Spending Our GPT: Decision Time

[Donovan Zoi]

There is no question that our recent government change to Republic has proven quite beneficial for our economy. But then again, I think the legendary street bard Puff Daddy said it best:

More Money, More Problems

Researching at 0% science, we are currently sitting at 49gpt with a treasury of around 170g. Yet we already have three different options to consider that would exhaust much of our gold. They are:

1. The upgrade of two Horsemen to Rider(80 gold each, I believe).

2. Our "gold for tech" deal with Apolyton, where we grant them an amount of gpt and they give us techs. I have currently negotiated an amount of 35gpt at present. Apolyton discovers Invention in 4 turns.

3. An offer to CGN for Theology. By commiting 35gpt to Apolyton, that leaves us with 14 gpt to spend on other endeavors. I don't know if we could convince CGN to accept much less than that.

As you can see, initiating all three of these measures will wipe us out. But we do have more going for us. One of the positives is Poly's goodwill gesture to provide us with Silks. This comes 2 turns after their decision to gift us Dyes. Using these luxuries to maximize our least corrupt cities, it is possible for us to extend well beyond our current base of 50gpt in a short time.

Due to the gifting of these two luxuries, I think it is imperative that we honor Poly's trade deal for now, and would find it more than fair for us to gift them even a tad bit more if we are able. But they already understand that this will not happen immediately. For this reason, I believe that we must maintain our current outlay of 35gpt to Poly for the next 10 turns or so. This will get us Invention and allow us to acquire Gunpowder in the near future.

As much as I want to upgrade our Horsemen, I feel that this should maybe wait a few turns while we sort out our possible Theology deal with CGN. If we can work out a 10-12 gpt deal for 20 turns and throw in 50 gold to boot, that may be enough to secure the tech. That would put us in the 250-290g range, which is a bit less than we paid them for Chivalry. I am sure they will want us to do better.

So now we face the tough decisions of an emerging nation. Do we want it all, and are we willing to pay for it? Please post your opinions here, and feel free to ask me anything that feel needs further clarification.

 

[Hygro]

We should do the thing with Poly.

Other wealth should go for the creation of marketplaces. Then lets start dealing with the other things. Personally, I would say upgrading our military comes last at this point.

 

[Zukatah]

/delurk
From my part I'd continue trading with Poly as they have proved to be our most important ally in this game and the two of us benefit of this cooperation. For the rest, I too believe the remaining GPT should be spent elsewhere than in our opponent's coffers, even CGN, that means we should concentrate on settling our territories and laying the ground for a prosperous nations: marketplaces. With that in place we'd be far better off than we are now and besides, who's threatening us right now? CGA has been wiped out of this continent and their remaining units need a place to land, something they won't get. For the other nations, it's too much hassle to come over to get us, they're already busy fighting each other... If on the other hand CGN desperately needs cash to fight the war, then we're in a good position to get a deal that would profit us.

In retrospective, seeing that we face no immediate military threat, I believe money should be spent on upgrading and expanding our nations and keeping good relations with our allies, especially Apolyton. Later in the game will come the time to catch up on other technologies and build up our military but for this moment this doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
/lurks again

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Zukatah, come back!

I really don't think we are going to need rush cash for Marketplaces. In the cities that can build them, we can aim for 8 shields/pt or better. That would get us Markets in no more than 12-13 turns.

I would like to expand our nation using as little rush cash as possible, and would rather use workers to join our established cities with improved tiles to spare. Most of those can come from Yun Qiuling.

I can help draft a better proposal for city build queues once we clear up this issue. So far it looks like:

Poly: yes
CGN: no
Riders: no

Speaking of Poly, what do you think of the prospect of giving them even more gold in a few turns? While nothing is etched in stone, it seems apparent that Trip from Poly would like us to do more at some point. And he does have a point. At our current pace, we will have given Apolyton only 165 gold by the time they discover Invention. If we were to raise our Science rate to 50%, it would still take us 24 turns to discover Invention ourselves and or gpt would be -1. If you do the math, it can be determined that Invention should cost us 1200 gold(50g x 24 turns), and even more since we would receive it in 1/6th of the time.

Points to ponder as we try to determine the fairness of our ally's request.

 

[Cheetah]

How about 7gpt for 20 turns and 130 gold to CGN for Theology? That would be 270 gold in total, and allowing us to gift up to 40 gold to Apolyton this turn, and up to 42 gold each turn afterwards.

Poly trade has highest priority of course, and Military upgrades lowest at this time.

 

[Ankka]

I don't really know what to do in this case...

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

I like Cheetah's idea.

 

[Yndy]

What are we going to research next?
If we aim a 40 turn Printing Press, then yes, pay Poly and then, talk about Theology with CGN.

On rushing marketplaces I would still use a partial rush for some of them in cities low on shields. On Apolyton, again I think we should not over-pay them.

Based on the discussions we had with them, we know that: they have about 80 units and they are running a 110 deficit with 100% science. This tells me we should not pay more than 30 gold per turn to help them for research and use the rest to improve our economy. Given the fact that they have offered us two luxuries, we should be nice too and grant them more money, but I would rather not support their military too much.

Still, I think we have a valid point if we convince Poly that we could be their cash-cow and build marketplaces and banks all around. At least they will not ever be tempted to attack us as they will lose more money than they could receive.

 

[Hygro]

Yndy, once again you provide great insight.

 

[Ankka]

Yeah. Like always.