@ indiansmoke:
i dont agree with your points, but i guess this is already obvious.
i still think its best to go construction + hbr now and to raise a mixed army of what i named above. we cant stop their gallons, even if we have our own, cause the eastindian gallons simply kill ours + they are faster (trading posts from the wikings). so where´s the point in trying?
loosing cities on the mav. side isnt what concerns me right now. the mavs have some cities of minor importance. getting some pressure up on the allies from the mav. side is what might make the difference for merlot empire surviving or not.
the mav. empire never was build to be cottaged up or with cities that should grow big. it´s best operated with cities having 3 food rich tiles, doing 2 pop whips from pop 4 -> pop 2, putting overflow into something else. i´m pretty familiar with the screens btw...
done right, we can have an army big enough withing 15-20 turns that cant be destroyed by one of the allies alone. use them to raze the cities on the central continent of one of the allies (althought you think i dont know what im talking about mp wise... ...i do). i simply dont mind the mavs. loosing cities in the process. as long as 1 city stands, our army can keep going (if merlot can pay for it). problem most players in mp games have, when faced with war, is that they want to cling to all their cities. if you are on the loosing side, forget about your cities, get an army out fast, whip like crazy (we have police state also), do as much damage to the agressor as you can. like this you can at least make sure who also wont win
and mavs. declaring war speeds doom. our neighbours will build up their army faster, cause right now they have none and are not too earger in building up any. keep in mind that there are 4 different teams, all wanting to win with the least effort (so if others are doing the fighting, most wont complain)
the alliance will not crumble as long as you live or at least as long as one of them doesnt takes significant hits (at least that´s my opinion)
-> i´m not too familiar with your team organisation. but i already found out that you have a monarchy and you are king. if i´m going to get catapulted or anything similar for voicing my opinion here, feel free to do so (and send me a pm if it´s not in the spirit of the team)