24-01-2004 07:14									#1
	Opinion Poll: Diplomacy Increase Your PM Length

This is the way I see it:

We need to choose an ally. And soon.


So, checking for the opinion on who we trust most here.

Some impressions I personally have:

Sunshine: Have appeared to be somewhat difficult so far diplomatically. In a good position to take aggressive action on MAST. Alliance with LL would be their best move IMO, but those two don't seem to get along all too well.


MAST: Desperate. Begging for alliances. Seem to get along TOO well with LL for my personal taste. Bad land, no threat to anyone alone, but as an ally could be problematic and push a 2-1 over the top.


LL: The most secretive group from what I can tell. Really have two logical options for alliances, us or Sunshine with the lay of the land. However, seem to be a bit buddy with MAST for my taste.

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Overall, I think it's in our best interest to be proactive in the persuit of a formal alliance with at least one of the other civs.

I think our best bets are to go after either Sunshine OR LL. I think that LL gives us the best eventual lay of the land, frankly, but am of the opinion that they have already signed SOME kind of deal with MAST.

Sunshine, while perhaps a bit 'difficult' would be a most valuable ally as they are Scientific, and getting on their good side would potentially yeild huge rewards down the road.

LL also poses the greatest threat to us IMO, therefore we either need to get the other two on board to eventually remove them OR get them as the ally.

Opinions?

	24-01-2004 10:19									#2
	Re: Opinion Poll: Diplomacy Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx This is the way I see it: We need to choose an ally. And soon.

Agreed.

quote: Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx Sunshine: Have appeared to be somewhat difficult so far diplomatically.

I wouldn't call them difficult. There was the incident over the unsigned tech deal they thought had gone through, but I can't recall any other problems with them.

quote: Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx Alliance with LL would be their best move IMO, but those two don't seem to get along all too well.

Yep, thankfully.

quote: Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx I think our best bets are to go after either Sunshine OR LL. I think that LL gives us the best eventual lay of the land, frankly, but am of the opinion that they have already signed SOME kind of deal with MAST. Sunshine, while perhaps a bit 'difficult' would be a most valuable ally as they are Scientific, and getting on their good side would potentially yeild huge rewards down the road.

Agreed that LL would be best long-term; Sunshine's land would make the best secondary core for us. However, there are the Hoplites to consider; while Pikes will make 3 defense everyone's realm, Hoplites are still dirt cheap, and there's no resource you can cut to stop them being built. Also, Sunshine's Scientific trait could go well in conjunction with our likely focus on markets; they could do deficit research while we feed them gold to keep it going, then we both get the tech and figure out some way to split trading profits.

quote: Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx LL also poses the greatest threat to us IMO, therefore we either need to get the other two on board to eventually remove them OR get them as the ally.

I agree LL is probably the biggest threat. Sunshine's current core isn't anything to laugh at, as they've gotten some of their cities to decent sizes, but they don't have many of those cities and will not be a major power anytime soon.

Ganging up on LL is certainly a possibility. And let's keep in mind the same could happen to us if we aren't vigilante. We're the ones with the largest powergraph right now; we're also about even in current score with LL, it's just our slow start that puts us behind them in total score.

	25-01-2004 01:17									#3
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quote: Ganging up on LL is certainly a possibility. And let's keep in mind the same could happen to us if we aren't vigilante. We're the ones with the largest powergraph right now; we're also about even in current score with LL, it's just our slow start that puts us behind them in total score.

Agreed - plus we also are strong in military terms compared to everyone else on the continent plus have 3 luxuries already under our control.

quote: We need to choose an ally. And soon.

Absolutely! Probably the best way to avoid being ganged up on. If we allied with either Sunshine or LL, we would certainly be in very good shape and avoid being ganged up on.

Based on their position furthest east, it is highly possible that LL will be the 1st to be in contact with the other continent. We shouldn't forget about the other continent - LL allied with even 1 of the other continents' civs would be difficult to handle.

Frankly, I would be surprised if LL isn't upset about our island development - and thus straining relations between us and them. If they are, forget about any alliance with them.

Admittedly, with Sunshine being scientific, that might be the most beneficial for us to work with them for now. The downside is that eventually they will be bigger than LL in size (unless LL goes on a war phase to increase their territory), and thus more of a threat to us in the long-run.

So to be honest I am still not sure about who to ally with , though I am favoring Sunshine slightly right now as I except LL to be upset about the island cities.

One thing is nearly for certain: unless they do something, MAST is in big trouble. I think that they will likely either join one of the major powers in an attack in order to try to gain territory or attack Sunshine (I doubt they will go against a stronger LL).