blid02 - The farmers shuttle

[blid]

In spite of myself, I'm thinking it would be more interesting to see what we can do purely with our no-cottage economy combined with diplomacy for good trading. In that case we'd want to adopt Free Market to get Hannibal to Friendly, and maybe do a Defensive Pact. He's teching pretty well, so I think at Friendly he'd be good for a number of additional tech trades. Free Market would leverage the high population that we need to run a lot of specialists. I wonder if it's possible to get his Silver another way, sabotaging it and then getting the trade on the rebound.

I didn't want to use sentiments for arguments but it was my thinking too. But if you guys feel like we should attack, then steel would be good. If we're in peace, I'd prefer electricity. We have the institutes to help and hopefully the statue. Concerning trades, I had a game where a friendly civ won't trade a tech because it was building a wonder (We have our reasons) so I'm not sure Hannibal would trade with us his space techs. But he would give pre-requisite ones

For religion civic, it depends on the war going fore theo, OR or free religion. But I'm not sure about mercantilism, it's true usually the AI benefit more from it but this time we are broke and rely on specialist for research beakers. We would probably get more from Lizzie then she does from us.
As for labor, I'd stay in CS. At least until we get computers and institutes. By then we would be able to hire enough scientists

For Ragnar, we can wait for a less penalizing trade before converting him to hinduism. He is already in WFYABTA already, I was hoping to get him to friendly. I agree giving him democracy is not that wise. For fusing a war between Lizzie and HC (including his vassal Ragnar), even if the economic harm is not huge, that would further their mutual hate. If one them go free religion now, I'm sure they would start trading like old-time buddies

On other issues :
Hire more scientists :
Opening trades with Lizzie :
Finish India : (hope he doesn't vassal to Hannibal)

I'd like to hear farmers Kanga, Bede and Fox positions on the war with Hannibal. If we decide to attack, you can probably start the war during your turnset Sooooo

 

[Bede]

I am always game for a good war.

Asoka still lives because a rock in the ocean didn't seem worth the candle at that point, or the hammers spent on boats. It was interesting to note that even with Karachi just across the straits from his capitol Hannibal didn't build a single boat but did send an expedition all the way to Lahore. And war wearies combined with the Emancipation whiners were becoming a problem, especially in Moscow. That is one of the reason we are broke.

 

[GreyFox]

I don't understand the bloodlust ... what's to gain from a war with Carthage that we can't obtain peacefully?

IMHO, I think that once the number of cities exceed a certain threshold, the effectiveness of a SE strategy starts to diminish (eg. the cities start leap-frogging one another in GP-Points, the spread of specialists starts to get artificial etc). In fact, I think the most effective use of SE strategy is an OCC ... you almost never build any cottages.

--

 

[sooooo]

IMHO, I think that once the number of cities exceed a certain threshold, the effectiveness of a SE strategy starts to diminish (eg. the cities start leap-frogging one another in GP-Points, the spread of specialists starts to get artificial etc).

GP points are irrelevent at this point - new GPs just don't do much in the industrial era so it doesn't really matter which type we have. We get our research from scientist specialists, and more cities = more scientist specialists.

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By the way, there's no chance of us winning this peacefully. 1 farm + 1 scientist is 6 beakers, plus an extra commerce if it's a river farm. Our financial friends can use those two population to get the same food, but are also getting 18 commerce from 2 river cottages (4 for town, 1 for financial, 1 for river, 1 for printing press, 2 for free speech). Have you seen HC's lands? They are crazily fertile.

This game can only be won by some coastal razing with carriers/fighters.

Blid's idea of electricity is a good one - I would like to windmill Yekaterinburg.

I think I will just play until we get the statue. We don't want any anarchy before that anyway - so no need to decide on civics choices yet.

 

[Kanga_DU]

Originally Posted by Jet
In spite of myself, I'm thinking it would be more interesting to see what we can do purely with our no-cottage economy combined with diplomacy for good trading. In that case we'd want to adopt Free Market to get Hannibal to Friendly, and maybe do a Defensive Pact. He's teching pretty well, so I think at Friendly he'd be good for a number of additional tech trades. Free Market would leverage the high population that we need to run a lot of specialists. I wonder if it's possible to get his Silver another way, sabotaging it and then getting the trade on the rebound.

I'm more of this bent than warring. That said I'm not digging in the heels about going to war.

Ok, more accurately, I'm fence sitting.

 

[sooooo]

OK, as we are still undecided I will wait for tomorrow to play. Maybe playing peaceful with hannibal is the best decision after all.

 

[blid]

Sooooo and Bede are for war.
Myself and Fox are for peace.
Kanga is undecided
I'm not sure about Jet preference so he can play tie braker.

 

[sooooo]

Well maybe I'm changing my mind for peace. Problem is, we need a strong ally for tech trading. Unless we have a friendly ally, we cannot trade due to WFYABTA. So maybe keeping Hannibal as a friend is the best option here.

 

[blid]

I guess that settles it, at least for now

Hannibal favourite civic is free trade. It would be great if we can get economics

 

[Jet]

> for now

Now is the latest that a pre-space race land grab would be practical.

 

[blid]

> for now

Now is the latest that a pre-space race land grab would be practical.

I was not thinking about land grab wars, and not with Hannibal either

 

[sooooo]

Playing now, just got a great prophet but since I haven't played for a while is there a plan for him? Build the Jewish Shrine?

 

[Bede]

Jewish or Taoist shrine, or settle him in Delhi for the commerce are all good choices.

 

[blid]

Jewish or taoist depending on which is most spread worldwide. We have enough production to spam missionaries all around

EDIT : cross posted with Bede I also think we should switch to merchants now in Delhi

 

[sooooo]

Rightho, we're going peaceful. Plan is to finish statue of liberty, then convert to free market and get Hannibal up to friendly. That will give us two friendly civs to fight to other continent with. United we stand ... divided we fall.

So with that in mind, I cancel open borders with Elizabeth. Then I sell her bananas and rice for 19 GPT and wine.

Take a workshop for Moscow, that reduces time for the SoL to 11 turns. Lumbermilling would reduce it by 1 further turn.

Hire 3 more priests in Delhi, bringing time to next prophet down to 2 turns.

Hire about 1 billion scientists (no joke). Steam Power down to 3 turns.

On the second turn, Elizabeth wanted us to cancel deals with HC. I declined. We got a great prophet, who built the Taoist shrine. I built about 4 hindu missionaries and they all succeeded in Hannibal's lands. Hired merchants in Delhi.

On the third turn, steam power came in and I started electricity. Windmills go up all over the place.

On the fifth turn, Ragnar wanted us to convert to buddhism. I declined.

On the seventh turn, I said no to Lizzy asking for physics. Some rather depressing news, as HC builds the statue of liberty .



We get 2008 gold from the SoL, and convert to Free Market and Organised Religion.

On turn 10, the last indian city fell to Hannibal. He isn't friendly yet, need more time in his fav. civic.

On turn 12 we got a great scientist, who I merged into Moscow (oxford, academy, representation).

On turn 13 I traded education and constitution to Cyrus for rifling.



Interesting developments on the other continent as HC and Ragnar declare on Lizzy. Hope he doesn't get many/any cities.



On turn 14, electricity came in and we started Corporation (only 2 turns)

Fired the scientists in Novgorod, then started West Point. Might as well while we are in Organised Religion.

Built a settler and founded Vladivostock on turn 15:



Believe we should start Broadway in Rostov or Moscow next turn. Here is the save

 

[blid]

Hire about 1 billion scientists (no joke).

let's keep them.

HC would probably pay later for stealing the statue 2 turns from completion.

IMO, we should go radio->computers

railroad, combustion and assembly line are high priority for trading. They open up the path for plastics and thus robotics. I also think about steel for ironworks. I remember Jet proposing Bangalore, I didn't check for hammers output but we should verifiy if it's within the 30% latitude to be eligible for the elevator

We should build globe theatre somwhere with (very) high food. The draft center when needed. Hermitage can go somewhere near persian cities

If we can get a defensive pact with Hannibal, we should do it

GreyFox is UP

 

[sooooo]

I think HC beat us by 4 or 5 turns to the SoL. I don't think it could have been whipped, anyway.

Hannibal wouldn't give us a defensive pact - he is not friendly. Not sure we actually need one with him - he is weak and it would reduce Cyrus to pleased.

EDIT: Think the Globe should go in Delhi. EDIT2: Or maybe not, since Delhi has hills. We need a city with mainly grass farms to work, poor production.

 

[GreyFox]

I would require a swap ... sorry, this is a bad week. I will be free after 48 hrs, so appreciate a swap.

 

[blid]

No problem. Jet, can you take it ?

 

[Jet]

Got it....