Not sure if we really need a poll as we all know the answer, but it should focus our attentions and encourage postive action to increase our Empire.

We all know the answer? Someone want to let me in then, because I'm confused! Seriously, I have no idea what's the best thing to do here. The more arguments get made in each direction, the more confused I get.

The Mad Scientists are too far away for a quick kill to be viable. My opinion is that we should expand (REX!) for now. If MS remains uninterested in coorporating, they're going down once we've grabbed some lands. If not... We'll find someone else to kill off :lol:

We can do both just fine...

Except ofcourse that both requires hammer investment and both will send our eco down the drain. Doing both might result in a half-hearted battle against MS, not quickly brushing them off the table, while our eco is completely to the cats. We'd be left dead last (perhaps barring MS).

I have been arguing just as hard as I (politely) can for the points I see as important. That said I like Renata have no idea what the *right* thing to do is in this situation. I really badly want us to win this thing and am hoping that if I can till the soil so to speak that perhaps we can turn up a gem someone with greater knowledge of the game will take advantage of. I will say this though, the "doing both" approach never works for me. I wind up assigning too little of my attention and resources to both projects. Once one has a massive economy and a lot of cities it is doable, till then it isn't imho.

I favor just expanding by a large margin. I don't think war with MS would be easy nor that much of a quick benefit. One thing I did think we needed was some dotmapping/discussion of where to settle next so below are some of the potential next cities and an overview.



Here's the overall overview; I've marked the spots highlighted in pictures below for a rough idea of our settling picture:

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79over0000.jpg

First spot- Floodplains over the Mountains
I think this spot is a priority both because of its good land and proximity to MS. A little more exploring will help us see if we want to settle another tile west but it's definitely a good spot.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79westcity0000.jpg

Second City - Horse and Fur
I still favor this area in general as a production city for the later game - with Bio farms we could work those unused plains hills for instance. But we could also settle on the coast (can't hurt to have another coastal city) and get the furs in the city radius - it's not a bad city to go with HG rex.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79horsecity0000.jpg

Third City - Copper
Pretty Straightforward, site is not too important as this city will have a decent mix of grass hills, then cottages/farms as we need. Easy city to settle.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79coppercity0000.jpg

Fourth City - Gems
This city is still very low on food so I would hope we can settle as far south as possible to get a couple of grass farms - that's where I've marked it here.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79northcity0000.jpg

Fifth City - Eastern Silk
This city is quite far away but already has two good resources in sight, we'll definitely want it at some point. Further exploration could of course change the site by a little.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/oo25/richertc/BtS%20Demogame/79silkcity0000.jpg


Other sites are possible of course but these seem like the best/closest for now - discussion is welcome.

I don't take issue with any of those suggestions. I think 80% of our focus should be on cities that help us economically and the last city should be production oriented.

Renata, too many doves and not enough hawks on the team ;)

I like the dotmap although i think we should scout another postion for city 5, it's a 2nd wave settle imo. Little more scouting required in general, perhaps a chariot could be despatched?

I'd like to do both as per Oz's suggestion - little more detail perhaps? Oz?

Settling the gems city there means it needs a monument, 1N and it can just stay at size 2 forever working the gems, we save hammers on the monument and we get the happiness earlier...

Well, it could also get a missionary if the religion doesn't auto-spread. Size 2 forever (or until windmills/Bio, but that's still a long time) doesn't sound nearly as good when it could keep growing otherwise. I mean it's not a bad point to bring up but I prefer otherwise.

Lastly, since there's no specific thread for this either, do we have any ideas on what we need to decide before unpausing the timer? If someone had a list we could make sure we have no silly stuff (eg. planning worker moves or something) that could be done now so we don't have to hold up anything too long - obviously waiting on diplo communications is somewhat beyond our control.

It would take how long for growing normallyto pay off compared to size 2 forever?

Should pay off almost immediately, depending on assumptions (like chopped granary) - maybe 40ish commerce, 10 hammers short for a little while. If we just work the gems then it takes 22 turns to grow to size 2; working farm>farm into gems would grow to size 4 in that time. And after that we should quickly make up production/commerce since the city can still grow.

I really wanna hear how Niklas feels this all will play diplomatically. How much wiggle room do we have for stepping on toes as far as expansion is concerned? How far could we intrude on MS good graces before it is an issue? I would like to apply some pressure on them through expansion, but not so much that they cause us problems over it.

Plan for worker moves has been posted in Pre Turn since before the pause.

If the land is unclaimed then no one can moan if we stick a city on it. As far as i am aware there are no defined boundaries. Quite honestly if another team wanted the land they should have settled it or at least called dibs on it.

the spot near MS isn't in the right side of the mountains Eartlhing... they said they consider the mountains as our natural borders, so settling it that way would be almost a "casus belli" :). I prefer settling on the pass, on a plain hill, it's also a good defense point in case of war...
For the gems, I also prefer having them in the first ring as some other teams could steal them from us culturally otherwise (if we don't settle past them for now obviously).
With the current set up (currency, GW, HGs) I would go for a REX... but not much is needed to convince me the other way... I am too much close of the :devil:

edit: why is this number, 5 cities? we want to have more, but 5 now would kill our eco probably...

Well, we could certainly tell them we plan to settle that spot, since they haven't gotten around to it and all ... And encourage them to crowd Saturn instead, since we're not in a position to. I don't honestly think that settling on the plains hill would be much "better" from their point of view, since our culture will still take much of that yummy territory out of their hands.

the spot near MS isn't in the right side of the mountains Eartlhing... they said they consider the mountains as our natural borders, so settling it that way would be almost a "casus belli" :).
For the gems, I also prefer having them in the first ring as some other teams could steal them from us culturally otherwise (if we don't settle past them for now obviously).

edit: why is this number, 5 cities? we want to have more, but 5 now would kill our eco probably...

Some comments: I cannot find where at all that MS implied that - I brought this up earlier in another thread and the only thing I found was something about "settling to the north" in a chat. With MS being very uncommunicative right now I'm not basing decisions on this - I certainly don't remember that we ever agreed the mountains were going to be our boundaries, and it seems we even talked about "future negotiation" how to settle that peninsula. But to me MS can take our decision however they want really, I'd rather have the city even if they decide it's a horrible intrusion diplomatically. With the gems the only challenge I can possibly see is MS and they'd have to settle a city with no food at all and still get culture into it - it wouldn't be easy and probably wouldn't happen.

You are right about 5 being an arbitrary number though - I would guess that three (gems, floodplain, copper) are the ones we want to immediately settle. But getting as many as we can in before HG is still greater benefit than anything else - the hit to commerce would be paid off pretty fast still.

I think we should build enough cities that it does actually deal a serious blow to our economy. I am of this opinion because I think we need to take drastic action to get ahead of our rivals and expansion always pays off in the end and we will have the time to develop it before anyone can reach us. I am saying that if we don't want to attack MS, lets leverage the same distance that makes that a bad idea by doubling in size.

If we can get MS to settle towards the north for betterment of the alliance we could delay attacking them for quite a while...

A couple thoughts after reading Niklas' last conversation with Donsig. First, there may be a bit of delay between us settling in territory that MS wants and them noticing. Second, in order to actually get ahead we need to deprive one of our rivals of something, and if we were willing to entertain the notion of simply attacking MS now in breach of our treaty, why the hell not settle where they want and *then* attack them? If we are going to expand towards them at all we would of course consider those cities to be in a higher risk zone and thus demand greater protection for them.

I don't know if anyone else will like this idea, but the notion of building strategically located cities near MS and trying to get them to attack us so that we may fight defensively has enormous attraction to me. It is possible to hold off an enemy without creating a drag on one's economy if the proper arrangements are made. We are imperialistic, fighting in our territory would give us great generals much quicker than out of it...being able to crank out units with an extra promotion would go a long way to evening the odds imho.

Aggressive settling is fine in my book, if MS choose war as a consquence - well thats their choice.

I mirror KM's feelings on that one.

Still, sending a letter explaining why they should (be more cooperative :D) settle north like Oyzar said would be a more subtil way than just claim the land and then show muscles... I am fine either way, but this game will be long... perhaps we don't want to upset MS right away (to keep options opened)

Cheers

I think the sending of a letter would imply negotiating space. If it were simply a demand it could actually be more provocational than settling the land and claiming a misunderstanding afterward imho.

If we talk to them about it at all, then we can never claim ignorance. If we settle there without talking, I'm sure I can wave it away with me having been busy and us not really having discussed it formally. I would favor settling and feign innocence.

I'm Pro-Ignorance :lol:- you can put me out on the chopping block too, because I'll say I specifically searched through all their letters/treaties/chats and never found anything. (Again - really, anyone know where this was mentioned in the first place?).

If we talk to them about it at all, then we can never claim ignorance. If we settle there without talking, I'm sure I can wave it away with me having been busy and us not really having discussed it formally. I would favor settling and feign innocence.

I agree, but we DO have to be careful about getting so close that they declare instantly. I suspect they're more mature than some Game Spy people who have done everything possible, including guaranteeing their own loss, to make sure I couldn't win over a city, but it's still better to fly under the radar until we deliver a serious blow. So, settle 5 cities, but don't push them TOO hard? They aren't doing so hot so as long as we don't really irk them they'll probably hesitate.