Unfortunately, Qin doesn't even like us enough to sign a Defensive Pact with us, so we can't boost relations that way. It's beginning to look like the only way is to get him and Asoka to war somehow.
IBT (between 3 and 4): Lots of places finish builds and start factories.
It's not all bad. This will assist the rushing of growth buildings in the colonies quite significantly, and for that matter any factories that look like they need it. We have *lots* of money.
I begin shipping more (lots more) troops over to Ris-volee, for when (not if, I think) we have to declare on Asoka.
I get Qin to break his deals with Asoka. It's the only thing I can do, but anything which further exacerbates the hate between those two is a good thing.
Turn 5 (1900): More rushing. I check Qin, and he's evidently out of his grace period for changing governments, so I ask him to switch to Universal Suffrage and Pacifism, since they're the two on the table, for the possibility of some Civics bonus at some point. Any relations we can get with him, any at all, are to be pushed. In other news, our 'You have traded with our worst enemies!' malus with him has dropped from -4 to -3, which is nice.
Turn 7 (1904): The second Diplo victory vote looks much like the last one, except that this time we'd only have been 3 votes short rather than 8, if Qin had voted for us, which he did not.
(I note this appears to have been 4 turns after the last vote, in disagreement with Sirian saying there were 2 turns between votes. I definitely didn't miss one, though, so I don't know what's going on there.
IBT: I have to refuse Mansa a Defensive Pact, though it pains me to do so, since it will hurt our relations with Qin if I sign one with Mansa and not with him, but he won't sign one.
Turn 10: Industrialism -> Refrigeration. No research actually invested yet, of course, so Sirian can change it if necessary. We do have a couple of unhealthy cities since I had to cancel the deals with Asoka and Roosevelt, so I suggest either that or Medicine may be warranted. We have only two sources of Aluminium, at Sucre and at Polynesian, but they're both already mined, so they'll be plenty if we need them.
I propose Victory again, on the basis that we have 20 more votes than last time simply based on population growth, so I want to check that there do actually exist enough votes if we could only get Qin further back onto our side. I believe there are, now, but Sirian will get to find out.
Settlers are still under way in various places in order to settle the last of the 1-fish islands dotted around, of which there are several. I doubt they matter once we have enough pop for the first time, though, since it's not like we'll be able to grow out enough to get victory without Qin any time soon.
I've been operated under the assumption that we still want to do this peacefully. We're obviously more than capable of going and beating up someone like Tokugawa, taking his population, and winning the vote with Mansa's support, but that doesn't seem to be the way we're going here. It's still unclear as to how we can do it without, though.
The only way I can think of currently is to declare on Asoka and hope Qin will join us, it's about the only thing I think will be worth enough. I've held off on doing so myself since there still weren't enough votes even with his support. The next vote will be a new SecGen election, but you will want to give serious consideration to having declared on Asoka by the time the one after that rolls round, though.
Anyway, sorry I couldn't finish before it got back to you, Sirian. For better or for worse, you're Up.
--Garath
(Oh, and after seeing your post, if Qin's civic is Police State, which seems plausible, nobody actually has it yet, so that's no use. It could easily be researched on your round, though.)
