@Thrallia: Do we lose the -1 penalty for declaring war on a friend once the friend is vanquished? I didn't think we did, though I'm not certain.
@Dagnabit: The final city on Muskovy Island will reasonably quickly be working two, then eventually three, gems. That'll more than pay for itself, even though there's a short term (approx. 11 turn, if we start working the cow) hit on science before the first gem comes online. And the additional gems will give us more diplomatic bargaining power. So I'm pretty convinced we should still settle that city as fast as possible. If nothing else, we need more population in order to get more free units so we can keep a big enough defence.
I'm less sure what we should do about Alex/Mao. Capturing Athens only makes sense if we are fairly sure we want to use it, initially as a poprushing centre, later as a great person farm - since that's really all the city is good for. We certainly do need a coastal city on that continent, otherwise Sparta will suffer through not being connected to our trade route (it's not on the coast).
The thing that's driving my thinking right now is that we are desparately short of happiness resources. Many of our cities will hit their happiness cap soon (5, 6 with a forge, 7 with a forge + temple). That will go up to 8 once we have calendar + spices. Mao is sitting on 2 happiness resources, plus another one with calendar, and noone else that we know has any to spare. (And IIRC all three of Mao's resources are the ones that get +1 happiness with markets; that'd bump up our happiness cap to 13 in cities with forge+temple+market.). Mao probably isn't totally a lost cause on diplo; we could gift him some resources to sweeten him, and maybe that'll induce him to trade. However, that'll annoy Hatty, whom I'm inclined to want to be friends with because she tends to become a science powerhouse (the kind of person we want as a trading partner). I tend to feel happier too if the resources are in our direct possession, so we're not at the whim of AI decisions to stop trading. OTOH if we leave Mao alone and just focus on holding Sparta, he may well make a useful opponent in the diplo vote.
I wouldn't blame ourselves too much for the threat posed by Mao though. There are reasonable indications he has the best land of anyone, and he's not exactly peacefully minded, so there's a good chance his catapults would have come knocking on our door eventually no matter what we'd done up to now (other than declaring war on him much earlier).
Or maybe our exploring galleys will find someone else with resources (someone must have the gold, silver, dye and sugar... unless Gyathaar has been exceptionally evil).
@Dagnabit: The final city on Muskovy Island will reasonably quickly be working two, then eventually three, gems. That'll more than pay for itself, even though there's a short term (approx. 11 turn, if we start working the cow) hit on science before the first gem comes online. And the additional gems will give us more diplomatic bargaining power. So I'm pretty convinced we should still settle that city as fast as possible. If nothing else, we need more population in order to get more free units so we can keep a big enough defence.
I'm less sure what we should do about Alex/Mao. Capturing Athens only makes sense if we are fairly sure we want to use it, initially as a poprushing centre, later as a great person farm - since that's really all the city is good for. We certainly do need a coastal city on that continent, otherwise Sparta will suffer through not being connected to our trade route (it's not on the coast).
The thing that's driving my thinking right now is that we are desparately short of happiness resources. Many of our cities will hit their happiness cap soon (5, 6 with a forge, 7 with a forge + temple). That will go up to 8 once we have calendar + spices. Mao is sitting on 2 happiness resources, plus another one with calendar, and noone else that we know has any to spare. (And IIRC all three of Mao's resources are the ones that get +1 happiness with markets; that'd bump up our happiness cap to 13 in cities with forge+temple+market.). Mao probably isn't totally a lost cause on diplo; we could gift him some resources to sweeten him, and maybe that'll induce him to trade. However, that'll annoy Hatty, whom I'm inclined to want to be friends with because she tends to become a science powerhouse (the kind of person we want as a trading partner). I tend to feel happier too if the resources are in our direct possession, so we're not at the whim of AI decisions to stop trading. OTOH if we leave Mao alone and just focus on holding Sparta, he may well make a useful opponent in the diplo vote.
I wouldn't blame ourselves too much for the threat posed by Mao though. There are reasonable indications he has the best land of anyone, and he's not exactly peacefully minded, so there's a good chance his catapults would have come knocking on our door eventually no matter what we'd done up to now (other than declaring war on him much earlier).
Or maybe our exploring galleys will find someone else with resources (someone must have the gold, silver, dye and sugar... unless Gyathaar has been exceptionally evil).
I doubt that we can take out Alex in the next turn. I did think whether it would be worth going for peace for 10 turns so that we can build up sufficient forces to take out Athens. It's possible that we could get Construction as part of the peace deal but I have my doubts. As a result it's probably not worth it, especially since I think we would get another demerit from Mao. As Dagnabit has pointed out we can't afford a war with Mao at present.
) I like Simon's plan to prechop jungle on Gems and have 2 workers ready to build mine as city comes on line.
) I also think we need a couple of spears as was mentioned incase of elephants. I also would like horse archers for their ability against cats but I don't know when we can afford to build Horseriding.-Maybe Trade?
I'll try and stay in touch but it may well be patchy. I should be back the evening of the 26th.
