da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
@ C63: Your wish is my command!
Signed, sealed, and ... well, almost delivered!
dV
SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
Signed, sealed, and ... well, almost delivered!
dV
Ronnie1
Deity
Way to go da_Vinci!!
It looks like we may have a shot at a fast diplo without any more wars.
Once the pre-reqs for Computers were opened up it became the next choice for the GS's. So we will just have to research Biology unless someone beats us to it and we can trade for it (unlikely).
We can get the UN down to 5 turns with the right combo of tiles and secialists, I say yes to this!
We could trade both Comm and Elec to Mao for Dem and Repl Parts, we obviously will get them anyway if we sign a PA.
This is not what I find in the Diplomacy screen with Capac. He will not sign a DP because he does not like us enough, and he will not sign a PA because we have not shared a war or DP long enough.
But Capac is falling back in score, so maybe it is a good thing that we went in a different direction.
The other issue that I see. I don't think it will be very easy to get a non-hindu into the #2 position for the UN vote. The crop yeild graph shows that Isabella is the highest of the non-hindi, #4 overall behind Us, Mao, and Toku.
We may have to beat up on Kahn and Louis and give their cities to Isabella.
Louis has the Glance screen with the most negative #'s on it, making him the likely first target, Kahn is actually 2nd in neg #'s with Isabella 3rd. But both Louis and Kahn have at least a few Hindi that are "friendly" with them, making declaring war a minor problem for us on the Diplo front.
It looks like we may have a shot at a fast diplo without any more wars.
Once the pre-reqs for Computers were opened up it became the next choice for the GS's. So we will just have to research Biology unless someone beats us to it and we can trade for it (unlikely).
We can get the UN down to 5 turns with the right combo of tiles and secialists, I say yes to this!
We could trade both Comm and Elec to Mao for Dem and Repl Parts, we obviously will get them anyway if we sign a PA.
This is not what I find in the Diplomacy screen with Capac. He will not sign a DP because he does not like us enough, and he will not sign a PA because we have not shared a war or DP long enough.
But Capac is falling back in score, so maybe it is a good thing that we went in a different direction.
The other issue that I see. I don't think it will be very easy to get a non-hindu into the #2 position for the UN vote. The crop yeild graph shows that Isabella is the highest of the non-hindi, #4 overall behind Us, Mao, and Toku.
We may have to beat up on Kahn and Louis and give their cities to Isabella.
Louis has the Glance screen with the most negative #'s on it, making him the likely first target, Kahn is actually 2nd in neg #'s with Isabella 3rd. But both Louis and Kahn have at least a few Hindi that are "friendly" with them, making declaring war a minor problem for us on the Diplo front.
Ronnie1
Deity
How exactly do we poison his relations with all of the other Hindu?
Toku has the 3rd most votes! Wouldn't we want him voting for us?
Ronnie1
Deity
If Mao will not sign a PA @ T348 as we hope, do we consider bribing Capac to friendly and resigning the DP and trying to get enough turns of DP to make PA available with him?
Conquistador 63
Deity
Gypsy Kings has just been appointed the 1st Secretary General of the United Nations, in today's elections which took place in the shining new headquarters of that organization in Moscow. Mao Zedong from China was the runner-up.
Upload log
The autolog is
.
Here is the screenshot with the election results.
As noted before, the AI's voting decisions are very unpredictable. We got voted by civs which had better diplo ratings with Mao, and vice-versa. We got voted by civs that won't even talk with us (Vicky). Go figure! I did not change civics, did not trade techs, and received a few requests which are documented in the logs.
I didn't continue in an attempt at the diplo win because I felt we should discuss it better. I haven't even played the last turn because I was in a hurry here. Please note: change Delhi build order!!!! It was a misclick.
My first impression is that we need to get that PA with Mao before running the diplo win vote. Too bad many civs are already converting to free religion. That may harm our chances of a front door diplo.
Upload log
Spoiler :
The autolog is
Spoiler :
Here is the screenshot with the election results.
As noted before, the AI's voting decisions are very unpredictable. We got voted by civs which had better diplo ratings with Mao, and vice-versa. We got voted by civs that won't even talk with us (Vicky). Go figure! I did not change civics, did not trade techs, and received a few requests which are documented in the logs.
I didn't continue in an attempt at the diplo win because I felt we should discuss it better. I haven't even played the last turn because I was in a hurry here. Please note: change Delhi build order!!!! It was a misclick.
My first impression is that we need to get that PA with Mao before running the diplo win vote. Too bad many civs are already converting to free religion. That may harm our chances of a front door diplo.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
IIRC, the sec general voting in the paired game with Scout214 was also odd, but the victory voting seemed to follow predictable rules: +11 or higher voted for us unless they were rival or they were + more with rival.
Sounds like the diplomatic pot, after being quiet in my 11 turns, got stirred up with free religion, wars, requests to cancel trade, etc. Oh well
Maybe I should not have traded liberism so much, in retrospect ... but would they have gotten in in trade from others? Wonder if AI is programed to adopt free religion when UN is built?Would be nice to have about 25% of the votes in our own hands, to avoid a surprise loss. We will have to see if we can bribe some to convert back.
Could think about joining war with Toku after we get pact with Mao. Why let him get all those Spanish cities? Should have Mao pact available in 6 turns.
The vote screenshot gives us a sense of who has how many votes, so that is nice.
More to say perhaps after I look at the save.
dV
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Looks like the time spent in the DP "wears off". For a while, his reason for no PA, after the DP was cancelled, was didn't like us enough. Something new learned.
Wonder if after we have a PA we can still sign DP. Might be useful for the +2 diplo points with some.
I had given up on getting a non-Hindu as rival, thought we would just be on better terms with the hindu and win (eight at +11 looked like we might just do that ... for a while).
If someone big goes free religion, then the non-hindu rival becomes an option again.
We should start looking at who we can declare on who gives us the least diplo hits, and see what damage Toku declaring on Izzy did to his standing with our friends ... can we exploit that?
Time to look at the save. "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Mine included, alas.
dV
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Have you all seen Mao's power chart? He has just jumped into the stratospehre !!! 
How on earth did he do that?? 
If that is not some error, then there won't be a PA with him in 6 turns!
This almost seems manipulated or contrived, or some kind of error. Unless he built a unit is every city all at once? Edit: Maybe he upgraded a bunch at once, as his GNP graph has a sudden drop. Or, if he had a great merchant do a trade mission, would the cash jump raise his power? Will it last?
Wow !! Can we pump toku back to the power top? What is the power formula? If we assume he did it with units, then if Toku is going to war, will he catch up with his own units? Maybe we should keep the faith for a while, and see where Toku's power goes with the war.
dV
Addendum: if we had a diplo win vote now, and all that are +11 with us now voted for us instead of Mao, we would have 52%, 10% short of what is needed. If Vicky and Cyrus had stayed +11, it would have been enough for the win!
New idea: most are annyoyed with Vicky, so this may be our window of opportunity to declare on her and take her out! Kind of means giving up the PA chase for now, but may be a good long run play? Makes me wish I had just paired with Capac and been done with it But that front door was looking so promising!
Population counts (from the vote) us 172 17%; Mao 96 10%; Toku 83 8%; Izzy 73 7%; Monte 69 7%; Capac 67 7% Cyrus 66 7%; Khan 65 7% Caesar 63 6%; Vicky 45 5% etc.
We can try to pump Toku's power above Mao to try for the PA with Mao. Alternative: declare on Izzy for a shared war with Toku, and see if we can PA with him. Or we could go back to Capac, but better with either Mao or Toku.
It appears that Toku has lost Nagasaki to the Phonecian barbarians. Is this an opportunity take it and give it back to Toku for good will?
dV
How on earth did he do that?? If that is not some error, then there won't be a PA with him in 6 turns!
This almost seems manipulated or contrived, or some kind of error. Unless he built a unit is every city all at once? Edit: Maybe he upgraded a bunch at once, as his GNP graph has a sudden drop. Or, if he had a great merchant do a trade mission, would the cash jump raise his power? Will it last?Wow !!
Can we pump toku back to the power top? What is the power formula? If we assume he did it with units, then if Toku is going to war, will he catch up with his own units? Maybe we should keep the faith for a while, and see where Toku's power goes with the war.dV
Addendum: if we had a diplo win vote now, and all that are +11 with us now voted for us instead of Mao, we would have 52%, 10% short of what is needed. If Vicky and Cyrus had stayed +11, it would have been enough for the win!
New idea: most are annyoyed with Vicky, so this may be our window of opportunity to declare on her and take her out! Kind of means giving up the PA chase for now, but may be a good long run play? Makes me wish I had just paired with Capac and been done with it
But that front door was looking so promising! Population counts (from the vote) us 172 17%; Mao 96 10%; Toku 83 8%; Izzy 73 7%; Monte 69 7%; Capac 67 7% Cyrus 66 7%; Khan 65 7% Caesar 63 6%; Vicky 45 5% etc.
We can try to pump Toku's power above Mao to try for the PA with Mao. Alternative: declare on Izzy for a shared war with Toku, and see if we can PA with him. Or we could go back to Capac, but better with either Mao or Toku.
It appears that Toku has lost Nagasaki to the Phonecian barbarians. Is this an opportunity take it and give it back to Toku for good will?
dV
Conquistador 63
Deity
I kept an eye on Mao availability to PA but missed the surge in his power graph. My bet would be he got rifling, and maybe upgraded some of his troops. For those interested here is the article from academy which covers this aspect of the game.
He has replaceable parts for a while. We could get this from trade I guess, but I was (and still am) afraid of trading away MT (DP) & Communism (PA) to the AI. But maybe we should trade now, and pass away the military techs to Toku?
I considered declaring on Vicky too, noticed she's not popular, and we have lots of troops next to her. OTOH she voted for us. Is she a lost cause?
I also noticed from the votes that Lou+Izzy > Mao, but by a small margin. Only chance of getting a non-hindu as 2nd in pop. Worth trying? Or maybe the religion will be less important from now on?
Well, wish you guys luck in your next moves, I'm logging out for a week now. Feel free to continue and finish the game without me. I know I'd be biting my nails if I was forced to halt such an interesting game in a situation like this for such a long time!
He has replaceable parts for a while. We could get this from trade I guess, but I was (and still am) afraid of trading away MT (DP) & Communism (PA) to the AI. But maybe we should trade now, and pass away the military techs to Toku?
I considered declaring on Vicky too, noticed she's not popular, and we have lots of troops next to her. OTOH she voted for us. Is she a lost cause?
I also noticed from the votes that Lou+Izzy > Mao, but by a small margin. Only chance of getting a non-hindu as 2nd in pop. Worth trying? Or maybe the religion will be less important from now on?
Well, wish you guys luck in your next moves, I'm logging out for a week now. Feel free to continue and finish the game without me. I know I'd be biting my nails if I was forced to halt such an interesting game in a situation like this for such a long time!
Ronnie1
Deity
I haven't looked at anything yet, so here are the logistics.
The current roster order is
Conquistador63 - just played
Joemama -UP NOW
Scout214 - on deck
Ronnie1 - in the hole
da_Vinci -waiting
Igelkott - Temporary leave of absence
Confussion - Injured reserve until further notice
I must have missed it in a previous post. Why did we not take the first available PA as we had discussed?
The current roster order is
Conquistador63 - just played
Joemama -UP NOW
Scout214 - on deck
Ronnie1 - in the hole
da_Vinci -waiting
Igelkott - Temporary leave of absence
Confussion - Injured reserve until further notice
I must have missed it in a previous post. Why did we not take the first available PA as we had discussed?
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Well, if we take all of her cities, they will vote for us for sure!
Are you saying try to get Izzy to team with Lou, or capture Lou and gift to Izzy? Problem is Toku has just declared on Izzy, right? Might not be much left of her after.I also noticed from the votes that Lou+Izzy > Mao, but by a small margin. Only chance of getting a non-hindu as 2nd in pop. Worth trying? Or maybe the religion will be less important from now on?
I am wondering if we might consider declaring on both Izzy and Vicky!
Do we feel strong enough to do that? Shared war with Toku leading to PA with him, and we consolodate the RIndian continent. It would mean abandoning the PA with Mao, at least for now.I might wait 6-8 turns and see if Toku builds troops and passes Mao again (maybe we can help him) and we get the PA with Mao (which means no wars, maintain DP with Mao). Might also take a test vote in UN to see if the victory voting is following the +11 "rule". I thihk the war options will keep for a while, so lets see if we can't complete the PA quest.
C63, enjoy your trip!
dV
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
It came available in my turnset, but by that time we were only 7 turns away from MM without the added research, already was well into DP with Mao (which would make him NOT be the voting rival if we got PA with him), Toku was staying ahead in power, I expected to line up about 8 civs to vote for us in the UN, and at the time, it appeared that the opportunity with Capac would still be there as a backup.I must have missed it in a previous post. Why did we not take the first available PA as we had discussed?
There had been talk about Mao being the better PA if we could get it, and at the time it looked quite possible.
Of course, the window of opportunity with Capac wore off (long enough DP atrophied, and went from Friendly to Pleased for no reason that I could see), folks adopted free religion, and Mao just took this huge power surge. So for the momment, my plan appears to have blown up in my (and our) faces!
If Mao was still second in power, we would still be on track to PA with him turn 348 I expect. So maybe we give it the six turns and see if Toku bumps his own power (he is going to war), maybe with some help from us (I did build a couple of macemen just for the purpose of giving them to Toku for a power jump if that was needed - they are currently unpromoted and should be in RIndia. We could even upgrade them before the gift if that raises his power more). If Mao is going to stay out front in power, then plan B might be to share war with Toku vs Izzy, and try to PA with Toku.
Or, maybe it only takes a few turns of DP to get PA option back with Capac, if we can get him friendly again (civic manipulation?)
Sorry about that, chief
dV
Ronnie1
Deity
@dV
It seems like you thought it out pretty well. Are we 100% sure about the power thing with Mao. If we are, here is how I would approach it. At T348 we see if Mao is a go for a PA. If we get the "I'm doing fine on my own" message, we gift a number of troops to Toku immediately. We have a number of galleys that could be loaded and waiting at Tokus border. If we can bump him to #1, then we should get the opportunity to PA with Mao as desired.
It seems like you thought it out pretty well. Are we 100% sure about the power thing with Mao. If we are, here is how I would approach it. At T348 we see if Mao is a go for a PA. If we get the "I'm doing fine on my own" message, we gift a number of troops to Toku immediately. We have a number of galleys that could be loaded and waiting at Tokus border. If we can bump him to #1, then we should get the opportunity to PA with Mao as desired.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
The article that C63 found that I quoted in post 407 seemed pretty sure that power leader won't make a PA (or maybe won't with human player?) ... but we are about to know for sure, aren't we?
Hopefully, Toku is making troops for his war and will boost his power some on his own. Then we won't have to give him so much.
If my plan had played out as I had hoped, we would have the game won at turn 350 or so and I could have been the MVP. As it stands now, I am scrambling to avoid being the goat!
Fortunes of war, I suppose. I did have a pretty sweet diplo screen going there, for a while ... 
dV
Scout214
Pawn in the game of Civ
I think it is important to refrain from attacking a nation that is voting for us in the UN. Maneuvering to get Mao into a PA looks like the best bet to me. Failing that, get a PA with a different nation and see if we can line up enough votes that way. Use war as a last resort for now.
Scout214
Pawn in the game of Civ
Yes, Mao has Riflemen all over the place now. Only 10 gold left. In one city he has at least 17 Galleons.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Funny thing is, the technologies screen in the foreign advisor says he can research rifling, not that he has it!
Maybe there is a delay in that intelligence making it to the foreign advisor?
dV
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
I think a test vote in the UN, if we are confident that we won't lose it, would be very helpful. If they follow the +11 rule that seemed to hold in the test game with Scout214, then we would get the votes of Caesar 6%; Toku 8%; Saladin 4%; Capac 7%; Alex 3%; and Monte 7% = 35% foreign added to our own 17% for a total of 52%. Scout214, see if I have this right.
Note that with a world population of about 1000, each pop is 0.1%, so we need to add 100 pop to add 10 percentage points if no one else grows. We have 16 cities, so we would need maybe 10 pop added to each for 160 extra to grow 10% (since rest of world is growing too). I guess we will be fighting our way to victory!
So after we try to get the PA with Mao, we will need to think about going to war. Maybe 17 galleons is another reason to have him as our PA!
Vicky is now +5, and without religion it will be hard to get her back to +11 I think, so the way to get the votes of her citizens will be to conquer them! The key is to do that without losing the votes of those who like us. So we need to war on those that are not pleased/friendly with our voting block.
Shared religion had been good for +5 with Vicky at the end of my turn (+12 net). Lost that, lost +2 for open borders, got a -1 for stopped trading, but wise civics went from +3 to +4. Can't see us getting her voting for us, so eventually, assimilate her. The more cities we have, the less added pop in each we need to increase our % of the vote.
I see that the first all AI DP is on the board ... Saladin and Musa. That may work to our advantage, because in the test with Scout214, If one of an AI PA voted for us in the UN, the other did even if the other was not +11!! Saladin likes us, so maybe that drags in Musa's votes?
If our voting rival sets up DP, we may want to war with the weak half in order to prevent the PA, if it does not upset our apple cart of relations. Lots of choices.
But first, how do we get that PA with Mao? see next post.
dV
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
The reference C63 left us with (he is a fountain of information, isn't he ) in post 429 indicates that the power chart charts the soldiers number from the demographics screen.
The soldier number is not just based on units, but also on pop and certain techs. So I can calculate the approximate "soldier score" that Toku is behind Mao, and what we would need to give to push Toku to the top.
Rival best is 654,000 and we are 551,000 (Toku is just behind us).
So let's say to be safe, we need to pump Toku by 150,000 points.
That would be gifting 10 Cossacks, or 15 Grenadiers!
So how did Mao make this jump? Mao has at least 10 riflemen, probably upgrades from say mace or longbow. Each of those upgrades trades a 4000 soldier unit for a 10,000 soldier unit, 6000 gain each upgrade. So if he upgraded 20, that would be 120,000 power surge.
Discovering rifling was worth 12,000 or two rifle upgrades, so now he only needed to upgrade 18. If he just built a couple rifles, then 20,000 new build is worth 3 upgrades, so now 15 upgrades, 2 built and the discovery is 120,000 surge in power.
How can we help Toku? Giving him radio is worth 4000 soldiers (but would need to also give him tons of pre-req techs that add no soldiers)
Giving him steel is worth 4000 soldiers, if that is our next tech.
Can we get rifling, and give it to Toku? We can trade for Replacable Parts with Cyrus, but that might be a trade with enemy hit with Monte. But we are +12 with Monte and he has others he is annoyed more with, so might be a good move. Toku also annoyed with Cyrus, but again more at others, and if we pair with Mao, Toku is the rival anyway.
Then, maybe Mao will trade Rifling to us. Ideally, not for a tech that adds power to Mao. Mil Trad does not, Communism does not, electricity does not.
Chemistry would, so avoid that if possible. But if Mao will only trade Rifling (12000 soldiers) for Chemistry (6000), it is still a net power gain when we trade with Toku.
So if we can trade steel and rifling to Toku, that is 16,000 so one less cossack or 1.5 less grenadiers to give him. And perhaps he promotes his own troops for some power gain.
We can shut off research and get 509 gpt and still get biology next turn. The idea is can we make lots of longbows, then use cash to upgrade to grenadiers, and gift to Toku? Longbows come every 2 turns out of Novgorod, only upgrade to rifle and I can't tell how much. Pike to Grenadier is 200 gold, so maybe 300 gold to get longbow to rifle? Grenadier is same soldier value as rifle, and not a counter to our cossacks, so give him grenadiers.
Musketeers are 8000 soldiers each (vs 10,000 for riflemen/grenadiers). So we could make pikes everywhere, wait a few turns to trade for rifling (that might take pikes off the build list) or not even rush to it as one or two more grens are worth as much as any techs traded to Toku, set research to 0 for cash, upgrade pikes to gren, and if needed, even go to nationalism and draft a round of musketeers to gift to Toku. Draft 3 cities per turn (if pop > 6) so we can collect 9* 8,000 = 72,000 power points for Toku that way in 3 turns. Then it only takes 8 grenadiers gifted in addition to the musketeers to get Toku above Mao. Upgrade current pikes, the two unpromoted maces built for that purpose, and maybe 4 newly made pikes. That way we keep all of our cossacks and all of our highly promoted troops.
Pretty complicated, and a lot of power to shift to Toku. Is PA with Mao worth it? I think it will be, to have that huge military on our side. And, since part of playing the game is learning new stuff, I think trying to execute this complex diplomatic maneuver will be a great learning experience for us (as my failed attempt at the front door diplo has been, at least for me).
So I vote for making cheap troops (pikes) in all cities that can make them in 3 or 4 turns, dial research to 0 for cash (maybe even add merchants to cities), move all pikes and low rank maces to coast with Toku, perhaps promote a set of 3 to gren and send them as gifts early (see if Toku will accept, see how much it raises his power). Pile up 12 more on coast if we can, or if not, go to nationalism and draft some muskets to gift. Whether we succeed in getting Mao to PA or not, during the 5 turns we are stuck with Nationalism, I might keep drafting if we are thinking that war is next step. But if we are still chasing a PA, need to watch our power.
What is the alternative to this complex play for Mao? Join Toku against Izzy?
Get friendly with Capac? We can trade with him again as his annoyed was with Cyrus and Vicky, who now are too low in diplo with us to matter. We could adjust civics to match his, do some trading if he will let us (we are now seeing that he fears we are becoming too advanced).
Go kill Vicky? All of these options are fallbacks we can chose after we try the Mao PA play.
Or, now that we have the UN, we might not worry about the PA issue and just expand with judicious warfare. If a PA between two AI develops, I think we can get one rather quickly, as the threshold for the AI to join when one already exists seems much lower, and the power lead issue may be moot (unless in my one experience with this, the AI pair out powered me, which I think was the case).
I wish I knew why friendly or annoyed has no precise relationship to diplo points!
dV
) in post 429 indicates that the power chart charts the soldiers number from the demographics screen.The soldier number is not just based on units, but also on pop and certain techs. So I can calculate the approximate "soldier score" that Toku is behind Mao, and what we would need to give to push Toku to the top.
Rival best is 654,000 and we are 551,000 (Toku is just behind us).
So let's say to be safe, we need to pump Toku by 150,000 points.
That would be gifting 10 Cossacks, or 15 Grenadiers!
So how did Mao make this jump? Mao has at least 10 riflemen, probably upgrades from say mace or longbow. Each of those upgrades trades a 4000 soldier unit for a 10,000 soldier unit, 6000 gain each upgrade. So if he upgraded 20, that would be 120,000 power surge.
Discovering rifling was worth 12,000 or two rifle upgrades, so now he only needed to upgrade 18. If he just built a couple rifles, then 20,000 new build is worth 3 upgrades, so now 15 upgrades, 2 built and the discovery is 120,000 surge in power.
How can we help Toku? Giving him radio is worth 4000 soldiers (but would need to also give him tons of pre-req techs that add no soldiers)
Giving him steel is worth 4000 soldiers, if that is our next tech.
Can we get rifling, and give it to Toku? We can trade for Replacable Parts with Cyrus, but that might be a trade with enemy hit with Monte. But we are +12 with Monte and he has others he is annoyed more with, so might be a good move. Toku also annoyed with Cyrus, but again more at others, and if we pair with Mao, Toku is the rival anyway.
Then, maybe Mao will trade Rifling to us. Ideally, not for a tech that adds power to Mao. Mil Trad does not, Communism does not, electricity does not.
Chemistry would, so avoid that if possible. But if Mao will only trade Rifling (12000 soldiers) for Chemistry (6000), it is still a net power gain when we trade with Toku.
So if we can trade steel and rifling to Toku, that is 16,000 so one less cossack or 1.5 less grenadiers to give him. And perhaps he promotes his own troops for some power gain.
We can shut off research and get 509 gpt and still get biology next turn. The idea is can we make lots of longbows, then use cash to upgrade to grenadiers, and gift to Toku? Longbows come every 2 turns out of Novgorod, only upgrade to rifle and I can't tell how much. Pike to Grenadier is 200 gold, so maybe 300 gold to get longbow to rifle? Grenadier is same soldier value as rifle, and not a counter to our cossacks, so give him grenadiers.
Musketeers are 8000 soldiers each (vs 10,000 for riflemen/grenadiers). So we could make pikes everywhere, wait a few turns to trade for rifling (that might take pikes off the build list) or not even rush to it as one or two more grens are worth as much as any techs traded to Toku, set research to 0 for cash, upgrade pikes to gren, and if needed, even go to nationalism and draft a round of musketeers to gift to Toku. Draft 3 cities per turn (if pop > 6) so we can collect 9* 8,000 = 72,000 power points for Toku that way in 3 turns. Then it only takes 8 grenadiers gifted in addition to the musketeers to get Toku above Mao. Upgrade current pikes, the two unpromoted maces built for that purpose, and maybe 4 newly made pikes. That way we keep all of our cossacks and all of our highly promoted troops.
Pretty complicated, and a lot of power to shift to Toku. Is PA with Mao worth it? I think it will be, to have that huge military on our side. And, since part of playing the game is learning new stuff, I think trying to execute this complex diplomatic maneuver will be a great learning experience for us (as my failed attempt at the front door diplo has been, at least for me).
So I vote for making cheap troops (pikes) in all cities that can make them in 3 or 4 turns, dial research to 0 for cash (maybe even add merchants to cities), move all pikes and low rank maces to coast with Toku, perhaps promote a set of 3 to gren and send them as gifts early (see if Toku will accept, see how much it raises his power). Pile up 12 more on coast if we can, or if not, go to nationalism and draft some muskets to gift. Whether we succeed in getting Mao to PA or not, during the 5 turns we are stuck with Nationalism, I might keep drafting if we are thinking that war is next step. But if we are still chasing a PA, need to watch our power.
What is the alternative to this complex play for Mao? Join Toku against Izzy?
Get friendly with Capac? We can trade with him again as his annoyed was with Cyrus and Vicky, who now are too low in diplo with us to matter. We could adjust civics to match his, do some trading if he will let us (we are now seeing that he fears we are becoming too advanced).
Go kill Vicky? All of these options are fallbacks we can chose after we try the Mao PA play.
Or, now that we have the UN, we might not worry about the PA issue and just expand with judicious warfare. If a PA between two AI develops, I think we can get one rather quickly, as the threshold for the AI to join when one already exists seems much lower, and the power lead issue may be moot (unless in my one experience with this, the AI pair out powered me, which I think was the case).
I wish I knew why friendly or annoyed has no precise relationship to diplo points!
dV
I took a quick look at the save and have a few comments.
First, although I would love to declare on Victoria now, she has redcoats everywhere. I believe this counters our cossacks, so now is probably not the best time to take her out.
I may have missed a couple, but it looks like the only people we are getting +points for civics are Victoria (+4) and Cyrus (+1). It seems to me that this seems to make the civics switch to State Property appealing. Does anyone know what Ceasar's favorite civics are? We could use another point or two from him.
As far as diplomacy, here are the people who would vote for us, our relationship, and my estimate of their populations:
Mao - +15 - 10
Ceasar - +11 - 6
Toku - +14 - 8
HC - +12 - 7
Monte - +12 - 7
Saladin - +15 - 5
Alexander - +13 - 5
As DV mentioned the only others close are Cyrus (+6) and Victoria (+5). It seems like a long shot to make up 5 diplo points this late in the game. I think I was the one who agreed to help someone out in a war that drove Cyrus away (You declared on our friend).
With our 17% of population, this gives us 17+10+6+8+7+7+5+5 = 65%
However, I believe if the vote were taken now the candidates would be us and Mao, subtract his 10% and we are down to 55%. I checked and no one likes Mao more than us. He only has Saladin and Alex above +11.
If/when Mao and us PA, it would probably move Toku into our opponent, so I don't think that will quite do it. I think it will be easier for us to conquer 5% more population for the required votes than to gift cities to a rival (Cyrus or Khan).
In my turnsets I will go ahead and vote for victory (hope for the best). I think I should also prepare for war with someone, but who? With all of these rifles sitting around, we may want to shift away from cossacks. Tech wise I will probably persue some military techs.
I will wait a bit for your comments and may play tonight (+8 hours). However, if I drink too much beer during the Bears game, it may have to wait until tomorrow. Based on the progress graphs, I don't think we are in any hurry.
First, although I would love to declare on Victoria now, she has redcoats everywhere. I believe this counters our cossacks, so now is probably not the best time to take her out.
I may have missed a couple, but it looks like the only people we are getting +points for civics are Victoria (+4) and Cyrus (+1). It seems to me that this seems to make the civics switch to State Property appealing. Does anyone know what Ceasar's favorite civics are? We could use another point or two from him.
As far as diplomacy, here are the people who would vote for us, our relationship, and my estimate of their populations:
Mao - +15 - 10
Ceasar - +11 - 6
Toku - +14 - 8
HC - +12 - 7
Monte - +12 - 7
Saladin - +15 - 5
Alexander - +13 - 5
As DV mentioned the only others close are Cyrus (+6) and Victoria (+5). It seems like a long shot to make up 5 diplo points this late in the game. I think I was the one who agreed to help someone out in a war that drove Cyrus away (You declared on our friend).
With our 17% of population, this gives us 17+10+6+8+7+7+5+5 = 65%
However, I believe if the vote were taken now the candidates would be us and Mao, subtract his 10% and we are down to 55%. I checked and no one likes Mao more than us. He only has Saladin and Alex above +11.
If/when Mao and us PA, it would probably move Toku into our opponent, so I don't think that will quite do it. I think it will be easier for us to conquer 5% more population for the required votes than to gift cities to a rival (Cyrus or Khan).
In my turnsets I will go ahead and vote for victory (hope for the best). I think I should also prepare for war with someone, but who? With all of these rifles sitting around, we may want to shift away from cossacks. Tech wise I will probably persue some military techs.
I will wait a bit for your comments and may play tonight (+8 hours). However, if I drink too much beer during the Bears game, it may have to wait until tomorrow. Based on the progress graphs, I don't think we are in any hurry.
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