bcool
Deity
@Bcool
I'm not sure I can construct the National Epic, work the cottages in the capital, and build AP in Gems city plus create enough units for an effective war. That is 3 of our 6 cities that can crank out units occupied doing other things. The three new cities will take some time before they can turn into whipping centers.
Also, those South Witches have been in War Preperation mode for about 15 turns now and they haven't been spotted yet. Here are some screenshots of our financial situation which isn't very good and a shot of the edge of the southern barb city about 10 tiles from Isengarde.
Okay I don't want to make the same mistake that we made in the last sgotm (not going to war early enough).
However this is a different game. If we go to war then we might have to sacrifice a lot of things. What does the war provide for us...
--a lot of population more votes
--which can build more courthouses, etc increasing our espionage output
--options for building universities (might whip a captured city for a university for example) to unlock oxford university
--which eventually will help our commerce but in the short term will not
--some diplo penalties with at least 1 AI that is pleased with the eastern witches.
--possibly some diplo bonuses if the southern witches go to war with them.
Maybe an early war isn't worth it.
Maybe we build infrastructure (I'm thinking build what we can using organized religion and slavery until we have researched education and whipped out the universities), then switch back to caste system and pacifism. Go 0% on the slider after we get education and rack up the gold, go back to 100% science once Oxford finishes.
Continue to expand slowly under peace (sheep/clams or sheep/whales city, sheep/seafood/silver/marble/fur city at least)
Build enough military to take a few barbarian cities and as an emergency defense force.
Pick up some experience taking barbarian cities (and either keeping them or giving them away for diplo bonuses) Build the HE.
Work up to a war with drafted muskets and trebs perhaps for a later grab of cities and population when our empire can better deal the expense of a larger army. Drafting and building Trebs using the HE city is probably dramatically more efficient than whipping out an army early on. And we would probably also have access to Galleons to dramatically speed up the transport of our army to key cities and locations.
I don't think we need to start warring early to win a diplo game. Especially because an early war means significant sacrifices in our tech pace or the development of key cities like the capital and GPFarm. And perhaps giving up on key wonders.
An efficient later war can pick up the population we need for the vote long before we can get the UN built. Extra cities early on is very good for a conquest/domination win. But an expensive early war against teams might hurt our victory date more than it would help.