Ojevind i'm not cabert, but i'd say go ahead and vote if you're decided. if he says "we don't want his votes" then fb can just not include them, right?
pigswill: my thinking on the military question. i knew that i couldn't boost my power enough to be worth squat in the time given. was not going to happen, period.
my thoughts are directly applicable only to my game obviously. my risk/benefit analysis was:
- bismarck is busy
- gus likes me. thank goodness, since his power is so great that if he DoWs me i get obliterated instantly, whether manhattan project is built or not. there's no way i can fight him, why try.
- wang doesn't like me. he lives by roosevelt, who i have a DP with. so, i'll hope that wang looks at roos's power and wisely goes "oh yeah, i won't attack her cuz i'd get my korean butt kicked"
- cyrus is friendly and has been forever
- brennus can't declare war. then when he became a non-vassal he was pleased and occupied.
production/research-wise: i knew for certain that even if i went 100% military, my best efforts would not bump me up significantly on the power chart. not even close. if i tried, i
could do enough to make a difference defending my cities if a war happened; but i could
not do anything prep-wise to prevent a war. defending my cities but not having researched the techs/built the infrastructure in the meantime to build the spaceship would mean game-over in any case.
so, i didn't do the military thing. i signed the DP with roos as insurance (hopefully) against wang, and headed on the space track. the DP seemed safe to me in because nobody is going to DoW roos. he's not anybody worst enemy and he is far and above Wang in power; wang's the one i consider most likely to attack me. i don't think i'll have to be the Defender in the Pact at all, and hope i won't have to use it to call in my Defender but if i do, it's a warm fuzzy.
note: you didn't focus on military to the extreme of ignoring space, you did a nice mix. i was just explaining the workings of my brain if you or anybody was curious.
i am once again surprised at all you heathens

. not really, i can see the reasons for going either way. just another instance of cam and i sharing the same brainwaves, the only ones still jewish, we both felt we needed those diplomatic points with our neighbors. i had plenty of happiness options, and making nicey-nice was worth losing 10% science IMO.