Realpolitik CIV - An Interactive AAR

[Whosit]

OK, in the interest of being productive, let's look at this:

The resource trade screen would have also been ideal, but we work with what we have.

Assuming that this is up-to-date, here is the good and bad news:

Good news: No one has Metal Casting or Horseback Riding. That means no Triremes or Horse Archers, both of which would put us in a world of hurt.

Bad news: They have Iron Working, although that's really not too terrible. A few Axemen on defense can take care of Swordsmen. It's just Swordsmen vs. Archers that we want to avoid. I am also going to assume that our enemies have access to Horses, Copper, and Iron.

So, we are probably looking at Chariots, Axemen, and Spearmen. Axemen and Spearmen on defense, with an Archer or two, will probably suffice.

The bare minimum defense I would recommend is an Archer, an Axeman, and a Spearmen, each with a Barracks promotion available (but do not promote until combat is imminent). That is 25, 35, and 35 hammers apiece, or 95 hammers total for the bunch of them. We have 5 cities, so we need 475 hammers worth of units in 10-20 turns. In a pinch, we can get by with a couple units for each city in Iberia, assuming that Rome doesn't join the party. So let's subtract an Axeman and Spearman, and that's 405 hammers of units.

I haven't seen London's most recent city screen, so I don't know if we have one unhappy citizen or two, but we can probably configure it for 17 hammers per turn:

City square: 1
Cows: 2
4 grassland hills: 12 + 2 (stone)
Fish (to feed population)

It will take 24 turns to generate 405 hammers. Time is not on our side, I think. (And this does not account for the time it takes to ship the troops and station them.)

 

[Whosit]

Anyway, back to relevant stuff: Slaves are human beings and slaves basically have no rights.
I happen to believe all humans should have rights. Would you like to be denied all the rights you take for granted? That might mean you could have your children taken away and that you could be sold or bought at the whim of whoever owned you. Your owner might want to have sex with you and you would have no right to deny him or her. I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

WIM: We have tried to make it clear several times that we are not talking about the kind of hereditary slavery that was practiced in the United States. Believe it or not, in many societies, being a slave was not permanent. In some cases it could even be a position of honor, although I am going to assume that was the exception rather than the rule.

Also, it seems I missed a few posts. It sounds like we're in some stupid Catch-22 here. MathNerd, the administration's position is this: We have several tech plans we are considering. The one you prefer is among them. We would like you to accept one of our offers. Then we will go ahead with that tech plan.

 

[MathNerd]

I'm waiting for Arya and you're waiting for me. This isn't efficient.

Next, keep in mind that (unless LH throws something together against us), Russia will probably take a few turns to get the units together to attack, and by few, I mean 15ish. Finally, once Russia does, they'll leave for England, meaning that if an attack will come, I expect it to come during the next administration.

 

[W|M]

Thats if they:

A) Bother to attack at all
B) Get through Rome.

 

[MathNerd]

Whosit, my position is that a new offer of mine is the tech plan I proposed. Do you accept it? If not, I know which possibilities to rule out for further negotiation.

 

[Whosit]

I'm waiting for Arya and you're waiting for me. This isn't efficient.

It's not. We'd appreciate it if you would get back to us ASAP.

I also like to assume the worst. If we assume that Russia is ready to wipe us out now, but they're not, we're better off than the reverse.

Edit: OK, so that's for posts happening while I write. MathNerd, let's continue this by PM. I think you are misunderstanding the nature of the offer, here.

 

[Lighthearter]

I'm waiting for Arya and you're waiting for me. This isn't efficient.

Next, keep in mind that (unless LH throws something together against us), Russia will probably take a few turns to get the units together to attack, and by few, I mean 15ish. Finally, once Russia does, they'll leave for England, meaning that if an attack will come, I expect it to come during the next administration.

Ummmm . . . about that . . . .

If a national crisis appears and a party leader proposes giving the President Emergency Powers, he can POSTPONE ELECTIONS INDEFINITELY. In order for the proposal to pass two other party leaders must support it. If it does however the President can land on the opposition. HARD. And the penalties for Martial Law drop sharply.

You don't want a President with Emergency Powers fighting you. You don't. What the Prez can do then makes Cull's little exile trick look like a diplomatic solution.

You can either keep fighting him and face severe reprisals if EP/ML is issued, fall into line behind him and hope he ignores you for the greater threat, or try to dash the OSR up high enough for Revolution and kick him out of office.

Your choice.

- Lighthearter

 

[arya126]

(I thought you meant being someone like this:

)

Anyway, back to relevant stuff: Slaves are human beings and slaves basically have no rights.
I happen to believe all humans should have rights. Would you like to be denied all the rights you take for granted? That might mean you could have your children taken away and that you could be sold or bought at the whim of whoever owned you. Your owner might want to have sex with you and you would have no right to deny him or her. I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

You are thinking of slaveryas something that happened in the south in the usa. That is not what we are proposing. We are not proposing you take a race, a gender, or an age group and shove them in amine to work and die. No, we are saying that we should take the criminals in each city, the poepl who tried to kill others, those who have had SERIOUS troubles with the law, and put them to work. Only about 50% would die, and the other 50% would go free having paid for their crimes with hard work.

WE ARE NOT PUTTING FORWARD THE IDEA OF HEREDITARY SLAVERY. The game only models slavery in general, but slavery can generally put into 2 groups. hereditary, and 'single use' (not sure how best to put the latter). Hereditary as whosit says is truly barbaric. It is what you describe, where masters control the slaves, and their children are slaves as well.

But our slavery is different. It is single use. Its more like inmates at a jail sent out to work on a community project. Their masters are the government, and they will recieve decenmt treatment and food, Their children, if they ever have any, wont be slaves un less they break the law as wqell.

 

[Whosit]

Ummmm . . . about that . . . .

If a national crisis appears and a party leader proposes giving the President Emergency Powers, he can POSTPONE ELECTIONS INDEFINITELY. In order for the proposal to pass two other party leaders must support it. If it does however the President can land on the opposition. HARD. And the penalties for Martial Law drop sharply.

You don't want a President with Emergency Powers fighting you. You don't. What the Prez can do then makes Cull's little exile trick look like a diplomatic solution.

You can either keep fighting him and face severe reprisals if EP/ML is issued, fall into line behind him and hope he ignores you for the greater threat, or try to dash the OSR up high enough for Revolution and kick him out of office.

Your choice.

- Lighthearter

Um, so is this a good or bad time to ask what happens to the Imperial Party if resident_uk doesn't show up again? He's been absent 4 days and I think he is the party leader. Actually, I don't think I've seen anything from GeneralArthur . . . ever, recently. Do I become de factor leader if they don't appear?

 

[W|M]

You repeated your arguments twice on the same page. Nice job reading it genius PRESIDENT.

And slavery is still barbaric - You are liable to get whipped for the slightest breaking of the rules, which can leave marks for the rest of your life. I'm not joking, the scars from a whipping actually leaves extremely visual marks for the rest of your life, as does branding - I can only think of one crime which deserves a red-hot iron shoved in your face, and that's genocide.

And can't we just get illegal immigrants for cheap labor? It would be a bit easier and more humane.

EDIT: X-Post. And @Whosit, seeing as they vanished, then yes.

 

[mechaerik]

I suggest a draft in the interests of national defense. (In present game terms, this would be adopting slavery and using it to make units)

We need to defend ourselves from the Russian Menace.

 

[Whosit]

And can't we just get illegal immigrants for cheap labor? It would be a bit easier and more humane.

Unfortunately, Civilization IV does not feature a mechanic that replicates that.

And now that we have, once again, clarified the administration's position on what kind of Slavery we are proposing, let's table the arguments. As I've said, I think everyone has pretty much dug into their own side of the debate by now.

 

[arya126]

If we adopt 'slavery' we can call them illegal immigrants from the buddhist ploc, and they are pagans so they immigrated to avoid the russian inquisition of heretics in their country.

The game cant model illegal immigration, so slavery can be used to represent anything we want it to be in game to provide cheap labor. This time, its illegal immigrants working for free to gain citizenship.

Also i think im going to have fun with this emergency power thingy. we have 4 parties in our coalition, and only 3 are needed to make it work. SO lets let the opposition play nice shall we?

So if the opposition plays nice, and stops trying to make our administration look like crap (your failing by the way) then we wont postpone elections.

WIM- I only repeated the arguement, because he was writing, and posted, his post when i was still writing mine. I didnt see it until i posted mine. And if thats the best thing you have against us on the slavery, then your in trouble.

 

[MathNerd]

Ah, setting up your own ultimatum, are you, Arya? Well, we'll negotiate some via PMs.

 

[MathNerd]

Arya,

I see that you're trying to use opposition medicine against us!

Its a bit heavy to demand that we be completely nice to you. That would make the game too boring, don't you agree? So, how about this plan:

You bulb Theo ASAP and promise not to use Emergency Powers (EP henceforth), and we let you do whatever you want to do with city builds until that. You can build nothing but offensive mil units if you want, and we won't take any formal action against it.

I hope you find this deal acceptable.

Respectfully,
MathNerd

I really dont see the benfits i am getting here. EP will allow me to use ML with few, if any, repercussions. This will also keep me in office awhile. And, more importantly, keep the GreenPeace people out. We can do whatever we want with city builds anyway. Im not one to care much for the op[postions 'opposition' to what im building.

Your going to have to offer something actually worthwhile for this to happen.

Arya, it seems to me that you aren't accepting the powers that the opposition has. Ignoring the opposition is ignoring the English people, and that will just bring up the OSR. At the rate you're going, you do not appear to be willing to compromise one bit. Try to be more flexible, if you will.

An update on the current state of negotiations with Arya.

 

[W|M]

With arya being as rigid as [a sexually-aroused phallus].

 

[arya126]

HEY! Watch it WIM. I could probably ship you to the philipines to dies in the jungle in EP if i ever use it you know. Jk, i wont use it for something as petty as that. Ill still remember it though.

Mn, you dont seem willing to negotiate much either. So dont go pointring that finger at me in these 'negotiations'.

 

[W|M]

Abusing the system leads to revolt, look at America and France.

 

[MathNerd]

I am willing to compromise, but not so that it totally distorts my policies, among other things these compromises seem to imply.

The opposition IS NOT the english people. In fact, very few even voted for the current opposition, so it reflects that even if a few people in the middle of our idealogies jumped the fence over into your support, we still have the support of the majority of england. I do not know why LH is letting you tell us how the english people are feeling, as it gives you WAY too much power to say the country is against us whether they really would be or not.

And i accept the powers the opposition has. Its just that, well, most of them wouldnt help england, rather than hurting it. Sabotage would hurt our economy. No confidence would stop all production, thus stopping us from preparing for war with russia. re-election would fail without your lurkers. Armed revolution would most likely fail without the units your lurkers would provide. I could go on, but i am not afriad of your 'powers'.

If you wish to offer me a compromise more favorable to the current administration, i migfht accept it. But you see, the consequences could only be small if i choose not too. If you hurt us, then you hurt england. Its that simple.

There is a reason we did not use any of the powers we were delegated (I will tell you that we were able to use most of them if we'd wished), and that is because we didn't want to hurt the English people. England is of utmost importance to us, and England is the whole reason we want to be in office. Not because it gives us power, but because we feel its what is best for England. That simple.

New update. I think we're getting off topic, though.

 

[MathNerd]

LH, is the Opposition allowed to say what the people of England feel, as long as it is not too bizzare (like some of WIM's recent comments about Arya's rigidness )?