JFC1: Spacecakes

Sweetacshon, could you clarify your purpose of Philo? We already have DR; did you overlook that what we needed for Nat was CS rather than Philo? I tried to suggest so by talking about CS->Nat, but I wasn't explicit, sorry. If you were thinking Liberalism, what about Astro or Gunpowder? What was your reasoning?

GP: at current rates it's Lux, but Lux could stop running the Artist for a lower Artist%. If we do get an Artist I submit that due to easy culture from the Sistine a culture bomb is not the best use of him. I also submit the Sistine means generally we should not run artists except possibly to pop a fat cross, because it's so easy and overall more efficient to get culture from buildings and other specialists. ==If== we do get an Artist,
* Could save for a GA. Note that as of 3.13, RFC GAs are back to not preventing anarchy and to requiring 2 GPs for the first one; not sure about GPPs. IMO the former was a good design choice, since RFC GAs already give an extra benefit (stability), and making it easy to use GAs to cheese around the instability from civics changes removed a strategic element. I suspect the reason he reverted the latter was because the mod was already balanced for that (more GAs = more stability = balance thrown off).
* Could bulb. Since we have DR he'd bulb relevant techs. Here's the Artist bulb order with costs (assuming it's the same order as "vanilla"):
Nationalism 2243 [need CS (684)]
Philosophy ~400 left
Printing Press 1388 [need Paper]
Liberalism 1602
Education 1496
Paper 598
I'd guess the beaker formula is the "vanilla" one:
...Great Scientist: 1500 + 3*CivPopulation
...Every other great person: 1000 + 2*CivPopulation

We don't know what GP we'll get so really the tech path may depend on that and the availability of CS and/or Paper by trade. But generally, having researched half of Philo, it might make sense to go for Liberalism and/or take opportunistic bulbs, and roll the dice with trade availability -- even if that means later Astro/Gunpowder. Astro is cheap in RFC (cheaper than Nationalism; 1580 for us) and the Atlantic AIs like to research it early. So without aggressively going after it we're unlikely to get it first. Getting it from Liberalism would probably work just fine for us, but it's unlikely to be the best for raw beakers and unlikely to yield a monopoly.

Guilds+Drama+30 to Ragnar for Optics sounds good to me. Hopefully Isabella and not Ragnar is now Liz's worst enemy. It's better than getting Optics from the only other seller Greece, who's at war with Spain+France+Russia.

 

GA is an idea too. I think an artist may can bulb nationalism as well if we can get civil service by then. We have 6-8 turns, so things may change but I want to get it out there.


So my idea this set is... I'll make the trade for optics and upgrade the trireme. Explore/Settle Africa (assuming it gets there), build a couple caravels, and homeland military units (probably just cats/pikes for now in hopes to get CS for maces). And finally make any initial map trades I can before we start exploring. Think that's about it...

 

1240 (IHT):

Trade Drama, Guilds, and 30 shillings to Ragnar for Optics.

Swap artists for scientists, and go 90/10 espionage towards Germany/Russia/Rome at 2/1/1. Babylon seemed useless now.

Hire merchant vs scientist in Ikea.

Switch Amsterdam to Caravel.

Switch Luxemberg from Exp -> XBow to sync Exp/Caravel.




1250:

Russia asks to war with Bab and I decline.

Dispatched Caravel/Explorer towards Mali.

Luxemberg builds an Explorer.



1260:

Marseille is captured by Rome, guess its bad Louis has no Iron - despite the fact he has Gunpowder/Guilds and Horses.

Greece starts to bubble, and is at war with Spain/France/Russia.




1270:

Spain asked us to declare on Greece and after some consideration I agree. My decision was mainly based on us having unprotected galleys, full, sitting off Spaine and our relations sucked (+1). France/Spain were both at war so that was a plus. Greece is really busy with Russia so for us this is phony. We did inherit a -1 with Germany, but surprisingly we have a better military... I did gift him our surplus pig for now though.

Louis is now Friendly and has all his techs on the table. Who said early diplo smokes matter?

Upgraded the Trireme to a Caravel.



1280:

Philosophy is in and Louis wants it for 210 shillings. After some haggling I worked out Civil Service and 210 shillings, for Philosophy and Drama. We
could have gotten paper also, but I decided to research paper instead and take CS for the discount, maces, and possible Nationalism bulb.

Elizabeth now has Astronomy.

Greece moves from Unstable to Unstable/Collapsing.

Dispatched Caravel/Explorer towards N.America.

Ikea finishes last caravel, and builds a 1 turn lighthouse.



1290:

Turkey spawned, expect another war enemy with Greece.

Amsterdam: Barracks -> Mace

Luxemberg builds last explorer for S.America, will meet the Ikea caravel in 1-2 turns.

And this brings us to our GP, whatta we get ya say? Of course, defying most odds, what we got was an Engineer.

We can bulb Gunpowder (fully) or we can build the Wat or Spiral Minaret... The minaret doesn't seem like a bad option, considering
our economy is about to take a hit with Africa. Gunpowder is nice, but we did just start training our new military toy.


Edit: Uploaded the save but don't see it listed... does it need approving first? I can probably upload it somewhere else if need be...

 

From my report:

...but I wasn't that confident about it, to tell the truth. At that point, tho, noone else had it. Now the English have paper and philo, but detoured to astro, so we might still be in with a liberalism chance.

 

Gonna try uploading the save once more, and play in the morning. Just noticed Louis is willing to trade Paper for Music+Map+95gold. He still continues to be stingy with gunpowder, and his map. I'm inclined to take it while we only have 1 turn into paper, and our map is not much. Our Africa explorer will disembark in Mali next turn, after I get OB with Mansa.

Paper in 7, Literature @ 3, Banking @ 12, Nationalism @ 29, Astronomy @ 29, Gunpowder @ 15

 

Why yes, I would like fries with my shake .

 

I hate to stop so soon but I pressed enter and we have an interesting turn of events here. After getting Paper, Elizabeth is willing to trade Printing Press for Divine Right+Guilds+Drama. It turns out that now she is annoyed with Ragnar, and Ragnar is cautious too. Now I don't see this trade doing much for us since we haven't cottaged yet, but it does hold trade value...

Our Engineer options are University of Sankore or the Minaret (Engineer arrives in Ikea next turn). I like both of for basically the same reason so I'll leave that to the group. Keep in mind shrines (not sure about wonders) in RFC are capped at 20 gpt so Sankore may be better.

And last of all. Germany declared war on us..... oops I mean Russia. Russia now has a two front war, horses, no iron, and more importantly no Guilds. I like the idea of gifting him guilds for the +4, and help against Germany/Greece. We may could even make a run on Germany next turnset. He's a space race monster later though, so long term may out weight short term here.

 

No strong opinion about PP or Russia, except: if we anger Germany, it could make trouble for us unless we also take it over; and taking it over has a cost in hammers and stability; and we also want hammers and stability for colonization.

The 20 limit wouldn't affect the Minaret because the source of each 2 is the individual building. I think the effect would be very similar. Even if we had more beaker multipliers, since we'd have Christian buildings everywhere it would just push the slider the other way and cancel out. Biggest difference I can think of is GPPs, which I think Sankore is better for.

 

Yea that was my thinking with Sankore/Minaret, so we'll go with Sankore. I might wait on the PP trade a turn or two and see if I can negotiate peace with Spain first. Our galleys are away from there with an escort now, so the diplo is a bit more leniant.

As for Germany - if Russia can cause substantial losses we can probably just raze hamburg to cause the collapse. It has 3 Longbows and only 1 is CG1. If we did it that way we wouldn't need much force at all, free up Amsterdams tiles and then we can take Berlin later from rebels (less revolt, military, stability hit). We still have room for a +4 with him too, something useless like drama.

 

1280 (Continued):

Trade Music, Map, 95 gold to Louis for Paper

Amsterdam: Barracks -> Mace



1300:

Germany declares on Russia

Skipped the proposed trades.

Peace treaty with Ragnar expires



1310:

Germany demands we stop trading with Russia. Yea right, I've been plotting against you since turn one!

Meet our new friend Mehmed, friend of friends, enemy of enemies.

Gift Mehmed Meditation in attempts to get OB, no luck so we buy his map for 15 shillings instead.



Open Borders with Spain.

Hmmm? Whats this? Someone built Sankore!!!!! Ok fine, we'll take the Minaret, Thanks!

AP vote between Rome/Greece, we abstain.




1320:

Ikea: Spiral Minaret -> Library.

Mehmed wants to trade maps. Are you joking? Come back when you have something new!

I decided to stir things up, and got the diplo bonus with Russia.

Spoiler :

Drop espionage to rebuild coffers.

Izzy learns how to draw funny pictures in the stars.

Greece wins the AP... now die!



1330:

France and England meet... The Plague. Close borders in hopes to spare us.

German military in sharp decline. Good thing we sent our condolences to Russia.

Louis got Astro, and Liz got Guilds.



1340:

Plague hits Amsterdam/Luxemberg - No casualties. Spreads across europe... like the plague.

England got Divine Right.

Frances bubbles (not sure why, anarchy maybe).

Another interesting event...




1350:

Plague hits Ikea and we lose the crossbow. Shuffle one over from Amsterdam.

Mali is now vassal to Rome, great.

Everyones military is dropping fast, except Russia. Cheers Motha Ruska!

Turkey lost a city to Babylon somewhere in there (As-Sur, north of jerusulam), but Bab is in decline.

Lose fish for 2gpt to France, couldn't renogotiate.

England built Wat Praeh Whateva.



1360:

Met Asoka, who has education and oddly enough is #1 in score. This is such a weird game. Anyway he would trade Drama for Lit but I passed to check relations.

Try to trade Fish for Spice to Asoka - no go.


1370:

Asoka offers Lit+50gold for Drama and this time I accept.

I close, and Asoka is back again. He wants to trade fish for spice now. Well, I must say you're a funny guy, but what the hey.... we accept.

Ikea expanded and grabbed some tiles from Russia/Germany.

Luxemberg: Mace -> Lib we have 4 maces, 2 cats, 3 pikes. Thanks the plague Germany lost several knights/longbows. They are left with 1 longbow in Hamburg now...

Met the Aztec, and to my surprise we were the first. We got this little treat...





1380:

Met Khmer and China. China has gunpowder/education. Khmer is backwards as usual.

Settle Winburg and Zimbabwe is very close.




Greece finally shows up with ONE mercernary war elephant. It scared the puny Dutch so bad we sue for peace. France did the same the turn before.

Zara offers Incense for our last Fish. We don't really need the fish, but I didn't accept yet so someone else can if they want.

Louis will trade Astro and Mali will trade gunpowder, of course we have nothing to trade.



I think things went pretty well. I wish I could say our tech plans were panning out, but I'm sure we can all agree Asoka is headed for Lib/Constitution. Our exploration has mapped almost all of the Atlantic, and thanks to a goody hut map S.America is maybe 60%. We've reached Denver/Baja Cali in N.America. Burnt a few promotions to save our military units from the plague, but we still may lose the other crossbow in Ikea. Plague is over in Lux/Ams should end in Ikea next turn. We can probably open borders back with France/England
in a turn or so.

 

I'm gonna be gone again this weekend so I wanted to point out a few things I forgot to mention.

The conquest army should probably wait a few turns since the aztecs will get plague and thin em down. Meanwhile I have been slaying the nearby barbs for experience. They hit the economy pretty hard but can sell Lit around to make up, and pillaging/razing Mexico should be profittable. We're going to get another army for meeting the Incas in a turn or two. There were some barbs about in SE area of N.America which is why its unexplored.

I honestly think we're going to circumnavigate as well. During all of the exploration I only ran into one French caravel in the Artic (last couple turns), an English one around Iberia when I first set out, and some spanish/portugese galleys/triremes around Africa. Only Ragnar knows India, not sure if thats by land or sea.

I've still yet to see any galleons despite several civs having Astro. I'm really baffled at what these guys are up too. Having all these ancient empires around makes it a bit more interesting than usual.

 

I see I'm up but will probably have to take the full 72h (or until Sunday night at least) to be able to play as this is my last working weekend before starting winter vacations on Monday.

A swap would be ideal, but that not being possible I'll deliver the goods by Sunday night/Monday morning.

 

Indibil, a swap is possible. Let's swap.

Edit: Got 10 turns for now.

After Indibil's turn I would indeed like to switch from 15/24/48 to 10/24/24, if you guys don't mind. I think that might give us a better play/discuss rhythm. With the 24, maybe I should say explicitly:
* if the up player goes for a full 24 without any post, I will try to move us along by announcing a skip, with no hard feelings on either side I hope. But if the up player feels that more discussion is needed, we can push out the 24; hopefully we can just wing that and not verbosely renegotiate the deadline every time.
* skips are always no problem, please feel free if needed.
* discussion is fabulous, and consensus is great too, but you're the dictator of your turnset, so if you don't think there's a consensus, it's fine to do what you want, just please say why.

Roster:

Jet - up for 10 for now (swap with Indibil)

new round:
Indibil - on deck for 15/24/48 (swap with Jet)
Sweetachon - 10/24/24
LtCowprod - 10/24/24
Indibil - 10/24/24

new round:
Jet - 10/24/24
Sweetachon - 10/24/24
etc.

About the game:
* I propose to pillage/kill in Mexico, but my preference is not to take any cities. If we do, we'll get a stability hit either for razing the city (-2 stability per city razed, where 10 points = 1 level stable/unstable/shaky/etc), or for keeping it and acquiring tiles outside our historical area, or for giving the city back to Monty (counts as losing a city). Again, this is coming from a perspective of paranoia about stability. On the other hand, as far as I know the direct effect of having a vassal in the stability calculations is 100% positive, and vassalizing Monty would also have resource and power benefits. So IMO the ideal situation in Mexico would be to pillage/kill, maybe recover some of the maintenance cost of the units there and rack up some GG points, and capitulate Monty. Now, in practice he might not do that unless we take a city, I don't know. In that case I think the 2nd-best outcome would be to take a city (maybe the one we can see), cap him, and then probably keep the city (debatable).
* If we get another free conquistador army for Peru, same deal.
* About Germany, I do think we should eliminate Hamburg (whether by war or by flip-and-disband, either way we will take a stability hit for razing or losing a city), and replace it with a city on the unused tile in Denmark. But IMO Berlin is not worth having because of (a) risk of a resurrection and revolt after Nationalism (b) ahistorical tiles (c) some cost to acquire it. I think that with just Ams/Lux/Ikea/DenmarkCity, we would not have any cities at risk of revolt by resurrection. (Well, maybe Ikea?) I believe you can avoid resurrection revolts by keeping your stability at Solid (or Stable?), but I would rather not rely on our doing that. That's my opinion. I think we could use some discussion on Germany.

 

10 turns - fine with me.

Can't we just gift it back to him? I like the idea of trying to vassalise Monty if possible. What about the historical areas in the US New England area, and to the north of Brazil? Is it worth trying to establish something there? In fact, how do we know if we are taking a stability hit until too late, and how do we know exactly what caused it?

Hamburg is a pain, and has to go, imo. We have 60-70% culture in the german tiles bordering us, but actually I am unsure of the mechanics behind tile ownership... can someone explain it, please? IF we are going to raze and resettle 2N, say, is it worth waiting for Nationalism so we can use the conquest civic? Perhaps the same applies for the americas. Speaking of which, is there some problem with bureaucracy?

The other thing is specialists and GPs... we should probably be a little more strategic about this... 5 scientists in Amst will have a high%GS in 5 turns, whereas currently we'll have a lucky dip (50% GE) in Ikea in 4 turns. If we back off Ikea, we can use the GS toward liberalism.

 

The trouble with Rhye's Sweet, is as brillant as it is, unless you can read coding, or have math degree, your best friend is your eyes, common sense and a competent history text.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it what it is however

And...would taking over Germany be *that* much of an issue in the long run?

 

@Sweetacshon:

• we can gift it back to him, there's just a stability penalty for "losing" the city. I suspect the commerce/hammers/etc makes keeping it better, but your guess is as good as mine.
• tile ownership: I think there might be a "culture mechanics" article in the strategy articles forum...
• Civics: anarchy is a big stability minus, so minimizing civics changes is desirable. For the Expansion column, I think the stereotypical pattern is to choose one midgame style of expansion and adopt the best civic for it. Then if you are going to be playing for a while longer without expanding, settle into Commonwealth. For us, I don't think we could just dip into Occupation while we conquered Germany. Germany doesn't have enough cities for the anarchy to be worth it. I think we'd get the most bang from Resettlement, then Commonwealth. Bureau is cool, especially now that we're out of the medieval age and so are no longer getting a bonus from HR + Vassalage. HOWEVER, there's a minus for Bureau with > 5 cities, and again, a penalty for the anarchy from switching to it. So IMO we're best off simply staying in Vassalage until we're ready for Free Speech. All that said, I'm not opposed to experimenting and just playing around... things will probably be more interesting if you and Indibil don't trust my and LtCowprod's experience about everything.
• stability: the factors are documented, but the user interface doesn't tell us any details about which plusses and minuses have taken effect for us. All you get is F2. If you look in the RFC forum in the "preview of next version" thread, you see an improvement where apparently he is adding information about whether each stability category is currently increasing or descreasing.
• great people: my favorite GP right now would be a scientist for an Academy. My favorite GP 50 turns from now (or whenever) would be a GE for the Channel Tunnel. Apart from that, probably scientists for bulbs. So yeah, I agree we should drop the science.

@vra:

• I don't know. My attitude about stability is paranoid. And ressurection revolts in particular are hard to deal with. They're hard to predict and prevent in the first place. If one occurs, you get a stability penalty for losing the city, you lose buildings as if the city was conquered, (so, all culture buildings, for example), and then if you want it back you have to reconquer it, destroying more buildings. I don't know all the factors, though. I've occupied Turkey as Babylon without revolts, and according to this thread the tResurrectionProb for Turkey is just as high as the one for India, and India is notorious in RFC for resurrection revolts. But then, I was very paranoid and did everything to keep my stability up.

0 1380. Fire a couple merchants and engineers and hire scientists. Regarding merchants, cash bombs seem to be worse in RFC than vanilla (please correct me if I'm wrong). They're still good to settle, but 1380 seems a bit late for a settle (not too late... but a bit late.) Regarding Engineers -> Scientists, I keep engineers in Ikea and Winburg where we need the hammers, but for now I'm gunning for Liberalism.

1 1390 Qin demands 1 of 2 Cows. He doesn't seem to be anyone's worst enemy, although he could be just from religion. I figure, sure. Annoyed -> Cautious, and no demerits (I think.)

Izzy requests Paper. She's at war with England (and Greece) and I think is Liz's worst enemy. I think the argument for appeasement was that she's on the way to our colonies. That's a good argument, and Paper is already known by all the tech leaders. Agreed. +4 from Izzy. OK, I just wanted to see that smile, but here it is for you:

Minus nothing from Liz.

Peter demands we close OB with Hammurabi. We're cultivating Peter and Hammurabi is in decline, so I guess that's OK.

Ams Catapult -> Longbow
Ikea Barracks -> Longbow

Mali and Rome make peace with France.

India wins Liberalism and takes Nationalism. I have to admit, I'm rooting for him to get the Taj. I don't think I could win Liberalism as India. I'm taking notes from this dude.

Explorer meets HC. A quick search suggests that you do not need to declare war to trigger the conqueror event, so I don't.

I realize we're not even at war with Monty. Well, screw him. "Oh look, I just built 2 Knights, a Crossbow, 2 Pikes, and a Catapult. Now where shall I put them?" I move units into position.

2 1400

We finish recovering from the plague.
Reopen borders with France, Persia.

Survya, Qin's vassal, asks us to declare on Persia. They're at war, but Qin has lost contact with Darius. Declined; I don't do business with vassals.

Turkey captures Ninua.

Luxemburg Library -> Christian Temple.

I sail up the coast of South America and find:

THE MAN IS ON FIRE!

One thing that I think has helped him is building the Shwedagon and going Free Religion, to make his neighbors friendlier.

I declare on Monty, taking out 3 workers and disbanding them. I don't want to pay to carry them around, and I'm hoping we won't take a city. Monty does not have the plague, but I figure the sooner we start the beatdown, the better.

3: 1405

Decline Saladin's request to declare on Cyrus.

AP vote to stop the war on England (Spain + Greece vs England). I vote no, better to slow them down despite the diplo complications. But it succeeds.

Ams Longbow -> Galley. I want to build up another settler gang.

4: 1410

Meet Tokugawa, who is Friendly with China (now led by Ming Tai Zu), in possession of Nationalism and Banking, and tied for second in score with Rome. He doesn't seem to be despised, so I try to offer him our 32 gold, but the user interface won't let me do it. I click OK and nothing happens. Gold per turn, same thing. I could give him Divine Right, but it looks like he would trade it to China for Gunpowder (although China doesn't have Theology, either, but I think they'd work it out); and I'd rather hold them back. So he stays at -2 annoyed.

We get another Great Engineer, in Ikea. We could send him to a remote place in hope of rushing Forbidden Palace (Versailles), or bulb Gunpowder, or save him. For now, he goes to sleep.

Trade Pigs to Zara for Incense. We'll have another Pigs when we get around to hooking it up.

5: 1415

Ams Galley -> Settler
Ikea Longbow -> Caravel
Lux Temple -> Longbow
Winburg work boat -> Monastery

Possible future Canadians:


6: 1420

We prove the world is round, but someone else did it in 1320. SPEAKING OF WHICH... HC caps to Asoka.

Babylonia is no more.


7: 1425

Ikea Caravel -> Settler
Lux Longbow -> Pike. Germany has Knights, and enough on his hands right now. Promote a few units as a precaution.
South American Explorer pops a hut, qualifying him for Heroic Epic. Oh yeah, there is no Heroic Epic in RFC. But he'll make a cool Woodsman 3 medic if we ever need one. Oh yeah, Recon units can't get Woodsman 3.

8: 1430

Ding, Edumacation. I hear the saucy fiddles. Welcome to the Renaissance.

Astro is a little more expensive than Education and Louis won't trade for it. Louis has Guns, Astro, and Nat on us. Hannibal and Mansa have Guns (and Hannibal has Nat), but neither has Paper. We can probably get guns from Mansa, but I sure hope we can get to get Astro at the same time. What to research? Liz has PP. I suggest Banking, with the hope of trading Edu and Banks for Astro and Guns (and maybe Nat and PP? One can hope). After Banks, we could research Economics and switch to Resettlement + Free Market together. The age of Mercantilism seems shorter in RFC than in vanilla. However, I turn research to zero for a couple turns in case Indibil would rather research something else. (There's a stability penalty for prolonged deficit spending, but I suspect a few turns is no big deal.)

Izzy's in the house:


Future World Series victors and home town of Jet:


Monty has lost his on-the-corn city to barbs. Still won't cap.

9: 1435

Liz offers Sheep for Cows. Great, I've been looking for Sheep. We have actually flipped an extra Cows in Latvia (or somewhere, sorry Latvia):
Liz still won't reopen borders. She will however trade PP for everything we've got. I can't do that; need Astro at the same time.

Ams Settler -> Missionary. Send Settler to Denmark. Whether we attack Germany or not, I hope we can agree the Denmark tile is a decent spot. It picks up the Pigs in northern Denmark. Welcome to...


10: 1440

Zara warms up to OB.

I didn't notice some Impis in South Africa, and we lose our Worker. I hate those guys.

Lux Pikeman -> Maceman.

Ams Missionary -> Missionary. I anticipate a gang along the lines of:
Galley: Settler (from Ikea), Worker or Settler.
+ Galley: Missionary, Longbow or Settler
+ Caravel
I think the priority is Australia (my bonnie bonnie boys) for the UHV goal. There actually are no barbs there, unless you pop them from a hut, so we could forego Longbows and just spam Settlers. Assuming we cap Monty and get Silver from him, I don't think there are any crucial resources that need to be grabbed (except Aluminum in northern Australia?), but in general, with Dikes I think there are many good spots in the Australia / Indonesia area.

Monty is down to one unit in each of his two cities, but thinks we must joking when we suggest capitulation. Maybe we should show him whether we're joking or not.

Don't forget to cancel the Cow tribute to China.

Suggestion: send the Caravel from the Caribbean and the Explorer from Africa to Indonesia and Australia to pop huts and keep an eye out for rivals.

Will Winburg fall to Impis?


Tune in next turnset and find out!

Roster:

new round:
Indibil - on deck for 15/24/48 (swap with Jet)
Sweetacshon - 10/24/24
LtCowprod - 10/24/24
Indibil - 10/24/24

new round:
Jet - 10/24/24
Sweetacshon - 10/24/24
etc.

 

Looks good so far, but I think need to eradicate Monte not just pester him. The reason being he can't capitulate to us since we're not on the same continent. If we let him vassal up with England while we're at war, then they will declare on us. There's not much benefit to having him as a vassal either, he only has a couple luxury resources that we already have or can get elsewhere. Arabia is really the only vassal in RFC worth having IMO with its surplus of late game oil.

 

What's the benefit of eradicating him over leaving him alone?

> he only has a couple luxury resources that we already
> have or can get elsewhere
See your argument, not sure whether I agree or not.
But also, what about Corn? And Cotton?

 

Taking away loot/resources from the competition? We definitely have nothing to gain from leaving him there, except making England stronger...

Corn/Cotton don't really matter do they? We won't be getting them until we settle there anyway. I wouldn't want to capture an Aztec city for them... All those cities suck and we could settle better places in N.America to get them.

We could probably do fine staying out of N.America to be honest. Maybe grab Los Angeles/Denver late game. Those aren't flip prone and have good production.

 

It would only be slightly harder for an AI to get Mexico with Settlers than by conquering Monty. I don't see why you think making things that slightly harder for an AI is worth -4 stability for razing two cities.

I think Tampico is a pretty good spot, and capturing it and capping Monty would be better than settling somewhere else in North America because it would be cheaper (the units are there now), faster (same reason), and it would get us resources beyond one city and deny Mexico to a rival.