After looking at the leaders we are up against, there is one in particular that has me quite worried.

Notice how the Amazons are the only ones (besides us) that did not take a financial leader. Also note, how they selected not one, but two military traits. Furthermore, note how they also chose a leader with a very dangerous UU that comes very early. A UU that even has a movement of 2.

I think it’s safe to guesstimate we know what they are most likely intending to do. And I do hope we don’t find ourselves next to them, or we can have quite a big problem on our hands.

I think we should plan a bit for this possibility now, instead of waiting until the last minute for the bad news.

After looking at the leaders we are up against, there is one in particular that has me quite worried.

Notice how the Amazons are the only ones (besides us) that did not take a financial leader. Also note, how they selected not one, but two military traits. Furthermore, note how they also chose a leader with a very dangerous UU that comes very early. A UU that even has a movement of 2.

I think it’s safe to guesstimate we know what they are most likely intending to do. And I do hope we don’t find ourselves next to them, or we can have quite a big problem on our hands.

I think we should plan a bit for this possibility now, instead of waiting until the last minute for the bad news.

If we see them nearby, should we consider researching Hunting so we can build spears?

I would think that should go without question. There is also a lot of extra emphasis now on where we may find some badly needed copper. If we have none, we'd also have to burn off beakers on archery too (yuk).

Whenever we meet them, I think our diplo priorities are to let them know that since we are the only two teams without financial, are are in fact on the SAME TEAM. And if they wish to pillage someone else's cottages, we'd be willing to give them extra resources and techs all free of charge, so they need not worry of falling behind. And I truely believe we should honour that too.

If they want to war with someone, it's best to be not against them. I am all to happy to see everyone else's cottages go up in flames.

I would think that should go without question. There is also a lot of extra emphasis now on where we may find some badly needed copper. If we have none, we'd also have to burn off beakers on archery too (yuk).

Whenever we meet them, I think our diplo priorities are to let them know that since we are the only two teams without financial, are are in fact on the SAME TEAM. And if they wish to pillage someone else's cottages, we'd be willing to give them extra resources and techs all free of charge, so they need not worry of falling behind. And I truely believe we should honour that too.

If they want to war with someone, it's best to be not against them. I am all to happy to see everyone else's cottages go up in flames.

I'm in agreement there -- definitely pay them off -- at least until Immortals are obsolete (no offense :lol:)

EDIT: nevermind

Just for reference...

AMAZON

Leader: Cyrus
Traits: Imperialistic & Charismatic
Techs: Agriculture & Hunting
Unique Unit: Immortal (Chariot w/ +50% against archers)
Unique Building: Apothecary (Grocer w/ +2 health)

CDZ

Leader: Ragnar
Traits: Financial & Aggressive
Techs: Fishing & Hunting
Unique Unit: Berserker (Maceman w/ free Amphibious promo & +10% city attack)
Unique Building: Trading Post (Lighthouse w/ free Nav promo to ships)

MERLOT

Leader: Pacal II
Traits: Financial & Expansive
Techs: Mysticism & Mining
Unique Unit: Holkan (Resourceless Spearman, immune to first strikes)
Unique Building: Ball Court (Colosseum w/ +3 happy)

QUATRONIA

Leader: Hannibal
Traits: Financial & Charismatic
Techs: Fishing & Mining
Unique Unit: Numidian Cavalry (Horse Archer w/ free Flanking promo, +50% against melee units & -1 base strength)
Unique Building: Cothon (Harbor w/ +1 TR)

SIRIUS

Leader: Willem van Oranje
Traits: Financial & Creative
Techs: Fishing & Agriculture
Unique Unit: East Indiaman (Galleon w/ strength 6, +1 cargo, enters borders w/o OB)
Unique Building: Dike (Levee w/ +1hpt on water tiles)

We should think up what the most likely paths/strategies these teams are going to take early game and work on a counter so we have something planned once we learn who our close neighbours are etc.

making contact with our neighbors as early as possible definitely will be important. As Javidbing said if would be a good idea for us to plan for the possible scenarios, especially ending up next to cyrus and willem (culture wars early on with creative leaders can be just as fun as immortals).

To the point Obsolete made is if we and Amazon are the only non financial civs and if that is direction in which our diplomacy should go, don't you think that we might face a block of 4 nations against our two?

To the point Obsolete made is if we and Amazon are the only non financial civs and if that is direction in which our diplomacy should go, don't you think that we might face a block of 4 nations against our two?

I'd say probably not. Just because the others are all financial doesn't mean they won't quarrel amongst themselves. ;)

[off topic] on a side note, Civ really needs a way for you to perform espionage missions in order to frame another civ...i.e. make civ A angry at civ B for performing this espionage business when it really was you. Then civ B would get mad at civ A for false accusations, etc. etc. (I thought of this because while typing the relevant sentence my mind started thinking about instigating quarrels).[/off topic]

Cut and pasted from the other thread, these are my thoughts on the other teams (in a nutshell):

So no other Spiritual civs at all, 4 Financial civs, and no other philosophical civs.

Cyrus is the most interesting choice, as obsolete has said in the war room thread - definitely the most warlike of the other civs. Two warring traits (both IMP and CHA are kind of half and half, but tend towards war) and Immortals (one of the most dangerous UUs in MP, simply because it's a two-mover) make this faction by far the most dangerous.

The good thing about a chariot/horse archer rush is that it's easy to stop if we know when and where it's coming. All you need is half a dozen spears, and you can pretty much trade 1:1 with the attacker's units. With shorter lines of supply and home-field advantage, that usually adds up to victory.

Willem is a fairly typical leader - just an economic powerhouse really, with two massive traits.

Ragnar's a bit more dangerous, but I have a feeling he's been chosen more for his traits than his UU. Aggressive is a bit weak in MP, as the only units that benefit are one-movers.

Pacal will be quite dangerous simply because of the speed with which he can get Holkans out. The fact that they're resourceless means they can be pumped immediately upon discovery of BW. The good news? They're absolutely pwned by axes.

Hannibal's another 'stock' strong economic leader with a 2-move UU. These are a bit more dangerous than Immortals, but come slightly later.

I'd say probably not. Just because the others are all financial doesn't mean they won't quarrel amongst themselves. ;)

[off topic] on a side note, Civ really needs a way for you to perform espionage missions in order to frame another civ...i.e. make civ A angry at civ B for performing this espionage business when it really was you. Then civ B would get mad at civ A for false accusations, etc. etc. (I thought of this because while typing the relevant sentence my mind started thinking about instigating quarrels).[/off topic]

Problem is, that if each mission costs espionage points, and those espionage points are visible, then you don't need to do very much C&D work to work out who the real instigator is.

Problem is, that if each mission costs espionage points, and those espionage points are visible, then you don't need to do very much C&D work to work out who the real instigator is.

thats one thing i never understood about espionage... ...its meant to be a HIDDEN thing, so why the hell you do you see the spy-points others invested in you:crazyeye:

Unique Unit: Immortal (Chariot w/ +50% against archers)

There is actually one piece of good news in there that you forgot BluePants. The immortal has a base strength of 4, while chariots have 5.

If we have no copper, we have to decide about an Iron Gamble, or going archery. Archers also suck here, not just because being on defensive sucks, but immortals get that 50% vs them.

Even if we find a good piece of Copper somewhere, it has to be secured. But I'm pretty sure once they see even one single spear, they will pretty much abort most invasion plans. In fact, we may be able to BLUFF it as well.

I'm wondering how many here have experience with members on AMAZON? Are they the type that are willing to go down in flames just to have some PUNCHING fun? I did get that idea from their PUBLIC discussion. Their team seemed to be more interested in female warriors than anything else.

There is actually one piece of good news in there that you forgot BluePants. The immortal has a base strength of 4, while chariots have 5.



Er what? Have you been playing as Egypt lately? :p

Yes, I am quite familiar with WAR CHARIOTS. Does it show? :P

I am sorry, but that was the ONLY good news I had to say about immortals. :(

Thanks obsolete for starting this thread, I think it's important for people to highlight the biggest threats that they see in this game. Obviously, at the moment an immortal rush is the biggest threat.

What Obsolete has touched on is something which I think is paramount, getting "war insurance" of some sort, i.e putting into place strategies that make our team less likely to be a target. This would involve things like researching feudalism/guilds quickly, building fewer cottages and shinies etc... The best strategy however to keep the peace (which will probably be our main aim early on as many others have early UU's, pacal, hannibal and of course Cyrus) is obviously diplomacy. We really need to focus on diplomatic emphasis to secure our backsides because there is quite a high chance that we will be the targets if we're close enough.

I believe that we are prime target for a few main reasons:
1) Even though as obsolete pointed out we will have fewer cottages to pillage, I think that having the mids and a founded religion will outweigh that in terms of being a target.

2) They will see that we are going for reli's/wonders and thus may be skimping on defense early on. Also, comparatively we are a better target by way of traits/UUs compared to Pacal and Ragnar, even willem's cre and Hanni's Cha are minor deterrents.

3) They will be desperate to actually put their UU to use. If you have chosen Persia and specifically Cyrus it probably means that you are banking on getting some Immortal action happening. I would think that the map creator has realised this and put horses within reach as well as another neighbour (who isn't pacal) not too close but just close enough to hit with the rush. If we are that neighbour then we will probably have copper close enough and will need to get that quicksmart.

TBH, Immortals themselves aren't nearly as powerful against us as they are against AI. Basically, if we have copper (I'll go on the assumption that we can procure it as fast as they do horses, and that our fast workers make up for their cheap first settler), it's no different than a regular chariot rush. We wouldn't have gone for Archery anyway, IMO.

Whether their plan includes early pestering with Immortals is a separate issue. Probably... I wouldn't worry about it so much. Doubt Dave put them in a position to really hurt us too early, and all we'll need should we see them next door is Hunting, which is probably 2-3t with gems or two.

Pacal team: They start without any food techs, so it's fair to assume they won't go religion first. Personally, I almost prefer they did, since we could just see which they teched by the time we finish Agriculture.

I'd be surprised if we didn't have a source of copper nearby - but I also won't be surprised if it's in a hard-to-secure location early.

Someone mentioned before that if we allied with Amazom, we'd be facing 2 v 4 - and that's highly unlikely considering how difficult it is to get even 2 teams allied together, let alone 4. If we DO get put next to Amazon, then we should probably do our best to give them "incentives" to ally with us.

This starts with a Non-Aggression Pact and cordial greetings/messages to eah other (well, in my opinion).

That 2 v 4 scenario is my fear, because of the following presumption. Let's say we do team up with Amazon, since they are the only team which have chose unusual leader. And if we start working with them on those cottage pillages in order to get some cash back home. I think we as might as see all teams against us, since they would all protecting their strength (financial trait). Now of course a lot will depend on geography which is to be seen when the game start.

I just think it’s so comical every time I think about it. Of all the Persian leaders, they picked the one for sure 99% of players would have abandoned. Darius I is so powerful that it’s been said he’s the strongest in the game. Financial/Org. In fact, this is part of the reason why Firaxis delayed making him available for so long. The killer UU is just extra icing on the cake.

But no… they don’t take the (overpowered) leader… they take the war-monger Persian leader instead. The one who has absolutely no economic traits. Haha.

It is either a very smart move, or very dumb, we shall see. At least I can see where IMP speeds up settler expansion, and charismatic adds an extra happy or two. So if they find out they have no horses, there is a little bit of compensation.

It is certainly not as bad a mistake as taking Tuku, but in both instances, they are announcing their cards before the hand is over.

I think with Cyrus they're more likely to try and align themselves with one of the strong tech civs against a common enemy. They would of said that with Darius they would be too big a target, now with Cyrus they might be able to try and take people out early (either by force with their UU or with a good REx.) but you never know the real reasoning behind it.

Maybe I'm overthinking this.... but I've been thinking about what babybluepants said -- the Immortals get a bonus vs Archers... who builds archers in MP (honestly, I don't know -- but I would guess it would be nobody unless absolutely necessary).

Maybe this obvious "showing of cards" is an attempt to get a neighbor to build spears instead of axes? Then they march a stack of axes?

Or maybe, they are just hoping for a resourceless neighbor.

Egypt always seemed better to me for a chariot rush against humans...


A contingency plan for bad early neighbours sounds essential with our wonder building. Just too big a target...

Figure the key kicker is what our early scouting reveals...

Well, if they can get to a human in time to prevent a copper mine (which is certainly conceivable), Immortals could be just hell to deal with.

I just can't, for the life of me, understand the choice of Cyrus. He is so clearly inferior to Darius in every way. Either they are really gambling on an effective choke and settler spam to get themselves huge early, or they are just being silly. Probably a bit of both, IMHO. In the former case, I would probably much prefer Hattie myself. There is no economic upside, so they are gonna need to secure a really great alliance to get anywhere.

As for our plans, they'll just have to take an adjustment if and when we meet our neighbors and learn something about the map setup. Hard to speculate like this...

going techwise-agri-bronze (see sandkasten) should be all around safest (for reli, we should be able to secure Mono pretty easy if we want...)

Mono is pouring beakers down a dead-end tech tree. If we go after a religion other than the early cheap two, then maybe CoL with our fast tech speed? We need CoL anyway for various things.

But I do think it is such a waste to start with myst, and throw away the whole advantage of getting a religion from a tech that we need to research early in the game anyway. Most people hate Myst because it doesn't allow your workers to do anything. I think we should use it very early to maximize its advantage, or else it's almost giving us a disadvantage here by taking up a precious worker-tech slot.

Ok so firstly I think that The Mike had a very good point about the immortal bluff and a stack of axes showing up, one which we should keep in mind, (obviously this all depends on the map).

But secondly, while I agree that copper will probably be close enough and Immortals probably won't wipe us out in the BC's, we should STILL be worried about a Dow, mostly because no matter how ineffective the war is, it will still slow us down considerably relative to the other teams. As people have pointed out, the ONLY reason that you would go for Cyrus over Darius is to expand quicker (although this is highly debatable when you're going up against Fin/Org) and WAR. This means that if they have a plan for winning it probably involves a lot of war to keep up with the Fin civs.

However, this means that they will also be relying heavily on diplomacy to secure their backsides if they're at war, this means that in the event that we aren't their current target, we could potentially profit because they would be desperate for allies and desperate to keep up with the other civs.

One thing is clear, the Cyrus team isn't looking to keep up and win through peaceful teching...

I don’t know about this axeman trick. If they really wanted to go axes, they should have at least chosen aggressive. They would have had a free promotion for each of them AND a super-cheap BARRACKS which practically counts as giving them 2 promotions free.

The way they are doing this, is such a costly endevour on many fronts, I’m not sure what to say.

I think when summed up logically, they just don’t know what they are doing?

I even debate sometimes if they accidentally chose the wrong Persian leader by accident and no one noticed.

Assuming we are not on one of those silly donut maps, because we have our backs against the sea it is most likely that the first person we come across will be sandwiched between us and someone else. Thus they will have quite a bit to worry about.

I don't think they would all band together just because they are financial and their cottages are being pillaged. What's stopping them from taking advatage of that and doing to same to each other?

I was racking my brains about Cyrus over the weekend... could it be some kind of strategy involving fast expansion to big(ish) cities leveraging their fast settlers and boosted happy cap. Probably planning to use the henge for free monuments?

Frankly for warmongering there just seem a number of flat out better choices?

Guys, Niklas just calculated from the Demographics, that the Amazons are now officially going after AH to get their immortals online.

This is not just an ESTIMATE, or GUESTIMATION. It is a 100% fact. A totally certifiable calculation. The Amazons are researching AH now to find some sucker who falls for their IMPS-TRICK.

We may be out of their range at the moment, but we could also be their closest neighbour. I guess it's time to shift into Yellow Alert, for now, with a strong possibility of going into Red depending what happens in the near future.

I will be very worried if we have trouble finding copper.

Hopefully we don't have to change our Oracle engineering, or this could really mess up our plans.

I agree there - Cyrus with AH first would not make a pleasant neighbour. Spears are the only sensible answer... finding copper, settling/mining/roading it, hunting - it's a long sidetrack. :( Lets hope they're a 'SEP' (someone elses problem!)

Hopefully copper will be around, as it's an MP hand built map, I'd really hope it is... but that's no guarantee!

:lol:only good, that agri-bronze is our techpath anyways... ...settling 2nd city near/on the brown stuff now might rise a little in priority...

Suddently setting on top of the copper if it's on the hill 3W seems much more palatable than before.

Yellow alert it is, but for now this is just a state of general caution. If we happen to MEET the Amazons soonish, that's a big cause for alarm. But for now, for all we know we might be on an archipelago map, which would severely diffuse the level of their threat.

Well, I don't see how knowing this changes anything for us. :) Like Snaaty pointed out, we're going Agri-BW regardless. For all we know, Amazon have a pig in their BFC. I wouldn't be concerned unless we meet them in the first 10t.

We will be very vulnerable until around T-60. So I'd rather worry a bit about it now, instead of later when we have an "Oh Sh*t!!" moment at the last second. I have certainly no desire to be taken out by a bunch of rookies :P

Anyhow, I believe we are playing on a continent's map, so indeed they may not even be on our continent. If this is indeed archipelago, and they are stuck on a tiny island, I'm sure we will hear no end to how they got their starting strategy nerfed and how unfair that was to their leader.

I think this is more like last game, a pangea but with some extraneous islands to make the land more interesting.

Trust me, there's no way team Amazon is going to be stuck on an island. They'll definitely have at least 1 direct neighbor. Let's hope that it's not us.

Hiya, I'm pretty late to the party it seems, and currently drowning in a sea of posts I need to study before I can be of any use :) Anyway, this is a good enough place to start as any I guess.

Suddently setting on top of the copper if it's on the hill 3W seems much more palatable than before.

I would think a settled-on plains hill Copper is by far the most optimal place to have it. Losing a single :hammers: / t (because it still gives an effective +1 on a plains tile) feels nothing compared to the pillage-proofing, plus the hill on top makes it very hard to take down.

About the Amazon team and their leader pick & player personalities... Well, I guess it's no secret that TMIT is known for his unorthodox strategies based on "virtual power" and denying enemy opportunities rather than go for pure power for himself through science. The only other player I know there is mariogreymist, who's a Marathon player with the Immortal as his avatar... I think that tells enough :)

My reasoning for them picking Cyrus is this: they want to give the impression of being the most dangerous of the bunch - after all 4 of the others are FIN, who probably want at least some cottages even early on, so they will theoretically have less hammers to put in military. Now, this leads everyone to fear them most by far (as evident by the discussion in this thread as well), which in turn makes people hesitate settling towards them and favor settling towards others instead. This would create somewhat of a no-mans land or a settling vacuum, which they aim to fill with IMP Settlers. Land is power, so they could gain an economic lead through land alone.

I wouldn't count out Immortals as a MP UU here just because Spears stomp all over them. Settling towards that team can indeed be really annoying, with 2-move harassers that cannot be countered by cheap city defense. Workers would need more escorting, which in turn can make the cities more vulnerable to a bum rush from a dozen Immortals. A huge harass-helper thing about Immortals that didn't get mentioned yet I think is that they receive defensive bonuses. This makes them infinitely better as harassers compared to regular Chariots. A single dude sitting on a forest hill in the middle of someone's empire can tie up tons of resources and be relatively resilient to Spear attack (since it can dodge them as well if threatened).

This is exactly what was said on the map:

Map Vote

Mavericks
1. Archipelago/Snaky Continents
1. Global Highlands
3. Wheel

AMAZON
1. Mapmaker's Choice
2. Snaky Continents
3. Global Highlands

Sirius
- Standard or larger map, sea level adjusted accordingly for six teams
- Contact between all teams should be possible via land or coast, but NOT ocean
- Our preference is in the direction of a continents/islands setup rather than pangaea
- We think it would be a good idea to have at least some initially uninhabited islands (something the last map lacked)
- Overall though we vote for the mapmaker's choice as to the layout

CDZ
1. Donut
2. Wheel
3. Mapmaker's Choice

Merlot
1. All civs will have land contact with each other.
2. All civs will have roughly equal land quality
3. All civs will have roughly equal land quantity
4. All civs will have roughly equal distance from each other
5. All civs will have either coastal or non coastal starts (all or none)

Quatronia
1. Mapmaker's choice
2. Archipelago/Snaky Continents
3. Donut

Based on these results, I will be designing a custom mystery map for the Demogame. I already have several ideas about what to do, thanks to great suggestions from several of the teams.

So there's 4 civs here that have stated a preference for a watery map of some description. I have a very strong feeling that Dave will have taken this into consideration. Some other things to note:

- 3 out of 6 have specifically asked for archipelago/snaky continents as their first specific preference
- only 2 civs have expressed preference for a Pangaea, with Sirius on the fence.
- Donut (which is a common Pangaea MP map choice) was only mentioned twice.

Based on this, I think the chances of us having a Pangaea map are negligible. My feeling is, as I said in the other thread, that he'll have gone for a more archipelago-like map, with some civs separated by water (but not ocean). My guess is a 2-2-2 continent split.

@Silu,
Nice. IMP settlers obviously go well with a successful early choke.
I completely forgot about the defensive bonuses thing with Immortals, not having played them in quite some time. :eek2:

@v8,
I tend to agree with your estimation. The nerfing of GLH supports it, as well. We're not isolated, though, I'd think.

Just a random thought: how good of a strategy would it be to "accidently" drop some not-so-true intel on our plans? The only way I could see this be feasible would be having a very inexperienced player insinuate something...somewhere. I have no experience with this kind of game, so I'm just saying what pops into my head...;)

I am curious, how many turns do you think it will take Ragnar to get the circumnav bonus (without any intervention?).

I still wonder if it's feasible to make a plan to stop him in time with triremes. We may actually be able to get it ourselves, but we'd have such a late start :(

For all we know circumnav might not be possible until Optics anyway.

its also very likely that we can stop other teams from passing by simply by NOT opening borders... ...if that isnt viable, i dont see how we could stop them with triremes, cause that would mean that you could circumnavigate without passing by our cities... ...and sending out heaps (or 2) triremes just to scout possible passages... ...:crazyeye:... ...where should the production for them come from;)

50 hammers per trireme. Our capital could build/whip two of them after the granery. One heads West and the other East. If no one lets us pass, we just DoW anyway and pass. How the hell is anyone going to stop triremes, I'd like to seriously see them do that. Are they going to whip 3 or 4 galleys to attack us, just to sink us because we are tresspassing? Even the Amazons shouldn't be that incompatent.

For all we know circumnav might not be possible until Optics anyway.

Still wouldn't hurt to try - besides finding who's where on the map, even in a general sense would be vital intel. Bare minimum I'd say three triremes - one each for scout/explore east and west and a third to stay behind to kill trespassing units/barbs.

i cant convince myself to like the concept of investing hammers in triremes going somewhere... ...far away... ...seems a waist to me... ...my usual doing would be:

1. get 1 wb out fast, to find some neighbours (cheap...)
2. dont piss of my neighbours and always ask politely if i can pass through
3. if i can take the circum... ...fine, if not... ...fine
4. be prepared to chop a trireme in one of mycostal cities (preechop and road 2 forests + have the possibility to get 10 hammers in 1 turn) to take on "intruders"

i never ever would actively piss off my neighbours, cause winning or loosing in most (all?) games vs HI (im refering to games NOT in the lobby, games without timer like pbm, pitboss, demogames) depends on your diplo (thats also a reason why i dont understand the banning of the greatlighthouse... ...usually the civ building it ends up with no open boders, no techtrades, and lots of enemies, so in most hi games its... ...not so cool to have it, cause you tend to be isolated pretty fast:lol:)

EDITH wants to add on a side note for the greatlighthouse (glh):
usually you end up having currency traded or researched by turn 90+/- with techtrade allowed. so you will have 2 traderoutes of 3 gold with foreign civs... ...with the glh you will have in most cases 3 internal traderoutes with 2 gold, from say turn 80 on (you need to build the thing AND get 3 cities up on islands) and you will fall behind in tech due to isolation at least a little so currency for you comes later... ...i dont really see the glh beeing overpowerded in hi games but well... ...i wouldnt advise to build it anyways, so cant say i really care...

i never ever would actively piss off my neighbours, cause winning or loosing in most (all?) games vs HI (im refering to games NOT in the lobby, games without timer like pbm, pitboss, demogames) depends on your diplo (thats also a reason why i dont understand the banning of the greatlighthouse... ...usually the civ building it ends up with no open boders, no techtrades, and lots of enemies, so in most hi games its... ...not so cool to have it, cause you tend to be isolated pretty fast:lol:)


Exactly this. Especially with tech trading on, diplomacy becomes the number 1 aspect to this game.

From my understanding about pitboss games, people are always DoWing just to kill everyone else's cheap workboat. So I don't see the big harm as everyone should understand.

Also, for less than half the investment extra of a workboat, we can get a trireme.

Anyhow, since the circumnav doesn't seem that special to you Snaaty, just wait until Ragnar gets it much later... I think everyone may look at this differently then:P Hopefully we can get some sort of block-faction against them. It should be expected, but people often get stuck into prisoner-dilema problems, and someone always gives in eventually.

By the war, the Oracle issue worries me now, particularly after this new lighthouse change. There will be much more focus on oracle without the lighthouse, and I'm sure it's already been suggested to most (if not all) the teams by now about an Oracle --> MC plan for Collossus, PARTICULARLY amoung the financial leaders (sad to say is most of our enemies).

From my understanding about pitboss games, people are always DoWing just to kill everyone else's cheap workboat. So I don't see the big harm as everyone should understand.

People do it, but there's always a diplomatic cost. There's likely to be a set of alliances within the game - a large part of the game will be won and lost on this basis. If we anger the wrong people, and we wind up on the wrong end of a 2v1 on our continent or somesuch... well, it doesn't look such a good deal suddenly.

By the war, the Oracle issue worries me now, particularly after this new lighthouse change. There will be much more focus on oracle without the lighthouse, and I'm sure it's already been suggested to most (if not all) the teams by now about an Oracle --> MC plan for Collossus, PARTICULARLY amoung the financial leaders (sad to say is most of our enemies).

I would doubt that, out of the blocks, anyone will be able to get Oracle before us, particularly if they want MC from it. We start with Mysticism, which is a huge advantage for a super-early Oracle gambit. Our start is going to be geared almost wholly towards getting the Oracle.

I would doubt that, out of the blocks, anyone will be able to get Oracle before us, particularly if they want MC from it. We start with Mysticism, which is a huge advantage for a super-early Oracle gambit.

We start with Myst, but have to research aggriculture anyway... and the guy with aggriculture only has to research Myst. It's a wash!

Also, from reading the Lighthouse thread on the public forum, I see now that indeed many people are complaining about exactly this, the collossus is going to be over-powered. It doesn't matter if the wonder really is, or isn't. This is what THEY tend to believe right now. So you can bet on it, this Oracle-MC shot is being talked about in many of the other private forums.

How many actually end up pursuing it is another story. But I have high doubts the Amazons are going to do that. They want to capture it maybe... haha! But the financial leaders would love to have it, they always want it.

We'll see how it goes by following the demographics closely. If someone founds a religion early, well, we know what goes next. We can't really get it any faster than we're already planning for, so no reason to worry about that which we cannot change. ;)

Actually, we CAN get it faster by using more chops on the trees in the West and ignoring Mono IIRC, but then we sacrifice a bunch of things, which is the problem.

I support Obsolete's idea of getting triremes and using those for blocking scouting from other civs, since it looks like archy map and there should be some chokepoints. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how wise it would be that we DOW on someone who doesn't want us to scout their land.

If it happens that we do DOW, than we can pillage like crazy.

And pardon my ignorance, when does the blockade option becomes available?

^ You can blockade from the get-go with Galleys and Triremes. Might be an important aspect here, denying intercontinental(+ international) routes can be a huge economy hit.

That island find makes me think that our home island is safe from invasion until Astro, but can still reach a common "playground" due to culture. I don't think it's a coincidence that you can only reach that island with culture, and with 1 borderpop exactly from the no-brainer in-spot settle or the next best seafood-gamble capital spot. Would be good news for us :)

It looks like the first priority the war department had, has now blown over. There is no defense plan needed for Imps anymore. However…

I am becoming very, very, very trigger itchy for a naval war now that we have a great chance for an early un-touchable trireme navy, at half-price manufacture BTW. We will have to contest with our neighbours eventually, so why not now in our prime, and keep them crippled for the rest. No one is going to have alphabet for a while anyway.

Operation Trireme?

Operation Tri and stop us??

By half-price you mean PS+Forge? To get the nitpicking out of the way that would make for "67%-price" boats :) Taking the full advantage of our possible early Triremes would be nice, though 1) I don't think we can really say this way or that before knowing more about the map 2) MC will be a big, big priority for the other Civs to slow-research as well, so we should be wary of vengeful 3-move Viking boats if things go that way :)

Operation Tri and stop us??
:lol:

By half-price you mean PS+Forge? To get the nitpicking out of the way that would make for "67%-price" boats.

You are correct, and I guess I shouldn't have tried to bullsh*t that past congress so easily :P

Naturally we can't tell for now yet if we even do have close opponents that could be attacked, but we should start drafting up something ahead of time, instead of waiting till the last second again.

I really would try to avoid a war with Raggy also, but if we have a chance to cripple them NOW, that's much better than waiting for their UU to get online. As soon as fishing is in after we've finished our Mids quest, I guess we can whip a pop for a 30 hammer workboat. Then send it off East while we get a galley up after Sailing to see what we can settle that direction. Then come the triremes. If we don't get into a war, we should at least have some naval plan to BARB-FARM off barb-galleys to get to level IV somewhere.

It may be hard to find enough barb galleys around, but maybe we can lure them from all parts of the globe with our first WB and then sink them that way.

I'm sure Snaaty will want to disagree with me here, but I really am itching for a naval war. Oh, and BTW... GOD WILLS IT!

Then it must be so. (Yeah, I too would love a naval war.)

If we do get Triremes early, we can wreak havoc on a neighbor civ. If they have settled off of their island, basically we can divide their empire by sea. Once we discover where the bulk of their military lives, we can invade the weaker land mass :lol::lol::lol:

I feel so dirty!

When we blockade a neighbour and one-by-one take all his islands as they watch, we will have to let the others know they need to STAY OUT of it. We'll give them the excuse that Amazon's (or whoever) attacked one of our workboats, or TRIED to sink one of our galleys. Haha! So that excuse should save relations for a while with the others.

As I understand it, as long as you DoW a nation before someone else knows either of you, they can't tell who did the DoW first correct? Maybe we can come up with some other excuse, that they threatened us or were simply RUDE to us :P

As I understand it, as long as you DoW a nation before someone else knows either of you, they can't tell who did the DoW first correct?
Nope, not correct. The F4 screen will stupidly still list the -3 "You declared war on us" modifier, in the proper direction.

That said, the diplo department should be able to handle it like you say. :D

Well that’s just wonderful (not).

Regardless, it looks like we can be 98% sure at this point that attack in & out from our spot before Astro can only be from the East. At least this COULD make things easier for us. We could set up galley ferry/transfer points along that coast to speed up the movement of troops/etc just a little.

We could also just waltz into first team's territory and wait for them to dow in us. Or when they tell us to leave, we tell them to buzz of:D

If we can pull off getting MC, I'd press strongly for a substantial trireme fleet to stuff a neighbor, perhaps two. Perhaps designate a city early to just trireme production after a few essentials are taken care of (namely granary)? I think the more we have, the better we'll be able to pull this off. Two - three a civ depending on how the map is made (maybe only one if there's only one tile a civ can move to to land on the mainland) ought to be enough to block everyone.

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Alright, time to dust off the old battle-plans and start getting some plans down soon. Looks like it is inevitable we are gong to have a 2vs1 dogpile here by YOU KNOW WHO!

Despite we know what's coming, we STILL may be able to get a pre-emptive strike. Hopefully at least taking a city or some such booty. So, let's still act like retards who are trying to be friends, but get some real decisive plan in place.

Unfortunately, right now our strongest land-unit is the warrior, haha! This is going to be a bit painful since Amazons are going to spam their Immortals after all.

Since Cyrus is going to eventually get a whole line on our demographics in the near future, I may have no choice now but to re-target our spy pts back against him. I THINK that should block him? I'm not 100% sure how the mechanics work in the current patch. Does it go by total points accumulated, or by how many SPECIFIC pts we sent against that specific civ to make his viewing on us harder?

Anyhow, here is Hannibal's powergraph. Note that we should have a small spike next turn since we'll pop both another warrior and our first galley.

http://img37.imagefra.me/img/img37/8/7/14/obsolete/f_sqg8hm_5fb5db9.jpg