Long Term Strategy

Having sat through two terms waiting for one of our leaders to lead proper discussion on this issue I've finally lost patience and decided to start it going myself - so apologies to next term's government if I'm treading on any toes, but I'm damned if this going to be allowed to slide any longer.

With our campaign against Egypt over for the time being and a change of government lurking just over the horizon, now is a very good time to be making the decision as to what kind of a nation we want to be. Do we plan to make war upon our neighbours on a regular basis and expand our empire that way? Or do we intend to turn our attention away from the battlefield and towards organic, settler driven expansion into the still unoccupied territories to the South and West, attempting to maintain friendly relations with our fellow nations as we do so?

This is not a discussion about victory conditions, although the choice made here will obviously have some impact on which type of victory we are best able to go for at the end. It is, rather, an attempt to render decision making an easier and smoother process for the terms to come - giving us a consistent guiding policy that will shape our responses to decisions and prevent fiascos like both the start and end of our recent Egyptian war from occuring. It will also make it much easier for our governors to decide what they should be building, and how many units should be built - rather than having to rely to a large extent on guess work regarding our nation's direction.

In short, it is time to make that choice again. The road to war, or the way of peace. Well, Fanatica? What is it to be?

I believe it is time for a long peace-time. We have the luxury of 2 large chunks of land; the Western part of Esquiline province and the East of Regia Doughnut (although some Aztec citites are already there).

I think we should revolt to Moarchy. We can build up our empire by improving our cities with libs and markets. We bee-line to Democracy by Monotheism -> Theology -> Education (killing the Great lib after trading) -> Banking -> Printing Press -> Democracy.

We can build Universities and Banks that way and after that take the south road to Mil tradition OR go for Smiths (Economics). As soon as a civ hits Gunpowder (which could be very quickly) our Legions are degraded to card-board cut-outs. Perhaps move them out of the previous war area to block of the area east of Regia Doughut around the lake and also protect and block western-Esquiline province and function as first defenders. If we protect Memphis and Elephantine properly and build a city where Byblos once was our northern border should be fine.

Also trade around a lot; we have wines and dyes. Trading will keep the AI from attacking us. And if they do it's either in the north or by sea-invasion. I think we can handle both ways.

When we reach the Industrial ages we could already have won with the ToE - Hoover jump.

At first I was getting ready to say "We've had 2 polls on this already" then i read your post and found I was wrong about your meaning.

We MUST go the Peaceful route for a while, we need to fill up those empty spaces, if we can successfuly claim the large majority of open lands ajacent to us we should be fine on land for quite some time. However, it will quickly be gettting new foreign cities on them because of our delay including the delay caused by this war.

We need to work on getting Scientific (just Libraries now) and other Cultural buildings in our cities, esp. those in the borders. We are a culturally inept society at the moment and this MUST change.

We also need to boost our Productivity with Tile improvements despreratly and stimulate city growth. With this, and reasonable Unit production over time we should be able to crush the computer if they decide to attack us or we later find we need more land.

However, like I said PEACE should stay until we get our infrastructure well established and all land has been claimed.

I think the problem with determining a long term strategy of peace versus war is Memphis. I am also inclined towards peace, though I would have headed straight for a republican government. The problem I see is that if Memphis revolts and rejoins Egypt there will be cries from the citizens to retake the city. It is quite possible that our citizens will decide they want a long period of peace and then cry for war should Memphis flip. We would be once again be unprepared for such a war.

So, my fellow citizens, before you post your thoughts on this subject take a moment to reflect on the fate of Memphis and how you would feel should we lose it.

If we are to adopt a peaceful strategy my feeling on the subject of Memphis is that we should put all reasonable effort into trying to hold it at the present, but if that is still not enough to prevent it from flipping back we should simply give up on it as a bad job for the forseeable future. Declaring war to retake a city that we cannot hold, or going all out to conquer Egypt just over that one city would be a criminal waste of our time and resources in my opinion.

I agree with Ekl on this one, if we fail to keep memphis we fail and should forget about it.

Though it might be a good Idea to prepare Elephantine incase Memphis does flip and began to threaten it's security.

I would agree woth Ekl on this one.

We should prepare Elephantine on building Culture Improvements to prevent further flips.

i think we should make a beeline straight to the industrial age, and trade for the techs deemed non essential to moving on. I think Republic is our best way of governemnt if we continue on a peace track, if we do not than monarchy has proven to be the best government for war like civs

Regarding Memphis, very simple:

Let it flip,
Let it go,
Guard the hills
And grow, Grow, GROW!

The hills I am talking about are of course the hills just south of Egypt's mainland. If we position our legions there, we should have no problem from our neighbors for quite some time. I also agree with CivGeneral that we should pump some culture immediately into Elephantine so that we have a chance of keeping that city.

Our only attack risk would be from sea, where we may want to consider sending out some galleys to scout for possible oncomers. We can consider waging a short-term war with anyone who settles on any of our three(and ultimately four) provinces.

All that is required to ensure Elephantine's safety against cultural assault from a flipped Memphis is sufficient culture for a single border expansion, since there is no overlap of the two cities' radii.

I agree with many people that Memphis is not currently worth fighting for, but what realisticly are our chances of holding on to it. I don't think they're that great. So I move that we at least don't put much thought in it and prepare Elephantine.

Preferably though, I'd have Memphis abandoned, that way Egypt has to build a new city as well as rebuild the culture, borders, and population. I can also see why this option may not e very popular.

That is our imediate problem but this thread is about the longe term, which I think should be peaceful, defensive expansion. We have a sizeable army leftover and we should use them to block off The Mountains North West of Elephantine, as well as sending two or three to block off the southern penninsula from the Aztecs. Lets slow em down by forcing them to construct boats.

Originally posted by ScorpiusAP
Preferably though, I'd have Memphis abandoned, that way Egypt has to build a new city as well as rebuild the culture, borders, and population. I can also see why this option may not e very popular.

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We talked about this extensively in the chat room earlier, it seemed like unless we pump a bunch of our workers in there we'd get a "Raze" rep. hit since it would be abandoning a city with a majority of foreign citizens.

If we don't care about the rep hit, fine, it's got the least questions.

If we do, then I still feel we can hold onto Memphis with work, and a little luck for the first few turns as we get it down to size 1, after that it will be easier to hold on, IIRC we have enough troops nearby (at least 3 turns away) to prevent a flip entirely if it gets to size 1

Originally posted by Falcon02

We talked about this extensively in the chat room earlier, it seemed like unless we pump a bunch of our workers in there we'd get a "Raze" rep. hit since it would be abandoning a city with a majority of foreign citizens.

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Has anyone ever thought about discussing this idea (abandoning Memphis) in the forums? It seems to me that if we can get a settler over there in time then abandoning the city may be an option worth discussion by all of us.

Originally posted by donsig


Has anyone ever thought about discussing this idea (abandoning Memphis) in the forums? It seems to me that if we can get a settler over there in time then abandoning the city may be an option worth discussion by all of us.

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Donsig, DZ proposed it in chat as we were arguing over what to do about Memphis, as we continued to argue about it, we came to the conclusion it would be a rep. hit without wasting Fanatikan Workers and Settlers on populating the city to get a Fanatikan majority first to avoid the rep hit. For the most part we basically concluded as a group that the rep hit should be avoided, I will post a log of the chat.

Noting, your annoyance through the italics, I'm sorry this wasn't FULLY introduced into the forums to see the popular opinion, but we all basically felt the rep hit should be avoided and didn't pursue it any more.

EDIT: IIRC "The Memphis Problem" thread did have some discussion about abandoning, though it wasn't FULLY discussed there.

EDIT #2: After thinking about I decided to post the log in "The Memphis Problem" thread, so we don't hijack this one with Memphis talk.

I've been trying to get this discussion on a general strategy going for some time, and either I'm not being direct enough, or it's being viewed as outside my role, or it's being ignored due to short-term distractions. Thanks for having a go at it.

I think the best long-term strategy would be to remain at peace for the duration of the initial treaty with Egypt, at a minimum, to keep our reputation intact. After that, a balanced approach of continued expansion, cultural improvements, and military might is essential. We need to be at least the same size as our largest rival in all areas, or it will be a long and hard-fought game.

The question of Memphis is tactical, and we should not attempt to retake it if lost, at least not immediately. Also it would be a major blunder to garrison the majority of our troops there, as if it does flip we would suddenly become much weaker. Instead of trying to go to extraordinary means to hold it, we need to get the advantage we can by momentarily denying Egypt horses. We can take more passive means to try to hold Memphis, like building local culture (preferably a library) via pop rushing, which also reduces the foreign citizens.

As soon as we get to Monarchy we can cash-rush culture there. Don't overdo it, our money could be used in other ways as well.

And if it flips; it flips. Know when it is time to let go. If you didn't want it to flip you should have taken Thebes. The election went to peace, so accept the possibe consequences.