Grand Strategy Thread

We can easily get philo if we go for it if the Iroquois do not. If the Iroquois go for philo, we probably won't get it, since they grow faster than we do.

Iroquois is the only civ who can beat us to philo. The question is - will they go philo? or will they go for MW?

Now this already points to a potential ally - if we make a deal with them to combine research on CoL and Philo to make the Republic Sling Shot... - but probably the would rather go for monarchy :(

Maybe (as they are REL) they would accept going for Republic and switch goverment later when they got monarchy? :hmm: :confused:
At least we should negotiate about that. This of course can wait till we got Writing and know what path they took. :old:

Otoh by early discussion we could find out which way they will go or even change their attitude and make them a peaceful research partner :D :p

We want to go Republic or does anybody think monarchy? :hmm:
 
Republic all the way baby! :banana:
 
Maybe (as they are REL) they would accept going for Republic and switch goverment later when they got monarchy?

In conquests Iroq are agri and commercial so I don't think they will consider switching governments twice.

Are we leaning towards researching writing whilst making contacts then seeing how things lie before deciding on the next research project?
 
Republic is the way to go for us, as we wont be warmongering for a while.

But is it that we will get the slingshot first? Should we go for the slingshot light, get COL for free, and pay the price of researching republic?
We need to calculate the risk of a successful/failed slingshot, especially since we might need some of the military techs we give up by following the path towards philo. for our early defense.
 
In conquests Iroq are agri and commercial so I don't think they will consider switching governments twice.
:wallbash: I guess I'm still playing too much Gotm 61... :blush:
Are we leaning towards researching writing whilst making contacts then seeing how things lie before deciding on the next research project?
I think that depends on the map - if we have 3-4 equally food rich sites for towns (flood plains all around :banana: ), we could live without a granary but I'd expect us to want a granary after the first settler and maybe a worker at latest... :hmm:
Republic is the way to go for us, as we wont be warmongering for a while.

But is it that we will get the slingshot first? Should we go for the slingshot light, get COL for free, and pay the price of researching republic?
We need to calculate the risk of a successful/failed slingshot, especially since we might need some of the military techs we give up by following the path towards philo. for our early defense.
We won't make it to Philo first, if Iroquois go there straight and we have to research Pottery before Writing.. :(
 
If the Iroquois go straight to Philo, they will beat us unless they start with no food bonuses, because they expand faster than us. Best would be if we go to Philo and they go to CoL and we make a deal where we trade for CoL, then give them Philo and Republic after. That would be very strong, especially if we give also trade BW for Pottery.

I'm not really that happy about making the Iroquois that strong that early - I'm hoping to make Ottomans or Sumeria our primary tech trading partner - but if the Iroquois are happy with us, that is to our benefit...
 
I am not sure what the rules are this time, but previous game contact with another team was not allowed until you had in-game contact. This can take pretty long.

I am not so sure that a free tech will matter that much. Especially since it will be a rather cheap one. Also, like so many have stated already, we will have to get pottery somehow, and there are not a lot of trade options.

It might be to our advantage not to rush to a government actually. Iro, Celts and (to a lesser extent) Sumer will have strong reasons to do so: early UU, and the agri trait means that their expansion phase will be over much sooner than ours. Literature and currency would be good techs for us (but not needed in the earliest stages of course).
 
Well, it's been a while since we added to this discussion. :bump:

We are eight or nine turns from philo, have made no contacts and it looks more and more like we are on an island. What is the current state of our Grand Strategy?
 
I am absolutely sure we are on an island... in fact, I am nearly certain everyone is on an island. I think we are on an arch map, which gives us and the iroquois an enormous advantage, as we are able to make curraghs right off.

I still think republic is our goal - perhaps more than before. I think we want to stay away from mapmaking, at least until our island is secure.

As a strategy - filling up our island and getting the wheel/IW so we know if we have resources is very important. Once our island is reasonably secure, get MM and build harbors so we can trade. As a commercial civ, we get more productive cities than our opponents, which is good.
 
Should we not make every effort to meet neighbors?... If so, we need to send out our curraghs far afield. Hopefully this y-wrapping will help our feeble curraghs explore widely.
 
I think exploration is far more important than the one free tech from Philo - especially since it won't be Republic.
 
So, we will have philosophy in 4 turns and will get a free tech or not. The consensus is that if Babe went straight for philo then they have it and (map making or CoL) already. If they looked for horses first then we get a free tech. On thing is almost certain: no one will get republic for free. Another seemingly sure bet is that we are all on our own little islands.

If we won the philo race how do we exploit our edge?

If we lost the philo race how do we counter Babe's edge?

What should our next tech goal be?
  1. Republlic
  2. Map making
  3. resource techs (wheel, iron working)

When will we be ready to change to a republic? Will we be ready to convert when we get republic if we head for it now? Is there much we have to do to prepare for the conversion so we might as well research something else before CoL / republic?

How important is map making to us? We can float two curraghs for every galley. Is that one extra movement point for the galley worth getting map making? (CC The Chamber will not reach the northern island before we have to start our next tech.)

What about wonders? Are there any we should be thinking about building? Is the Great Lighthouse going to be a key wonder in this game?

I look forward to hearing what The Council has to say on these matters.
 
I think we want to stay away from mapmaking.

My belief is that we go to republic... it's possible that the fastest route to republic is via literature and making sure the Treasury and some other places have libs, though I'm not sure.

I think we need to be strong researchers as fast as possible - the most dangerous civs at this point are iroquois and celts - if we can get to feudalism, then their advantages are much, much less...
 
Why would we want to stay away from MM?

In any case I agree with AT, I think Republic should be our goal. IMO we're not yet ready, and won't be in quite some time, to start building libraries. I haven't done any maths on it though, it might be useful to have Literature early even if it delays Republic by a few turns, if Literature + Republic is faster than Republic + Literature.
 
I think we'd want to stay away from MM so that the other teams have to research it at higher beaker cost, resulting in faster research for us once the other teams have it. If there's another reason, please speak up :)

It seems like only The Chamber would qualify for a library in the near future, but that's our only Settler pump. In order to bang out a library, we'd have to shut down the pump for 3-4 setters. Then once back on, the library wouldn't be running at high efficiency due to fluctuating population. Maybe our coastal towns are better candidates for Libraries.

So I think that either Literature --> Republic or Republic --> Literature should be our next tech goals.
 
That is what I meant. We have plenty of land - someone will get MM and we can trade for it if we need it, but with2 luxes, we should be fine for happiness for quite some time.
 
We counter anyone's edge by forming a coalition against them ;).

I would get Lit before Republic. We are scientific, and cheap libs could give us an edge. A few towns should be able to build a lib rather quick, and with good profit. The Chamber could do one in 4 or at most 5 turns, and this might be profitable after we have settled all noncorrupt spots.

We should also start thinking about an FP. Best location is probably somewhere in the middle of the island, but we have not uncovered this region yet.
 
I don't speak up much, but I'm following all this happily. I know we're a bit behind in score and some key areas right now… but I think we're really in a good position. Much like MIA was in the first MTDG.
We're doing well enough to be a valuable ally – and being on an island helps make us a hard target. As AT noted, once we get to Feudalism – we're relatively safe. Given what limited amount we can see of the water around us, I'd say the risk of massive naval invasion prior to us getting Feudalism is pretty small. And our Hwach'a UU is looking REALLY good right about now. Should be devastating to anyone that tries to invade our little island paradise.

To the matter at hand, I also support getting Republic asap, but I'm inclined to agree with zyxy – Literature first, then Republic. Cheap libraries are a key advantage for us.

Also – since we're on an island, it might be worth revisiting our ideas about what kind of victory condition we want to pursue. (see the first 20 or so posts in this thread).

I'm wondering if a 20K bid is looking more appealing now that we "know" we're all on islands? At least as a backup to domination win in the mid-late game… now that domination will be a bit harder with all attacks being naval attacks.

Part of my motive for brining this up is:
A) I think it's always helpful to have a goal to help hone your strategy… and
B) we could kick-off a 20K bid by making an attempt for the Great Library. Fabulously expensive, I know. But its culture is unmatched, and in a 5 player game, we'd be sure to profit from free techs. Makes us an enormous target, to be sure… but with our island semi-safety, maybe it's worth considering? We might be able to buy some saftey be being really generous with our technology lead till we get close to our Hwach'as? It's also worth noting that having the GL does slightly increase our chances of getting a SGL, since we can ignore cheaper already researched techs in favor of getting totally unknown techs.
Biggest terror would be if we see the Celts or Iroq get the Great Lighthouse. :twitch: (allowing them to safely mount a galley naval invasion)

Perhaps we could consider trying to get a wonder town? Or more likely, we'd need to get another settler pump, and use the Chamber for wonders. Anyway – just throwing it out there.

Spoiler Relevant quotes from the first 20 posts :


Automated Teller
Space Race and 100K are quite possible, but require basically defeating our opponents before hand - only way they make sense is if we get most of the world, but our opponents are on an island and have a huge navy. Easier and better to just destroy them.

20K - fun, but like General_W said - paints a huge target. Plus, puts you so far behind the opposition that you will probably never recover. Probably easier to do with the Greeks than with Korea in a multiplayer game.

The military/domination conditions are the ones we need to worry about. I agree with the General that we will likely not be able to take over the world until pretty late - at least Military Tradition. Being the tech leaders may help us here (assuming that we are, which we should be), in that we might be able to get to Mil Trad 10 turns before the ottomans (depending on what techs we get for free and how quickly we get to republic.)

I think we can and will be the tech leaders - commercial and scientific is hard to beat in that regard. What we have to weather is an early rush by mounted warriors and/or Gallics. I suspect Sumeria will be left alone - the Enkidu is tough to overcome, from a cost point of view - but I also suspect that Ottoman will be a reasonably early target, if just because they are scary. The big worry with Korea is that we become an early target because we have a late UU and people don't want us to be a tech leader. As i see it, the later the game goes, the better off we are (assuming we survive Sipahi's)


Paul#42
While 100k, space and diplo are out of question imo, it might be appealing to have a bet on 20k - I wonder if we can do this half-hearted without neglecting our development. :hmm:

SoZ, Pyras, libs would be nice to have anyway, but temple and some other wonders would be wide of the mark but might put some slight pressure on the late game that most other teams will be sniggering at for most part of the game. :p This would fit our "sneaker approach" we already took by "chosing" Korea. We are the underdog and should play the game that way. :old:

Apart from that 20k is my favorite VC (my only Gotm awards apart from an accidental cow) and I really like the cultural dominance tied to it. :D

However apart from building early culture this would really challenge our diplomatic skills even more than it will happen anyway. :crazyeye:[/QUOTE]


AutomatedTeller
My opinion is that we should not be scared of *any* of the other civilizations. Chamnix may be the ultimate micro manager, but he's only 1 of team. MW and Gallics are scary - but they are several techs away, plus a resource for both those people. MW get killed by archers pretty easily, and Gallics are expensive to produce. Besides - if it's a pangea map, no one is going to be too happy with either of those two getting an early advantage and if it's an arch map, we will be safe for a long time.


Donsig
As for victory condition I think realistically we have to go for dominaiton. 20k would sidetrack us from what we need to do to stay strong, alive and competitive. We should by all means build libraries and beneficial wonders but we have to temper our cultural building with some defensive capabilities.


AutomatedTeller
I like that idea. If we can make such a city coastal, we can also pick up collosus (a relatively inexpensive good culture which is half our GA) - that plus the GLib gives us a GA in the late AA, early MA, which is probably about when the Gallics/MW will start making themselves a serious threat.

I'm not convinced a 20K win is realistic in a game like this - unless we pop an early SGL that we can use for Pyramids or GLib.
 
I'd love to do a 20K... the problem is, it becomes obvious that that is what we are doing if we try it. To do a 20K correctly, you need to build one city way up, which becomes obvious and you have to build wonders.

A) everyone will start builing a wonder, just to keep us from getting all of them
B) everyone will team up to take us out.
 
I won't go straight for 20k, I don't favor building a temple eg.

But I see no point against going for early libs. Maybe we even try the Colossus in The Admirality(?). However all things essential for a 20k-bait like joining workers and pump it to size 12 in a hurry, we can't afford.

So I think Lit (as free tech) then CoL, Republic would be my favorite research order.

A 20k-town and especially TGL is always an aim for any aggressive / backward / desperate civ. This could easily turn out to be quite a curse in the Middle Ages...

And it is absolutely impossible to win this game by 20k if you are not strong enough to win it by domination anyway... :rolleyes:

Colossus, SoZ and Pyramides however are decent wonders worth being built.
 
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