New Succession Game

I think we need a strategy reminder. Overall, we just want to win this, without any variant rules in place - correct?

If this is correct or not, I think this position needs a goal - that is a consent on what we want to achieve. In fact I think we can win this in various ways, but I'm not sure about te objectives of the team, so let's try to make a plan on that.
 
No variants - that's correct.

We haven't actually discussed yet which VC we are going for. I'd think conquest would be the most fun. There's at least one one-tile island out there but we'll get to marines so it's not a problem.
 
Looking at CivAssist, I see that all victory types are on. Own was talking about going for a domination win at the start of this SG, and we never elaborated on that any further. Going for conquest or domination would be the same thing at this stage of the game, wouldn't it?

At the point we are now, 630AD, we've just had a few sets of heavy warmongering with the Dutch. There seems to be consensus in the team that signing peace with them now is the best thing. Some gaps have appeared because we razed Dutch towns, so there's even a bit of expansion to do again. If you've read the last set of posts from the team, you'll see that we have some building wishes: military small wonders and perhaps some universities (I'm not sure myself about the effectivity of them, though).
We haven't yet decided what we're going to do with our military while at peace with the Dutch. Perhaps go across the ocean and grab something else in the meantime. We're in a deal with the Romans that still will last 11 turns. We might still need deals with other civs for lux; having only 2 lux is a problem. Trade routes are still scarce, since nobody has researched Navigation yet.
So we have a part plan, but there are still things we need to decide. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. :D
 
I like winning by military, it seems more fun. I think we could go whale on some overseas enemies, but I'd rather build up and kill off the Dutch, then we can go overseas with a secure homeland, not split our resources.
 
I think we should start building up some navy though so that we wouldn't have to wait another 10 turns or so after the mainland is clear of the Dutch.

Going for conquest or domination would be the same thing at this stage of the game, wouldn't it?

Actually no. If going for conquest, we would probably end up razing quite a few towns whereas with domination we would have to capture or raze/replace most. Conquest would be more fun in my opinion but domination is fine too.
 
Thanks for the summary guys. Military VC appears the way to go, that's fine. I agree with Overseer in that I prefer cleaning our own continent first - there are 2 luxes to gain by that, which would be very welcome.

I'm not convinced that pausing the war is a good idea as the Dutch will certainly become stronger again by that pause. We should beat them while they're down. But I understand that the WW is a pain, and that cavs against rifles won't work, and even 3 cav armies are only 9 attack, so we would need to rely heavily on the cannon stack.

Alternative plan would be to continue the war until the Dutch are cleared from the continent or else until we have secured the 2 luxes. We can possibly trade a lux with the Persians by trading it for salt, there is an unconnected source in former Dutch country. This could help a bit with the happiness situation in the meantime.
 
I still think we should try and raze whatever Dutch city is in our range right now, before signing peace. Apart from that I don't like the idea of not being ready when the 20 turn peace deal with the Dutch ends.

Part of the reason we were hit by WW so soon in the last war, was because of the massive amount of fast movement units the Dutch had. If I understand it correctly, even defending succesfully against another unit attacking adds to WW. So the sooner we strike again, the smaller the chance WW will be a problem again.

If we wait longer, we still won't have anything better than cavalry against their riflemen anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no benefit on waiting longer than 20 turns. This is based on my understanding that WW, whatever the severity, is gone after 20 turns?

I also think we should consider our strategy as far as science and taxes are concerned. I suppose just libraries will do if we can research techs that will offer us good trading opportunities. I'm not quite sure on the difference. The value of universities decreases, the lower our science slider goes. But at the same time, being the first to research a tech is very valuable. I'll leave that descision to you more experienced Civ'ers. ;)
 
To get to know more about war weariness you should really look up Oystein's study. What I believe the study doesn't mention is that even a fast unit that retreats when attacking adds to the war weariness count.
I'm not so sure it's beneficial for us to continue this sucky research much longer. 20 turns for a tech is woeful. Don't forget we built our military on the trades that our technological edge could buy us. Losing the tech race often means losing the military.

In my estimation, the size of our empire would allow us to research fast enough without universities. A lot of help will come from a bit of extra expansion, where the Pyramids will help us setting up the science farms quickly. Since we also want the Heroic Epic, the Pentagon and the Military Academy, and I like the Theory of Evolution myself for the free techs, I don't see that much room for universities. But I'm sure that once we own our continent, we will start leading the tech race again. Unless we continue having half of our people unhappy because of war weariness. :p
 
I agree that we should just make peace immediately, forget about universities and use scientists in corrupt towns to help our research (irrigate everything, let the towns grow to at least size 7 if on a river and then use the extra food for scientists).

As for Theory Of Evolution - I'm not sure if we can get it since we have no prebuild. I should have started one but didn't think of it. However, with all the army small wonders still left, we don't really have much to lose if we go for it.

I just have to say though, when we started the game, I never imagined that by the Industrial Age we would still have someone else on our continent. We sure have made this much harder on ourselves than was needed but the barbarians and the lack of contacts for so long really hurt us in the beginning. Having a strong AI as the main opponent also held us back. Well, at least we get to use some tanks too. It's been a while since I last used those since I almost never finish my games. The turns at the end always take so much time and it's mostly just a question of time before I win that I just abandon the games and start a new one instead. The middle ages are by far the most fun in my opinion. You're done expanding and get to do some fighting with knights and especially cavalry. So much fun.
 
I've read it before, but I see now that I missed quite some details. I had no idea declarations after failed spy missions didn't give WH, or that capturing enemy cities has an effect.

I agree it's no use investing in research if it'll continue to be sucky anyway. :) Since we're planning a military VC, our focus in tech should be to get the ToE and Hoover´s? My question is, what are we going to do in the turns until we've got our continent set up for proper research? The Dutch and the Persians are already in the IA, so it's not impossible that Scientific Method will be researched soon. I don't think we're in a perfect position to shoot for those two, but they would really help us out of course.

Edit: Reading Salarakas post, I guess it falls down to settle thwe gaps, set up science farms and focus on building small military wonders, galleys, cavalry and cannons? Unless we do have a viabled strategy to take the ToE?
 
Salarakas, don't tell me.. are we agreeing on strategy??? :eek:

What is unusual for me about this game is that we never used alliances. I always use them in my games. And the Hittites were surprisingly weak for a Demigod AI, certainly considering they had decent terrain and hadn't been fighting.
An expansion phase is probably a lot easier without barbs, when you can just build a granary and churn out the settlers. For me that's a little too simple. I don't mind a less comfortable start, and rarely play from a +5 food position as well. But it takes me a lot longer to get going. What we are doing in this game is probably quicker than what I do in my games.

I expect the Theory of Evolution would be quite easy to get. The AI has a habit of researching all those optional techs in the top: Nationalism, Communism, Espionage, Fascism and perhaps even Ironclads.
And we're still 3 techs away from starting research on the Scientific method: Steampower, Medicine and Electricity all still come before that.

Well, I guess Thinktank has enough to think about. :lol:
 
Well, I have computer access now, and I haven't had a chance to as much as catch up on the big discussion, let alone contribute to it. I'm really just a lurker now :cool: . Plus, my input would suck because I can't look at the saves. I can really only say that in general, ToE is more than worth a shot (maybe cash-rush a factory and coal plan in the city that we plan to have it in before the prebuild). Remember to post some screenies!
 
I think we should try for the ToE, we can risk the shields. Should we fail, we can use them for a small wonder. I think our capital may be the best bet there, build the Military Academy should we fail. Nice to have more armies, no matter what else. Right now, just need to take care of the business at hand.
 
Summarizing:

- military victory
- peace now, but prepare for elimination of Dutch in 20 turns.
- crank up science output by farms (not universities), so build settlers
- military small wonders
- ToE

Playing now, will update today.
 
2 questions to the team.

1. We have Steam Power (and coal!). I've traded Steam Power to Persia for Navigation, 30 gpt, and 3400g. I can also sell it to the Dutch for 47gpt, 60g and world map. Should I do this second deal? It would mean an extra 10 turns to the peace deal with them. Other AIs do not have money. CA2 says estimated value is 3500, so the Dutch offer is likely all they can afford.

2. Greece is quite backwards. How about gifting them into the industrial age for their free tech?
 
1. Did you haggle down on those deals? Or did you just ask what they would offer? I think I'd do the trade whether they have coal or not, especially if they don't. If we declare war, we only lose gpt, not our reputation. They'll probably research it themselves in a few turns anyway, so we might as well get value for it while we can. They're not long for this world.

2. I usually do that. They'll make some IA tech cheaper. What was Persia's free tech?
 
1. Did you haggle down on those deals? Or did you just ask what they would offer? I think I'd do the trade whether they have coal or not, especially if they don't. If we declare war, we only lose gpt, not our reputation. They'll probably research it themselves in a few turns anyway, so we might as well get value for it while we can. They're not long for this world.

I didn't know that doesn't ruin rep if you declare, I agree it's a good deal then. We left the Dutch infrastructure in ruins, so by the time it'd be a benefit, we'll surely be knocking on their doors again.
 
1. Did you haggle down on those deals? Or did you just ask what they would offer? I think I'd do the trade whether they have coal or not, especially if they don't. If we declare war, we only lose gpt, not our reputation. They'll probably research it themselves in a few turns anyway, so we might as well get value for it while we can. They're not long for this world.

I haggled for te Persian deal, pretty sure that was max I could get. For the Dutch deal I did not haggle yet, so we may get an even better deal. They have 1 coal, unconnected, another one is in the land between the Dutch and us and will be grabbed by us next turn.

2. I usually do that. They'll make some IA tech cheaper. What was Persia's free tech?

Persian free tech was nationalism, the Dutch have that too.
 
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