Continental Domination - The Mongol Alternative

[dutchfire]

You will have noticed a lot of recent discussion about what to do now. There have been comments about our economical situation. People have been saying that we should stop conquering and start building. There are even some people proposing *gasp* peace *gasp*.

However, there is an alternative, an approach more common for us Mongolians. A war economy. Who cares if our science slider is at 50% and we're losing money when all our enemies are being trampled by our army? The spoils of war will more than make up for the short term costs.

Therefor I propose to you, fellow Mongolians, the following plan:

Military
This is the most important part of the game, beating your opponents. A long time ago, our continent was inhabited by 3 rival civs. We have already taken care of Napoleon, the most immediate threat. We also joined the Germans in fighting Rome. Was it to assist the peaceful Germans against the Roman invaders? No, it was because it would be profitable to us. The Roman threat has been neutralized, for now. We have already taken three of their cities, and razed a fourth. We are now ready to take another. They're power has been shattered, and their empire has been halved. It is now time to focus on our next target, Bismarck.

Our Roman war has given us some cities near Berlin, the capital of Germany. The German forces have been exhausted by their long war with Rome. It is now time to profit from this. We can move our main stack from former Roman territory to Berlin in a couple of turns after the war is finished. Taking Berlin will give the Germans a terrible blow as they'll lose their most important city, the city hosting the Pyramids. Then they'll move northeast to take out more cities


At the same time, our reinforcements, produced in our core cities, will attack from the south. After taking Essen and Cologne, it will move north along the east coast to join up with our main stack. This way, all of Germany will soon be annihilated, and we can think about attacking Rome again.


Science and Economy
I already hear you wonder "But what about our economy?". The spoils of war will cover that. Taking these German cities will yield us enough money to cover our deficit long enough to recover. After we've made peace with Rome, we will try to trade for Feudalism with them. If they don't want that (because we took most of their empire ), then we'll trade it with Germany for Civil Service just before declaring war. This might even lead Germany to revolt to Bureaucracy, and be in anarchy, while we knock them out. We'll boost research to 90% for a turn to finish Printing Press too, and we'll build an academy in Equus Aurum. With Feudalism done, we will have time to start on Guilds and Banking. These two techs will mark our economical recovery. Guilds will give our commercial cities like Equus Aurum the chance to increase their gold output by building grocers. Banking together with the Pyramids will give us something even better, as you'll see in the next paragraphs.

Civics
All these new foreign cities will have more citizens than good tiles for a while. They also need a lot of buildings, and thus hammers. By switching to slavery, we'll be able to whip this very important infrastructure in these cities, and in older cities like Paris.

Upon finishing Banking, we will make the most decisive civic switch in the game. We can now adopt Representation, Mercantilism and Caste System. This combination of civics will allow us to assign a boosted scientist in every city we've got. This will give us an extra, free, 6 beakers per city. According to my count, we should have about 20 cities, so that means about 120 beakers. Can you imagine that? That's about twice as much as our total current research.

Domestics
Our current domestics screen looks like this:


You can see three cities building wealth! Now, that will have to change. NoneOfTheAbove will stop running specialists, and will start building a few workers. The other two cities, Equus Aurum and Coppertown, will build military units, focusing on macemen and catapults.

The big, underdeveloped cities like Paris and Neapolis will be whipped a bit.
Paris will get the market, and will then start running merchants. It will also get a few workboats (possibly built by Lyons) to get the seafood back up and running. It will then be our main producer of Great People Points (merchant). The Great Merchant that will be born can be saved until we have Optics, to send him on a trade mission overseas.

We should also build the Forbidden Palace, probably in Munich. Together with the Palace in NoneOfTheAbove, this will make sure that no city will be very far away from both cities.





With all of this done, we will be the only serious civ left on our continent, and we will be very competitive with the civs overseas. The Mongols will be able to rule the earth, as they should.

[fed1943]

I agree with Warlord.

He spoke as a Mongol.

Some tiny points future will tell (Caste System or not; GMerchants destiny).
But that is the way, by sure.

Best regards,

[Lockesdonkey]

Speaking for the LDP and myself, I have to say no.

One of the very reasons that I want us to play more peacefully (not peaceful, just not warlike) is that it's so counter to the "typical" way to play Mongolia (i.e. killing everyone else). It forces us into more strategic decisions, which makes the game more interesting and hopefully keeps people engaged. The runup to war is often more interesting than the actual war itself, and short, tactical wars force us into deciding which cities to attack how and when, and when to cut off, spurring participation as people see the opportunity for their small idea to make a large difference because its implementation would change the priorities in such a way that we get X resource AND that Good Thing, instead of one or the other; and furthermore, debate always attracts people, the fiercer the better. Compare this to an all-out war to get rid of the neighbor; the small idea might accelerate the war a bit, but you don't get involved for that, do you? No. People want a bit of "glory"--"I did that"--and it's simply harder to come by when small decisions based on small ideas (grandiose strategies like the original post are fairly few and far between compared to "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to do this little thing" ideas) are almost irrelevant.

[fed1943]

I can not say Lockesdonkey is right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle.

I can just say he didn't speak about the game.

I'm not trying to belittle what he said, he spoke about what people, some

people, himself, likes and wants of the game, of this game.

Not about the game, as an objective thing, with fixed rules.

Well, I can just tell that I take the most fun from a game when search, find,

see,learn, something new for a better win (the prefixed goal).

An old saying in my land says: " tastes are not to argued about".

Best regards,

[Lockesdonkey]

I was not speaking of what some people like, but rather a good strategy to increase our sagging attendance. A lot of people have sort of dropped out of the game, and a campaign of constant destruction doesn't do much to attract posts.

[Provolution]

Yes, this is exactly the problem with this strategy, as it closes all other options, and nothing exciting is to be discussed. Keeping the Germans alive as partners, or even reducing the conquest of the Romans, would at least keep some external influence in play.

[dutchfire]

So the only thing bad about my plan is that it's too good?
Personally I play this game to win, and I have fun in doing so. I do agree that it's sometimes nicer to try variants or such, but just plainly refusing to pick the best option seems foolish.

[Provolution]

It is not necessarily the best option, I think completing the Roman War is the best thing, and time things well for the German War. So please do not underestimate your fellow players. We are not incurring handicaps on ourselves, and we do want to win.

[Joe Harker]

Surely we could still conquer Germany and Rome and still win by any other victory condition?

[fed1943]

I must say say it again:

I am with dutchfire on this one.

Best regards,

[mike6426]

I am all for this plan, because after the war(s), we can research optics, find the other continent, and use them for "external influences"

[Lockesdonkey]

The problem is that interest is sagging now, and if we lose interest now, at a critical strategic juncture (very good for debate!), we might lose a lot of potential players.

I'm speaking to the survival of the demogame. That's paramount, I think.

[Provolution]

Yes, I agree with Lockesdonkey, we need to boost the political drama by getting more options on the table. It is a bit monomanic right now, which is why some of us try to spark some debate in making different options.