The MoDA's GDP (draft version)

The Global Domination Plan (GDP) (draft version)

Now that WLTP has ended the MoDA (Ministry of Domestic Affairs) recommends that we start expanding again, improving land and building caravans. The outlines of an expansion and development plan presented below are intended for discussion, they will be presented in a more detailed form later as a result of the discussion.

The two maps below show where to improve land:

R=Road
W=Irrigation

The highest priority terrain improvements are underlined.





The following two maps show possible future city sites. C1 to C4 are where I think we should build cities next. The C's show possible future sites but it's possible that we should arrange them differently.




For this all we need 4 settlers to found cities and I think we should build 2-3 additional settlers to improve the land on our main continent. FJ and BP will also soon build settlers. These should probably be used to improve the land in our colonies.

The question is when, where and how to build these settlers. Since most of our cities do not generate many shields we should IMO rush buy 6 settlers once we receive our next delivery bonus in a few turns. The question is where to build the settlers. Candidates: RF, LP (has an Elvis), EF, Nae, FW and Ipec. The RF, Ipec, LP and FW settlers would found cities C1 to C4. For this we probably need two additional triremes, probably from BS and Naer. The other two settlers would be used for improving the land on our main continent.

The cities that will not build settlers should start building caravans now. These should be IPRB'd, we want Dou to finish Isaac Newton's College ASAP. Dou should probably IPRB three caravans for the next three turns. They cost $125 each but the delivery bonus is big. If $$ is needed for this (can happen if we haven't recently delivered a caravan) just raise taxes to 50-70% for one turn. Dou should also build a bank ASAP.

The caravans built by other cities (not Dou) should be used both for wonder building and domestic trading, the priority is to deliver caravans from cities that do not have a trade route. The final goal is three trade routes in each city. The question is how many caravans should be used for a wonder and how many for establishing trade routes. An important fact here is that the big delivery bonuses we are now regularly receiving make it possible to buy wonders.

Comments, criticism and more detailed ideas for implementing this or a similar plan wanted !

Arrggghh, the upload server seems not to be working. Here is the land improvement plan.

The upload server works now but is extremely slow so here is the city plan just in case.

Regarding the “Domination” plan:
The Science ministry suggests no less than 3 new settlers should be devoted to terrain improvements on the home continent. RF, LP and Neu, Naervana seem the most likely candidates. If you can squeeze another two or three settlers for expansion somewhere, go for it.

However, we should get at least one caravan out of those cities before switching to settlers.

Even with a couple upcoming caravan deliveries, we will be a bit short on the cash necessary for rushbuilds due to the quite unexpected expenditure of over 600g on aqueducts (which now requires 30% luxuries to maintain order in our large cities).

The Science ministry will approve a temporary reduction to 40% science *If* our funds are spent on getting caravans for foreign deliveries, internal trade routes and SSC wonders (Newt, Shake) and possibly a couple ships to deliver foreign goods. The ministry will also support the aforementioned six-or-so settlers, and completion of the in-progress improvements so that production in those cities can be switched to caravans as well. It is expected that the extra beakers from trade deliveries will make up the amount lost by reducing the science rate.

As for city placement, the jungle does not seem to make C4 a good site. Either C1 or the GL square directly south of it (with another city near the specials north of there) would be my first choice. We might want to consider putting a city where it gives the Greeks something to think about as well.

Regarding the terrain improvement plan:
The recommendations for terrain improvements around Doughnutia are inadequate. Doughnutia gives us the best “bang-for-the-buck” on our trade and specialists, and thus should be our highest priority for both roads and irrigation. Every flat square (plains, grass) must have roads and should be irrigated. The pheasant should also get a road since it is on a river and will also give extra trade. These should all be high priority. Once that is done, we should go through the process of cutting down the non-special forests so that they can support trade as well but that is quite a ways in the future.

LC should get more emphasis than is called for in the plan. This city has the potential to be a very powerful city, but it is currently limited. The grassland squares in its SE quadrant should be roaded (one is already being worked, for no trade). More irrigation than requested would also be beneficial in this city. Since LC cannot build a harbor, we must get more food from the land. Also, the silk should be roaded for extra trade.

In RF, the square where the settler is currently standing, and the two squares directly below it (plains, grass) should get roads as well as irrigation. Again, we are already working the grassland square without a road. This is a city we should expect to grow, so we must maximize our trade capabilities.

It makes sense to road the GLS due north of Fort Jane before heading SW, as that is likely to be the desired spot for the fifth worker.

The Science Ministry agrees with the fact that all your “highest priority” improvements are in the core and western cities. Roading and irrigating the Neu river delta and roading the river from LC to RF should be high priority as you have indicated.

Also remember that there's a settler north of China on the trireme. I didn't know where to place it so I loaded it onto the trireme to see if the 4 special spot looked nice...

We were able to celebrate all the cities getting an aqueduct past 8, which is why I went for it. Now afterwards I realize I should have put more thought into that, sorry.

I think we should put a lot of the money to get our main cities up to 12, with improvements. So MPs, temples and settlers are needed at home too. Use the cities already established to build settlers for the other cities on the continent.

Originally posted by TimTheEnchanter
The Science ministry suggests no less than 3 new settlers should be devoted to terrain improvements on the home continent. RF, LP and Neu, Naervana seem the most likely candidates. If you can squeeze another two or three settlers for expansion somewhere, go for it.

Click to expand...

The more settlers the better but I didn't like the idea of building a settler in Neu since it's now producing exactly 10 shields. I'll see if I can squeeze out a seventh settler somewhere (I was planning two settlers for terrain improvements and four for expansion).

Even with a couple upcoming caravan deliveries, we will be a bit short on the cash necessary for rushbuilds due to the quite unexpected expenditure of over 600g on aqueducts

We really need cash now so an interesting idea would be to bite the bullet and simply sell our aqueducts (all of them, except for Dou's), they are not badly needed now. We would rebuild them around the time we become a democracy. This allows us to speed up expansion and development.

As for city placement, the jungle does not seem to make C4 a good site.

I forgot to mention that we would clear the jungle before building C4.

The recommendations for terrain improvements around Doughnutia are inadequate. Doughnutia gives us the best “bang-for-the-buck” on our trade and specialists,

I'll post an updated plan. In general I agree with this, especially if I find a way to squeeze out an extra settler or two somewhere. However, the plan includes only short and medium term improvements.

LC should get more emphasis than is called for in the plan.

Help ! I need more settlers !


Regarding the settler north of China I'd want to return it home and use it for terrain improvements since it's a NONE unit, except for the fact that it's very far from our main continent. So it should found a city somewhere but probably not too close to Berlin because I don't want to have to spend a lot of resources defending a very small city from barbarians. One idea is to build it on the island (?) W of the trireme and then expand from there. It would be great if this city were of size 3+ by the time we celebrate next.

BTW it would be great to know when the next turns will be played. If on Saturday I'll post polls at roughly 2300 GMT Thursday, if on Sunday I'll post the polls 24 hours later so we have more time for discussing the above plan before the polls. I'd prefer Sunday since we are at a critical juncture now.

I'll play on Sunday.

Originally posted by TheViking
The more settlers the better but I didn't like the idea of building a settler in Neu since it's now producing exactly 10 shields.

Click to expand...

Good point. I hadn't thought of that.

We really need cash now so an interesting idea would be to bite the bullet and simply sell our aqueducts (all of them, except for Dou's), they are not badly needed now. We would rebuild them around the time we become a democracy. This allows us to speed up expansion and development.

Click to expand...

This seems a bit extreme and rather wasteful. I don't think our situation is that dire. As I suggested, raise the tax rate a bit, and spend it on caravans, so we get some of it back in delivery payments. And if Dou keeps repeating demanded goods we just need more ships! Another thing, several of the bigger cities have specialists...many of these could be made Bean Counters - expecially in cities with marketplaces - for a bit more cash.

...terrain improvements around Doughnutia are inadequate...I'll post an updated plan. In general I agree with this...However, the plan includes only short and medium term improvements.

Click to expand...

I guess my point is that getting those roads in Dou are more important than the irrigation in BS and PB and should be prioritized as such. They are short-to-med range goals!

Help ! I need more settlers !

Click to expand...

See why I asked for a minimum of three!?!!?!!

...we are at a critical juncture now.

Click to expand...

Not unless Loki is going to take over as President soon!

Originally posted by TimTheEnchanter
As I suggested, raise the tax rate a bit, and spend it on caravans, so we get some of it back in delivery payments. And if Dou keeps repeating demanded goods we just need more ships!

Click to expand...

I noticed that Dou is supplying three demanded goods now so the next three things it should build are caravans. The only question is how fast. We could build these three caravans in just three turns at a cost of $125 per caravan using IPRBing. I think doing so would be a good idea but would like to hear from others about it. The alternative is to spend two turns building each caravan.

One reason I want to build the caravans fast is that I want a bank in Dou ASAP but the caravans are obviously of much higher priority.

Dou supplies Dye, Hides and (Gold), where gold is the caravan it just built. I'd therefore suggest we just build two caravans more unless another commodity is freed. We also want some wonders in there too.

Agree to priority of founding C1 first, but I would consider C3 ahead of C2, just because it is easier to get to by ship from our mainland, and because that would force us to explore the area a bit more, which needs to be done. e.g. is C2 on the ocean or a large inland sea?

Two caravans in Doug. I would lean to taking two turns on each caravan to save a little cash. If we were trying to build three I would be more inclined to spend the extra money to get them in one turn each.

China non-settler. It will take too long to ship him back to the mainland. I say found near where it is now and create a barb farm of Berlin as Zwelgje suggested elsewhere.

Looking into Dou reveals that it supplies beads, hides and gems and is also supporting two caravans (hides and gold)

So if the game is not behaving strangely on my machine Dou can build three commodity caravans in addition to the two it is currently supporting.

I have found that the so called 'seventh settler' could be built in Igloria after its harbor is finished. This would give us four settlers for expanding and three for terrain improvemnt on our main continent.

Originally posted by TheViking
Looking into Dou reveals that it supplies beads, hides and gems and is also supporting two caravans (hides and gold)

So if the game is not behaving strangely on my machine Dou can build three commodity caravans in addition to the two it is currently supporting.

Click to expand...

I think I might know what is different. Are you looking at the game in MGE? When I look in 2.4.2 Classic (top half of the image below), there are only two choices available and Dye is the top supply. When I look in MGE (bottom half of the image), The top choice is Beads and all three are open. Solo and Samson figured out that sometimes MGE and Classic work differently with the supply and demand lists, and I think it had something to do with Dye and copper demand, but I don't remember the details.

That's what's happening, I looked at the game in MGE and Classic (I have both) and it's different. So from now I'll on look at this game using Classic since obviously that's what funxus is using (otherwise we wouldn't have been able to look at the game using Classic ).

BTW I've noticed one problem: Many cities that we want to start building settlers and caravans ASAP are building improvements. The improvements are usually far from complete and finishing them takes a lot of time since few cities have many shields. This means they either must switch to settlers/caravans (which means losing some shields) or rush buy the improvements which costs $$. Any opinions on what to do about this problem ?

I agree with turning Berlin into a barb farm. A dip or two on a couple of boats to whisk new units away in would be my plan. An army of NON units will be very useful as we're going the Democracy/Republic route.

Edit: I just realised I've repeated what others have said in the turn thread. That's because I posted before I'd finished reading everything!

Do we really want to tie up boats shuttling dips to Berlin? Why not found on the continent? Would make a great place to begin expanding North from, as well. I would think we could found far enough away to still get Non units easily enough.

I agree we should use the city on the continent as a dip producer and not send dips all the way from mainland. We could get the dip wandering half aimlessly west of China to Berlin though.

I agree, a diplomat should be the first thing the new city builds. We might even find $$ somewhere to IPRB the dip although resources are limited at the moment.

We should consider mining the wine special before founding the city if we decide to found it at a location that has the special within its radius.

We only need one or two dips for bribing barbs. Remember, unless we are careless leaving a dip defended, we don't lose dips briing units as we do bribing cities. A ferry or two can whisk newly bribed units away to where they are needed before more barbs emerge out of nowhere and ambush us.