Strategy objectives- Long term

[Indiansmoke]

We should research COL, obviously, as we are by now guaranteed to get it first.

We should let Cav research as well as getting Sailing, which we need imminently and then math, to max out chops and make currency cheaper.

Metal casting and forge is another story.

How are we guarandeed to get CoL first?

 

[Kaleb]

I think he means that we know 3 teams don't have writing. Problems is we are 10 turns away from being able to start CoL so Sancta could easily tech writing before that time and go for CoL straight from there. And they would beat us if they did.

Thing is, if SANCTA want a religion my bet is that they have poly and masonry so they could get judaism more easily if they want. And then tech monarchy with both prereqs

 

[Sommerswerd]

there is no need fighting ghosts...Soon we will have chariots and we will send a couple to scout and see where the closest opponent is...In the meantime all we need to fear is barbs. As we can also see from demographics that noone is making army.

Chasing ghosts? This is the Long-Term thread... I'm thinking long term... and in the long term, there will be more than ghosts to deal with. Don't you agree?

Barbs are the more immediate threat, yes... but that is more of a short-term / mid term thing no? In the long term, we need to start thinking what our civ's military status will be.

Settlers, workers, army... REX, REX, REX... let our new allies be the tech workhorses for a while, they owe us anyway. What say you Smoke?

 

[Indiansmoke]

Chasing ghosts? This is the Long-Term thread... I'm thinking long term... and in the long term, there will be more than ghosts to deal with. Don't you agree?

Barbs are the more immediate threat, yes... but that is more of a short-term / mid term thing no? In the long term, we need to start thinking what our civ's military status will be.

Settlers, workers, army... REX, REX, REX... let our new allies be the tech workhorses for a while, they owe us anyway. What say you Smoke?

Sorry I though you were talking for now...yes I could not agree more...REX like mad and be top in power, should be priorities.

With these long term alliances it seems getting the land is the priority not teching!

 

[Kaleb]

Speaking of long term, how much of a priotity do we want to put to espionage?

With alphabet we can build spies and send them off to rival (or freindly) lands. They can just wander around enemy territory to keep an eye on how our rivals are growing. Getting and settling a GSpy at some point could also really help us in seeing what rivals are teching.

Just some thoughts to see what others think?

 

[Indiansmoke]

Speaking of long term, how much of a priotity do we want to put to espionage?

With alphabet we can build spies and send them off to rival (or freindly) lands. They can just wander around enemy territory to keep an eye on how our rivals are growing. Getting and settling a GSpy at some point could also really help us in seeing what rivals are teching.

Just some thoughts to see what others think?

I value espionaze very little myself, I would not focus on it at all.

Trying to get techs from opponents with close borders and different religion is a waste of resources IMO...but of course we can use spies later on to scout their lands.

 

[donsig]

We'll be able to make spies in 10 turns? Wouldn't they be better than scouts for exploring?

 

[Jimmy369]

Spies have no attack value I believe so they would get eaten by every single wolf that came by. I think the idea of dedicated partners is good. I think that we should be the science workhorse and that we need to have destroyed the other alliance about the time that infantry are used. Ideally we would make both our allies dependant on us for tech and be able to out tech them when their are three civs left. The problem with this is that if the S-S is destroyed after the last military unit tech is researched we would be sitting ducks for our allies. As for land, maybe we can get our warmongerers to give us cities in exchange for technology.

 

[Kaleb]

btw Spies are invisible to all units and can never be attacked. they only get killed by getting 'caught' in a rival's borders (or even an ally's)

Main use for espionage in this game are:
1) See rival power on graphs
2) see what rival is teching
3) sending spies to gain visibility
4) sending spies to instigate city revolt
5) if you get enough you can even see what an enemy's cities are building and how many turn to completion they are as well as being able to see each cities units.

4) can be really devastating for a surprise attack as it lowers a city's culture to 0% and causes collateral damage to units in the city. if you are advancing on a city with not enough siege units they enemy will think they have a few turns before you reduce their defences down before an attack. But a city revolt will do it in 1 turn and damage units really softening it up for a quick attack.

 

[damnrunner]

We'll be able to make spies in 10 turns? Wouldn't they be better than scouts for exploring?

I think that may be a very good idea.

As to our military - we should never be in a position of weakness. If we are weak will will be stabbed in the back.

We should have decent defensive capabilities (lots of catapults) and some ability to project power. Once we get rifling we can then go on a rampage. I think a swarm of pillaging redcoats is the way to go.

Of course everyone else will expect this -so we will have a big target on our backs. Hence the need for defense.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We need to find the lands that we will spy on before we send spies. I don't want to spend turns building spies just to have them wander around looking for opponents... that seems like a big waste.

 

[Indiansmoke]

Spy to scout is a good idea, but it should come after a couple of chariots that we need for protection.

 

[Kaleb]

We have had some discussion of who likely allies and rivals will be. A fundamental geopolitical issue is rivalry between neighbors. I assume that team Mad is located along the coast between Team Saturn and Team Cav.

I guess a bit regarding the other teams borders but the following is what I come up with.

Kaz borders Sancta and Cav
Cav borders Kaz, Sat, San, Mad
San borders Kaz, Sat, Cav?
Sat borders Sat, San, Cav
Mad borders Sat, Cav

This leads me to conclude that us and team Mad have the best placement as we are in corners where only two other civs are at our borders. Cav is in the worst position as they border everyone.

I think that in the long-term a close alliance between us and team Mad will be the most useful. Sancta will also want a similar alliance but we have some advantage here as we did started developing a relationship 1st.

With that said, I place little faith in relationships. The point of the game is to win and any team that relies on allies for protection will be killed. Our best way to keep a close alliance is to maintain tech parity at a level above our rival. That way their is a mutual incentive to trade with each other and not with another team.

Good analysis.

Long term our strategy is basically as follows:

• 3-way Alliance (Cav, MS & us) defeats Saturn and SANCTA (who may not even be allied to each other!)
• After the dust settles our plan will be to take out Cav. It will have to be 2v1 and MS will be too far away to go for next and if we did it would be Cav that got all their cities.
• Once it's only 3 civs left the geopolitical situation will have to be such that MS believe they have a chance against us and that Cav are the main rival.
• We don't actually want to be more powerful than Cav. Them being stronger than us gives MS more of an incentive to ally with us instead of Cav. But of course we don't want them to be much stronger than we are.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Why not a 4 on 1 versus SANCTA and then 3 on 1 versus Cavalieros? What if MS just likes/trusts Cavalieros more than us? Cavalieros have had a long time to build some rapport with MS (we havent even met MS in-game yet). We should not put all our hopes in getting MS to backstab Cavalieros... If it does not work, then we are toast. We can use Saturn as a hedge against Cavalieros. Someone else (Garand, I think) mentioned this earlier.

We also should not choose a strategy that depends on us intentionally staying weak... right ?!?

 

[Kaleb]

We met MS last turn. Check the turn logs and the last post in the MS embassy thread

Your argument is a little counter-intuitive if I may say so. You are saying that we should have a 4-way alliance so we can go 3v1 against Cav because you aren't sure that we'll be able to ensure a 2v1 alliance

We can assume that MS will do what is in their own best interest. How will they benefit more from taking us down than Cav? Cav will be the ones to get all our cities and land. MS are too far away to benefit from a war with us.

If we take down SANCTA we increase our chances of winning to 1 in 4. If we take down SANCTA and Saturn we increase our chances to 1 in 3. I would rather guarantee the demise of two rivals in one go than just one. Simple maths to me

 

[Sommerswerd]

Of course you are right about us just meeting MS sorry.

What I am saying is that if that no matter whether we have a 3 way or 4 way alliance, once we kill off SANCTA, there is a possibility that new alliances will form. Cavalieros and MS might join against us, we might all go after Saturn, etc...

My point is that if Saturn is part of the alliance (at least until SANCTA is dead) we increase our chances that we will not be left alone. If Cavalieros and MS (or Saturn) backstab us, we can petition the other ally to join us. We are only going to go after one rival at a time right? Once SANCTA has been killed off (with Saturn's help) we can always form a 3 way against Saturn next can't we?

The only difference is that we get Saturn's help to kill SANCTA, which is valuable IMO since Saturn is next to SANCTA.

 

[donsig]

I'm with Sommers on this. I think we're better off dog piling SANCTA. Yeah, our chances of winning go from 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 instead of 1 in 3 but what about the next stage? With S&S gone we have a one out of three chance of being on the wrong end of a 2 on 1 alliance. With only SANCTA gone the structure will shift to 3 on 1 or 2 on 2. There are seven possibilities and the only really bad one is us against all three. Simple math tells us the odds of us reaching stage two are double if we just take down SANCTA. The question becomes does a longer game help us or hurt us?

 

[Provolution]

A longer game is of course good to us. We got cheap universities, we got cheaper stock markets, red coats and so on. We want the era of the British Empire to be as long as possible. When we reach the state just before, we need to turn down the pace, and savour the supremacy.

 

[damnrunner]

If it is 4-1 on Santca we will likely gain the most territory and will therefore be the biggest target afterwards.

In 3-2 Cav and MS will also gain land from Saturn and therefor Cav will be a more clear threat to MS.

 

[Provolution]

3-2 would serve us best.