Maybe someone has already compiled it and I have just missed it?

With three religions present on our continent wars are bound to break out soon. I am just surprised that they haven't already. We could play it cool and just wait with setting up our own wars for some turns. One possibility is to join in on another war and bribe one or two AIs to join the dogpile.

Obviously, it's cheaper your way, except for the delayed turn. Plus it gives Alpha to one less AI.

I'm not clear on your plan for trading writing though. Which comes first, second and third:

a) gift writing to KK
b) gift writing to Freddie
c) trade writing to Izzy for Masonry.

EDIT: Do we want to avoid archery or any other tech to keep WFYABTA down?
Well, I cannot say what's the best sequence. In principle I would gift Freddie first, because we know him longer, then KK because the gifts are more important than the trade. I cannot predict if the masonry trade is still then possible. But with other sequences we don't know if the gift is really enough, so I rather risk the trade.

Well, we should really avoid too many trades. We don't have Mansa and if we put more value on war than good relations, we might need a long time to get the peaceful researchers to friendly (if ever).
So archery is probably a no, if we have copper or iron (OTOH it's a pain to reject all these trades through the whole game). We should probably also rather research priesthood than trade for it. With both prerequisites it's the cheapest tech in the game.

I am not in a hurry to play, I prefer to reach a consensus before playing.

I like klarius plans for trading on the first turn.

I agree with klarius on planning for growth in 2 turns, assuming we'll trade Alex for his gold next turn. Either way we're going to not work the scientists for a turn or three, so let's grow first. I'd work all four developed tiles starting this turn. No scientists this turn and then see what happens. Growing to pop6 asap is also high priority because we'll be able to work 4 improved tiles and 2 scientists.

Considering we have a lot of research to do and we don't know if we'll be unlucky with Poly, we need to have as many citizens as possible producing beakers asap.

Would someone object to working deer+sheep+clams+1sci the first turn?
I like it becuase it sacrifices sci for growth but doesn't sacrifice sci for furs.

I don't think the beakers we put on Drama now are so important.

Should I revolt to slavery when we get BW or not?

Should I revolt to slavery when we get BW or not?

Wohoo! A question that I can answer! Pick me, me! <waves hand in air>


Definitely not. We should not be doing any whipping in this game. The only time I would switch to slavery is if we are anyway doing a revolt to some other civic, like HR or OR.

Ok, recapitulate my tech trading - bribing plan.

T45: gift writing to KK and Freddy. Buy masonry from Izzy with writing. Writing is now pretty worthless, gift to Asoka, so we can get poly as soon as he is ready to part with it.
T46: DoW with HC and BW from Freddy for alpha and maybe myst .
DoW with HC from KK for alpha and maybe myst.

T47:
IW (he may throw in pots also) from JC for alpha, look around for other trades, but don't give alpha to Asoka unless there is poly on the table.

Edit:
Alternative plan a bit more aggressive:
Freddy against HC, but then KK against Freddy.

How much would it take to get JC to join also? Perhaps gift Alphabet, trade Sailing for war.

I like to have all potential allies joining in the first war. That way we can relax and see which one of them gets to capture a new city or two. This candidate, bachelor number one, is then our future ally.

please ignore this post

Wohoo! A question that I can answer! Pick me, me! <waves hand in air>


Definitely not. We should not be doing any whipping in this game. The only time I would switch to slavery is if we are anyway doing a revolt to some other civic, like HR or OR.

Darn - beat me to it! Agree. I would add also maybe if we are DOW'd. But hopefully that will never happen.

I think I understand why we're not giving alpha to Wash now - so he won't trade it to Asoka, right?

If the drama beakers aren't important, should we just put them into poly in case we can't trade for it for a while? Each turn lost waiting for poly is 1 less turn of the GL. (EDIT: assuming we trade for it after we could have self-researched it) Jud was founded early - it is possible nobody is researching it now - Liz probably went to ph-CoL once it was Izzy got mono - she would have been behind since she doesn't start with myst. Fred too. I think we might wait a while if we wait.

XTeam and Smurkz built the Pyramids. Fifth Element (WastinTime) followed our route, building the library the same turn or maybe a turn later than us, but they didn't get Alpha before T47.

They might have lost the furs at some point. Can you tell from the graph if anybody's picked up a religion?

How much would it take to get JC to join also? Perhaps gift Alphabet, trade Sailing for war.

I like to have all potential allies joining in the first war. That way we can relax and see which one of them gets to capture a new city or two. This candidate, bachelor number one, is then our future ally.
JC is similar to KK. We need something the order of magnitude of alphabet to bribe. And we just have nothing to get him to pleased before.
Only if we can trade for poly and med first we could hope to get him. We can try to wait a bit with the IW trade, but still, alphabet gets devalued - bribe gets more expensive.

JC is similar to KK. We need something the order of magnitude of alphabet to bribe.

Even for joining a dogpile where KK, Freddie, and we are already at war with HC? My experience from the test games was that the cost dropped rapidly the more AIs I got to join a war.

Even for joining a dogpile where KK, Freddie, and we are already at war with HC? My experience from the test games was that the cost dropped rapidly the more AIs I got to join a war.
I find no indication of that in the SDK.

klarius- do you think poly will be tradeable sooner rather than later? In my test games when it wasn't available at alpha I had to either self-research it or wait a long time. Maybe once it came up soon afterwards, but not usually.

Since we don't have poly now (or are comfortable we'll get it soon) I'll throw this one out there - what if we skip GL and go straight to CoL-CS?

I find no indication of that in the SDK.

Maybe it is due to the power ratio shifting then.

klarius- do you think poly will be tradeable sooner rather than later? In my test games when it wasn't available at alpha I had to either self-research it or wait a long time. Maybe once it came up soon afterwards, but not usually.

Since we don't have poly now (or are comfortable we'll get it soon) I'll throw this one out there - what if we skip GL and go straight to CoL-CS?

I had similar experiences, also having to self-research Poly more than once.

Skipping the GL is an interesting thought. But would the quicker research path make up for the lack of GS points?

CoL still needs a religion (do you want to use alpha just for meditation) and priesthood.
My experience is that poly will come up before drama is finished and the drama research is not a loss.

Hi all!

Back online, although I have read the thread via mobile phone. Quite a bit of reloading during FiveAces' play. Well done everybody! I'll try to catch up with the link page, but that may take a while to sort out klarius' korner :lol:

jesusin, I suggest that you elaborate a bit more on the tech trade & bribe section in your PPP :D Take your time, no hurry. There's a lot of ideas floating around, and I'm not sure really where we'll land at the end, so it would be good if we had a baseline or candidate procedure to compare against.

One minor question to FiveAces: In your report (which was excellent) you stated that "Trade writing to Alex for myst+wheel". Was this IBT? Or was it obviously the best trade i.e. something we would have done first thing anyway? Or was it due to directives from the peanut gallery? :lol: I'm absolutely not criticizing your play, I'm just curious to know your reasoning, and I may have missed something while browsing with the phone.

We also need to agree on the priority order of Drama, Literature and Civil Service. I presume we should synchronize the techs to the production capabilities. Apart from GLib and GlobeT, what else should we build? Did we agree on the list Gnejs' provided a couple of hundred posts ago :lol:

One more thing: why build barracks? Do we plan to complete them? Isn't it better to switch to granary/lighthouse as soon as we have the techs? We won't have need for barracks for a very long time, if ever.

One minor question to FiveAces: In your report (which was excellent) you stated that "Trade writing to Alex for myst+wheel". Was this IBT? Or was it obviously the best trade i.e. something we would have done first thing anyway? Or was it due to directives from the peanut gallery? :lol: I'm absolutely not criticizing your play, I'm just curious to know your reasoning, and I may have missed something while browsing with the phone.

It was my suggestion to trade for myst+wheel right away, so we know the religion tech situation at the break.
Nobody did oppose this vehemently ...

Three issues:
1. Choice of research path: Lit/Drama or CoL/CS bee-line?
2. Optimizing growth to pop6 versus fastest GS/Academy
3. Tech trading/DoW bribing

Somehow we have to find some power balance here. This is what I think it is.

Victory Goal: Domination by PA
Timeline: Some combination of Communism bee-line and PA-partner conquest of our continent.
Best yet: Alpha (~T45) -- PA (T133) -- Domination (T193)

* So we have at least 86t to get the 40t common war. No problem.
* We can get to Communism in about 80-100t depending on our luck with Philo, CoL, or whatever. Okay, we've got that figured out. No problem.
* The real problem is those 60 frigging turns after PA. That just plain sucks. In other words, it takes KK ~146 turns to pull off a simple, mini-pangaea conquest. If KK were the human player, that would be laughable. Furthermore, at least two, but probably more, of the top teams are succeeding with the Pyramids and with their hammer-poor, high-scientist strategy, they'll probably beat us to Communism and surely beat us to the ensuing techs. So, (at the risk of repeating myself...:p) I think we need to leverage our hammer-rich, low-scientist research path and help KK (or whoever) get a major chunk of the conquest done using Maces pre-PA. We will be the first to CS. We will dictate who has Maces. (If we could figure out a way to bribe JC to war, it might even be worth it to bee-line Construction.)

To me, this means we research Lite and Drama first. Benefits:
1. Drama and Lite are both techs we get soon enough to continue to bribe DoWs. (The CoL>CS bee-line is vulnerable in this respect, especially the long CS black hole.)
2. GLib gives us 6:science:/t + 8:gp:/t + 3 GS points per turn, without using any citizens.
3. Later on, while those free scientists are building the GS for Education, our citizens can build some cats to help our partner.
4. We could bulb Philo for Taoism and Pacifism. If we spread Taoism to our partner, he suddenly won't like a lot of his neighbors so much. That's a good thing.
5. As for our immediate MM concerns, we're gong to be stuck at pop6 for a while. Not sure if it's better to get there asap or not, but I think it is, because we want to build a bunch of stuff, including a granary, lighthouse, and any wonders.

Research can be a much bigger problem in this game compared with the test games.
If we are setting out now to befriend KK, we might never get friendly with the peaceful neighbors.

If we then also want to trade for techs off the bee-line (construction, monarchy) we might end up in WFYABTA when we want to trade for techs like machinery, optics or even earlier.

Edit:
In fact I'm not sure anymore what to do now.
We could team up with Freddy against Toku or Alex, which means he would be our likely partner.
War with HC means a permanent -1 with Asoka.
War with Alex is -1 with KK.

And in fact I just saw that I had something wrong with the declaration scheme.
Currently KK is pleased with HC (wasn't this different in some screen shot). So that doesn't even work.
This might still change again IBT.

2. GLib gives us 6:science:/t + 8:gp:/t + 3 GS points per turn, without using any citizens.
3. Later on, while those free scientists are building the GS for Education, our citizens can build some cats to help our partner.
4. We could bulb Philo for Taoism and Pacifism. If we spread Taoism to our partner, he suddenly won't like a lot of his neighbors so much. That's a good thing.


Spreading Tao doesn't seem good to me. Why not use a religion others have?

I think I prefer an Academy better than a bulb.

Ok, new idea.
Gambling on war:

We still do the gifts to KK and Freddy. After masonry from Izzy also to everybody else (note: we need several people researching math, if we want to trade it anytime soon - no Mansa here :cry:).
BW from JC for alpha will get him pleased for some time.
Hook up copper ASAP and build a couple of axes.
We declare on Toku.

Next turn have Freddy go after Toku for alpha (this is more expensive than HC as he is no land target :crazyeye:). That's just a contingency that we get something out of this in case the next step isn't working. We can leave that out also, as there is no chance in hell that Toku will sign OB with Washington anytime soon (except Washington dog piles).

Then wait that somebody dog piles on us, or other wars starting on their own present a good opportunity. Especially pray for Liz dog piling (her favorite sport), so we can have all the bad boys set on her w/o attitude penalty. Also HC and Washington are possible.
We might also get somebody from the south (or even Asoka) dog pile on Toku.

I see a problem in this game that us declaring will currently always piss off somebody. And Liz or Washington are the worst enemies of our favorite war mongers. That will stay so, even if we get KK a war against somebody like HC.

Spreading Tao doesn't seem good to me. Why not use a religion others have?

I think I prefer an Academy better than a bulb.
Yes Tao doesn't help as everybody has already a religion and will not convert easily. I don't think we want to build lots of missionaries instead of infra and military.
But we don't know if we get a religion ever and maybe it's Judaism then.

The question is, if we can afford to run a religion (not Tao pretty sure) and if we need philosophy at that time as trade bait.

Only if we can run pacifism for an extended time there is hope that the bulb really pays off in terms of research.
Philosophy early OTOH might get us a critical tech or DoW at a time we could not afford it otherwise.

Maybe it is due to the power ratio shifting then.
Sure there is a power factor. But this doesn't help much early in the game as the factor is (their_power+100)/(our_power+100) as viewed from the declaring civ.
Currently the highest power in the game is still below 100, so even if a target loses 50% power in a war that doesn't acount for much.
And it's really only the power loss of the target that counts. The powers of the civs already at war with them don't count for this value.

It does play a role when they decide to dog pile on their own, though.

EDIT: klarius, why KK against Freddy in your alternative? We won't get mutual war relations or turns unless we DOW Fred too. Your post didn't mention that - is that what you meant? But then we won't be getting mutual war from Fred then, and if we're at war with 2 civs does that increase the risk of a dogpile?
The idea here was just, that if KK is the final goal, we don't want Freddy to have a lot success. That's the danger in the other scheme (which by now may not work at all), Freddy gets all and KK nothing. Then KK isn't such an interesting partner anymore.
If we anyway go for Freddy as PA in the end, then Toku first to get him another nice city soon, is the better alternative.

But I'm also not even sure that we could even bribe KK on Freddy (would have to calculate exactly next turn), as Freddy is pretty powerful.

Spreading Tao doesn't seem good to me. Why not use a religion others have?

I think I prefer an Academy better than a bulb.In any case, Pacifism is iffy at best, because we're talking about partnering with Buddhists and the odds are we're going to get Hinduism. But that also explains the potential difficulty in using a religion others already have.

I also agree on the Academy. Bulbing Philosophy would be with a 2nd GS if we can get it in time.

But to clarify what I was saying about bulbing Philosophy, first, I thought we had long since agreed that we would want to bulb Philo only after either Hinduism or Buddhism spread to us (Gnejs already had to clariify that point once). Otherwise, Taoism might prevent that spread, unless Izzy or Asoka are really persistent. So Taoism would be a second religion available to us. Second, in the scenario I'm describing, we wouldn't be in a big hurry to get our partner to switch. We build and send the missionaries with surplus hammers. We ask our partner to switch when he's friendly with us but won't DoW the next target in line because he likes him too much (common religion + maybe common war). I'm talking about during the Mace Wars and beyond, not in the near future. Third, having two religions we can spread means that in the endgame, we can get newly captured cities to expand borders at +1 or +2:culture: faster (depending on what the city already has in it).

Yes Tao doesn't help as everybody has already a religion and will not convert easily. I don't think we want to build lots of missionaries instead of infra and military.
But we don't know if we get a religion ever and maybe it's Judaism then.

The question is, if we can afford to run a religion (not Tao pretty sure) and if we need philosophy at that time as trade bait.

Only if we can run pacifism for an extended time there is hope that the bulb really pays off in terms of research.
Philosophy early OTOH might get us a critical tech or DoW at a time we could not afford it otherwise.GLib (8:gp:) + NE (1:gp:) + Globe (1:gp:) Pacifism + Castes (18:gp: from 6 sci) = 28 * 300% = 84:gp:/turn. If research might be a bigger problem, maybe we should think in terms of bulbing:

Education(1GS)>Printing Press(1GS)>SciMethod(1-2GS)>Communsim(1-2GA) Man, Pyramids are sounding better all the time.

On WFYABTA, maybe we should research Meditation ourselves too, if and when we decide we need it (before PHilo, obviously).

If we want Liz to dogpile us, are we concerned that she gets a -1 on us?

It was my suggestion to trade for myst+wheel right away, so we know the religion tech situation at the break.
Nobody did oppose this vehemently ...

Yes and I agreed with this. Alex was IMO the best choice, since he had 2nd least total techs, but I knew Izzy (least techs) had med and poly and was one of the few civs trading masonry. I didn't (and couldn't) know that only one other civ had poly.

Also I never reloaded - I got an internet connection at home so I was able to post during my turnset and never shut off the game.

Education(1GS)>Printing Press(1GS)>SciMethod(1-2GS)>Communsim(1-2GA) Man, Pyramids are sounding better all the time.
Except that you didn't allow for 1-2 great engineers, which may come up then. Using GAs for communism means we are already very late (having traded for nationalism - divine right - military tradition). I don't hope we get the opportunity :eek:.

BTW, the extra representation beakers for specialists aren't even amounting for 1 GS bulb in this game, probably.

I had similar experiences, also having to self-research Poly more than once.

Skipping the GL is an interesting thought. But would the quicker research path make up for the lack of GS points?

I don't know. It depends on how much commerce we can generate after CS. We have to chop to build non-river cottages, so maybe not. But we are fin so it's worth consideration.

CoL still needs a religion (do you want to use alpha just for meditation) and priesthood.
My experience is that poly will come up before drama is finished and the drama research is not a loss.

We could maybe research it for 1-2 turns and trade writing for it with Izzy (if she'll trade it) or one of the hindu civs besides Asoka. EDIT: by "it" I mean meditation. PH we can research ourselves in 2 turns. But your second sentence is also logical. We know we have to self-research drama if we want to build Globe before happy is a problem, so any beakers into it are definitely not wasted, they are on the critical path.

I think the question is if poly isn't available after drama so we bypass Lit/GLib, how much more beakers did we lose by doing drama first: If we subtract whatever beakers we put in to med, ph, and whatever we trade CoL for, that probably offets the 50% bonus for that # turns after CS. In addition, there is possibility we could even finish drama and still build GLib - Ghandi is the only civ that prioritizes alpha and can't be on the other continent, and if a civ on ours gets alpha and goes for Lit, then poly will be available.

I'm leaning towards researching drama now until poly becomes available.

Yes and I agreed with this. Alex was IMO the best choice, since he had 2nd least total techs, but I knew Izzy (least techs) had med and poly and was one of the few civs trading masonry. I didn't (and couldn't) know that only one other civ had poly...

Great, no problem. I just wanted the clarification since I could not fully understand via mobile phone. Excellent. Great play BTW :goodjob:

If we want Liz to dogpile us, are we concerned that she gets a -1 on us?
Well, the idea is to stay open :).
Liz, has the highest WFYABTA threshold on our continent.
One -1 is no big problem, if we go that course.
We can still trade with her later as long as we don't become her worst enemy.
OTOH, if that doesn't work out and we should become Hindu, getting her to friendly would overcome her TechTradeKnownPercent (40 - pretty high).

Except that you didn't allow for 1-2 great engineers, which may come up then. Using GAs for communism means we are already very late (having traded for nationalism - divine right - military tradition). I don't hope we get the opportunity :eek:.

BTW, the extra representation beakers for specialists aren't even amounting for 1 GS bulb in this game, probably.Okay, but my basic point was that with Pacifism and NE, we can crank out GPs almost instantly and that's actually what's needed if we want to bulb Printing Press and Sci Meth. The only catch is getting GS's. If we run lots of Sci's it'd be possible but against the odds to get more than 1 GA.

As for the Pyramids, the Rep beakers may only amount to one bulb, but then you throw in the slew of GS's and you go from completing Liberalism to researching Communism in a matter of turns.

--------------------

Anyway, that's not really a discussion I'm all that interested in. I'm interested in having someone conquer our continent by the time we finish COmmunism. Then Communism can come a few turns later and it doesn't matter. So I'm not sure how much of a hurry we are right now to instigate war. Maybe Toku, careful diplmacy and us dogpiling other wars is the best alternative.

Btw, don't forget, we might not have copper...

We could maybe research it for 1-2 turns and trade writing for it with Izzy (if she'll trade it) or one of the hindu civs besides Asoka.
Izzy has 60% TechTradeKnownPercent. So to trade from her nearly everybody has to know it. Then we will anway find somebody to trade it somehow.
Asoka has 20%. 1 more learning it and he might trade.
The others have 30-40%, so at least 2 more needed before they trade.

II think the question is if poly isn't available after drama so we bypass Lit/GLib, how much more beakers did we lose by doing drama first: If we subtract whatever beakers we put in to med, ph, and whatever we trade CoL for, that probably offets the 50% bonus for that # turns after CS. In addition, there is possibility we could even finish drama and still build GLib - Ghandi is the only civ that prioritizes alpha and can't be on the other continent, and if a civ on ours gets alpha and goes for Lit, then poly will be available.

I'm leaning towards researching drama now until poly becomes available.You triggered this thinking in me. We rushed Alpha by 1 turn, which basically cost us a second worker. Not having the second worker, our sole worker has a lot of work to do between now and the completion of the GLib. Researching all of Drama before Literature or delaying Literature a few turns because of a slow Poly, however it happens, just allows our worker to pre-chop/pre-road a couple forests so we can complete the GLib all that faster.

What I'd like to know is: what are the comparative costs and benefits of sacrificing 4 turns toward the Academy to get to pop6 in 5 turns, versus the faster Academy and growoing to pop6 in about 14 turns (the soonest we can pop the GS)?

Okay, but my basic point was that with Pacifism and NE, we can crank out GPs almost instantly and that's actually what's needed if we want to bulb Printing Press and Sci Meth. The only catch is getting GS's. If we run lots of Sci's it'd be possible but against the odds to get more than 1 GA.

As for the Pyramids, the Rep beakers may only amount to one bulb, but then you throw in the slew of GS's and you go from completing Liberalism to researching Communism in a matter of turns.

--------------------

Anyway, that's not really a discussion I'm all that interested in. I'm interested in having someone conquer our continent by the time we finish COmmunism. Then Communism can come a few turns later and it doesn't matter. So I'm not sure how much of a hurry we are right now to instigate war. Maybe Toku, careful diplmacy and us dogpiling other wars is the best alternative.

Btw, don't forget, we might not have copper...
Using scientists after we don't need GS anymore isn't the smartest move. If you use 300% GPP every light bulb is a lot more beakers than the representation beakers to generate the GP. Representation helps for the long run science, if you merge your first few scientists, but not much in our plan. And BTW, we may run representation before communism also by trading for constitution, if all that really takes so long.

Toku = no PA.
And anyway I don't see how he should ever have success before we could help a lot.

Toku = no PA.
And anyway I don't see how he should ever have success before we could help a lot.lol. Sorry for not being clear. I meant DoW Toku, as you suggested a few posts ago.

ALso, I'm not thinking of long-term Pacifism. In my games there was a time after Education, where it was difficult to produce the GSs fast enough to bulb both Prinintg Press and SciMeth. So, my thinking was about turbo-charging our GS production for that time.

What I'd like to know is: what are the comparative costs and benefits of sacrificing 4 turns toward the Academy to get to pop6 in 5 turns, versus the faster Academy and growoing to pop6 in about 14 turns (the soonest we can pop the GS)?
I'm all for going to 6 ASAP. We get a lot more flexibility with research vs production by that. If we go all out for research at 6, we should make up for most of the loss of delayed academy.
Production can be a life saver under certain conditions. :)

Edit:
IIRC, growing to 6 in 6 turns (not 5) costs 2 scientist turns less. That may be the optimum (or not).

Education(1GS)>Printing Press(1GS)>SciMethod(1-2GS)>Communsim(1-2GA) Man, Pyramids are sounding better all the time.


:(

Too late now - no ?

BTW - founding Taoism didn't give us a free missionary ? :mischief:

Anyway - from your disscussion seems that at some point we will need to choose quasi-randomly the PA-partner ... :p

klarius, would happen to have a save from your 450ad PA game from around the time you traded for Construction or earlier? I'd like to try out my idea with cats on a game where we already have a baseline of sorts.

:(

Too late now - no ?

BTW - founding Taoism didn't give us a free missionary ? :mischief:

Anyway - from your disscussion seems that at some point we will need to choose quasi-randomly the PA-partner ... :pSorry, Mîtiu, our discussion is getting really confusing right now. YO'll have to bear with us a bit.

I think it's probalby way too late for the Pyramids and we haven't bulbed Philo yet...;) No one has Taosim yet.

klarius, would happen to have a save from your 450ad PA game from around the time you traded for Construction or earlier? I'd like to try out my idea with cats on a game where we already have a baseline of sorts.
No save.
Did I trade for construction at all :crazyeye:. It for sure had no priority.

I think it's probalby way too late for the Pyramids and we haven't bulbed Philo yet...;) No one has Taosim yet.

I know that we still have a long waaay to Philo but I was wondering which chance have an attempt to spread it when came sooo late in the game. BTW - one question : is there any religion founded on the other continent ?
Do we consider any possibility to reach the other continent ( => research Optics ) or it will be a waste of time ?

The really confusing part for me is the disscussion for choosing the PA-partner ... :confused:

I know that we still have a long waaay to Philo but I was wondering which chance have an attempt to spread it when came sooo late in the game. BTW - one question : is there any religion founded on the other continent ?
Do we consider any possibility to reach the other continent ( => research Optics ) or it will be a waste of time ?

The really confusing part for me is the disscussion for choosing the PA-partner ... :confused:
It's not that long to philo if we would press for it:
Finish drama - trade for meditation - light bulb philo. Something around 15 turns.

Still everybody (besides us :cry:) has already a religion spread, so converting people would be a major effort.

Other continent has no religion up to now. Izzy founded Bud, Asoka Hindu and Jew.

As we can dominate with our continent we are not really much interested in the other.
Current strategy would be to trade for optics, then take astro with liberalism. In test games these events came very soon one after the other.
I did still circumnavigate then in several test games, but didn't do more than a few minor trades with the other continent.

@LC: We won't be able to give +2cpt to cities by religions unless our partner is in FR.

Pre-Play-Plan OVERVIEW T45-T55 (v2.0)

Most important goals, actions, and intent: Advance towards a GS, set up a common war, trade as efficiently as possible

BUILD QUEUE
T45 Barracks
till pop5/6, Granary better than lighthouse better than barracks
at maximum pop, either change to Worker or continue as before

UNIT MOVES
Scout explores small patches of unfogged tiles
Warrior back home.

WORKER ACTIONS
End road T46.
Move to furs T47
Furs connected T49
Start quarry, will be finished T56, just after my turnset.

CITY MM
T45, deer+clams+sheep, 1sci
Look for Gold trade; if possible, do it and change all the rest:
In case no more happy: T46, 2clams+2 scis
T47, 2clams, 2sci, press avoid growth
T48, 2clams, 2sci, unpress avoid growth
T49 onwards, 2clams, furs, 2sci
I have valued 1 hammer more than 1 commerce, but 2 hammers less than 3 commerce. Do we all agree?

DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS
Nothing on T45.
TBD at the T46 stopping point.
Give in to demands from Kublai and hindu civs. (We will convert Kub to h later on) (?).
Do not stop trading with hindu civs.

TRADE SCREEN ACTIONS
Monitor AI war plans each turn
Monitor AI attitudes for shifts each turn
T45: gift writing to KK then Freddy. Buy masonry from Izzy with writing. Gift Writing to Asoka, but not to Washington.
T46: TBD at the T46 stopping point. Initial plan is dow HC and bribe Kublai into action.

OTHERS
Research: Drama (partial). Change to Lite asap. Or should we research Poly ourselves?
Civic change: [/COLOR]None[/COLOR]
Religion change: Will stop and discuss if religion spreads.
Mid-turnset break: T46, to discuss further tech trading.

Stopping points:
Spread of religion
Any DOW
Contact with a new civ
Someone gets enough on their hands
T46, review tech trading options and define bribing plan.

BTW - one question : is there any religion founded on the other continent ?

No. And that's an excellent question because there's probably not going to be one founded overseas, since Liz, Asoka, and Izzy are going to beeline Theo, CoL and DR, and Freddy or Lizzy are going to bulb Philo to found Tao. So you know what? That means if we beeline Optics and hindu (or budda) spreads before then, we can get spread it to everybody on the other continent.

Which means we might be able to get a solo diplo victory with ~75% + of the world pop into our religion and gifting techs.

I just don't know if we could get it faster than a dom.

No. And that's an excellent question because there's probably not going to be one founded overseas, since Liz, Asoka, and Izzy are going to beeline Theo, CoL and DR, and Freddy or Lizzy are going to bulb Philo to found Tao. So you know what? That means if we beeline Optics and hindu (or budda) spreads before then, we can get spread it to everybody on the other continent.

Which means we might be able to get a solo diplo victory with ~75% + of the world pop into our religion and gifting techs.

I just don't know if we could get it faster than a dom.
Well, one still has to have a suiting opponent.
Even if you have prepared everything nicely the AI is also allowed to do a PA, to suddenly shift the UN opponent to your best buddy.

And don't forget that the Oracle is still not built. All bets are off until then.

@LC: We won't be able to give +2cpt to cities by religions unless our partner is in FR.:blush: ;)BUILD QUEUE
till pop5/6, Granary better than lighthouse better than barracksPPP looks excellent to me.

I've been pulling my hair out, wondering about granary before lighthouse. Unless we change our minds about slavery, I think the lighthouse is actually more useful for the time being, because at pop5, for instance, it allows us to run 2 crabs, furs, stone and marble without losing food, when building the GLib. It also enables us to go super commerce, if we choose. What was your reasoning on granary>lh?

T45: gift writing to KK then Freddy.Unless I missed something, klarius had it Freddy>KK (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6787395&postcount=571) because we've known Freddy longer. I guess the bottom line is, gift first to the AI we most want to get up to pleased (whoever that is...:crazyeye:, right, Mitiu?) and hope the next one still works.

Unless I missed something, klarius had it Freddy>KK (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6787395&postcount=571) because we've known Freddy longer. I guess the bottom line is, gift first to the AI we most want to get up to pleased (whoever that is...:crazyeye:, right, Mitiu?) and hope the next one still works.
Well in fact it's all a guess. My latest spread sheet says we need 1 point less with Freddy than KK for pleased, which would say KK is more critical. But that's based on my assumption of rank, which even may change by the tech trades. :crazyeye:
OTOH we know KK 9 turns and Fred 12 turns. All in all looks like a toss up.

Still as both value writing at least enough for archery, we should have a good chance to get them both to pleased.

Am I the only one who has difficulties in keeping track of all the variables in this diplomatic mess? Probably not, Mitiu seems to be no less confused than I am. :)

Could we try to organize the info a little bit? Perhaps we could make a table with the most important characteristics of the AIs on our continent. Here are some of the variables that I find interesting:

Current religion
Favourite civic
Friends ("you have declared war on our friend")
Worst enemies ("you have traded with our worst enemy")
Current relation to us
Required attitude towards us in order to DoW on other AI
Required attitude towards other AI in order to DoW on that AI
Required attitude for Permanent Alliance
Has Copper/Iron
Traits
Number of cities
Unique unit

Am I the only one who has difficulties in keeping track of all the variables in this diplomatic mess? Probably not, Mitiu seems to be no less confused than I am. :)


This would be great !! :goodjob:

Just one more minor remark : in all my test games ( in which I miserably fail to maintain a decent diplomatic relationship ) I was forced to research Polytheism by myself. :( Maybe we will have more luck in this game ... but as a general ideea ... ;)

No religion on other continent => less chances for a "continental war" there so it's very likely to have a monster-tech civ on the "New World", no ? :(

Well, one still has to have a suiting opponent.
Even if you have prepared everything nicely the AI is also allowed to do a PA, to suddenly shift the UN opponent to your best buddy.

And don't forget that the Oracle is still not built. All bets are off until then.

I'm not sure I agree with the best buddy problem or the impact of the PA with all civs in the game. The votes of 1 or 2 civs can certainly be ignored if they are not too large, and if we're successful in getting someone large and friendly enough that they would be our rival and have near-veto power on a diplo win, that just means we continue on towards a PA with that civ and a dom win.

But you are absolutely right about Oracle. For the time being though, I think we don't need to do anything different to preserve the diplo option - in fact, I don't think we need to beeline optics - the AI exploring caravels won't be transporting missionaries, at least I've never seen the AI spam overseas. Maybe we revist this again considering the state of play after we've traded for Optics.

:blush: ;)I've been pulling my hair out, wondering about granary before lighthouse. Unless we change our minds about slavery, I think the lighthouse is actually more useful for the time being, because at pop5, for instance, it allows us to run 2 crabs, furs, stone and marble without losing food, when building the GLib. It also enables us to go super commerce, if we choose. What was your reasoning on granary>lh?

I think it depends on if we can trade for gold and when HR is available -> if the answers are yes and early, then granary first I think, since then we can grow to 9 before finishing Globe. If no and late, then lighhouse is best since we will want to stagnate.

:blush: ;)PPP looks excellent to me.

I've been pulling my hair out, wondering about granary before lighthouse. Unless we change our minds about slavery, I think the lighthouse is actually more useful for the time being, because at pop5, for instance, it allows us to run 2 crabs, furs, stone and marble without losing food, when building the GLib. It also enables us to go super commerce, if we choose. What was your reasoning on granary>lh?

Unless I missed something, klarius had it Freddy>KK (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6787395&postcount=571) because we've known Freddy longer. I guess the bottom line is, gift first to the AI we most want to get up to pleased (whoever that is...:crazyeye:, right, Mitiu?) and hope the next one still works.


Good points. Granary>>lighthouse assumes we will want to grow. When growing, lh is just 2 fpt while granary is 50% of our food surplus, which at size 4 is 10ftp/2= 5ftp. Of course if you are not growing a granary is useless.

If we keep thinking 3 commerce is better than 2 hammers, then the granary (or the lh) won't be finished before GLIB and Globe are available, so it may take really long to finsih one of this buildings. When GLIB and Globe are both built, I prefer to have 40 hammers on a granary than 40 hammers on a lh, since it will be great growth time.


I have purposely put the gift to KK before the gift to Fred, since you convinced me that KK is a priori our best option for a PA.

Updated with info from klarius.

176307

Dammit, for some reason the table is completely messed up :mad:. Forget about it and read klarius post below instead, that captures the essentials.

I'm not sure I agree with the best buddy problem or the impact of the PA with all civs in the game. The votes of 1 or 2 civs can certainly be ignored if they are not too large, and if we're successful in getting someone large and friendly enough that they would be our rival and have near-veto power on a diplo win, that just means we continue on towards a PA with that civ and a dom win.

That civ would be the one that signs a PA with another friendly soul. We cannot PA anybody who already has one.

Ok, here is a first attempt.


Wash Liz Aso HC Isa Alex Toku Fred JC KK
================================================== =========================================
Religion H H H H B B B B B
#cities 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 2
Favorite Civic US FR US HR PS HR Merc US Repr HR
Friends
Worst Enemy
Current Relation 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0
Attitude to us for DoW
Attitude to enemy for DoW
Attitude for PA
Metals C C C C - C - I I C
Traits FinOrg FinPhi OrgSpi AggFin ExpSpi Aggphi AggExp CrePhi OrgExp AggCre
Unique Unit Seal Redc FW Que Conq Phlx Samu Panz Pret Kesh



Alex has B, Toku is the one w/o religion.
I don't know if the friends line makes much sense. That's just everybody the civ is pleased or better and can change rapidly, so should anyway be checked again before any DoW.

The attitude points you have in your table are pretty irrelevant. It's attitude (cautious-pleased) we need to take into account. Currently everybody is cautious with us.

Attitude to us for DoW:
Friendly: Washington, Liz, Huyana
Pleased: Everybody else except Alex
Cautious: Alex

Attitude to enemy for Dow:
Cautious: KK, JC, Alex, Toku
Annoyed: Everybody else

Attitude for PA:
Not possible: Alex, Toku
Friendly: Everybody else

That civ would be the one that signs a PA with another friendly soul. We cannot PA anybody who already has one.

Of course - I'm assuming we make a "no-PA" decision no later than sci meth to ensure we are first to comm (if we don't make that decision, obviously :crazyeye:).

If we keep thinking 3 commerce is better than 2 hammers, then the granary (or the lh) won't be finished before GLIB and Globe are available, so it may take really long to finsih one of this buildings. When GLIB and Globe are both built, I prefer to have 40 hammers on a granary than 40 hammers on a lh, since it will be great growth time.

We have lots of trees too. We could always chop out a granary (or lh or both) immediately after Globe.

Anyway, that's not really a discussion I'm all that interested in. I'm interested in having someone conquer our continent by the time we finish COmmunism. Then Communism can come a few turns later and it doesn't matter. So I'm not sure how much of a hurry we are right now to instigate war. Maybe Toku, careful diplmacy and us dogpiling other wars is the best alternative.


I agree completely here. In all the test games the PA has come quite a long time before the final victory.

We only need 40 turns of shared war. It is good but not essential if we are able to start that counter already now. What is important is to set up wars ASAP that lets our future partner grab land. The sooner our future ally grabs a third city, the sooner he/she will be able to rise to power. This, and nothing else, should dictate our diplomatic actions now.

Our big chance against the Pyramids teams is the extra 15-20 turns we have gained now. We should try to use them optimally.

We have lots of trees too. We could always chop out a granary (or lh or both) immediately after Globe.

Very true. Our other advantage against the Pyramids teams is our ability to grow faster by working cottages instead of scientists. We should be chopping 3-4 forests and build some cottages there. A second worker would indeed be useful.

Very true. Our other advantage against the Pyramids teams is our ability to grow faster by working cottages instead of scientists. We should be chopping 3-4 forests and build some cottages there. A second worker would indeed be useful.Not so sure about that. Wećre stuck at pop6 at best until we cna get the silver, in 20-30 turns. They can switch to HeredRule and grow as much as they want. They have a huge advantage there. They won't switch to scientists for a while.

Okay, I ran it forward a bit. We can work 1 sci this turn, switch it to the 2nd crabs for one turn to get 5 :food: overflow, then grow to pop6 in 3 turns, working 1 sci two of those three turns. There may be comparable ways to grow to pop6 in 5 turns, but I don't think it's optimum to grow slower. That gets us the granary done by Drama. Then we get the theatre done by Literature. With two chops we can get the GLib almost as fast as klarius did on T63, even though he researched Literature first. Drama before Literature doesn't hurt because it gives us more time to trade for Math, hopefully, as well as Poly.

EDIT: The detour to Drama also gets the 1st GS done so we can put more citizens onto building the GLib.

What in the world happened to Fifth Element's power graph? Did they slingshot CoL or something? Could they have possibly researched CoL instead of alpha and done the CS slingshot?

FiveAces, just watch our power graph after we trade for BW and IW.
Than you'll know what's up with Fifth Element.

What in the world happened to Fifth Element's power graph? Did they slingshot CoL or something? Could they have possibly researched CoL instead of alpha and done the CS slingshot?I think they simply finished Alpha. Ours will look similar at the end of jesusin's turnset.
pop6 +1
Alpha +4
Wheel +4
(Archery +6) <-- We don't want this
BW +8
IW +10
Total = +33
plus any new units built (+2 per axe)
maybe barracks +4

EDIT: Here's (http://www.civfanatics.com/civilization_iv_war_academy/civilization_iv_game_mechanics/the_inner_workings_of_the_demographics_screen_expl ained) the reference. Power graph = total 'soldiers'.

== crosspost==

Looks like they made library T42, alpha T47 (or didn't trade right away).
But the question is what are they up to with their alpha bee-line.
Is it just the desire to get control over the game fast, as in my case, or has WastinTime convinced his team that culture is the way to go and they want to avoid gene pool poisening?
And if the latter is the case, is he right? :crazyeye:
I have no idea how fast an OCC culture could be in our case.
Asoka sure looks promising and we expect to have 5-7 religions on our continent.

We only need 40 turns of shared war. It is good but not essential if we are able to start that counter already now. What is important is to set up wars ASAP that lets our future partner grab land. The sooner our future ally grabs a third city, the sooner he/she will be able to rise to power. This, and nothing else, should dictate our diplomatic actions now.


Ok. What's the best course of action then?

Looking at klarius data about leaders, KK and JC are the most promising ones. I wouldn't like to get stuck after a couple of conquests by Fred because he's cautious towards the rest.

Ok. What's the best course of action then?

Looking at klarius data about leaders, KK and JC are the most promising ones. I wouldn't like to get stuck after a couple of conquests by Fred because he's cautious towards the rest.
Well, OTOH, we have a problem with KK and JC to find them nearby enemies now.
And we cannot bribe JC for some time as we don't have enough bait.

Asoka sure looks promising and we expect to have 5-7 religions on our continent.COrrect me if I'm wrong, but Asoka will need 6 cities for a fast cultural victory, right? That means warring. SO what's is the difference between the path to DOmination or cultural victories if we choose Asoka in either case? Because Asoka looks good as a research partner if we can teach him to war.

COrrect me if I'm wrong, but Asoka will need 6 cities for a fast cultural victory, right? That means warring. SO what's is the difference between the path to DOmination or cultural victories if we choose Asoka in either case? Because Asoka looks good as a research partner if we can teach him to war.
I have no idea how you do a OCC culture victory :). Maybe it's good enough to do most of the war after PA.
And Asoka would go currently after Alex and KK, if we had the bribe. That would solve the 6 cities problem, but not the problem how to get him on somebody else for domination.

I have no idea how you do a OCC culture victory :). Maybe it's good enough to do most of the war after PA.
And Asoka would go currently after Alex and KK, if we had the bribe. That would solve the 6 cities problem, but not the problem how to get him on somebody else for domination.THe six cities for cultural is to enable Asoka to build cathedrals in his 2 cultural cities. So he would need the six cities early enough to get all those cultural bonuses. FiveAces can clue us in on all the details. Different religions get different bonuses for different metals, etc. The HOF guys have outlined this in detail in some of their gauntlets.

Ok, let's see what wars are possible and affordable currently:
We can only get Freddy and KK to pleased and still have a sufficient bribe. We could also get JC to pleased by trading alpha for BW and hope that we accumulate enough bribe, by tech trading (unlikely), or he stays pleased until drama (lit will not do alone).
If we don't piss Asoka we have the chance to have him at pleased already with the OB +1 T54 (?). Then we might have the chance to bribe him against Alex, but we want to trade with Asoka, so have probably no bait.

Freddy would go after HC (cheap-could get a cheap tech on top), Toku or Alex.
If we declare on HC that pisses Asoka (and KK if he is still pleased),
Toku - HC,
Alex - JC and KK.

KK would go after Freddy (but probably only affordable staying at annoyed due to power), Asoka, Liz or Izzy.
HC maybe soon if he gets down to cautious.
DoW Freddy pisses Izzy and Asoka,
Asoka - Liz,
Washington - Asoka and Liz,
Izzy - Freddy, JC and Liz.

The number of pissed civs will soon increase with more religion positives.

Some wars are maybe also not desirable, cause we don't know who would win. e.g KK-Freddy w/o Freddy having another war.

THe six cities for cultural is to enable Asoka to build cathedrals in his 2 cultural cities. So he would need the six cities early enough to get all those cultural bonuses. FiveAces can clue us in on all the details. Different religions get different bonuses for different metals, etc. The HOF guys have outlined this in detail in some of their gauntlets.
Yes, even I know what cathedrals are. :)
But does he really need 2 per religion early, or is one extra city enough until PA.
Note: Cathedrals are expensive, if we assume there will be 5 religions spread well in his land, it's already a lot to build the 5 for these.

Yes, even I know what cathedrals are. :)Yeah, I know. :blush: Without your cathedrals, there probably wouldn't have been Bach and without him, there probably wouldn't have been any good music thereafter...:goodjob:

Putting things in perspective

EDITED (changes overwritten). This analysis ignores the 20-turn average memory decay, because it's not guaranteed.

As klarius has already mentioned, trading for MC, compass, machinery and optics may be problematic. Liz may well go WFYABTA when we've traded for 17 techs. Asoka, Washington, KK, and Fred at 12. The others at 6. Here are the bare minimum techs we want to trade for (or research), in the order we need them, separated into trading phases with turn numbers from klarius' 100bc Liberalism slingshot. Techs in red are ones we might want to avoid trading for.

T46 -- The Alpha Trading Phase
1. Myst
2. The Wheel
3. Masonry
4. BW
5. Pottery
6. IW
7. Poly

~T60 -- The Late Alpha/Drama Trading Phase
8. Math (klarius actually traded for this on T66)

~T65 -- The Pre-CoL Phase
9. Priesthood (approximate turn we would start researching CoL)

T100 -- The Pre-Liberalism Trading Phase
10. Meditation
11. Philosophy (need to start earlier for self-research)

T108 -- The Liberalism Slingshot Preparation Phase
12. Sailing
13. Calendar
14. MC
15. Compass
16. Mach
17. Optics

Observations:
1. Liz will surely trade all the way to Optics if we don't add any other techs.
2. Since we can't trade Education to Liz for both Machinery and Optics, we'll need one other trade partner at Friendly by around T111, or we could bulb Machinery or Optics if we don't have Meditation yet.
3a. For each tech we self-research, such as Sailing, PH, and Meditation, we know we'll be able to trade for one of Calendar, Compass, MC and Mach from the 12-trade WFYABTA AIs.
3a'. If we hold off on Calendar and Compass, we could trade for MC and Machinery from the 12-trade AIs, then trade for Sailing>Calendar>Compass from LIz and our Friendly AI.
4. This analysis gives us another reason to consider bulbing Philo.
5a. We won't need HeredRule for happiness, so we could use our free Bureaucracy civic change for Caste Systems.
5b. GS#1 will be done on ~T62. GS#2 on T79 at the earliest. We would need the Educ GS ~T95 at the latest, so if we want GS#3 for Education, we'll probably need to switch to Castes.
6. Globe Theatre means we don't need Calendar for happiness.

Notes:
1. Another factor is how many AIs need to know the tech. In this regard, Asoka is the best (2 others). Fred, HC, KK, and Washington next best (3 others). Liz requires 4 others. Hopefully this won't be an issue.
2. This list does not include Monarchy, which we may need for HeredRule if we want to partner with KK.
3. Also not included: Construction, which I think we definitely want.

Final conclusions:
1. We definitely want Liz as a trading partner, but she'll trade with us even at Annoyed!
2. We should probably keep Asoka as a trading partner and get him to Friendly by T110.
3. We should consider self-researching PH right before CoL.
4. We should consider self-researching Meditation after bulbing Machinery or Optics, or whenever.
5. We should consider acquiring Sailing (by self-research or not) right before trading for Calendar and Compass.
6. If we want to trade for MC and machinery before Calendar, we should consider building Globe Theatre.

Putting things in perspective

As klarius has already mentioned, trading for MC, compass, machinery and optics may be problematic. Liz will go WFYABTA when we've traded for 15 techs. Asoka, Washington, KK, and Fred at 10. The others at 5. (Right?)
Not quite right. There is still a 20% bonus on top even on deity.
So it's 17, 12, 6.
Then there is a memory decay associated with the counter (20). That means on average (the decay is random with 5% probability per turn) one more tech per 20 turns.
That means typically 15 is good all the way for our relative short tech path, even with some optionals.

Edit:
Some more:
WFYABTA doesn't apply if both are in the lower half of the ranking.
But that doesn't help a lot if you're after top notch techs.
It also doesn't apply at friendly.
So if we should have Asoka at friendly for liberalism we should be OK for optics from him with education.

THe six cities for cultural is to enable Asoka to build cathedrals in his 2 cultural cities. So he would need the six cities early enough to get all those cultural bonuses. FiveAces can clue us in on all the details. Different religions get different bonuses for different metals, etc. The HOF guys have outlined this in detail in some of their gauntlets.

We're on tiny so he doesn't need 6 cities to build cathedrals in 2 cities - he only needs 4. In fact we probably want him to have a smaller number rather than a larger number because it maximizes the chances of him building Wonders in the 2 cultural cities.

The way a non-peaceful cultural OCC victory works is you tech as fast as possible to communism using mutual war for your PA (which we're doing anyway), except that you don't pop GS's along the way - you pop GA's and save them until you make your PA, at which point you settle them in your partner's cities since you can't bomb them.

Peaceful OCC cultural works the same except you tech as fast as possible to MT for a DP, then make sure you finish comm no later than 40 turns after that. Again, the critical point is make PA asap to settle GA's asap in your partner's cities asap.

Asoka would be good because he builds cottages, which means he will prob switch to FS at some point on his own which is a major plus.

Bonus LC is referring to is +100% production for cathedral construction: bud, confu, tao = copper, hindu, islam = marble, christian, jewish = stone

I don't know what a realistic cultural finish date would be though. jesusin said he did a test game of IIRC 1860ish which isn't great, but he prob didn't have almost all the religions on his cont which I think is going to be likely for us.

However the earliest we can possibly get a cultural win is 1100 because that's how long (at minimum) it takes to get a capital legendary on deity without any GA's. And that's on quick speed with parthenon and rivers and 2gold and CATHEDRALS (which we can't build). So I'd say with our city site and normal speed and no cathedrals earliest possible is around 1400 and even that might be optimistic.

So if we're confident we can win dom before then, there's no need to consider cultural.

Ok, let's see what wars are possible and affordable currentlyI just noticed that your excel charting is missing KK. SPeaking of which, how likely is he to want to go to war with Toku, when he meets him? OBs with Fred and KK could meet Toku in two turns or maybe less, depending on where his scouts are.

I would really like to see KK capturing Kyoto and going from there.

So if we're confident we can win dom before then, there's no need to consider cultural.Thanks, FiveAces. SOunds like Gyathaar set up the map to make this a viable alternative: Asoka has copper and we can trade him the stone or marble. Plus, someone could close borders to everyone but Asoka and hope he settles the western seafood. Then he would only need one more city, such as...Toku, who just conveniently happens to be right where you'd want him.

3. Also not included: Construction, which I think we definitely want.

But do we really need it before optics. Education could fetch both at the same time.

I just noticed that your excel charting is missing KK. SPeaking of which, how likely is he to want to go to war with Toku, when he meets him? OBs with Fred and KK could meet Toku in two turns or maybe less, depending on where his scouts are.
Why is KK missing in my latest SS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176199&d=1209909024) (only 4 pages back) :crazyeye:. He's named Kublai.
KK will not go after Toku.

But do we really need it before optics. Education could fetch both at the same time.


Why is KK missing in my latest SS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=176199&d=1209909024) (only 4 pages back) :crazyeye:. He's named Kublai.
KK will not go after Toku.Thanks. I must have messed it up somehow when I downloaded the second version. Sorry.

Well, if we team up with Kubla and considering what you said about his kamikazi city raiders, he might stumble into a city or two if we kill off city defenses sooner than later. Depends on how quickly the AIs research, of course.

Well, if we team up with Kubla and considering what you said about his kamikazi city raiders, he might stumble into a city or two if we kill off city defenses sooner than later. Depends on how quickly the AIs research, of course.
Well, it depends also a lot on what we build.
All improvements, GLib, globe and NE ?
Then I doubt we have the production to help a lot before Optics. A few axes and swords, maybe upgraded to mace, but not a lot of cats on top.

BTW, one other tech we should urgently consider to buy is currency. The extra trade route with a harbor is quite a bit. And we might want to trade for the money of the laggards.

IF we DoW Toku, hoping to get dogpiled, is there any way to increase the likelihood? I'm thinking about Izzy in particular. After getting Masonry from her, she's not likely to be much of a trading partner for us. Maybe some cash later on or something. What about if we extort her 100 times or whatever it takes to put the negative attitude points to the bottom? Will that increase the likelihood she'll dogpile us?

Um I'm not making the connection. Maybe I missed something earlier - why do we want to encourage her to DOW on us?

Um I'm not making the connection. Maybe I missed something earlier - why do we want to encourage her to DOW on us?So we don't get the permanent minus with her friends (Asoka, JC and Fred) of having declared on her. EDIT: and maybe Liz after they meet? EDIT2: And then we bribe KK to DoW her, of course.

So we don't get the permanent minus with her friends (Asoka, JC and Fred) of having declared on her.

Ah I see. Will that also get her a -1 from our friends then? That would be helpful.

No. And that's an excellent question because there's probably not going to be one founded overseas, since Liz, Asoka, and Izzy are going to beeline Theo, CoL and DR, and Freddy or Lizzy are going to bulb Philo to found Tao. So you know what? That means if we beeline Optics and hindu (or budda) spreads before then, we can get spread it to everybody on the other continent.

Which means we might be able to get a solo diplo victory with ~75% + of the world pop into our religion and gifting techs.

I just don't know if we could get it faster than a dom.

Well, one still has to have a suiting opponent.
Even if you have prepared everything nicely the AI is also allowed to do a PA, to suddenly shift the UN opponent to your best buddy.

And don't forget that the Oracle is still not built. All bets are off until then.For Diplo we need 62% of the votes.

The other continent has 7 AIs with an average of 37.4 tiles per AI. Ours has 26.5 tiles per AI. At the rate of settling we have, the other continent should have 17 cities, which would mean 4 AIs have 2 cities and 3 AIs have 3 cities. So there's a good chance that the other continent will have the largest natural AI. If we get Taosim, we could plant Taoism in the largest AI and convert smaller ones to ours, Buddhism preferably (but then we'd have to ensure we got Buddhism). PA with our war partner here and keep everyone else small.

IF we DoW Toku, hoping to get dogpiled, is there any way to increase the likelihood? I'm thinking about Izzy in particular. After getting Masonry from her, she's not likely to be much of a trading partner for us. Maybe some cash later on or something. What about if we extort her 100 times or whatever it takes to put the negative attitude points to the bottom? Will that increase the likelihood she'll dogpile us?
It's still only the attitude that counts, not the value.
We will not get her worse than annoyed by extorting, because we cannot put anything on the table after that.
She's already annoyed with Toku.
If she should get a dog pile war draw (2%), she will prefer to go after Toku, because CapitalProximity increases his startWarValue.

Ah I see. Will that also get her a -1 from our friends then? That would be helpful.
Sure, but we have no friends currently. :cry:

Ok, what I think we should still do this turn is:
Gift KK, Freddy, trade Izzy, gift HC writing also :eek:, then look if the shifts in rank have changed something in the diplo situation. There might be the chance that HC is not pleased with Toku anymore. Maybe even the KK-HC relation is influenced, if I have the peace rand of KK wrong (which is possible - I've set it this high because of KK-HC, assuming no rank dependent bonus ).

Will the shifts be visible immediately, or after IBT?

Did I say end turn and look :p.
The shifts are immediately and I didn't mean that that's necessarily the last action this turn.

...and I had just that sneaking suspicion...;)

I'm game if jesusin is.

Ok, what I think we should still do this turn is:
Gift KK, Freddy, trade Izzy, gift HC writing also :eek:, then look if the shifts in rank have changed something in the diplo situation. There might be the chance that HC is not pleased with Toku anymore. Maybe even the KK-HC relation is influenced, if I have the peace rand of KK wrong (which is possible - I've set it this high because of KK-HC, assuming no rank dependent bonus ).

I can accept this. At least we will know a little more before plunging into decisions with lasting consequences. :)

The big decision is still which war to set off and when. Freddie + KK on HC seems like the best right now. Though I wonder what happens if we keep our Alpha monopoly for a few more turns and let things evolve by their own.


Edit: Btw, if we set both Freddie and KK on HC we should decide carefully who we want to come out on top. That AI will then benefit from entering the war a couple of turns after it starts. HC gets to send off his best units towards the other AI, and that AI decimates the defenders.

The big decision is still which war to set off and when. Freddie + KK on HC seems like the best right now. Though I wonder what happens if we keep our Alpha monopoly for a few more turns and let things evolve by their own.

Edit: Btw, if we set both Freddie and KK on HC we should decide carefully who we want to come out on top. That AI will then benefit from entering the war a couple of turns after it starts. HC gets to send off his best units towards the other AI, and that AI decimates the defenders.

Well, my suggestion (KK+F)->HC isn't possible currently. I had somehow the relations wrong.
It should become possible in 0-5 turns, but we don't know how long our tiny gift lasts for pleased.
Any waiting may make the nicest plans go poof.
Also the margin for bribing KK is much less than I initially assumed (I somehow calculated with annoyed instead of cautious). It should still be possible, but we shouldn't trade alpha before (and again not wait too long).

If we still do it, I would definitely not delay KK if we want him come out on top. He's delayed anyway by the lay of the land.

There's also the question:
If we anyway piss off Asoka a bit and we are setting on KK for PA, so Freddy and JC are not much of a concern, why not let him have the easier go at Izzy (but there we definitely have to be quick - maybe no chance).
No matter what we do with the HC campaign, it's possible that both cities go to Freddy, who has the shorter way to both.

Well, my suggestion (KK+F)->HC isn't possible currently. I had somehow the relations wrong.
It should become possible in 0-5 turns, but we don't know how long our tiny gift lasts for pleased.


So we cannot initiate any war right now? :crazyeye:

Is it then important to gift writing this turn, or can we keep it from them for a turn or two?

If we still do it, I would definitely not delay KK if we want him come out on top. He's delayed anyway by the lay of the land.

True. But if we want Freddie to win we should definitely let KK go at HC first. I got the impression that you were not so keen on KKs unit building...

There's also the question:
If we anyway piss off Asoka a bit and we are setting on KK for PA, so Freddy and JC are not much of a concern, why not let him have the easier go at Izzy (but there we definitely have to be quick - maybe no chance).
No matter what we do with the HC campaign, it's possible that both cities go to Freddy, who has the shorter way to both.

Yes, I would definitely like to set our coming ally on either Isabella or Tokugawa. Neither has metals and both have their cities on plains. All in all this makes it much less costly for stupid AI attacks. Cuzco worries me since it is on a hill.

We could theoretically bulb Philosophy in 14 turns from now (Drama+running 2 scientists). Would Philosophy be enough expensive to bribe AI-vs-AI wars without us declaring first? Say that we gift Alpha and/or Drama to bring up the relations to pleased.

So we cannot initiate any war right now? :crazyeye:

Is it then important to gift writing this turn, or can we keep it from them for a turn or two?

Yes it is important. They may research writing now, decreasing the value. We know now they would still give archery, so it still has a value of at around +2-3 attitude points at least. We aren't even sure now that writing will get them to pleased now, but it's pretty probable. After the gifting we may get an estimate for how long the pleased status will last (if we get excess pleased points and believe my hidden attitude spread sheet), so may then decide to still have some time with bribing.

Also we need to gift them writing to bribe them with alphabet, obviously.

We could theoretically bulb Philosophy in 14 turns from now (Drama+running 2 scientists). Would Philosophy be enough expensive to bribe AI-vs-AI wars without us declaring first? Say that we gift Alpha and/or Drama to bring up the relations to pleased.
Yes for land targets at annoyed. (e.g. Freddy-HC).
Definitely not for non land targets at cautious (e.g KK - HC).
Combinations in between need further evaluation, taking into account power, but more likely not.

Hi all,

I think it's time to put some structure to our discussion, and since structure is my least skillful trait, I'll give it a shot :lol:

There are currently at least ten issues we need to resolve (in priority order):

Which AIs do we want as potential PA-partners? (Several?)
When do we want the Big War to start?
Tech gifting to improve relations
Tech bribing to DoW
DoW ourselves
Tech trade (what techs do we need? BW, IW, etc)
Immediate research path (Drama? Poly? Others?)
Long term research path and research priority/order (Drama, Literature, others?)
Research breaks (complete each tech, or switch when possible?)
Build queue (Barracks? Worker? Lighthouse? Granary? Others?)


I would like us to come up with a preferred answer for each bullet, and probably a couple of second choice answers.

Allow me to fill in a bit.


Which AIs do we want as potential PA-partners? (Several?)

Asoka: With two gold and a bunch of floodplains he is going to have very good research. Two founded religions will also help.
Frederick: Creative, centrally located
Kublai Khan: Creative, aggressive.
Julius Caesar: Has praetorians already, if we get him to go to war chances are good that he will capture cities faster than anyone else. 2xGold online.



When do we want the Big War to start?

ASAP, but it is important to set up the right war against a weak or outnumbered AI.



Tech gifting to improve relations
Tech bribing to DoW
DoW ourselves
Tech trade (what techs do we need? BW, IW, etc)
Immediate research path (Drama? Poly? Others?)
Long term research path and research priority/order (Drama, Literature, others?)
Research breaks (complete each tech, or switch when possible?)
Build queue (Barracks? Worker? Lighthouse? Granary? Others?)

jesusin - Regarding the your PPP v2.0 : why not invest the barracks hammers into the worker instead? I don't see the point in completing the barracks until just before we plan to build units. And we have plenty to build before that (such as granary, theatre, GlobeT, GLib, Lighthouse etc)

LC - I like your "Putting things in perspective" post. Very useful. But where is Literacy?

In general - We got alpha very early and library early. So we should utilize alpha as much as possible, which means we use it right away to a) get more techs, b) get better relations and c) instigate wars. Don't delay tech trade/gift/bribe. We should also utilize the library and get a GS asap. This is our chance to prove that the Pyramids is the wrong track! :D

jesusin - Regarding the your PPP v2.0 : why not invest the barracks hammers into the worker instead? I don't see the point in completing the barracks until just before we plan to build units. And we have plenty to build before that (such as granary, theatre, GlobeT, GLib, Lighthouse etc)

We need to groW!

But, BTW, worker.
Have a look if there would be one to steal from Huayna. He seems to have some unimproved tiles.

LC - I like your "Putting things in perspective" post. Very useful. But where is Literacy?I did not include techs we plan to self-research, only techs we a) need for PA and b) would trade for if we had no WFYABTA. That's why I also didn't include important techs like Currency, Construction, and Monarchy. They contribute to WFYABTA but are stricly necessary for the basic PA path we've chosen (which is why I did include the Liberalism pre-reqs).

We need to groW!

But, BTW, worker.
Have a look if there would be one to steal from Huayna. He seems to have some unimproved tiles.Yes! groW!

Great idea on the worker! We can even sacrifice our warrior in stealing the worker if we steal a worker that can run for his life across plains tile. Even better roaded plains tiles.

Yes! groW!

Great idea on the worker! We can even sacrifice our warrior in stealing the worker if we steal a worker that can run for his life across plains tile. Even better roaded plains tiles.

If it works, sure. I wouldn't bet on it though. The AI typically has 5 archers guarding its workers... :eek:

There are currently at least ten issues we need to resolve (in priority order):

6. Tech trade (what techs do we NOT need to trade for?
Archery, Meditation, Priesthood, Sailing, unless they would give us trade bait for further trading/DoW

7. Immediate research path (Drama? Poly? Others?)
Drama>Poly>Literature or Drama(partial)>Poly>Lit>Drama. Trade for Math.

8. Long term research path and research priority/order (Drama, Literature, others?)
...PH>CoL>CS>Paper>Educ

9. Research breaks (complete each tech, or switch when possible?)
Stop after trading for Poly

10. Build queue (Barracks? Worker? Lighthouse? Granary? Others?)
Barracks(1t)>Granary>Theatre>GLib>Globe Theatre or
Barracks(1t)>Granary>GLib>Theatre>Globe or
Barracks(1t)>Granary>GLib>NatEpic or
Barracks(1t)>Granary>GLib>???

Well, one further nail in the coffin of HC. :) But with a lot of ifs :eek:.

If somebody captures Cuzco and if we ever get Hinduism and if we did collect enough attitude to stay pleased through converting, we should be able to bribe them to convert to Hinduism as long as they don't have more than 2 Bud cities.

To our HoF culture freaks,

I just developed a new method for OCC culture victory. No idea if this would work so we shouldn't try it here. But maybe an idea for a HoF game (which I'm not doing :lol:).

Let's look at our situation here.
We dedicate Washington :eek: as our partner. We hope that we get a lot religions spread from our neighbours so W. will build a bunch of cathedrals in W.. We do GAs. Lots.
We might settle a few in W., but the majority are kept.
Nearing the end of the game we gift them to W.. As we kept N.Y. under so much culture pressure (needs calculation) he will use several culture bombs there (as long as our plot culture is over 50%). Probably our culture pressure throughout the game is enough that he uses enough to get N.Y. right away to legendary (better ratio in slower speeds).
N.Y. isn't optimal, it's distance 4, while a city distance 3 is also possible, and W. is sure not optimal for partner, so there is some room for improvement for a HoF game :).

We will not get her worse than annoyed by extorting, because we cannot put anything on the table after that.
She's already annoyed with Toku.
If she should get a dog pile war draw (2%), she will prefer to go after Toku, because CapitalProximity increases his startWarValue.
Tested in a test game.
You can get somebody to furious easily. The thing you demand stays on the trade table even at annoyed. So you can just demand again.

But, it still stays true that Izzy would prefer Toku by capital proximity.

Edit:
But we could try to get dog piled by Alex.
He's the worst enemy of our Hindu neighbours, so there won't be much trading with him.
He is friend to our favorite Bud warmongers, so we don't like to declare on him.
If he declares on us, a Hindu may dog pile him.
Once we have enough bribe we could get Asoka to join.

Tested in a test game.
You can get somebody to furious easily. The thing you demand stays on the trade table even at annoyed. So you can just demand again.

But, it still stays true that Izzy would prefer Toku by capital proximity.

Are you sure? I've played solo games where I couldn't demand anything from a civ because everything tradeable was redded out. Maybe you have to make the demands when it's initially tradeable and then not close the trade window until you've got them to Furious?

Are you sure? I've played solo games where I couldn't demand anything from a civ because everything tradeable was redded out. Maybe you have to make the demands when it's initially tradeable and then not close the trade window until you've got them to Furious?
You have to be at cautious first, so you can put something on the trade table. But that's the case with Izzy and Alex (my new favorite).
At annoyed you couldn't put it there, but it stays through annoyed and you can demand as many times as you want always giving a negative.

How many negatives we can get and still trade techs

Starting from zero, where we are. Any positives balance out negs, of course.

Toku -- none, in fact we need +4 just to start trading techs

Alex -- -1 (that is, with one neg, we're fine, but with 2 negs he'll stop trading)
Izzy -- -1
Wash -- -1

HC -- -2
JC -- -2

Asoka -- -3

KK -- -7
Fred -- -8
Liz -- -8

With our strategy, we're going to get negs, so we might as well prepare for it. We need trading partners to get Astro from Liberalism. Will LIz, KK, and Asoka be enough?

If Alex DoWs us, he'll probably try to get people to stop trading with us. At mutually pleased, he can ask KK for closed borders without negs and KK might give it to him. Others he'll have to extort. That's particularly bad if JC stops trading us his gold. klarius, how do AIs make decisions on whether to offer help or cave into extortion?

How many negatives we can get and still trade techs

Starting from zero, where we are. Any positives balance out negs, of course.

Toku -- none, in fact we need +4 just to start trading techs

Alex -- -1 (that is, with one neg, we're fine, but with 2 negs he'll stop trading)
Izzy -- -1
Wash -- -1

HC -- -2
JC -- -2

Asoka -- -3

KK -- -7
Fred -- -8
Liz -- -8

With our strategy, we're going to get negs, so we might as well prepare for it. We need trading partners to get Astro from Liberalism. Will LIz, KK, and Asoka be enough?
I would say Liz and (friendly) Asoka are enough already. But can we afford to trade with Liz :confused:. She will probably stay the worst enemy of KK for a long time.

I see more and more that the main question is KK or not KK. If we don't care about KK, there is no need to annoy anybody else (HC doesn't count).
If we want KK, we have to declare on somebody at least Asoka likes. That will not get any better (rather worse) over time, so waiting will not help.
JC may also be problematic, but that comes anyway not up in the next turn set most probably (and by that it gets already pretty late for praetorians being a big advantage).

If Alex DoWs us, he'll probably try to get people to stop trading with us. At mutually pleased, he can ask KK for closed borders without negs and KK might give it to him. Others he'll have to extort. That's particularly bad if JC stops trading us his gold. klarius, how do AIs make decisions on whether to offer help or cave into extortion?
The AI never asks another AI to stop trading.
They also don't extort or ask for help each other.

I have no idea how you do a OCC culture victory :). Maybe it's good enough to do most of the war after PA.
And Asoka would go currently after Alex and KK, if we had the bribe. That would solve the 6 cities problem, but not the problem how to get him on somebody else for domination.

Basically, you tech like hell (with the help of a single GS) till you get a PA. After the first GS you start nurturing GAs. The moment you get the PA, you settle them as superspecialists in the best 2 cities (the ones with the most hammers).

The sources of culture are:
- Cottages: no contribution at all, since your partner won't use the cultural slider. That means your workers will change his towns into workshops (once and again).
- Great Works: no contribution at all, since your partner will bulb its GA.
- Buildings: That's his job. When in peace, he will build every available building. That means that you want to research up to radio. But no further, since you don't wnat to see him building bunkers instead of cathedrals and theatres.
-Settled GA: That's the human's job.

To whatch what your partner is doing is a nerveracking experience.

If we would do one last trade with Alex in the next few turns (alphabet for whatever he gives not gifting him or caving to extortion - we can't afford that for sure), that would just not get us a -1 worst enemy trading with Liz, Washington and Asoka (is he the worst enemy of Freddy currently also, or are they over that already ? ).

- Great Works: no contribution at all, since your partner will bulb its GA.

Except you put one of his cities under enough culture pressure like that (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6793965&postcount=679).

I see more and more that the main question is KK or not KK.Here's one reason for not KK.

Domination tile count for Fred

Note: My previous two posts on this contained an error. I inexplicably mistranscribed my tile count of our continent: My count is 292 tiles on our continent (not 293).

Anyway, Fred is almost perfect. Using his two cities with 3x border expansion, all his cities and ours after conquest would cover 277 of the needed 283 tiles. We get tiles 3,4 from the yet-to-be-founded city to our west. (Our borders expand next turn, so West City can only be settled where we want it to be.) The other four come from Cuzco, tiles 9, 10, 12, 13.

EDIT: One more reason for Fred. I counted three hill cities on teh map. Fred would only have to captuer two of them, KK all three.

Speaking of Fred, he "has his reasons" for not trading Masonry. He can't build the GLight, so he must be building the Pyramids. Shall we dig him some stone? (Might be too late to make a difference, but you never know.) Also might be a reason to not send him to war just yet, unless we're not on his side...

EDIT: KK is also building the Pyramids, it seems. Or do AIs "have their reasons" when a wonder isn't built yet, even if they're not actively building it?

EDIT2: The following AIs may all be occupying one city's hammers with the Pyramids:
Liz
Wash
HC
Alex
KK
Fred
Does that make them more vulnerable to attack? Or does a DoW make them give up on the Pyramids so we can get our friend to complete them?

Speaking of Fred, he "has his reasons" for not trading Masonry. He can't build the GLight, so he must be building the Pyramids. Shall we dig him some stone? (Might be too late to make a difference, but you never know.) Also might be a reason to not send him to war just yet, unless we're not on his side...

EDIT: KK is also building the Pyramids, it seems.
That's pretty sure too late for stone to make a difference (what would that be :confused: ~ 12 turns from now).
There is still an industrious French on the other continent, though maybe with lousy land (Gyathaar's gift to the pyramid lovers :)).

Edit (cross edit by LC):
They have their reasons only if they are building a wonder.
They will not give up on pyramids unless they get really thin on defenders (unlikely within a few turns).
The wonder will be in the city with most production.

Ok, what I think we should still do this turn is:
Gift KK, Freddy, trade Izzy, gift HC writing also :eek:, then look if the shifts in rank have changed something in the diplo situation. There might be the chance that HC is not pleased with Toku anymore. Maybe even the KK-HC relation is influenced, if I have the peace rand of KK wrong (which is possible - I've set it this high because of KK-HC, assuming no rank dependent bonus ).

I could do it this afternoon.


Why gift Wri to HC, though?
Should I be attentive to rank shifts in order not to gift Wri to other AI so that the sifting is undone?

For later:
Plan A: Dow Isabel, bribe KK against Spain.
or
Plan B: Dow HC, bring KK and or Fred into action.
I favour plan A.

Here's one reason for not KK.

Domination tile count for Fred

Note: My previous two posts on this contained an error. I inexplicably mistranscribed my tile count of our continent: My count is 292 tiles on our continent (not 293).

Anyway, Fred is almost perfect. Using his two cities with 3x border expansion, all his cities and ours after conquest would cover 277 of the needed 283 tiles. We get tiles 3,4 from the yet-to-be-founded city to our west. (Our borders expand next turn, so West City can only be settled where we want it to be.) The other four come from Cuzco, tiles 9, 10, 12, 13.

EDIT: One more reason for Fred. I counted three hill cities on teh map. Fred would only have to captuer two of them, KK all three.
Nice, but Freddy is a notorious city razer like Hatty. So guaranteed are only the first 3 acquisitions and the holy cities currently.

Nice, but Freddy is a notorious city razer like Hatty. So guaranteed are only the first 3 acquisitions and the holy cities currently.:mad: sweep sweep sweep pulled-out hair into dustpan. City razers are PA-domination's worst enemy, don't you think? Or will he possibly re-settle?

I could do it this afternoon.


Why gift Wri to HC, though?
Should I be attentive to rank shifts in order not to gift Wri to other AI so that the sifting is undone?

For later:
Plan A: Dow Isabel, bribe KK against Spain.
or
Plan B: Dow HC, bring KK and or Fred into action.
I favour plan A.
Writing to HC, was just to make sure he has it and gets to his max rank. He will anyway acquire it soon (he's reseraching it), so that's no reason to not do it.
Writing to Asoka should also be done. His rank is so high anyway there is no problem.
That leaves just Washington and Liz. Generally I'm for giving out writing, so that several AIs can research math, but that's not that important.
I don't remember if Washington is researching it, Liz does for sure. Keeping it away from people who research it doesn't really buy us much.

This afternoon would be fine with me. We cannot decide anything unless we know which options we have.


Plan A: is an option.
Plan B: should be not or, but and for sure. One of them alone will get nowhere and KK alone would also mean we would face HC's units soon.

There is still plan C:
Fred->Toku maybe with the hidden intention to set KK on Fred at some time, if Fred isn't doing to well.

:mad: sweep sweep sweep pulled-out hair into dustpan. City razers are PA-domination's worst enemy, don't you think? Or will he possibly re-settle?
He should want to settle new cities as long as he isn't in financial trouble. That's not something deity AI should easily get into and could even be cured by gifting gpt.
But where he settles :confused:, though the city sites the AI thought good once, have high probability to be it again.
And then it's still always one settler at a certain time.

In fact we don't know what's better. Razing and settling may be faster than coming out of resistance in some cases.
Or he might build a settler in the worst village on the other side of the continent, blocking all other cities from building a settler.

Edit:
Just looked again. It's not quite as bad. He will also not raze the last city of a civ.
So we have some control which cities not to raze.

Edit2:
And a note for planning our campaigns.
Every leader, not just Freddy, will raze cities more than 9 distance from his nearest city after he is over 4 cities total.

Washington will trade us Archery for Writing.

-----------

Crosspost EDIT: This is changed by klarius' new info (see above edits) on Fred razing cities. Based on that, I now consider Fred a good PA partner again.

Okay, I studied klarius' leader_attribute chart again. I see two three possible partners, all things considered: KK or Asoka or Fred. (That question almost answers itself, doesn't it? :lol:) Forget city razers -- we can't build settlers.

With KK, I think it's not too bad. In terms of getting KK to DoW, the real problems are JC and Alex (as long as HC stays Hindu). Toku is so lame, we could just leave him till PA anyway. Most AIs hate Alex enough that hopefully KK won't be their worst enemy for any time to come. (Thanks, Gyathaar.)

I was also comparing a) DoW Izzy and b) tricking Fred by him DoWing Toku and then KK stabbing him in the back. First of all, we'll find out if Izzy has copper as soon as we get BW. If she does, maybe we need to attack her first. This gives KK a chance to beef up his military a bit, then do the Freddie backstab. IN any case, we'd want KK to take down Fred soon if at all possible. That's GloryLand.

Btw, I estimate that KK is building the Pyramids at 16:hammers:/t, Fred only at 13/t. But there is an AI IDL producing 29/t overall, hopefully spread out between 3 cities.

Toku is so lame, we could just leave him till PA anyway.
Still would be nice to DoW him before anybody important gets pleased with him.
He can pick up Hindu any turn making him friend of Asoka.
KK will anyway like him once he knows him.

Edit:
LC, what's your plan for acquiring BW before deciding on war plan?

Edit:
Just looked again. It's not quite as bad. He will also not raze the last city of a civ.
So we have some control which cities not to raze.

Edit2:
And a note for planning our campaigns.
Every leader, not just Freddy, will raze cities more than 9 distance from his nearest city after he is over 4 cities total.Okay. That makes a big difference. Too bad Toku and Izzy are likely to be the first 2 cities. From one point of view, better to save them for last. But from the point of view of quckly capturing them, Toku might fall pretty quckly.

Seems like we should decide on KK or Fred before jesusin plays, at least tentatively, so he decide to gift writing to one of the two first.

Forget city razers -- we can't build settlers.

Well, I didn't play out any game to full domination.
Was this really the big problem with Hatty on my map.
The bit domination I played, I remember more that she just wouldn't bite, but let her units sit in the cities or guarding her resources.

Edit:
LC, what's your plan for acquiring BW before deciding on war plan?No plan needed really. I said that in case we're planning to postpone Izzy. If we're planning to go down on Izzy next turn, it's irrelevant. Otherwise, we find out next turn anyway. Unless, you want to know before deciding whether to go down on her. If we're going with KK, I like Izzy first. We could still trade Alpha to JC for BW this turn, if you think we need to.

But with the new info about city razing, maybe Fred's our best choice after all. He's got a city raider sword waiting already and that city is cranking out units pretty fast, I think (~10h/t).

Well, I didn't play out any game to full domination.
Was this really the big problem with Hatty on my map.
The bit domination I played, I remember more that she just wouldn't bite, but let her units sit in the cities or guarding her resources.Your new razing info changes everything. When I played Hatty she razed at leasta couple of cities, but mostly set about re-settling. I don't think it hurt that much. Probably our attitude should be: Pick whoever will start capturing cities sooner. Fred may be better situated for that. We now have levers we can play with to minimize the effects of city razing.

Kyoto looks like a production powerhouse. That by itself kind of tips the balance of power, I think.

We could join Fred against Toku, which KK won't like (once he's met Toku, I guess). KK is only 2 negs from being annoyed with Fred, so KK might DoW Fred, as they have common borders. Then we wait and see how it plays out. Whoever gets stronger, we team up with.

Why don't we set Freddy on Toku and KK on Izzy this turn and see what happens?

I could do it this afternoon.I agree. Seems like you and klarius might as well work out what info to gather and just get it so we can move forward. This is in danger of turning analysis paralysis.

We could join Fred against Toku, which KK won't like (once he's met Toku, I guess). KK is only 2 negs from being annoyed with Fred, so KK might DoW Fred, as they have common borders. Then we wait and see how it plays out. Whoever gets stronger, we team up with.
Declared on friend is not retroactive and it's only -1 point. So if we want negatives for Fred but not us we would have to declare first on Toku, wait till KK meets Toku and then have Fred declare.
The common borders of KK and Fred are irrelevant for probability of DoW.
KK will not declare on Fred on his own currently by a normal war plan, because Fred has too high power for the coward.
Dog pile when Fred is at war is possible at cautious, but has a low probability. KK will pick up more religion points with Fred, so the chance that he gets annoyed are slim.

Well, I think we should do the writing gifting-trading as outlined several times, gift also Asoka, HC is optional this turn as the final decision can anyway be done only next turn.
Gift also Liz. The value is so low (<archery) that this is no problem and we want her to research something useful.
Not Washington if writing has still value with him.

This leaves one decision for this turn:
Trade alpha-BW with JC (getting him to pleased - potential later bribing) or not. I'm undecided :crazyeye:.

End turn.
There are many things to take into account.
At least we need glance screen, ranking, power graph, tech situation, any tiles changed hands by culture and everything I now forgot.

Can we at least agree on what jesusin can do now, without ending the turn? That's what I thought you were suggesting earlier.

Can we at least agree on what jesusin can do now, without ending the turn? That's what I thought you were suggesting earlier.
Well, the writing stuff as I posted earlier.
But this may or may not change anything.
And next turn can be different again anyway.
So analyzing this situation then for a few hours (days, weeks) will not get us any further.

Edit:
OTOH, the only thing we learn (this or next turn) is if KK->HC is possible.
If we should close this out anyway (preferring Fred->Toku, KK->Izzy or both), we can take the decision right away and neither need an update this turn nor next.

Edit 2:
OK, there is still something interesting this turn.
How many points we get by gifting.
That should establish a deadline on how long we stay pleased and could delay actions.
Still decision time is next turn.

Okay, then, I guess there's just a decision about JC for this turn, right? Any way we can resolve that, or leave it up to jesusin?

Okay, then, I guess there's just a decision about JC for this turn, right? Any way we can resolve that, or leave it up to jesusin?
Making up my mind :):
We have more options next turn (including still trading BW + pleased from JC for alpha). The only thing in favor of trading this turn is having BW (and IW) one turn earlier. As we will anyway not do anything with these resources in the next 2 turns, I think that's not much of an advantage.
So I would say don't trade with JC this turn.
Just the writing stuff and end turn.

I'll be playing in 3 hours.

Will do the writing gifts, as suggested by klarius; MM and the rest as per PPPv2.0. Will press end of turn and will come here to report back. If someone disagrees, speak now or shut up forever!

I'll be playing in 3 hours.

Will do the writing gifts, as suggested by klarius; MM and the rest as per PPPv2.0. Will press end of turn and will come here to report back. If someone disagrees, speak now or shut up forever!

Fine with me.

Good luck, jesusin!

Done.

Save attached.


MM as planned. Gifts bought +4 with KK and +3 with Fred, Masonry from Isabel and +0 with Asoka and Eliz.

Pressed enter. Borders expanded (-1 with Wash), so we are closer to the domination limit now! Oracle built in a distant land, just where Confu is founded.

Autolog:
Tech learned: Masonry
Murkyopolis's borders expand
Confucianism founded in a distant land
Attitude Change: Frederick(Germany) towards SGOTM07(China), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Julius Caesar(Rome) towards Kublai Khan(Mongolia), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Julius Caesar(Rome) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Kublai Khan(Mongolia) towards SGOTM07(China), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Julius Caesar(Rome), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Huayna Capac(Inca) towards Asoka(India), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Huayna Capac(Inca) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 46/460 (2160 BC) [07-May-2008 18:58:17]

Good luck, jesusin!

Ditto. :)

Erkon, isn't it time you updated your first posts with the recent turnsets? In other words, get off your butt and start working! :p

Nobody "has enough...".

We can get Medi from Asoka only. He would give BW+Medi+Arch for Alpha or BW+Pott+Arch, so it doesn't need to be the first trade.
If we do get Medi now, we can start on PH-CoL abandoning Drama.

Nobody would trade Poly.

Your spoiler doesn't show it for some reason, but KK has gone to cautoius with HC! Funny thing is that KK's score jumped significantlymore, but I guess HC's rank jumped enough to make a difference.

We don't want ARchery. That is to say: We SHOULDN'T trade for Archery. Just a waste of a valuable counter toward WFYABTA. I'm not sure we want Meditation either. Unless it will be useful for trading next turn.

Btw, excellent job, jesusin! I'm certain it wouldn't have worked out that well for me... ;)

EDIT: One more thing: I don't think we want to trade Alpha to Asoka at all until someone else gets Poly. Asoka is the only one who will consider trading Poly when two other AIs have it.

Errr... I have continued playing. I couldn't resist the temptation!


But all I have done is complete the worker roading. We are now connected to everyone. We will get a traderoute next turn.

Toku won't trade his Clams. JC would trade hios lousy Gold, but he would like to have our all-valuable deer in exchange.

Your spoiler doesn't show it for some reason, but KK has gone to cautoius with HC! Funny thing is that KK's score jumped significantlymore, but I guess HC's rank jumped enough to make a difference.

We don't want ARchery. That is to say: We SHOULDN'T trade for Archery. Just a waste of a valuable counter toward WFYABTA. I'm not sure we want Meditation either. Unless it will be useful for trading next turn.

Btw, excellent job, jesusin! I'm certain it wouldn't have worked out that well for me... ;)

EDIT: One more thing: I don't think we want to trade Alpha to Asoka at all until someone else gets Poly. Asoka is the only one who will consider trading Poly when two other AIs have it.

I noticed the attitude change, but can't understand why it doesn't show in the autolog.


I know we won't trade for Archery (unless in a desperate position). I meant to say that it would be wiser to make other trades first if we want to make this one, since the decrease in value of Alpha would just take Archery out of the deal.


Proposal A: Dow Isabel, bribe KK into the war, then start techtrading.

We want to get BW and Pott this turn, to change production to Granary.

Errr... I have continued playing. I couldn't resist the temptation!


But all I have done is complete the worker roading. We are now connected to everyone. We will get a traderoute next turn.

Toku won't trade his Clams. JC would trade hios lousy Gold, but he would like to have our all-valuable deer in exchange.You freaked me out for a moment there... :lol: JC can have all our deer and our whole woodshed full of antlers for all I care.

Btw, let's not forget that we probably have the option (I haven't counted the gold, though) of gifting TOku up to pleased for OBs and tech and resource trading, if we so choose.

Excellent play, jesusin! Short, but excellent. ;)

Looking mucho good now. We can set Alex on HC this turn, then next turn we let Freddie join him. Kublai could also join, or we let him attack Isabella.

Kublai and Freddie now have open borders which opens up some possibilities. One is that KK will meet Tokugawa soon.

Well that's a tough decision whether to give up the deer or not ;) I agree with LC not to give alpha to Asoka or anybody who will trade it to him until we have poly.

One question about setting anybody on Izzy - if she is eliminated quickly, how does that affect the poly situation - do we need ANOTHER civ to get poly now before Asoka will trade it?

I will disconnect soon. There's a Japanese lady waiting for me to watch the Madrid-Barça together.

I could do it this afternoon.


:lol:
;)


Am I the only one seeing the relationship between this sentence and SGOTM5 discussion about make/do?

Well, what now ?
We have all possibilities. And an attitude point to spare with both Fred and KK, so could even wait a few turns.

Definitely don't do this strange trade with Asoka. We want something better from him.
And BTW, we are not necessarily looking for the best trades. With people we want to get friendly we don't want to get things like pottery, which we could easily acquire elsewhere. We would rather gift them the rest.

If we want BW and pottery now, we should probably best trade them from Alex :eek:. We should have enough allowance so we don't hit worst enemy trading.
And WFYABTA will come soon with him.
But the other question is now really what wars we want to start. Freddy should give something on top of war with HC and probably also Toku.
KK - HC should be just about affordable. KK - Izzy should be cheaper (power) and maybe also fetch something on top. Always with the condition do we want this or rather beef up our fair trade account.

I'm currently leaning to do only Freddy-Toku for now. As we got +4 with KK for writing, we should have several turns of pleased with him.

Though Fred+KK on HC has still it's beauty. Mainly because of the Cuzco-Hindu conversion argument.

jesusin, can you give us a rundown on who is whose worst enemy? We can 't figure it out from the save because of the bug klarius was talking about. Especially Asoka, Wshington, Liz, KK, and JC, I guess.

EDIT: And maybe a screenshot of the resource trading possible now. Or just the save with the road connected.

As for your rendevous tonight, wathcing that football sounds strenuous, but I'm sure you'll make do. ;)

One question about setting anybody on Izzy - if she is eliminated quickly, how does that affect the poly situation - do we need ANOTHER civ to get poly now before Asoka will trade it?

I guess so. That would be a reason for letting Isa live a little longer.

Btw, we should get Silver within 8-9 turns or so. Washington will probably have both mined and roaded it for us by then. :)

Excellent play, jesusin! Short, but excellent. ;)

Looking mucho good now. We can set Alex on HC this turn, then next turn we let Freddie join him. Kublai could also join, or we let him attack Isabella.

Kublai and Freddie now have open borders which opens up some possibilities. One is that KK will meet Tokugawa soon.
Well, I'm not so sure about setting Alex on anybody. What if he has success :eek:.
And no, not both HC and Isa for a permanent -2 with Asoka please.

Well, I'm not so sure about setting Alex on anybody. What if he has success :eek:.
And no, not both HC and Isa for a permanent -2 with Asoka please.

Alex won't have any success on his own against HC. They will both pillage each others land and lose units. In the unlikely event that Alex manages to capture Cuzco then we can set KK and Freddie on Alex instead. :)

Ok, lets wait with Isa for a while then.

I guess so. That would be a reason for letting Isa live a little longer.

Well yes, poly is one problem. But there is also another. The one who gets Madrid has the Bud holy city. That doesn't fit too nice with any plan to convert him to another religion. Also gives an automatic further +1 with all the other Buds. Which probably means only Hindu will stay on the menu for declaration.


Btw, we should get Silver within 8-9 turns or so. Washington will probably have both mined and roaded it for us by then. :)
Well, the silver can take much longer, or we can lose it again when Washington builds a library. Or we could even not gain it at all if he soon finishes pyramids.

My vote is for Fred->Toku trade for BW/pott from Alex, switch to granary. And gift KK myst so he can potentially research poly (unless we need the gold value for one of the potential KK DOW's - I forget the earlier calculations).

Alex won't have any success on his own against HC. They will both pillage each others land and lose units. In the unlikely event that Alex manages to capture Cuzco then we can set KK and Freddie on Alex instead. :)

You said you wanted Freddy to join. When 2 AIs are in a war at the same time one never knows who comes out on top. Maybe Freddy's swords redline the last defender and Alex' measly phalanx takes it.

And KK loves Alex, so it would be Freddy alone (or maybe with Asoka, if we find some bait ) who would have to fix it.

I fear that Alex's numberless archers might take down Cuzco, don't you... :sarcasm:

Toku has built a granary and a lighthouse, but continues to produce at 15h/t and -1:food:. He doesn't have masonry so he's not building the GLight (if he ever would). So is he cranking out archers? His power hasn't changed for a long time, so he may want more units.

Toku has built a granary and a lighthouse, but continues to produce at 15h/t and -1:food:. He doesn't have masonry so he's not building the GLight (if he ever would). So is he cranking out archers? His power hasn't changed for a long time, so he may want more units.

This is my concern. I don't like the odds of sending Freddie alone against Toku. Just too risky, imagine if Freddie fails to capture Kyoto.

I fear that Alex's numberless archers might take down Cuzco, don't you... :sarcasm:

Alex only has archers? Great!!! :)

This is my concern. I don't like the odds of sending Freddie alone against Toku. Just too risky, imagine if Freddie fails to capture Kyoto.

Then we send KK against a seriously weakened Freddy a few turns afterwards and save Kyoto for later.

Stategically, I think the best sequence for Fred would be:
1. Kyoto. It's safe for him because his production center close to Kyoto and between Kyoto and his capital. If he can capture it, it gives him a huge production boost. With 2 clams and rice and all those hills, Kyoto is awesome.
2. Tiwanaku and Sparta, in either order. Both cities are close to Berlin for low maintenance. Plus, that would leave only 1 city each of Greece and Inca, so later Fred wouldn't raze them.

If we could achieve that by the end of the Mace Wars, our horses would be saddled.

EDIT: Further notes on Fred
1. Teaming with Fred is good from the point of view of LIz, Washington, and Asoka for now. Later, when Fred has Madrid, that will increase his dislike for them.
2. If he captures Madrid, he's much less vulnerable to the Buddhism +1 because he dislikes Kubla so much and JC to some extent too.
3. Fred won't want to attack Izzy, so at some point we might want to have KK capture it, and then have Fred take it from KK at the appropriate moment.

Stategically, I think the best sequence for Fred would be:
1. Kyoto. It's safe for him because his production center close to Kyoto and between Kyoto and his capital. If he can capture it, it gives him a huge production boost. With 2 clams and rice and all those hills, Kyoto is awesome.
2. Tiwanaku and Sparta, in either order. Both cities are close to Berlin for low maintenance. Plus, that would leave only 1 city each of Greece and Inca, so later Fred wouldn't raze them.

If we could achieve that by the end of the Mace Wars, our horses would be saddled.

Kyoto's production doesn't look so special to me. I assume that one of the plains hills will be lost to Indian culture. But the food would be very nice for Philosophical Freddie.
But Tiwanaku with a lighthouse wouldn't be much worse, and it is much closer to Berlin.

I want us to aim for an ally with at least 6 cities by the time we finish Communism. A war against HC would be a good start, and could possibly lead to 2 more cities for Freddie.

Kyoto's production doesn't look so special to me. I assume that one of the plains hills will be lost to Indian culture. But the food would be very nice for Philosophical Freddie.
But Tiwanaku with a lighthouse wouldn't be much worse, and it is much closer to Berlin.

I want us to aim for an ally with at least 6 cities by the time we finish Communism. A war against HC would be a good start, and could possibly lead to 2 more cities for Freddie.Good eye on the plains hill. Still, 10h/t is excellent and he can and I think will poprush units too. I like Tiwanaku too, For me, it's a question of timing. My problem with Tiwanaka right now is multifold.
1. I really dislike getting a minus from Asoka at this point. I'd like to postpone that as long as possible. That's even an excellent reason to put Alex before HC. (Alex will have archers for some time to come, unless he has iron.)
2. Tiwanaku's far from Freddie's production center. He's building units in Hamburg and the Pyramids in Berlin.
3. Fred is probably dumb enough to send all his units on Cuzco rather than Tiwanaku, since they're in Hamburg. I don't think Fred has the production capacity right now to take down Cuzco (hill city). With Kyoto, he might. Furthermore, that might not happen until we have Construction and we can help out.
4. HC has a much higher power graph than Toku, and it looks like archer and other units (incremental shifts on teh graph). If Fred immediately pillages the crap out of Toku, Toku'll have a hard time beefing up his defenses.
5. HC can come at Fred from two directions and has axes and whatnot to do it with. Fred will probably get pillaged back to the Stone Ages in the process.

Maybe our warrior should go SW before we make any decision on DoWing HC, so we'll know what defenses Cuzco has.

Good eye on the plains hill. Still, 10h/t is excellent and he can and I think will poprush units too. I like Tiwanaku too, For me, it's a question of timing. My problem with Tiwanaka right now is multifold.
1. I really dislike getting a minus from Asoka at this point. I'd like to postpone that as long as possible. That's even an excellent reason to put Alex before HC. (Alex will have archers for some time to come, unless he has iron.)
2. Tiwanaku's far from Freddie's production center. He's building units in Hamburg and the Pyramids in Berlin.
3. Fred is probably dumb enough to send all his units on Cuzco rather than Tiwanaku, since they're in Hamburg. I don't think Fred has the production capacity right now to take down Cuzco (hill city). With Kyoto, he might. Furthermore, that might not happen until we have Construction and we can help out.
4. HC has a much higher power graph than Toku, and it looks like archer and other units (incremental shifts on teh graph). If Fred immediately pillages the crap out of Toku, Toku'll have a hard time beefing up his defenses.
5. HC can come at Fred from two directions and has axes and whatnot to do it with. Fred will probably get pillaged back to the Stone Ages in the process.

Maybe our warrior should go SW before we make any decision on DoWing HC, so we'll know what defenses Cuzco has.

3. Would a "We would like you to attack..." make Freddie send his units against Tiwanaku? klarius, do you know?
4. Vs HC it would be a 2-on-1 or 3-on-1. Vs Toku it is a 1-on-1 only.
5. This is why we must have someone else into the war first. Such as little Alex. I don't have a problem with Alex being pillaged, do you? :)

3. Would a "We would like you to attack..." make Freddie send his units against Tiwanaku? klarius, do you know?
4. Vs HC it would be a 2-on-1 or 3-on-1. Vs Toku it is a 1-on-1 only.
5. This is why we must have someone else into the war first. Such as little Alex. I don't have a problem with Alex being pillaged, do you? :)3. Don't think we will have a PA before Communism... :cool:
4. I guess, but there's that risk then. Versus Toku it's men versus boys.
5. No, I don't mind Alex eating his stones... :lol:

EDIT: HOw about Fred versus Alex? We can spare a neg with JC and KK.

LC, I believe you can suggest cities to attack as long as you are in the war too.

You can suggest, yes. But does it do anything :).
In PA or not this suggestion sets the areaTargetCity. And BTW it can be (randomly 12.5%) reset every turn, so you should suggest every turn again.
Units will move there, if they have nothing else to do. For attack units there are about 20 potential actions checked before the target city comes into play.

Tiwanaku will be anyway attacked by every attack unit in Berlin eventually. It's so near that target city plays no role (up to 4 moves). They just need to pillage everything first and kill every unit in the open.

LC, I believe you can suggest cities to attack as long as you are in the war too.Is that right? lol. I just don't play this damn game enough.

Do not send Freddie alone against Toku! :eek:

I replayed ShannonCT's map, eventually getting Peter (score leader with two cities, copper) to attack Alex (dead last in score, one city on plains, only archers). The result: Peter barely made a dent in Alex defenses. Alex had city walls and a bunch of archers. Stupid AI didn't coordinate its attacks as usual, so Peter sent wave after wave of attackers to their death. Every wave resulted in more CG promotions for Alex archers. I don't think Alex lost more than 2-3 archers defending in Athens, while Peter lost 15-20 units.

I am now totally convinced that setting up a 3-on-1 is the way to go. At least before Construction, but we definitely don't want to wait that long before starting any wars.


Edit:
Ok, I retried it with Monty declaring the same turn also. Didn't help. Finally I tried with Peter, Monty, and Isabella. After 20 turns Athens finally fell. :eek:
Here is the save, if you want to check it for yourself.

176472

It took some time before I managed to set up the relations (I am no klarius... :)), so Alex had 8 archers defending Athens. Btw, in this test game bulbing Philosophy was decisive in having a sufficient trade bait for setting up the wars.

All the more reason why it'll be dumb, random luck who captures Cuzco then. Or? On Erkon's map, I had no problem getting Washington to have 6 cities by PA. He captured the first 2-3 (solomento) without my cats. In fact, I never did it your way, because I didn't want the wrong person to capture my targeted cities. EDIT2: It's funny. No one ever seems excitied about my idea with building cats for Mace Wars. Meanwhile, I just keep on wondering what planet you guys are on. :crazyeye: Cats frigging rule. Forget us building any offensive units. Just cats and a cat-stack defender.

EDIT: Okay, some further points (just for discussion--I only sound like I'm gung-ho on Fred->Toku).
1. We can also send an axe or two down for pilaging and for 10xp and maybe help out with fighting.
2. This can just be our first war. Doesn't mean we can't send Fred somewhere else later. Plus, we still have KK as a backup. We could even send him after Fred if Fred is totally incompetent.
3. If we get Hinduism (jesusin is expert at that ;)), we can use it to temporarily boost our attitude with Asoka (till we get other factors, like OBS, etc.), but have it be balanced out with our Buddhist allies by common war, which accrues 2t/pt faster. This can also give us a chance to pick up some free extortion points with KK, JC, and/ or Freddie. In the meantime, we're buying time before we get the negs with Asoka for DoWing HC or whoever.

All the more reason why it'll be dumb, random luck who captures Cuzco then. Or?

We can also call off attackers with bribes. I have no idea how to calculate the cost but my gut feeling is that it is much cheaper.

EDIT2: It's funny. No one ever seems excitied about my idea with building cats for Mace Wars. Meanwhile, I just keep on wondering what planet you guys are on. :crazyeye: Cats frigging rule. Forget us building any offensive units. Just cats and a cat-stack defender.


Well, I am all for it. Having just watched three AIs suicide themselves against the walls of Athens I can see the use... :)