14-01-2004 14:34									#1
	Request for summary on our current Plan of Action Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Evening all. Since the achievement of most of our AltSp with GCA being driven off this continent and the effective end of the war, I have been at somewhat of a loss when thinking of what we are aiming at now. I gather we are developing and filling the space we conquered, but this thread is for the Consuls, Ministers or anyone who is in chat during the times these things are discussed to summarise for us all our current aims and objectives.

AFAIK CFC are becoming closer allies, and we have no communication with GWT, who has been pushing us a little with Galley movements. I believe they are still at war with our friends CGN, but there have been no major engagements yet. Also, I think GCA has been relocated by GWT to one or more of their cities for some reason.

If anyone can add to this I, and others here, would appreciate it.

	14-01-2004 15:57									#2
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I was going to make a major post about discussing and drafting a new strategic plan to replace the now completed AltSp, but then I travelled from Arizona to Virginia and spent most of my holidays with family and forgot.

Thank you for stepping up and reminding us that this needed to be done, and badly.

Frankly, the nation as a whole needs to have a discussion about where we want to be done the road and what we should be doing in the near, medium, and long term to get there. Issues such as what to do with our military, what to do about our relationships with each team at each stage and what to do about domestic development need to all flow from a discussion about our strategy for winning the game and where each team and where our own capabilities may fall into that.

Since I'm going to likely be gone for several days myself and I can think about this on the road (well, when I'm not doing other things, of course ), I can make it a homework assignment of a sort. It wouldn't be a bad idea if we all did something of the sort.

Here's your homework assignment:

How are we going to win the game?

Think about it. Write about it if you need to. Give yourself time to formulate it. Then discuss it (and likely argue about it ) here with everyone else.

In order to pursue our fundamental interests, we need to formulate (in full) just what they are and not delude ourselves in the process.

I'll be the first to recognize that this question probably does NOT, as of yet, have a single definable answer. That's not so much the point yet as how the potential answers constrain everything else we must do.

Discussions of everything else need to flow from that central question, even including such question as "How are we going to get ahead of GWT and CGN?", as the method and timing of our strategy to do so may be influenced by the answer to the more important question.

Obviously, there are a number of issues to be considered within the question of how we are going to win the game, such as whether CFC is willing to be a partner in that pursuit or ultimately must be another competitor. Ultimately, the same question may inevitably be raised regarding CGN if certain types of victory conditions are being considered, even if they were to become very good allies (something still very much up in the air concerning the far future).

	15-01-2004 05:32									#3
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I'm thinking that our best chance of a victory may be at the UN, given the clear edge the leading player on the other landmass has in quanity of high quality tierraign.

We definately need GCA to be elimated by either us or anyone else before the modern era since there's no way in heck they'd vote for us and most likely they've vote for the leading oppoent.

So we need to become better liked by those projected to both still be in the game when we build the UN that also are ineligible to vote for themselves during the Industrial age. We also need to ensure that we don't fall so far behind in techs that the Spaceship gets built prior to us building the UN while maintaigning enough military units to deter being invaded.

	15-01-2004 08:03									#4
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quote: I'm thinking that our best chance of a victory may be at the UN, given the clear edge the leading player on the other landmass has in quanity of high quality tierraign.

I've never done the UN in PtW but don't voters have the choice of abstaining (which is what any reasonable human would do if they can't vote for themselves) and if no one receives a majority of the votes including abstains no one wins?

	15-01-2004 10:29									#5
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That is certainly at least mostly correct, civman, but I am unsure about the idea of nobody winning.

What I would be looking at for us now is for good development of our land (as has been progressing) whilst maintaining enough of a force around to combat any potential invasion from GWT (a faint possibility). I believe we have probably enough of a land force for this. Additionally, we need a few Galleys about to give early warning against other ships. These will be upgraded eventually to Caravels etc, as protecting our coasts will end up quite important, with the two strongest teams overseas.

Otherwise we should be striving for an internally developed Medieval empire, and set ourselves the target of one or two good Wonders to get. GWT is in their GA, so they may take the lion's share of Wonders available now and in the next few techs, but they have no cooperation from any but GCA, so they will need to do it all themselves. If we make a target of a couple of good wonders we can beat anyone to them, I think, excepting SGLs. We may need to have a b-list of Wonders, as since we will be coordinating techs with CGN and CFC, we may lose out one or two to them.

We should look at the max pop we can support in our cities, and aim to reach that pop ASAP, with the fastest growers building the settlers needed to fill out our lands quickly.

IIRC, there is the possibility of more land somewhere in this world. We should, when we get ourselves to Navigation, get ready a few ships to look for such land, as the lux could well be worth it. However, I think getting to ocean-going vessels will be the next big decision time for the world, as no longer will we be almost unreachable by CGN and GWT.

	15-01-2004 10:32									#6
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The key to our ascendency and victory is our economic progression in the next 30 or 40 turns.

Right now, we clearly have no chance of competing with either CGN or GWT when it comes to commerce or production. They simply have more cities and more/better land to work with than we do. Right now. With our expansion plans for the near future we have a strong shot at passing them, especially if they remain embroiled in a stalemate with each other. Once our expansion phase is done, we will have many more cities than CGN and probably GWT. We will have well-located cores and no real threat (assuming we keep CFC friendly).

Once we become the new world superpower, the sky is the limit. As long as we keep CGN friendly, we keep the possibility of taking a chunk of GWT after Navigation (giving ourselves a beachead on the other continent before RRs make amphibious invasions almost impossible). Once we're on the other continent, the possibility of invading CGN to win a domination victory opens itself up. That is the most direct way to ensure our supremacy.

Or we can stay on our continent and attempt a builder victory (the only way to win a warmonger victory would be to intervene in the other continent... CFC is hardly worth our time to invade). UN victory is possible if we can get CGN on our side (and keep CFC on our side). Perhaps this way we can declare "joint" victory with our 3 teams voting for 1 in order to claim a mutual victory.

Or, we can head for what I think is our best shot at winning: spaceship. We have more grass than GWT to support a higher pop (except for where they have bonus food tiles) and we have more hills than CGN to increase our production. With E_T we can easily out-pre-build them to the SS parts.

It's just a matter of preventing GWT or CGN from getting complete dominance over their continent.

	15-01-2004 15:54									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Trip It's just a matter of preventing GWT or CGN from getting complete dominance over their continent.

I pretty much agree with everything you typed, but this is by far the most important. This is another area where we need to keep our eyes to the future.

Right now, CGN is clearly the underdog and the side we are going to support. What happens when CGN becomes the favorite and both CFC and Apolyton are very friendly with CGN but very unfriendly with GWT?

That's a ways off and may not even come, but on the chance that it does, we need to discuss that potentiality and what we would do if it occured.

As for other issues, I was also thinking "joint victory" with CFC and CGN if they voted for us if GWT and Apolyton are the top two players for population. Achieving that may be a simple matter of making sure we're either #1 or #2 and that GWT, not CGN, is the other. Then we get 3 votes, GWT gets 2, and we win - assuming we get the votes of both CFC and CGN (we would be most likely to get each of their votes by arguing that if they don't vote for us and GCA votes for GWT, GWT wins... correct? Aside from that, we can indeed offer "joint" victory).

But as for our preferred method of victory, I agree that Spaceship is the way to go. It's an open question whether we should build the U.N. in order to ensure no-one can win that way or we feel that we can just rely on CGN and CFC to vote with us if GWT (or whomever) actually starts a vote. That decision will probably need to be made well down the line, though. For spaceship, we may very well have an edge by then, but spaceship is still a very uncertain method of victory. I fear we may be underestimating GWT in that regard.

It must also be remembered that going for spaceship in a multiplayer game opens up the possibility of a nuclear exchange far more than doing so in a single-player game does. The player who chooses to build ICBMS over space ship parts may fall behind in the space race, but then he can always nuke the cities in which space ship parts are being built by his opponent.

By contrast, if the United Nations victory option is available and CGN and CFC will both vote for us, it's a safer way to ensure a win.

This all said, a lot will be determined by what happens between now and then. I think we should play mostly builder for much of the rest of the game and shoot for a space race victory and settle for a diplomatic victory if need be. In terms of military prowess, we need to make sure that our continent is not invaded up to railroads, even after that keeping up an impressive military force and naval pickets near enemy ports to identify the departure of any sizable fleets (though, in some cases, the continents are very close together and that will be hard to stop).

In terms of offensive military potential, we need to consider whether an expeditionary force on the other continent is something that would help pursue either a spaceship or diplomatic victory and how it would do so (or at least prevent a GWT or CGN victory).

Ultimately, I think we win this game by a "builder" route, though our days of fighting may not necessarily be over. We will have to remain ever vigilant, if not choosing to enter conflict as well.

	15-01-2004 20:42									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Trip CFC is hardly worth our time to invade

Good point. Please tell them, so that they need not fear us anymore in the future...

	18-01-2004 00:17									#9
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A civ that thought they'd have a chance at winning some other way that couldn't vote for themselves would abstain.

But usually (but not always) the civs that can't vote for themselves don't have a realistic shot of winning themselves, but do greatly perfer one civ that could win to another that could win.

quote: Originally posted by civman2000 I've never done the UN in PtW but don't voters have the choice of abstaining (which is what any reasonable human would do if they can't vote for themselves) and if no one receives a majority of the votes including abstains no one wins?

	21-01-2004 09:29									#10
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*bump*

This discussion needs to be continued. It also will then need to progress to a discussion (more fully than has already been expressed) about exactly what our goals are and how we are to meet them in the immediate, near, medium, and (probably a good bit more hazily) long term.

Please, comment by more team members is strongly encouraged.

	21-01-2004 13:35									#11
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This debate about convincing CFC and CGN that if they don't vote for us in a possible UN vote will cause GWT to win is our best chance. Now, I agree with what Joncnunn said, if a civ can't vote for themselves they will abstain. Except for one type of situation: when one civ owes its very existance to another. Hmm... this sounds like our current situation. CGA owes GWT everything, including a UN vote.