All right. Start the long term scheming her so that we know what we want. For the stuff in between now and then use either the current tactics and strategy thread or resurrect the currently unused Strategy objectives- Mid term thread. Myself, I want to win in an industrial age conquest. I would like one ally and the best tech rate.

I agree that conquest is the way to go. I want a huge financial advantage that can be leveraged into highest tech rate. Best units, before everyone else is paramount.

Conquest against good human players is very hard. We need to assume that other teams are as good and propably better than us, they will not be run over so easilly.

My feeling is that either domination, space or cultural will win this game...with space being the most likely.

If we are going to defeat another civ it will have to be with the help of an ally. I doubt we will be strong enough on our own to overwhelm another opponent and a long, drawn-out war of attrition will weaken us more than any gains from victory.

I think the goal is to win. ;)

Conquest against good human players is very hard. We need to assume that other teams are as good and propably better than us, they will not be run over so easilly.

My feeling is that either domination, space or cultural will win this game...with space being the most likely.
You are right of course, a "conquest" victory is unlikely. I should have been more precise and said that a war with our most powerful opponent, assisted by the next most powerful ally is the way to win IMO. If we cripple out our toughest competitor, we should be able to get hopelessly ahead and win. The type of victory, space, domination, or cultural, I'm not sure which one to go for... I am just thinking that we are going to have to fight a war or two (or three) to get it. That's what I meant by conquest, poor word choice ooops.;)

I wouldn't go for cultural win as it's the easiest to stop. People will see that we are going for a culture win long in advance and all that needs to be done is to take out one of the culture cities to effectively ruin our plans. Going for culture also probably means running some :culture:% and slowing our tech rate at just the time people will want to kick our ass.

I wouldn't go for cultural win as it's the easiest to stop. Okay, so do you think we should go for domination or space race?:borg: Won't a space race just end in a nuclear war?!?:bump:
It seems like domination is the only choice either way.:assimilate:

Okay, so do you think we should go for domination or space race?:borg: Won't a space race just end in a nuclear war?!?:bump:
It seems like domination is the only choice either way.:assimilate:

I agree - though that could be a fun game

That will be fun... I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page here with no delusions... we are going to have to kill those other guys, one way or another. What if our scout were to discover another civ in the center of the mountain range? Are we ready to stomp them into messy paste?!? I think not... In fact, any opponent could wipe us out, right now with three archers:eek: We need to wake up, I say.

The key will be diplomacy. There are five teams. We can expect two solid pairs to form. The fifth will be crushed by one pair or the other unless it joins one of the alliances against the other. Contact is very important as those who meet first have the chance to form the bonds necessary to avoid being the odd team out. I expect much fighting as the game progresses.

Ok, so we have an alliance with Team Cav. We are both exploring with workboats in the opposite direction. If the map is a wheel then where do we want our third partner to be? Three possibilities (not counting no third partner which would be bad):

If the civ we meet becomes our third partner then we are between our allies. Good for defense as long as the alliance lasts, bad to be in the middle when it breaks.
If the civ Team Cav meets becomes our partner then we are on the flank of the alliance.
If neither of these enters our alliance and the fifth team joins us then the three of us are balanced, each of us between two rival civs.

This last one appeals to me most though I realize there are other factors to take into account. One of the other factors is which team do we want or not want? I've already stated my opinion that I think SANCTA is strong and therefore dangerous and should be isolated. Provo has indicated that he sees the Mad Scientists as unstable and weak and therefore not a good partner. What do the rest of you Kazaks think of these points?

I think with Husch, in many ways inept as the Mad Scientists leader, we would be better off without working hard to cooperate technology plans and so on with them. I foresee massive coordination problems with the aptly named Mad Scientists. We need to consider between Sancta and Saturn, depending on strategic positioning.

Mad Scientists would make a good 3rd partner because they would be easy to discard or use against Team Cav when we are down to 3 teams.

It is very simple, if that team does not earn Niklas trust, he is not letting it happen. So I disagree about finding a weak satellite as a third partner.

It is very simple, if that team does not earn Niklas trust, he is not letting it happen. So I disagree about finding a weak satellite as a third partner.

Provo, how in the heck can you tell at this point in the game who Niklas will and won't trust? :confused:

He was not happy about the speed of Mad Scientists in handling their turns, and worry about their score.

We need an army...

Now that we are getting close to our triple threat alliance, we need to think seriously about who will be responsible for defending it and how.

The answer can't be... "Each team will have its own small defense force and will come to each other's aid if one ally is attacked." If that is the strategy then we might as well :suicide: ourselves now, because there is no way that Cavalieros could help us if we were attacked (We can't help them either... we don't even know where they are:() Even once we locate them, no-one is going to want to empty their cities of defenders in order to go rushing to an ally's aid... What if you get backdoor attacked by another force? I worry that all nations will maintain minimal troop levels in order to maximize tech, thinking "We will just out-tech S-S, and they will sit back and let us win space race." :scan:

One country should have a large defensive force, with the others compensating in terms of research. That nation can maintain stop-gap forces in each partner's nation so that the partners can focus on tech, etc. This does not mean that partners will have NO army, just that they can focus on it less...

We are deluding ourselves if we think we can keep this "one city-one warrior" (or no warrior :eek:) approach up for much longer. If you have time, please vote on this thread, as to what year you estimate S-S alliance will first declare war on CavKazMs (sounds like orgasms:D). As a matter of fact, this would be a good thing to poll since it has little in-game impact. I am thinking somewhere in the 1000- 500 BC range but I will run a couple tests and give an exact year prediction later.

The team that is most responsible for "defense" of the alliance will be in the best position to dictate who gets :backstab: later on. Also, that team will have a head start in the eventual "Well it's just the two of us left..." situation at the end. :nuke:

Smoke WDYT? Do I have permission to poll the issue of what year we will be DoWed?

If I were in the presumed S-S alliance, I would want to destroy one of the Tripalliance Partners AS SOON as I became aware of the alliance, to even things up before I got too far behind. The teams are weakest at the beginning (no military, infrastructure, etc.), so they will never have a better shot at killing someone off early in the game. Since MS and Kaz are on the "outsides" of the alliance, we are the two that are presumably closer to S-S, which means we will be on the recieving end of the landing party when the time comes...:viking:

We also need to start thinking seriously about REXing to grab up more land. When Iron appears on some desert hill near the hub of the wheel, I would like it to already be in our borders, so we can hook it up quickly, rather that have to found some remote city to get it. :scared:

We should research COL, obviously, as we are by now guaranteed to get it first.

We should let Cav research as well as getting Sailing, which we need imminently and then math, to max out chops and make currency cheaper.

Metal casting and forge is another story.

We need an army...

Now that we are getting close to our triple threat alliance, we need to think seriously about who will be responsible for defending it and how.

The answer can't be... "Each team will have its own small defense force and will come to each other's aid if one ally is attacked." If that is the strategy then we might as well :suicide: ourselves now, because there is no way that Cavalieros could help us if we were attacked (We can't help them either... we don't even know where they are:() Even once we locate them, no-one is going to want to empty their cities of defenders in order to go rushing to an ally's aid... What if you get backdoor attacked by another force? I worry that all nations will maintain minimal troop levels in order to maximize tech, thinking "We will just out-tech S-S, and they will sit back and let us win space race." :scan:

One country should have a large defensive force, with the others compensating in terms of research. That nation can maintain stop-gap forces in each partner's nation so that the partners can focus on tech, etc. This does not mean that partners will have NO army, just that they can focus on it less...

We are deluding ourselves if we think we can keep this "one city-one warrior" (or no warrior :eek:) approach up for much longer. If you have time, please vote on this thread, as to what year you estimate S-S alliance will first declare war on CavKazMs (sounds like orgasms:D). As a matter of fact, this would be a good thing to poll since it has little in-game impact. I am thinking somewhere in the 1000- 500 BC range but I will run a couple tests and give an exact year prediction later.

The team that is most responsible for "defense" of the alliance will be in the best position to dictate who gets :backstab: later on. Also, that team will have a head start in the eventual "Well it's just the two of us left..." situation at the end. :nuke:

Smoke WDYT? Do I have permission to poll the issue of what year we will be DoWed?

If I were in the presumed S-S alliance, I would want to destroy one of the Tripalliance Partners AS SOON as I became aware of the alliance, to even things up before I got too far behind. The teams are weakest at the beginning (no military, infrastructure, etc.), so they will never have a better shot at killing someone off early in the game. Since MS and Kaz are on the "outsides" of the alliance, we are the two that are presumably closer to S-S, which means we will be on the recieving end of the landing party when the time comes...:viking:

We also need to start thinking seriously about REXing to grab up more land. When Iron appears on some desert hill near the hub of the wheel, I would like it to already be in our borders, so we can hook it up quickly, rather that have to found some remote city to get it. :scared:

there is no need fighting ghosts...Soon we will have chariots and we will send a couple to scout and see where the closest opponent is...In the meantime all we need to fear is barbs. As we can also see from demographics that noone is making army.

We should research COL, obviously, as we are by now guaranteed to get it first.

We should let Cav research as well as getting Sailing, which we need imminently and then math, to max out chops and make currency cheaper.

Metal casting and forge is another story.


How are we guarandeed to get CoL first?

I think he means that we know 3 teams don't have writing. Problems is we are 10 turns away from being able to start CoL so Sancta could easily tech writing before that time and go for CoL straight from there. And they would beat us if they did.

Thing is, if SANCTA want a religion my bet is that they have poly and masonry so they could get judaism more easily if they want. And then tech monarchy with both prereqs

there is no need fighting ghosts...Soon we will have chariots and we will send a couple to scout and see where the closest opponent is...In the meantime all we need to fear is barbs. As we can also see from demographics that noone is making army. Chasing ghosts? This is the Long-Term thread... I'm thinking long term... and in the long term, there will be more than ghosts to deal with. Don't you agree?

Barbs are the more immediate threat, yes... but that is more of a short-term / mid term thing no? In the long term, we need to start thinking what our civ's military status will be.

Settlers, workers, army... REX, REX, REX... let our new allies be the tech workhorses for a while, they owe us anyway. What say you Smoke?

Chasing ghosts? This is the Long-Term thread... I'm thinking long term... and in the long term, there will be more than ghosts to deal with. Don't you agree?

Barbs are the more immediate threat, yes... but that is more of a short-term / mid term thing no? In the long term, we need to start thinking what our civ's military status will be.

Settlers, workers, army... REX, REX, REX... let our new allies be the tech workhorses for a while, they owe us anyway. What say you Smoke?

Sorry I though you were talking for now...yes I could not agree more...REX like mad and be top in power, should be priorities.

With these long term alliances it seems getting the land is the priority not teching!

Speaking of long term, how much of a priotity do we want to put to espionage?

With alphabet we can build spies and send them off to rival (or freindly) lands. They can just wander around enemy territory to keep an eye on how our rivals are growing. Getting and settling a GSpy at some point could also really help us in seeing what rivals are teching.

Just some thoughts to see what others think?

Speaking of long term, how much of a priotity do we want to put to espionage?

With alphabet we can build spies and send them off to rival (or freindly) lands. They can just wander around enemy territory to keep an eye on how our rivals are growing. Getting and settling a GSpy at some point could also really help us in seeing what rivals are teching.

Just some thoughts to see what others think?

I value espionaze very little myself, I would not focus on it at all.

Trying to get techs from opponents with close borders and different religion is a waste of resources IMO...but of course we can use spies later on to scout their lands.

We'll be able to make spies in 10 turns? Wouldn't they be better than scouts for exploring?

Spies have no attack value I believe so they would get eaten by every single wolf that came by. I think the idea of dedicated partners is good. I think that we should be the science workhorse and that we need to have destroyed the other alliance about the time that infantry are used. Ideally we would make both our allies dependant on us for tech and be able to out tech them when their are three civs left. The problem with this is that if the S-S is destroyed after the last military unit tech is researched we would be sitting ducks for our allies. As for land, maybe we can get our warmongerers to give us cities in exchange for technology.

btw Spies are invisible to all units and can never be attacked. they only get killed by getting 'caught' in a rival's borders (or even an ally's)

Main use for espionage in this game are:
1) See rival power on graphs
2) see what rival is teching
3) sending spies to gain visibility
4) sending spies to instigate city revolt
5) if you get enough :espionage: you can even see what an enemy's cities are building and how many turn to completion they are as well as being able to see each cities units.

4) can be really devastating for a surprise attack as it lowers a city's culture to 0% and causes collateral damage to units in the city. if you are advancing on a city with not enough siege units they enemy will think they have a few turns before you reduce their defences down before an attack. But a city revolt will do it in 1 turn and damage units really softening it up for a quick attack.

We'll be able to make spies in 10 turns? Wouldn't they be better than scouts for exploring?

I think that may be a very good idea.

As to our military - we should never be in a position of weakness. If we are weak will will be stabbed in the back.

We should have decent defensive capabilities (lots of catapults) and some ability to project power. Once we get rifling we can then go on a rampage. I think a swarm of pillaging redcoats is the way to go.

Of course everyone else will expect this -so we will have a big target on our backs. Hence the need for defense.

We need to find the lands that we will spy on before we send spies. I don't want to spend turns building spies just to have them wander around looking for opponents... that seems like a big waste.

Spy to scout is a good idea, but it should come after a couple of chariots that we need for protection.

We have had some discussion of who likely allies and rivals will be. A fundamental geopolitical issue is rivalry between neighbors. I assume that team Mad is located along the coast between Team Saturn and Team Cav.

I guess a bit regarding the other teams borders but the following is what I come up with.

Kaz borders Sancta and Cav
Cav borders Kaz, Sat, San, Mad
San borders Kaz, Sat, Cav?
Sat borders Sat, San, Cav
Mad borders Sat, Cav

This leads me to conclude that us and team Mad have the best placement as we are in corners where only two other civs are at our borders. Cav is in the worst position as they border everyone.

I think that in the long-term a close alliance between us and team Mad will be the most useful. Sancta will also want a similar alliance but we have some advantage here as we did started developing a relationship 1st.

With that said, I place little faith in relationships. The point of the game is to win and any team that relies on allies for protection will be killed. Our best way to keep a close alliance is to maintain tech parity at a level above our rival. That way their is a mutual incentive to trade with each other and not with another team.

Good analysis.

Long term our strategy is basically as follows:
3-way Alliance (Cav, MS & us) defeats Saturn and SANCTA (who may not even be allied to each other!)
After the dust settles our plan will be to take out Cav. It will have to be 2v1 and MS will be too far away to go for next and if we did it would be Cav that got all their cities.
Once it's only 3 civs left the geopolitical situation will have to be such that MS believe they have a chance against us and that Cav are the main rival.
We don't actually want to be more powerful than Cav. Them being stronger than us gives MS more of an incentive to ally with us instead of Cav. But of course we don't want them to be much stronger than we are.

Why not a 4 on 1 versus SANCTA and then 3 on 1 versus Cavalieros? What if MS just likes/trusts Cavalieros more than us? Cavalieros have had a long time to build some rapport with MS (we havent even met MS in-game yet). We should not put all our hopes in getting MS to backstab Cavalieros... If it does not work, then we are toast. We can use Saturn as a hedge against Cavalieros. Someone else (Garand, I think) mentioned this earlier.

We also should not choose a strategy that depends on us intentionally staying weak... right ?!?:confused:

We met MS last turn. Check the turn logs and the last post in the MS embassy thread :)

Your argument is a little counter-intuitive if I may say so. You are saying that we should have a 4-way alliance so we can go 3v1 against Cav because you aren't sure that we'll be able to ensure a 2v1 alliance :confused:

We can assume that MS will do what is in their own best interest. How will they benefit more from taking us down than Cav? Cav will be the ones to get all our cities and land. MS are too far away to benefit from a war with us.

If we take down SANCTA we increase our chances of winning to 1 in 4. If we take down SANCTA and Saturn we increase our chances to 1 in 3. I would rather guarantee the demise of two rivals in one go than just one. Simple maths to me :)

Of course you are right :king: about us just meeting MS:blush: sorry.

What I am saying is that if that no matter whether we have a 3 way or 4 way alliance, once we kill off SANCTA, there is a possibility that new alliances will form. Cavalieros and MS might join against us, we might all go after Saturn, etc...

My point is that if Saturn is part of the alliance (at least until SANCTA is dead) we increase our chances that we will not be left alone. If Cavalieros and MS (or Saturn) backstab us, we can petition the other ally to join us. We are only going to go after one rival at a time right? Once SANCTA has been killed off (with Saturn's help) we can always form a 3 way against Saturn next can't we?

The only difference is that we get Saturn's help to kill SANCTA, which is valuable IMO since Saturn is next to SANCTA.

I'm with Sommers on this. I think we're better off dog piling SANCTA. Yeah, our chances of winning go from 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 instead of 1 in 3 but what about the next stage? With S&S gone we have a one out of three chance of being on the wrong end of a 2 on 1 alliance. With only SANCTA gone the structure will shift to 3 on 1 or 2 on 2. There are seven possibilities and the only really bad one is us against all three. Simple math tells us the odds of us reaching stage two are double if we just take down SANCTA. The question becomes does a longer game help us or hurt us?

A longer game is of course good to us. We got cheap universities, we got cheaper stock markets, red coats and so on. We want the era of the British Empire to be as long as possible. When we reach the state just before, we need to turn down the pace, and savour the supremacy.

If it is 4-1 on Santca we will likely gain the most territory and will therefore be the biggest target afterwards.

In 3-2 Cav and MS will also gain land from Saturn and therefor Cav will be a more clear threat to MS.

3-2 would serve us best.

I agree. I have been a proponent for bringing Saturn into the fold and possibly fostering an alliance with them against Cav later in the game once Sancta is taken care of.

Simply put, Cav is the biggest threat in the game right now in my opinion, perhaps moreso than Sancta. We have very little intelligence on Sancta and their affairs. However, we already know that Cav is a strong team, off to a strong start, and their technology dealings with us have been less than advantageous to us. My own hunch is that Cav is using us for tech and will turn on us at the first opportunity.

Saturn is behind and without help will become a target for a larger civ, or will fall into line with Sancta or in a secret agreement with one of our own tech alliance. In that regard, we have a short window of opportunity to secure our own alliance with them.

If Sancta is knocked out, the two big powers remaining will be us and Cav. The alliance we are currently in WILL dissolve once the common threat of Sancta is eliminated. I don't know how likely it is we can obtain Mad Scientists' support against Cav in the future, but if we enter a beneficial relationship with Saturn NOW, we can hopefully count on them and be able to work toward getting MS in our camp as well.

If it is 4-1 on Santca we will likely gain the most territory and will therefore be the biggest target afterwards.

In 3-2 Cav and MS will also gain land from Saturn and therefor Cav will be a more clear threat to MS.I agree! :goodjob:

I don't think that who "gains land" should even be a consideration here. We are barely capable of colonizing the patch of land we have control of. We would be ganging up on SANCTA to elimminate them, and burn their cities, not to capture them. No ONE is capable of maintaining a city that far away this soon because the upkeep would be too high.

So really, no one gains any land. We havent even settled up to the mouth of the mountain pass yet. I'm hoping by the time we get there, SANCTA will be gone.

I don't think that who "gains land" should even be a consideration here. We are barely capable of colonizing the patch of land we have control of. We would be ganging up on SANCTA to elimminate them, and burn their cities, not to capture them. No ONE is capable of maintaining a city that far away this soon because the upkeep would be too high.

So really, no one gains any land. We havent even settled up to the mouth of the mountain pass yet. I'm hoping by the time we get there, SANCTA will be gone.


It will be a long while until we are at war at which point most empty land should be taken up. While we should burn some sancta cities i think we should keep their core cities which will have a good commercial base. Of course a discussion of this is very premature.

If war is a long way off then that's even more incentive for us to try to keep Saturn away from SANCTA. We should take advantage of Saturn's isolation and build a good relationshiop with them to counter the good relationship that may be forming between Team Cav and the Mad Ones.

I completely agree with Donsig. But we should not bring Saturn formally into our alliance. In fact, it would be wonderful if we could keep Saturn away from not just Sanc, but from EVERYONE.

Someone posted somewhere that "Saturn is sort of on autopilot unless something important comes up".
This is bad as we will have a weak and not-careful ally if we do end up with them.
But this is good in that it will make dealing with, and isolating them, easier. Because they might not be thinking of diplo that much.

Yes, I think this is the way forward. We can be friendly with them, and not give them reason for seeking out SANCTA, but we should trust they will be able to help us much as a counter-balance to Cav in the long term.

Yes, I think this is the way forward. We can be friendly with them, and not give them reason for seeking out SANCTA, but we should trust they will be able to help us much as a counter-balance to Cav in the long term. We should trust them to be a counterbalance against Cav? That seems to support the idea of allying with them... If this is what you mean, then I agree but I think maybe you meant should NOT... in which case I disagree.

To any who say that we should not bring Saturn into the alliance as a counterbalance against Cavalieros, I would ask why not? Because we met them last?... So we can't trust them?:confused:

What we also need to start thinking about is taking Cav off the alliance at some point..they are between us and MS so it is natural that if we would like in the future to attack them MS wil be our best friend.

The reason for NOT bringing Saturn into the alliance is because it's to our interest to prevent them from getting closer to MS and CAV. Bringing them into the alliance actually complicates our diplomacy tremendously and makes the situation more difficult to control.

However, if we try to isolate them diplomatically from everyone, and build an EXCLUSIVE relationship (as far as such a thing is possible), we 1) stand a much better chance of gaining their support later 2) make the situation easier to control.

Essentially, it carves up our diplomatic problem into fewer, more easily digestible chunks... there are fewer relationships to worry about.

I think Mikotian makes some very good points here.

I want to make myself clear.
Yes they can open discussion with MS and CAV themselves. We cannot control that directly. All sorts of info and deals could theoretically be passing behind our back. But the fact is that they have not shown any signs of actively seeking out relationships and alliances. In fact, last I heard, they haven't even found CAV. And do they have OB with MS?

So why bring them into the fold, and HELP them open wider channels of communication to CAV and MS, and therefore room for them to woo and plot with Saturn? It just seems self-defeating and complicating.

Everyone remember that our tech alliance requires us to give tech to the alliance so if we try to make a seperate alliance with Saturn we will still have to share anything we get from them with the whole alliance. That might make a seperate alliance a little complicated if Saturn does not want its tech given away.

So we will just have to manage our relationship carefully. That's a mechanical problem.

But strategically, am I not right?

And Saturn will benefit from our trading. We should though formulate a plan to sell NOT including Saturn formally in our alliance to MS and CAV, if necessary. For example, we can say that Saturn is so technologically behind that it would be counterproductive to include them, as they would simply be mooching off us.

And if Saturn has problems? We just give them a little subsidy, and I don't see why they wouldn't be on board. In fact, since we are the tech leaders, we have greater freedom to do this, even within the framework of our existing alliance.

And we should not give Saturn full details about our relationship with MS and CAV. Don't lie, but let them figure it out themselves...

I am willing to participate in polls regarding our alliance structure. I do think we need some discussion before any polls. I think the first thing we need to address is whether we even want to stay allied with Team Cav until the other three teams are gone. Maybe even before that we need to settle on a victory strategy. It seems to me this game will be won by domination. I agree. Sooooooo, to begin productive progress towards resolving the CavKaz treaty issue (which is smoke-and-mirrors IMO, TBH) can we all at least quickly agree that we are going for a domination win?:goodjob:

Please, if you disagree with a domination victory goal please post here. Also, if you agree that we should pursue a domination win please give us a basic strategy suggestion or two.

The overall strategy I've favored is isolating and targeting the most dangerous team (SANCTA) while forming a long term alliance with a good team (Team Cav). In the end we square off against our long tern ally in a race for domination.

Domination will be very hard to achieve in this game, most propable win type is space.

In tech trading on games it is very hard to get such a big tech advantage for domination. I think space win in early 1800's or even 1700's is what will happen.

That's very interesting. I thought it was your opinion that if we made a long term alliance with Team Cav they would win a domination victory. :confused:

I did not say that...all I said is that there should be a clause that says no team reaches domination level...just in case...in reality I don't think it will happen.

The last Civ 4 MTG was a diplomatic victory I believe...

OK so for the record:

Sommers, Donsig = domination
Smoke = space race
:king: = undecided

Domination seems to be the majority at this point... anyone else have an opinion?

Well, I'm not actually voting yet Sommers. I'm not good enough at :bts: (especially MP) to know what to expect. I'm intrigued that a diplo victory won last game. This must not be like in [civ3] so how does it work here? If you're big enough you can just vote yourself a diplo victory? Or did another team have to also vote for the winner? :confused:

wow a diplo victory? Well, was it so close to a domination anyway that they could have by either?

Indiansmoke, why do you say the game will not be won by conquest? It seems to me to be the most likely outcome (domination).

Even at tech parity, massive siege inside a civ's territory will not beat back an army 3x as big, spread into a few stacks.

dom or conquest in my view - I see them as about the same thing anyway. Conquest is probably more likely though.

OK soooooo, this is where we stand:

Sommers, Damnrunner, Mikotian = domination/conquest
Smoke = space race
:king: = undecided
Donsig = "not voting" (no surprises there:))

At this point (due to reduced polling IMO) we have 6 of the 7 (currently participating) members weighing in. Since Cavscout's opinion will not affect the majority (unless Donsig and :king: weigh in against domination/conquest), I would say that this issue seems to be decided. (Unless of course, Sommers, Damnrunner, and Mikotian's opinions don't matter;)).

Domination/conquest still seems to be the majority at this point... anyone else have an opinion? If not can we move to talking about whether we want to withdraw our decision to be allied with Cavalieros?

We already decided that we would ally with Cavalieros (they are just not respecting the alliance). This next question is whether we will dump them as an ally in retalliation for the bad faith they have shown in this SANCTA war.

For the record, I would like to continue our alliance, but just put more diplomatic pressure on them to join the war.

Sommers it would be nice to have some discussion about victory conditions before we proclaim a goal. I'm not voting yet because I simply do not know what is the best goal for us to pursue. All I figured out is the a cultural and religious victory hasn't been mentioned at all so they must not be feasable. A time victory also hasn't been mentioned so it seems we think the game will not go the distance. Diplomatic still seems possible though I don't understand how we'd get anyone else to vote for us. What I'd really like to hear is how we'd go about getting a conquest/domination or space race victory. It's one thing to say this is the victory we should go for. It's quite another to actually have a plan to get there.

Space race will result in a nuke war. I do not see it as feasible.

Hmm, I really don't know how we can decide on what victory we are going for at this stage. Domination is the most likely in my view though.

Kaleb, if we don't decide soon on a victory goal how are we going to do any long term strategic planning - like decide how long we'd like to remain allied to another team? Of is the trick here just to get so far ahead of the others teams that it doesn't matter what victory we want? :confused:

Conquest / Dom leave all other options open (except cultural-and no one thinks that is a viable opetion anyway).

To go for Space we need a big economy and strong military. In the mid to long term that will require the same strategy as dom/conquest.

Diplo would need a big pop and strong military - which also would require the same strategy as dom/conquest in the mid to long term.

So what you're saying is conq/dom/space/diplo are all the same regarding what we need to do long term (which is just get ahead of all the others teams in a big way)?

Yes exactly, but as Damnrunner said, probably no-one is going to let anyone else launch a spaceship without nuking the living bejebus out of them first, so we are really limited to one victory strategy.

That is why what :king: says is also true... depending on how things are going, we can attempt to parlay our advantages into a specific kind of victory... But there is very little way to know what will be appropriate this early. We need to pursue one strategy long-term, ie. get as far ahead as possible, and then when we reach the end game. All we need to focus on is buliding as many leads in as many categories as we possibly can, so that we are equally able to pursue all available paths to the win.

So in conclusion... Most of the team seems to understand that working towards a domination win is the best way to ensure the availiability of ALL possible victory paths... So we should go for domination :goodjob:

Should :king:'s response be construed to be a voice in favor of pursuing domination? Or is it simply a neutered observation?;)

P.S. This is funny :lol::
Victory-type we should pursue

Damnrunner = domination / conquest
Mikotian = domination / conquest
Sommers= domination/conquest
Smoke = space race
:king: = undecided
Donsig = undecided

Victory-type that will win the game

Damnrunner = domination / conquest
Mikotian = domination / conquest
Sommers= domination/conquest
Smoke = space race
:king: = domination
Donsig = domination

I just think its a hoot that anyone would not be in favor of pursuing the victory type that they think will win the game. ie. "I think that the game will be won by a Domination victory, but I'm not quite sure if I want my team to win, so I'm not sure if I want to vote in favor of pursuing a domination victory"... hillarious :lol:

Well, in my case, given my lack of MP experience, I don't put much faith in what I think about how the game will end. If I was quite sure the only reasonable path to victory is through domination then (of course) I'd think we should pursue that course. Indiansmoke has quite abit of MP XP and so I would not easily write off his space race opinion, nukes aside. It is important because a space race is more compatible wiht a long term KazCav alliance than is domination.

damrunner has apoint abou nukes, but I think that the game will be dominated by an alliance and the members of the alliance will not fight each other at the end but rather leave space or cultural win to decide.

Domination is very hard let alone conquest, don't forget that there is another land mass so getting all that land needed for domination is not easy.

Diplomatic would be hideous, but who knows?

Diplomatic may be the actual end of the game although in reality it's dominition. Once it's clear that one team is going to win another may well vote for them in a UN vote just to end the game. That's basically what happened in the last Civ4 MTG.

Should 's response be construed to be a voice in favor of pursuing domination? Or is it simply a neutered observation?Ha, I think you mean 'neutral' opinion...

Anyway, if we decide we want to go for a space win vs a dominiation win I don't see it changing our tactics now. If we want a space win or a conquest win, we need to face-off with SANCTA as we aren't going to be developed enough with the land we have now.

I just think its a hoot that anyone would not be in favor of pursuing the victory type that they think will win the game. ieYeah, I vote we "pursue" a domination win. I also vote we pursue a space race and a conquest victory. Oh and a diplomatic victory too.

Short term difference in what we do now is what exactly??

Once it's clear that one team is going to win another may well vote for them in a UN vote just to end the game. That's basically what happened in the last Civ4 MTG.

Ha, I think you mean 'neutral' opinion... No, actually I meant "neutered" as in... My dog is going around whoring himself to every dog on the street and he humps every visitors' leg so I had him neutered, "neutered," as in had his "little thingies cut off "neutered," as in your statement was lacking in "voting" power, force, thrust, and was thus impotent in a voting sense, thus lacking b@##$, thus "neutered.":) Whoo hoo funny funny funny! No offense of course, :king: you know I love you.;)

As for a diplo victory, we would need to be super far ahead (like near-domination victory far ahead) to get someone to essentially give-up and vote for us.

Anyway, if we decide we want to go for a space win vs a dominiation win I don't see it changing our tactics now. If we want a space win or a conquest win, we need to face-off with SANCTA as we aren't going to be developed enough with the land we have now.

Yeah, I vote we "pursue" a domination win. I also vote we pursue a space race and a conquest victory. Oh and a diplomatic victory too.

Short term difference in what we do now is what exactly?? Seems like you want to go for a domination win (ie get as far ahead as possible), just my impression.;)

So there are two schools of thought about how the game will be won:

One team will leave all the others in the dust and then will basically be able to pick and choose it's victory type.
A strong alliance of two or three teams will form. This alliance will ensure the allies grow strong enough to prevent any other team from conquering or dominating, so the winner will have to launch a ship or win by culture. This may or may not exclude a diplomatic or religious victory depending on whether any king maker teams survive.

Which of these two has a better chance of happening? It seems to me that any one team trying to get ahead of all the others would run into trouble if it had to face a strong alliance of two or three teams.

donsig - I don't think your option 2 is at all likely.

Those two or three strong remaining teams will end up at war fighting over their comparative advantage. hence it once again defaults to Conquest/domination. Yes a team could go for space at this point - but then they invite an all out war from the other team who of course does not want to lose. Once again this effectively becomes a conquest/domination game.

Culture is a no go as you essentially have to be weak in order to pursue culture and it is relatively easy to stop a weak team from winning via culture.

The only victory condition i could see any team sneaking away with would be a religious diplo victory. But that would be pretty damn hard to pull off in a MP game.

It's not really my option 2 - I got that from Indiansmoke - see post #74 in this thread.

Does anyone have any data on how MP games usually end (I mean besides someone quitting in the middle of the game)?

Every game I have played has ended in a conquest - or someone quitting once conquest was inevitable. I've played 50-100.

Great People

Now that we have finished the G-Scientist to bulb edu, what is our plan for Great People going forward? Getting some G-Prophets would really be useful - but I just do not see that happening as long as we continue to run Aktua as a military city. And I do not see us switching production there for a while. So in the meantime - our what is our plan for generating Great people in Haz. These are options I see:

1. Maximize production of G-Scientists (run extra scientists) in Haz. This lowers the odds of getting a G-Artist.
2. Minimize production of G-Scientists in Haz (don't run extra scientists). This increases the odds of getting a G-Artist. By producing fewer G-Scientists now, we can build other Great people easier later on in the game.
3. Run other specialists in Haz (engineer, priest, merchant). This lowers the odds of getting a G-Artist and gives some chance of getting different great people.

I assume we would want to settle any G-Scientists we get in Haz.

Some potential gambits involving wonders.
A. Build the Temple of Artemis. Extra trade route gold is great as is the free priest. It is also a fairly cheap wonder. Downsides, good chance we will get beat to it. Opportunity cost of building other stuff.
B. Build Angkor Wat. This would let us run a lot of priests but the best place to build it is in Aktau which is already focused on units.


Generally, I lean towards option 1. Haz is able to work all of its cottages and we are at our health cap right now anyway. A grocer would help a bit with this, but we are mostly running at 100% science and the extra commerce bonus of a grocer would be fairly marginal. Working sea tiles would give more raw commerce - but I think getting Great scientists as fast as possible and minimizing the risk of getting a GA is a better option. Working mines is also great - but I think Haz is best focusing on science.

First priority is Oxford. Getting 6 unis and building it should be our focus now.

In actau we can run 2 prophets on occation, eventually we wil be able to get a great person from there and hopefully we will have build our chances for a prophet.

So shouldn't we be starting on a uni in Haz now rather than a lighthouse?

I would like to point out, that a prophet is of little value to us with so few cities and no prospect of building/capturing any more. We need to spread our religion around for the prophet to mean much. That means, we need more cities, ALOT more cities.

For unis, it is the same issue. It does not matter if we build unis in every city... by the time they are built, we will be so far behind city-wise, that even all that extra :science: will not make us competitive.

Even If we slave the unis, that will put us even further behind and we will have to wait for the cities to grow large enough to take advantage of the :science: bonus. So we have the same problem whether we build or slave the unis.

We need to break out of this bottleneck to be competitive not more tech. Faster tech will not break us out of the bottleneck. Only an alliance with SANCTA (real or phoney) or a huge army with an armada of catas will do it. Anything else is a distraction we can not afford.

Our priority then, should be getting more cities, either through alliance or through war... That is more important than prophets, universities, or Oxford IMHO.

Once the bottleneck-breaking alliance (either with Cavalieros, or with SANCTA) has secured bottleneck free territory (meaning we HAVE the cities)... Only then should we start building unis everywhere for Oxford.

Getting a uni in Haz soon does seem like a good idea though.

Sommer, Unis are for Oxford in capital! we will get to the war but in the meantime lets built up our economy as well.

@ Damrunner, lighthouse is only 2 turns and will give an extra food, we can start UNI after that.

I understand that a lighthouse will only give extra food - but it is only +1 on the clams we are currently working. As Haz is already at its health cap - the city won't be able to grow much more even if we switch from working mines to sea tiles. However, we aren't going to switch away from the mines as I think the focus is on production right now.

If the focus is not on production - then we should be running specialists rather than sea tiles. Either way the lighthouse is not a huge benefit. An additional ship or LB may be more useful.

I get it that we need 6 unis to get Oxford in the capital, I just don't think getting Oxford in capital should be a priority right now... What 6 cities do we have that will benefit from a Uni? What 6 cities can even build a Uni in a reasonable amount of time? Can we really spare Haz production for Oxford right now?

No matter what we decide to do about the alliance, we will have to attack SOMEONE...
1. Attack SANCTA (we need an army)
2. Attack Cavalieros for SANCTA (we need an army)
3. Phoney attack Cavalieros then betray/attack SANCTA, or defend against SANCTA attack (we need an army)

We will need at least 7 or 8 catas t do this. Unis will not help us. We should not be even considering going for Oxford until the army is built. Uni in Haz is OK, although, we could ge the army built alot faster if Haz was building military as well.

When at peace prepare for war, when at war prepare for peace... I know you have heard that before. ;)

Sommer if we don't get Oxford in capital soon it will be taking 15 turns to research a tech and we will be of no value to anyone including ourselves.

Building Oxford does not mean stop making units!

We need library and uni in

Capital, Actau, Pav, Shymkent, Pavlodar and atyrau.

Taraz, Kyzylorda, Oskemen & Petropav can continue with units.

Actau will be fast to slave the unis and go back back to units after that, so it is not such a big delay in army production as you think. Yes we will have a bit less units in the short term but the tech benefit will be greater.

Sommer if we don't get Oxford in capital soon... we will be of no value to anyone including ourselves. I disagree, we don't need Oxford to send gold to Cavalieros to let them max out research. That is exactly what Saturn is doing for SANCTA and they are Catching up in tech. So we are still able to be of use in terms of alliance teching, without unis, libraries or Oxford.

I am not saying we should not get them, I am just saying build the army first...

If we had built the army first back when I was screaming that we would be at war with SANCTA BEFORE Construction, instead of saying "Oh we can build the army later when we get Rifling" we would have had enough soldiers to break the SANCTA bottleneck. Gosh 5 or 6 more units would have done it.:( We can not afford to make that mistake again. Oxford can wait.

Also, I think that maybe Haz should be cranking out units as well. We can build units there faster than anywhere else.

I don't have the time to do the math right now, can someone figure out the number of BASE hammers the unis + oxford would take?

And if we devoted those hammers to units, what we can actually make?

I will do some rough math ignoring most of the multipliers.

Universities are 200 hammers (but we get double production) and Oxford is 400 hammers. With monotheism we also get a 25% building bonus for buildings.

With 6 Universities costing 100 hammers, that is a total of 1,000 hammers or 750 when we factor in monotheism. For 750 hammers we could build about 10 maces.

10 maces, or even better, 10 catapults would easily make the difference between winning and losing a war.

Not to mention the fact that many of the cities that are proposed for unis, would also have to build libraries first. How many additional :hammers: (maces/catas) is that?

Last but not least, what about the most important factor of all... Time. How many turns will it take to field an army if we build all those libraries and Unis and Oxford first as opposed to after we build our Army?

If we build the army first, we can DoW, and attack while making our buildings, but we can't do it the other way around, ie., build libraries, unis & Oxford, DoW, and then build the army.

there are pros and cons both ways.
For building an army:

Pros:
1) Attack earlier (how much earlier? Dunno...)
2) Slight surprise factor
3) Can mooch off the alliance's tech progress so maybe immediate econ development don't matter?

Cons:
1) Crappy economic development
2) Dangerous gambit... Makes us a less useful member of our current alliance, which invites betrayal IMHO
3) We would be building units that will be outclassed soon
4) given our noobish track record with war... Lost cause?

I don't really have a concrete opinion... But I'm happy to be persuaded by either faction.

You know what I think...build up economy (while continuing army build up in non uni cities) and wait for Cav's help so we attack together.

Sommer's proposal of slaving 10 maces army is a big gambit, we already lost a smaller one and that left us behind, lose this one and we are out completely. The most important is point 2 that mikotian made...we will be of no use to anyone if we cannot tech fast.

I can't make a reasonable decision on this because hardly any facts are presented. How many libraries would we have to build in order to build the needed universities? How long before we can even begin Oxford? As someone pointed out this will depend on the slowest city to build the university.

We only have one library in capital so 5 more libraries and 6 unis. Capital will be fast to build UNi and can start making troops after that, actau can slave fast, shymkent will be fast enough as it is a good city...the problem is the other 3 needed cities that will be slow, that is why I said no barracks and start libraries because it is the slowest cities we need to start from.

I'll try and work out some numbers and an ETA but I agree we should focus on getting Oxford. We have half price unis so we can get it quickest and our capital has a very good base commerce. The boost will be huge.

If the discussion is building up uni's and tech. Monasteries are also useful here.

Sommer's proposal of slaving 10 maces army is a big gambit, Just for clarification... Sommers NEVER made any such proposal.;)

I NEVER proposed we slave 10 maces. I said we should STOP slaving and try to grow our cities while we produce military. I also said I PREFER CATAPULTS to maces and I prefer Longbows or Crossbows to Maces, Crossbows especially, because they get 50%against melee, and do not fall victim to the 50% vs melee bonus that the SANCTA Axemen have. I only even mentioned Maces b/c Damnrunner used Maces in his explanation to Miko about what we were missing out on, going for Oxford first.

I did propose that we should build our army before we start going for Oxford. What is the point of Oxford right now? Oxford will not help us break the bottleneck.

For Oxford to be useful, our cities have to be producing enough :commerce: to run at high :science: rates. Otherwise, its just a pretty building. +100% :science: bonus when we are running at 0% science = 0:science:. We can only boost :commerce: if our cities grow. We can only grow if we STOP SLAVING. Hazrate can not support our economy all by itself.

The Apostolic Palace
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319452
The above link has info on the AP.

In short:
You need 75% of the vote and each civs vote is determined by the population of cities with the AP religion – nations with the AP religion as a state religion get x2 votes.

The concern about other teams spamming missionaries is not to likely. For example, we could build the AP after everyone already has Scientific Method and can no longer build monasteries. Then the only way to build missionaries would be to switch to the Confu religion and run monotheism. That would have a big cost to any team and would give us an advantage.

The real constraint it that no one team can contribute more than 75% of the votes to a religious victory win. Therefore it is impossible to win without at least two team voting together. However, building it still may be useful. While Sancta and Saturn obviously won’t vote for us, and Cav won’t as long as they have a good chance at winning the game, we may be able to pick up MS.

This would be a sensitive question to bring up with MS but we should consider it. They have no real chance of winning and playing the king maker role is one that could be relished depending on individual personality. Since Husch is apparently playing the game solo, he also may be interested in just ending the game.

Of course we could also throw the game and give the win to any of the teams. This could also be a used as a threat and devious negotiation tactic. For example we could demand that unless Cav and Sancta each give us X cities we give MS or Saturn the win. Then we demand that the only way to win is via space race. If done right the game would still be competitive (between Us, Cav, and Sancta) but we would greatly increase our odds of winning.

There are a number of interesting tactics along these lines which use the AP as a powerful blackmailing tool.

Thoughts / feasibility?

Either way it is probably best to build it after Scientific Method or only if we have assurances that MS will help throw the game.

Lets go for it. We have nothing to lose do we? I am serious about this. This might be our best chance to win the game. How delicious would that be? Let's Start Apostolic Palace right away, or right after Oxford.

We should get Islam though, because we don't want SANCTA getting an Islamic apostolic palace and forcing everyone esle to spam Islamic missionaries to stop them from getting an Islam religious win.

It is less likely that they would Apostilic a religion that they did not have the holy city for, because it would mean spamming the rival teams religion.

I would not be too concerned about other teams getting it - Every other team must have at least one city with the AP religion in order for the AP victory to be enabled. No one else is close.

See previous comments on waiting until after SM to start construction - unless we can work out something with MS. Anyone want to draft up a personal email to send Husch. I'd rather send to him directly than to their entire team - they may be leaky.

1st message- "Husch- we would like to discuss a proposal with you of a sensitive nature. Could we send you a private message that you would agree not to share with the other teams?"

2nd message talking points:

1. CAV or SANCTA will win the game as things stand now. Right now SANCTA is winning.
2. The possibility of your team winning at this point is very remote.
3. There is a way that we can win the game with your help, making you the 2nd place winner.
4. This would conclude this MTDG game sooner.
5. CAV and SANCTA would be greatly surprised by this unexpected victory of the lesser teams.

We need to remember that english is not Husch's first language so we need to craft the note with care.

Just side note - gifting cities would allow Sancta, Cav or MS to remove their Confu contamination.

It would be crippling - but this idea would need to be thought through.

1st message- "Husch- we would like to discuss a proposal with you of a sensitive nature. Could we send you a private message that you would agree not to share with the other teams?"

2nd message talking points:

1. CAV or SANCTA will win the game as things stand now. Right now SANCTA is winning.
2. The possibility of your team winning at this point is very remote.
3. There is a way that we can win the game with your help, making you the 2nd place winner.
4. This would conclude this MTDG game sooner.
5. CAV and SANCTA would be greatly surprised by this unexpected victory of the lesser teams.

We need to remember that english is not Husch's first language so we need to craft the note with care.

I think that 1st message makes sense. In talking point two we should indicate that it is also unlikely that we will win.

We could also vote for MS - lame but a slap in the face to everyone else. I also think that we have a good chance getting a one man team like HusCh to go along with the religious victory idea.

As far as others getting the Apostolic Palace goes, remember that we got the SoZ partly to just keep SANCTA from getting it, even after we determined that it was of little benefit to us. SANCTA might do the same with Apostolic Palace. I would not bank to heavily on this little gambit of ours being a surprise to them. SANCTA seems to have an uncanny ability to read our minds, anticipate our moves, and counter us at every turn. If we are going to do this, I think we are better off starting now and keeping it as quiet as possible. Are we sure every civ has Confu contamination? We aren't contaminated by anyones religion...

You need to be running a state religion to even build the AP.

Just side note - gifting cities would allow Sancta, Cav or MS to remove their Confu contamination.

It would be crippling - but this idea would need to be thought through.Ah yeah, I'm afraid you're right there. SANCTA would be able to defeat our plan with ease. All they would need to do is to gift their confu cities to Saturn or vice versa and our plan is bust.

It's a nice idea but I'm afraid this is just not going to work against human players :(

Gifting cities still jacks up Sancta's economy. Which is beneficial to us.

They may prefer losing cleanly due to an exploit of the AP vs. a long slow loss after destroying their economy.

We have plenty of time to act on this. I'd rather wait until confu has spread more.

But they only need to gift one city to screw us over, right? There's only one SANCTA city with confu right now.

SANCTA would be able to defeat our plan with ease. :lol:That's never stopped us from trying something before has it?!?;) Seriously though, if SANCTA gifts Phoenix to Saturn it will lose all its culture and culture making improvements. That in and of itself is a reason to build Apostolic Palace.

Phoenix is squeezing Petro. It would be huge if they had to tank Phoenix's culture to stop an Apostolic win.:goodjob: We might even be able to culture flip it with the Double Holy city Pavlodar nearby.:eek:

Also, I bet we would be able to get one religious victory vote in before they took the drastic city gifting step. Remember how reluctant Cavalieros was to gift cities?

They (SANCTA) might reason... "Hmmm Silly Kaz noobs... Don't they know you need two teams to vote for Apostolic win... hah ha, oh wait why did MS??? Nooo!!!" :goodjob: Remember, they have no respect for us... they might not believe we could pull it off.

We could also raise a huge stink in the UN about obvious city gifting to avoid an Apostolic Palace win. If SANCTA does it, we could declare that it's an unfair exploit that should be banned and demand a reload.

You need to be running a state religion to even build the AP. SANCTA already has Confu in Phoenix Mountain, they could switch to Confu at any time. They also could discover Islam at any time. Another reason to take it from them...
I'd rather wait until confu has spread more. The best time to go for Religious victory is when We have a near monopoly on Confu. I.E. right now. The longer we wait, the more Confu votes that Saturn and SANCTA get. We only need them to have one Confu city for this to work. We already have our Confu votes maxed out (once Baikonur gets Confu). Waiting only hurts us because it dilutes our Canfu monopoly.

But they only need to gift one city to screw us over, right? There's only one SANCTA city with confu right now.

It is 2 cities - the most recent screen shot shows copper kettle also has confu. Gifting away that city would be devastating.

AP is a fun thought but in all honestly guys we can't afford to keep chasing these pipe dreams one after another. We already put a bunch of beakers into universities and now oxford- meanwhile our military isnt growing. So lets get back to reality and actually focus on a realistic goal.

AP is a fun thought but in all honestly guys we can't afford to keep chasing these pipe dreams one after another. We already put a bunch of beakers into universities and now oxford- meanwhile our military isnt growing. So lets get back to reality and actually focus on a realistic goal.

Agreed - I brought it up as an interesting possibility. We should broach the idea with MS, but realistically we should plan on paying the game as it is.

Bahh... Never mind. :mad: Its obvious that this argument is a lost cause, and I'm weary of this debate. I still think we could do both at the same time but whatever... On to the next fight :goodjob:

wait, I don't understand... why can't we go for a religious victory? Let's face it we are getting owned in a conventional fight. I for one would rather pull at this particular straw right now, even if it had a small chance of success.

Hell, I'd rather have MS win than face a slow death at the hands of Sancta, frankly.

Well, I agree the religious idea is interesting but trying for it may also cause SANCTA to invade us again. That may end the game quickly for us but would also probably help SANCTA win.

Lets send a message to MS to see if it is even possible. That is the 1st step.

Then we would need someone to do a lot of game testing to determine the exact timing we would need for completing the AP. I assume that, like the UN, the AP generate and election option every x number of turns. We would need to time it so that we win the 1st election (determining who controls the AP) with over 75% of the vote. This would indicate we just built the AP for the hammer bonus and to cause trouble by holding votes on trade embargoes etc. And would indicate that it was impossible for us to win an AP victory.

Then the turn before the next election (or on the same turn depending on how the mechanics work) MS and us settle several confu missionaries (we can each only have 3 at a time) in MS cities to convert the rest of MS’s cities.

We also need to do some math to determine how the vote will play out. For example it may be necessary for MS to switch to confu as their state religion in order to get the x2 votes. However, if this is the case when does the x2 voting take effect. Could we start the election and then they switch religion or would they have to have the religion before we start the election.

Once the other teams knew what was afoot they could try to gift cities to throw off the AP win conditions. We need to test to see how this would play out in test games. For example all conditions are met and we start the election. We vote, MS votes, Sancta figures out what is going on and they gift a city to Saturn (victory conditions are no longer met). Does the election go through or not? The easiest way to prevent this would be to get confu to spread to capital cities which can’t be gifted. We can do this to Team Cav – but not Sancta / Saturn.

Just starting to build the AP without planning it out is a horrible idea.

sounds like a good idea Damnrunner. And when has threat of Sancta invasion ever stopped us? Besides, it's easier to defend than attack, especially as we have superior technology to Sancta right now. I welcome their stack into our lands and prepare to greet them with a nice fat barrage from our catapults!

If we go AP, then we must build a defensive army at the same time: cats, muskets, knights, xbows or eles.

So I think we need to do the leg work to refine our plan to attack SANCTA. CAV seems to be sticking to the earlier plan generally which is fine. We just need to adjust the timeline in coordination with them. Otherwise the whole thing will turn into a disorganized disaster.

We are pretty much in agreement to go after SANCTA when we have cannons and redcoats right? So we need to figure out a tenative turn for when we attack and then backwards plan builds, civic switches, etc.

Without concrete planning we will just be winging it turn to turn which would be hugely inefficient. For example- how many knights do we need? Should we build more or focus on units that will upgrade to redcoats and cannons? I think upgradeable units makes alot more sense because we are waiting for rifling to attack. Knight were part of the old cannon plan.

I think we can largely stick with the original plan and go at them with just cannons. A recent post on Military demographics would indicate that once we upgrade out 10+ cannons we will have significantly more power than sancta. And while I can’t check Santca’s tech progress – my read on the situation is that if we go with just cannons Santca will not yet have cannons or grenadiers. But if we wait for rifles Sancta will have both cannons and grenadiers.

My reasoning: Recent intel showed that Sancta was researching engineering - this is a prerequisite for Chemistry. I assume their plan is to tech Chem and then Steel and Mil Science. With Cav ½ way done with Steel, there is relly no way Sancta can get cannons or grenadiers before we have cannons. But with an expected upcoming golden age from the Taj – I am certain that Sancta will have both Steel and Mil Science by the time we finish researching Rifles.

My greatest concern right now would be a Santca sea attack. I think we hold back our knights and go in with just our stack of cannons with support from xbows, pikemen, and muskets.