SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

[Fluroscent]

PPP for last six turns

Moscow: Stagnate, run priest->scientist when GP pops (5T). Grow when silver hooked. Build GLib (8T)

StP: Work shared cottage to grow it for Moscow. Work silk when improved. Build catapult (4T), worker (~4T).

CI: finish lighthouse (2T), HEpic (~6T).

All other cities: Granary.
Orleans: run artists to pop borders asap.

Army: Axe+phant remain in Orleans. Rest move back to GP farm culture to lower maintenance. This seems like a good point to stay, regroup with reinforcements before striking Rheims.

Army size for assaulting Rheims: 5 phant, 4 cat, 3 axe. I think this is just fine. I'd prefer not building more units until after HEpic.

Tech: paper at 0% for the six turns. Cannot finish it at 100% without going broke yet.

Take note of Gandhi's next tech. If it is CS -> trade CS for MC.

Trades: If Churchill/Roosevelt get 100+ gold, sell them aesthetics/calendar respectively.

Workers: Three at GPfarm- road hill for movement, improve pigs. Four at Novogrod/CI finish silver, road to rice, cottage shared rivergrass. One at StP build plantation.

Other: Workboat 2 continue west, Workboat 1 head for fish at GPfarm. Confu missionary convert Orleans, Tao missionary convert Moscow.
GG1 make great medic. GG2 settle in CI.

That is it I believe. Let me know if you agree.

 

[BLubmuz]

A large unknown is of course whether our next GP will be a GS or GPro. And the next GP created will be from the same contaminated pool, but at very low odds. The risk of getting two GProphets seems very low.

Yeah, like losing at 98% odds

Is it possible an half way? Wait a few turns (3-4) then we will benefit in having the GLib sooner and also for the GPerson rate and the production.

If we only have a couple of HA... always have fast units in a war.

I opened the save dredd posted and i can see the path to the iron city is not blocked by the gems/stone city culture.

Shrine or not, finger crossed for a GS.

We have also 3 cities to settle: GPfarm, another to grab sugar once Paris will fall and the one for iron/wine/corn.

Xposted with your PPP. GPFarm is already settled?
You mentioned only the war in your report.

 

[Fluroscent]

GPFarm is already settled?
You mentioned only the war in your report.

I did mention it, but maybe not clearly enough. It is not settled, but 1 tile away.

 

[beestar]

Okay, so the war plan is to declare peace to build some units, conquer Rheims while building up an army to conquer Paris, and then choke France with the Rheims army while waiting for the reinforcements to be built and arrive.

We want to finish this war ASAP. What about Moscow pumping out units continuously? I recognize it's not as hammer-efficient as making them in CI with the Heroic Epic, but CI can only work on one unit at a time after all.

What's the maintenance difference between holding our troops in GPFarm instead of Orleans? I'd be worried about an English (or Chinese?) surprise attack if we only lightly defend Orleans

If we put National Epic and Ironworks in the same city, I don't think we should complete the National Epic until we are close to finishing Ironworks. Otherwise we accumulate centuries of GA points with only a few GE points from the Forge to balance them. Better to accumulate 5:1 ratio when the Ironworks is done at the same time as NEpic. Actually, now that I write this, even a 5:1 ratio makes me nervous ... difficult to pin Mining Inc on an 83% successful strategy ...

I like the idea of trading CS once Gandhi is starting on it. May need to part-research MC to make it worthwhile for Gandhi.

 

[Fluroscent]

We want to finish this war ASAP. What about Moscow pumping out units continuously? I recognize it's not as hammer-efficient as making them in CI with the Heroic Epic, but CI can only work on one unit at a time after all.

But we also need to build GLib. And there are other valuable builds that would hurt us to delay in Moscow. I don't mind a couple of phants after GLib though.
I don't think we need many more units to conquer France, and building them in CI means they all come at half cost.
I kind of disagree that we have to finish the war asap. Of course we want to, but I think Oxford is the thing that needs to be asap, so I don't want to sacrifice it.

What's the maintenance difference between holding our troops in GPFarm instead of Orleans? I'd be worried about an English (or Chinese?) surprise attack if we only lightly defend Orleans

A suprise attack is a worry. But if we keep our whole stack at Orleans, then in the event of a DOW, then the roaming spears and axes will kill our GP farm.
We always have the option to trigger GA and switch to slavery immediately in an emergency. And the distance is not very great. I can keep a larger portion of the army in Orleans though. Just as long as they are in our culture. Maybe need to post a lookout to see if a stack is approaching as we move out to strike Rheims.

If we put National Epic and Ironworks in the same city, I don't think we should complete the National Epic until we are close to finishing Ironworks. Otherwise we accumulate centuries of GA points with only a few GE points from the Forge to balance them. Better to accumulate 5:1 ratio when the Ironworks is done at the same time as NEpic. Actually, now that I write this, even a 5:1 ratio makes me nervous ... difficult to pin Mining Inc on an 83% successful strategy ...

You are right, it's probably best to not complete NEpic too soon. But once IW is running it is not 5:1. What is it four GE we can run+2GPP for IW? That would be 14 GE points/turn, and one GA point/turn. That is 14:1. Even less if we include centuries of running a forge engineer. But as I said, let's decide this when we are much closer, so we can properly evaluate the risk/reward.

I like the idea of trading CS once Gandhi is starting on it. May need to part-research MC to make it worthwhile for Gandhi.

Right now he will make the trade and throw in 30 (all he has). So part research should not be necessary.

 

[Fluroscent]

Updated PPP for last six turns

Trigger golden age after four turns (when Orleans comes out of revolt). Switch to HR, Pacifism, Confucianism.

Moscow: Stagnate until Golden age, then grow, then run as many scientists as possible without starving down. Build GLib (~7T)

StP: Work shared cottage to grow it for Moscow. Work silk when improved. Build catapult (4T), Catapult (~4T).

CI: finish lighthouse (2T), HEpic (~6T).

All other cities: Granary.
Orleans: run artists to pop borders asap.

Army: two phants+ two axes remain in Orleans. Rest move back to GP farm culture to lower maintenance. This seems like a good point to stay, regroup with reinforcements before striking Rheims.

Army size for assaulting Rheims, if we keep 1axe, 1phant in Orleans: 5 phant, 4 cat, 3 axe. I think this is just fine. I'd prefer not building more units until after HEpic.

Tech: paper at 0% for the six turns. Cannot finish it at 100% without going broke yet. Also, if we pop 2 GS to double bulb edu, we don't want to waste overflow.

Take note of Gandhi's next tech. If it is CS -> trade CS for MC.

Trades: If Churchill/Roosevelt get 100+ gold, sell them aesthetics/calendar respectively.

Workers: Three at GPfarm- road hill for movement, improve pigs. Four at Novogrod/CI finish silver, road to rice, cottage shared rivergrass. One at StP build plantation.

Other: Workboat 2 continue west, Workboat 1 head for fish at GPfarm. Confu missionary convert Orleans, Tao missionary convert Moscow.
GG1 make great medic. GG2 settle in CI.

Playing tomorrow unless someone protests.

 

[beestar]

But we also need to build GLib. And there are other valuable builds that would hurt us to delay in Moscow. I don't mind a couple of phants after GLib though.
I don't think we need many more units to conquer France, and building them in CI means they all come at half cost.
I kind of disagree that we have to finish the war asap. Of course we want to, but I think Oxford is the thing that needs to be asap, so I don't want to sacrifice it.

Hmm, maybe we can afford to keep the war going longer as you say. Still, the longer it is, the more units CdG will generate, and the more hammers we will need to spend on units, and the higher risk of having to spend units on fighting a two-front war.

By the way, after re-reading your PPP, I realize I meant more catapults out StP, and I still think this would be a good idea. Agreed on the building of GLib now in Moscow.

You are right, it's probably best to not complete NEpic too soon. But once IW is running it is not 5:1. What is it four GE we can run+2GPP for IW? That would be 14 GE points/turn, and one GA point/turn. That is 14:1. Even less if we include centuries of running a forge engineer. But as I said, let's decide this when we are much closer, so we can properly evaluate the risk/reward.

Just checked, Ironworks gives +1 GE point, Nat Epic gives +1 GA point, and we can run 4 engineers (3 from Ironworks, 1 from Forge). Each engineer gives +3 GE points, so the ratio is 13 to 1 - much better than I thought, so maybe that early Forge engineer is not necessary. Less efficient than when we have NEpic there.

Guys, are we okay with GP Farm being our Nat Epic / Ironworks city? (I seem to recall GP Farm being full of flatland - great for State Property workshops, maybe not so good for what we intend). And it seems like a bit of a waste to have a high-food GP Farm city mainly working tiles. CI might be better for Ironworks if it has enough food. The short term decision - if we don't build Ironworks in our National Epic city - is to start that forge engineer soon.

Just a reminder, we need Forges in 6 cities to build Ironworks in the medium term. Forges are going to be a great happiness resource with our silver and gold and gems, way better than a temple.

Oh, we probably want to get the free GM from Economics so that we don't have to spawn a GM for Sushi ourselves.

Otherwise PPP looks OK.

 

[Fluroscent]

By the way, after re-reading your PPP, I realize I meant more catapults out StP, and I still think this would be a good idea. Agreed on the building of GLib now in Moscow.

OK, added a catapult to StP.

 

[BLubmuz]

OK, go, i'm impatient. And we're in late.

I'll adjust page1 after your TS.

 

[Fluroscent]

Played, and the development has been "interesting".

Made peace with De Gaulle for Alphabet. He was the only AI except Stalin that didn't have it.

Then Churchill declared war. Obviously he sent a stack towards Orleans . But the stack is not big enough to attack the city fortified with two phants and two axes (he has 2 axe, 4 spear). It has moved into French culture next to Orleans now, not sure why.
An Axe/Spear pair was at Rostov (GPFarm). I had to attack them or they would have destroyed a worker. So naturally we lost another phant (77% odds... ). He also has a lone spear next to Rheims culture. Should be easily dispatched by an axe.

We popped a Great Prophet and now have a confu shrine in St Petersburg now.

De Gaulle has moved two workers to Rheims. Good for us. He is even roading the fallouted tiles for us. Hopefully we can capture the workers when we DOW. Rheims has two gem tiles visible, so it is even better than first assumed. No sign of his settler.

Great Library is complete. We can pop a GP in three turns from now the quickest without starving.
5 turns left of Golden age.
BUT, since we don't want more than one GP from Moscow, we kind of want to avoid generating too many GPP there, as opposed to working golds for instance. I think we should switch to slavery/OR in two turns when we can. But work out how many scientists we need to run to pop the GP before the golden age ends. Bit of math required. I'll try to work it out later.

Roosevelt has built Colossus. Too bad it seems he is not too close, since he is a juicy target with both colossus and GLH. He is also WHEOOHRN. We might need a substantial standing army!

There are islands to the SE too. And they look more useful. But I think we need to scout west first, hoping to get trade routes with Gandhi. The other boat needs to improve Rostov's fish.

HEpic is done in CI, with a settled general. So we can build 5XP cats or phants there. We probably need to spam a bunch of troops to be able to attack De Gaulle with the threat of a dogpile on our hands.

 

[BLubmuz]

I got the save, not yet open.

I'll draft a PPP in 24h max for my 15 turns.
I'll also update page 1 in this frame.

Take a note to not put Fluro in roster when there're fights.

Napoleon choosen his generals between the luckier officiers. No point in planning a battle with use of cavalry if the day of the battle is raining.

You're a good player, but unlucky.

 

[beestar]

Good planning but bad luck. I think our power chart shows the results Well, what can you do. Good to see GLib come in on track and Rheims as a juicy target.

Any chance we want to move the capital, or put Oxford somewhere other than Moscow? My instincts say no since we are racing hard for fast tech, but maybe there's a long term argument to be made.

I'll have a look at the save as well.

P.S. Unfortunately, BLubmuz, I'm not any luckier than Fluro

 

[Fluroscent]

Sorry to drag down the team with my rotten luck. But we have plenty of wars left to turn it around
Lots of difficult decisions on the next set. We need to try to figure out how fast we can get education, and then try to complete the libraries in time, while at the same time make sure we have a big enough army. We need to boost our last two cities with Confucianism asap (Novogrod+Rostov). We also need to grow to allow OR whips as much as possible.

A piece of good news I forgot to mention: Gandhi is researching Machinery. Presumably he will go for Engineering next (seems to be the usual AI route).
With Roosevelt probably down that path too, we should be able to trade for that whole path.

 

[beestar]

As a builder this empire is looking beautiful. Love all those city sites! The beaker rate is also looking good. I have some comments on diplo, city planning, and Great Persons, but not much on tech or builds.

Diplo

How about Rice for Wheat with Gandhi, and Silk for 2 gpt? I would really like to start building up the +2 diplo from resources. with Gandhi, since our +2 fair tech trading is decaying away, and we're now opposing religions.

We can get MC from Gandhi for Civil Service. By the way, once Gandhi is Pleased, we should start begging gold from him.

I'm tempted to give away Literature or COL to Roosevelt for 40 gp, and +4 diplo. It's true that he's looking at declaring on us, but getting out of Worst Enemy would allow us to start Open Borders and resource trades, and manipulate "you traded with our worst enemy" demerits between Roosevelt and Mao and CDG. If Roosevelt declares on us, we can give him another wimpy tech as a peace bribe.

Roosevelt and Mao have Horse Archers. No threat to our elephants, but mobile and annoying since we don't have that good visibility into the west yet.

De Gaulle is Christian? Diplo suicide!

City site planning

Rostov. I take it back, it's got 3 hills. Not a huge production city but pretty much as good as CI, and it'll be decent for Ironworks + National Epic. By the way, after the GE, we won't really be making much use of the National Epic - Rostov with its Ironworks will be far more useful for production than spawning Great People or producing science. We will probably end up producing an extra GE for Space Elevator (??), or a GA for a Golden Age.

Novgorod. Is it worth putting Oxford here and perhaps moving the capital? It's got 7 grassland riverside tiles, a silver mine, and 6 tundra riverside tiles. Compare Moscow's 4 riverside grassland tiles, 2 gold, and 1 non-riverside grassland. Moscow is certainly stronger in the short term, but Novgorod's potential is huge.

St. Pete. Build a Market? Not that much gold right now, but we when we run 0% slider it produces a lot. We should consider merchant specialists so that we can gain from the gold multipliers even when running at high slider, but we need more food for this - it's tempting to irrigate the rice by overriding the Hamlet 1N of our worker. This has synergy with de-emphasizing Moscow and putting Oxford in Novgorod.

Moscow: We're currently working on our third Great Person, and it costs 300 GPP (not counting the Great Artist). The fourth one will probably be a GS in Moscow at low speed (6 GS points from the free specialists, 2 GS points from GLib itself and a dreaded 2 GPro points from Oracle). That's 10 GPP/turn and 80% chance of a Gsci, and 40 turns to get the 400 GPP for the fourth GS.

We probably can't afford the prophet, so if we run 2 extra GS on average, then we get 16 GPP/turn and a 87% chance of a GS. Then our fourth Great Person is acquired in 25 turns.

Great People

Some calculations on generating the GE. Assume a city starts with Forge. National Epic costs 250 hammers. We have +100% marble, +25% Forge, and +25% OR bonus, so we need 100 base hammers. Later on we build Ironworks for 700 hammers (+25% OR +25% forge), so 467 base hammers). Result is 13 GE points and 1 GA points, 14 GPP/turn.

It's pretty tough to have teched Steel and built Ironworks in 25-40 turns, so let's assume it's our sixth Great Person who's the Engineer, not our fifth. Then, we have to accumulate 600 points in the Ironworks city. At 14 GPP (+100% from National Epic and +100% from Pacifism), this will take 14 turns after Ironworks and NEpic are finished. Very doable!


Expansion

For future city sites, keep an eye on seafood and metals tiles. It could be worth settling even crappy city sites once we have our corps, to capture more Sushi and Mining Inc. resources.

Very interested in the coastal sea bridge to the southeast - where does that go?

 

[BLubmuz]

I got the save open while posting.

We need more axes. i already said we need more of them, in this way our stacks are too weak to spears. What we really need are Xbows, but they are late to come.

In any case, i think Moscow can switch to an axe immediately

Moscow is not working the gold, to try a GS in 3 turns. So, CI can borrow it and starve a bit for those 3 turns. 86% odds increasing ... fingers crossed, we don't need another shrine.

I've seen we are 3 turns to can declare on dG. Should i do it?
I also suppose we want switch to slavery/OR and i can see we already are Confucians.

There's a nice extent of ice where to build a nice iceball for dG. Do you think it's worth testing? In case, i'll try to update the test game with a land roughly similar and reproduce our moves.

I'm afraid that the spear will try to move to Rheims, so we'll probably will find him as an added defender.
Rheims first is tempting, but i think we need to keep too many troops there to avoid English or possible Chinese backstabs. So i propose to forget that city for now and point to Paris. Doing so, we can also have the strenght to take care of the english stack.

Novgorod can build a library and then a forge. We can road the path to the iron/wine city and build a settler once at size 4.
We need libraries in all our cities but Moscow!
But i think Moscow, StP and Ci will be busy for a while building military.

What about 2 HAs? After the axes, of course.

I need answers to the above questions before draft a PPP.

 

[Fluroscent]

How about Rice for Wheat with Gandhi, and Silk for 2 gpt?

Concur. No reason not to do it. We can even use the health bonus (will have more rice soon).

I'm tempted to give away Literature or COL to Roosevelt for 40 gp, and +4 diplo. It's true that he's looking at declaring on us, but getting out of Worst Enemy would allow us to start Open Borders and resource trades, and manipulate "you traded with our worst enemy" demerits between Roosevelt and Mao and CDG. If Roosevelt declares on us, we can give him another wimpy tech as a peace bribe.

I'm OK with literature. CoL not so much, as it is a dangerous path to open (and only Gandhi has it).

About Oxford. I think we cannot afford to build it elsewhere. We need to have a strong boost to get us our mining.inc. Lategame, most of our economy should come from wealth/research building, so the Oxford is comparatively less important in the long run. And in the same vein, I think we should keep max cottages in Moscow. And in StP for that matter since we will be putting all the gold multipliers there.

St. Pete. Build a Market? Not that much gold right now, but we when we run 0% slider it produces a lot.

A library is more valuable right now. And we also need to build missionaries somewhere, probably best done here since Moscow has a lot of useful builds. But yeah, we do want a market. Preferably before going into the next 0% period when we complete Education.

About Great People. You are right, the GLib will pop more GP before we can overtake it with engineer points. But we really shouldn't run extra scientists beyond our next two turns in pacifism.

For future city sites, keep an eye on seafood and metals tiles.

Don't you just hate that fish down SE, that we can only work by settling ON the copper
Obviously, once we near mining/sushi, we will want to settle ALL available corporation resources (and capture enemy cities with them!)

Strategic planning:
Since we are going to get DOW'ed by multiple AI, it might be a bit too much to plan further conquest (Beyond De Gaulle) with elephants as our main unit. We might instead want to run a period of intense REXing where we settle all the good sites available, and produce a legion of workers to get a large amount of cottages online. Then hopefully be ready to strike with a cannon powered army to clear another 1-2 AI at least.
I see three good sites between Rostov and CI. One up north (wine site) and probably two from what we see on the SE island chain. Along with Rheims and Paris, this will yield a core empire of 14 good cities. Then we can just expand by settling marginal sites for corp resources and capturing AI cities of varying quality.

 

[Fluroscent]

We need more axes. i already said we need more of them, in this way our stacks are too weak to spears. What we really need are Xbows, but they are late to come.

In any case, i think Moscow can switch to an axe immediately

Spearmen are only an issue on offense. One shock axe can probably safely dispatch 3-4 spearmen without worry on defense. And on defense, axes will defend from axes, and spears are rarely seen in stacks without axes.
I don't object to (a few) more axes. But I really think we need more phants too (especially if stacks with HA's/catapults arrive from the other AI). And with this in mind, we should build axes in CI and phants in Moscow, so we can better use the XP boosts (stable in moscow, GG in CI).

I've seen we are 3 turns to can declare on dG. Should i do it?

When you think we have enough units to take Rheims without being vulnerable to Churchill, do it. Maybe our standing army at Rostov is enough? If there is only archers, then it certainly is. But I'd surely keep the units in Orleans there for now.

Moscow is not working the gold, to try a GS in 3 turns. So, CI can borrow it and starve a bit for those 3 turns. 86% odds increasing ... fingers crossed, we don't need another shrine.

Feel free to rearrange the city screen as you see fit. Great idea having CI borrow the gold! I'd like to work the other one if possible, but of course, the more scientists, the lesser the risk of a GPro.
And (regarding next point) when we switch to OR, we want to stop running scientists. So probably best to run as many as possible for the next two turns.

I also suppose we want switch to slavery/OR and i can see we already are Confucians.

Yes, as soon as possible in my opinion (2 turns).

There's a nice extent of ice where to build a nice iceball for dG. Do you think it's worth testing? In case, i'll try to update the test game with a land roughly similar and reproduce our moves.

I don't think we should do it right now. Building a settler will delay us, and hammers/growth are kind of a bottleneck right now. Besides, Lyons is not really impressive, so I think we can afford to leave it to De Gaulle for now.

I'm afraid that the spear will try to move to Rheims, so we'll probably will find him as an added defender.

He moved away from Rheims last turn. I think we can catch him on the road and kill him.

Rheims first is tempting, but i think we need to keep too many troops there to avoid English or possible Chinese backstabs. So i propose to forget that city for now and point to Paris. Doing so, we can also have the strenght to take care of the english stack.

I expect more troops in Paris. And I think Rheims is more valuable, since we do want to hook the stone in time for Oxford. The units are also closer. And if we go directly for Paris, then we will need to fortify Rostov instead of Rheims. So as I see it, we need to guard two cities regardless.
And finally, at least two French workers are at Rheims. It would be great to capture them as we DOW.

Doing so, we can also have the strenght to take care of the english stack.

I prefer just waiting out the English stack, since it is strong on defense, and weak on offense. Either it will suicide on Orleans, or it should hang around until he will talk again. Either way, it is easy to monitor. It moved to French culture. Maybe because it knows we cannot attack it there?

Novgorod can build a library and then a forge. We can road the path to the iron/wine city and build a settler once at size 4.

There is no way we can complete granary, library, forge and settler before we have Education. I wouldn't delay university for anything. And the city should grow grow grow with all the nice land (and to whip university). So if we finish library before university, then I'd either prebuild forge, or maybe just wealth (depending on turns left of Edu).

But i think Moscow, StP and Ci will be busy for a while building military.

Absolutely. Although, StP would definitely benefit from a library sooner rather than later, since it has a very good commerce output. And I also think it is best to build our two missonaries (for Novogrod+Rostov) here. And as beestar points out, with a shrine, we certainly want a market here. I suggest: finish cat->archer (MP Rostov)->missonaryX2->library.

CI needs to build military non-stop right until it absolutely NEEDs to build library+uni to time with completion in our slowest city.
Good thing that it's military production is sky high with HEpic. I'd go with a couple of axe, then however many cats we need, then MP's for remaining and future cities.

Moscow can build elephants (and HA's) effectively, but also has a bunch of other builds we want. I'd go with 2 phant, 2 HA, then infrastructure. And if you really want a settler for the wine site, then I'd build it here.

What about 2 HAs? After the axes, of course.

Sure, a couple can't hurt. They are decent clean up units when attacking. But be sure to use them to prevent workers etc. escaping. Else there is little point.

 

[Fluroscent]

We will probably end up producing an extra GE for Space Elevator (??)

Just want to quell this thought before it takes hold. We are NOT EVER going to build the space elevator. It is arguably the most poorly balanced wonder in all of civ4, on the bad side that is. It has been demonstrated on the forums to slow down ANY serious attempt at space for all but the most contrived and silly scenarios.

 

[beestar]

Based on the arguments here, going for Rheims first sounds OK to me.

Let's have some extra units in case our bad RNG luck continue.

Hopefully our shrine will do its job in spreading Confucianism, and we won't need too many missionaries.

About working the gold mine, is it possible to move a Moscow citizen away from seafood and onto the gold mine for the next 2 turns? The science and commerce multipliers are a lot better in Moscow than in CI. Also, food doesn't get enhanced in a golden age, so it's a little more sacrificable. Might be worth it if we don't starve.

I'm leery of trying to gift an iceball city to CDG. I think the chances are pretty high that we get stuck with a useless iceball city (i.e. we aren't allowed to gift it to him)

 

[unclethrill]

There are a couple things we need to think about with Lyons vs Iceball City.

Lyons:
1. Leaving him Lyons means he has water access and can sail a settler to our north (and possibly to the West).
2. It is an established city and has some culture but with a couple culture buildings, Paris should push it pretty hard.
3. We can finish it with the next war and we don't have to get another "you declared war on friend" modifier.
4. We don't have to convince him to take Lyons.

Iceball:
1. It will have to be on the north (where we can get to right now) and coastal to get him to accept it (not tested but it will need to be close to him)
2. We will have to get more negative modifiers with a second declaration.
3. The coastal ice city will grow slow but he will have easier access to spreading around the North area with settlers (no boats required)

The arguments are there either way but I really think that for the short (medium) run, we should leave him Lyons. Then if he later sends a settler to the north or west, we can declare and take Lyons to add to our empire and leave him the lousy city he settled late.