04-02-2004 02:48									#1
	Future Strategic Policy from 530ad onward Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I agree with Beta that it is time we figure out how we want to proceed with our future planning.

Currently we have a research engine that is beginning to ramp up quite nicely. We can't compete with the larger civs, but we can work on the more obscure techs (read...unnecessary for age advancement). On the military front, we're pathetically backward. But at the same time we have our big brother (Lego) protecting us.

I think we really need to get together with Lego in chat or through a series of PMs and discuss with them our future policy because a lot of it will depend on them.

Possible Future Policy Plan A) - We completely eschew military needs in favor of building research and commerce improvements, as well as aqueducts. With this policy we will be able to become a stronger research partner for giving Lego the techs we research, as well as being able to shop our techs around to the other teams for concessions much like we've done with printing press and soon democracy. This strategy will depend greatly on Lego as we will have to rely on them solely for our defense as our current military would get run over quickly.

Possible Future Policy Plan B) - After our current round of building marketplaces we begin building up a force of horsemen (by freezing our road on the iron) that can eventually be upgraded to knights and cavalry and provide us an excellent defense force against invasion by other civs. This would, of necessity, require a lot of gold for upgrades and necessitate that we ramp our research engine back down. I believe it's either 100 or 120 gold per upgrade from horse to cavalry (can't check
right now). This would provide us a more secure military and make us less vulnerable to an invasion of our shores designed to hurt Lego through us, as well as giving us the ability to send forces if they are invaded. However we wouldn't be as good a research partner for Lego.

Possible Future Policy Plan C) - A hybrid of the above in which we ramp our research as much as possible until we discover democracy and then try to build up our military through the use of horseman upgrades. This has the benefit of the fact that there won't be too many techs that we can research quicker than anyone else once democracy is finished. The only tech that the other nations likely won't prioritize is free artistry until we get into the nationalism branch of extra techs.

That brings up another point that we need to discuss with Lego. We will get metallurgy and hopefully another nice tech or two for democracy trades. If Lego can get us the remaining ones as soon as possible then we will start the next age...where as the only scientific civ we will have a free tech to share with Lego! If it's Steam Power or Nationalism we might also see about keeping it to ourselves and Lego for a while.

Okay, of the above plans I'm kind of leaning toward Plan A with getting our economic engine going as fast as we can. There are a bunch of industrial age optional techs that aren't often prioritized by human players that we could shoot for and trade around. Once we get a bank up and running in New Voice then it's commerce boosters will be finished and we can start building a small mobile military with that city alone.

Thoughts?

	06-02-2004 07:14									#2
	Remove this text

I prefer A. Considering that anyone who wants to attack us would incur Legoland's wrath, we're more or less safe. Tech-whoring as best we can is the only way we can "win" this game, IMHO. (Well, the only realistic way. I'm discounting scenarios such as Lego gifting us all their cities.)

	06-02-2004 20:26									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I too am leaning towards option "A," since if the other civ(s) truely wanted to invade our island, a few more military units wouldn't really make a difference, except for acting as a "speed bump."

	07-02-2004 12:16									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

can we move lego troops in our ships?

if so, how about going the ship route, defense and requires less as well as being able to provide needed support to lego

Jon Miller
(don't mind me, I am just passing through)

	07-02-2004 12:42									#5
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

It would be cool to be able to do so Jon...but alas, using our ships to transport another civ's units is beyond the scope of this game.

	07-02-2004 21:26									#6
	Support Apolyton

Rhoth - great post - anbd I think you have hit the key points.

I too say option A. But with a twist of lime.

I am thinking how we may contribute in the future - and I can see naval units being key. I don't think we need to (or can) build a military that compete one on one with GS or GoW or ND. That is foregone conclusion.

But I can see us with a reasonable homeland defense. Read some key infantry units. Some cannon. And some mounted units. Stationed in new voice they will be able to react to any landing - and but time for Lego to react. Although I think it is clear that any invasion of Vox would be coupled with an attack on Lego - so the more I think about it - the more I am not sure we can count solely on Lego for defense.

Also - with a decent sized naval force - we can help defend ourselves - and be involved in offensive wars as well. That would require a ship building program - and some key offensive units - read cavalry - to go along with them.

But you are right - this will cost - and the more I babble on here - the more I drift from Plan A to the hybrid version.

So - a good chat with Lego is in order. Rhoth - I re-read your post above again - and I don't see why we don't send it as is to Lego as an essay on future strategy. They can read it - discuss it - and then we can do a chat. Are you guys OK with this?

	07-02-2004 23:39									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I'm fine with it. Go right ahead.

A naval military is a definite possibility to begin building. Once we have magnetism we'll have the ability to build frigates if we can secure a trade for saltpeter.

	07-02-2004 23:58									#8
	Full PM-box? Change here!

that sucks, I have never tried it (never trusted others so much in my MP games)

but I still am all in favor of the shipbuilding idea

people usually go light on ships, so that is somewhere where we can make a difference

people have to use ships to strike at us or Lego

Jon Miller

	08-02-2004 00:07									#9
	Inflate your Upload Space

I would say let Lego be Infantry and Cannon

we should be Horse (quick strike at a few key locations, than harrassment and scouting and the like)

have a number of horse = transport capacity (no other stroops)

have 3 frigates for every 2 gallions

Jon Miller

	21-02-2004 02:17									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

From Vondrack's letter in the Lego thread, here are my thoughts:

quote: Hi, Bruce! > btw - what were the comments in the save game thread in reference > to? Has GS attacked??? Or is it a wonder build thing? ...Bruce Wonder build thing. We finished Magellan's Voyage and triggered our GA. It was like shuttle taking off. Not sure if anyone can imagine how many shields and arrows we are generating now... it's truly impressive. It's almost hard to believe we've managed to pull it exactly the way we planned. And the plans were insane - almost every single city had a separate plan with worker jobs, precise build schedules, growth plans... Also - regarding our chat. We are getting very close to finalizing our plans for the next 10-15 turns. We are currently waiting for the final GoW's approval of a trade that should net us Military Tradition. If it goes through (and it should, soon, as MZ agreed to the deal yesterday in chat), the research plan will be as follows: Turn 179 / 630AD: Physics finished, sending it to you starting Theory of Gravity Turn 180 / 640AD: researching Theory of Gravity Turn 181 / 650AD: researching Theory of Gravity Turn 182 / 660AD: researching Theory of Gravity Turn 183 / 670AD: Theory of Gravity finished starting Magnetism Turn 184 / 680AD: researching Magnetism Turn 185 / 690AD: researching Magnetism Turn 186 / 700AD: researching Magnetism Turn 187 / 710AD: Magnetism finished sending Magnetism & Theory of Gravity to you either halting the research or gambling a bit, starting Steam Power immediately So... assuming you are able to trade for Metallurgy by 710AD, you should advance to the industrial era in 720AD (Turn 188). You get your free tech, send it back to us - and then we stop and rethink the plans. Military-wise: after discussing this a bit in our forum, it seems we would prefer you focusing on research and infrastructure, neglecting your attack forces in favour of defenders and artillery. The reason is that we believe we'll have attackers enough to drive off any invaders setting their feet on the Voxtavia soil, especially after we connect our empires with a railroad (even if we are attacked on Legos at the same time). OTOH - even a sizable LEF force would need few turns to defeat invaders. You would need strong enough defenses to hold until we remove the threat. Weakening the invaders with artillery hidden and well protected in your cities would also be very helpful, lowering the casualties. So: defenders, artillery, and railroads ASAP. And one more thing: we believe it would be a good idea to extend our own naval screens (consisting of caravels) with your own vessels, so that it's impossible for any invaders to slip through unnoticed. To this effect, we will probably send you Navigation next turn (it did not occur to me you would need it, :idiot and kindly request that you build or use a couple of your caravels for patrol duties along both your East and West coasts. I will send you a picture illustrating our own screens. Well, that's it. It's not meant to sub for the chat, which I would still like to hold. Just that prior to finalizing our current deal with GoW (Military Tradition), it would be just a lot of ifs and maybes. Just BTW, if it's not secret, what's your current research output and at what percentage? How fast you can research at 100% (provided you get extra gold to allow deficit spending)? Cheers, Radek

I like the tech plans. I didn't know they were still two techs away from the next age, but we will still get metallurgy before they give us the other two techs. Regarding the next tech I personally hope we receive steam power first. There is a good possibility that our area will have coal with those mountains. It doesn't show up as much as it would in jungle, but there is still a possibility. If we do have coal, or Lego has two and can send us one, then we can pop a couple of workers out around that time (some markets are finishing about that time so we can do that) and get our area railed as quickly as possible.

On the military front, once we finish democracy we can set our gold output back to maximum and gather some gold up for unit upgrades. Right now we have several pikes and a few spears that could all be upgraded to muskets with enough gold (we already have a barracks in New Voice) and saltpeter from Lego. Once the bank in Lego is finished we could start on 3-turn pikes for upgrade. I'm of two minds about not having any type of attack force. On the one hand it would be nice to havea mobile defense force of knights or cavs, but at the same time it would be quite expensive to build up a force that could do any substantial damage. As long as we have a rail line set up (that goes around our cities too, i.e. we need a few roads in the desert around Panama Vox and Eternity) and a ROP with Lego then I don't see a problem focusing solely on defense and artillery. It would probably set their mind better at ease to know we only have defenders anyway. If New Voice builds defenders some of the other cities can build cannons since those don't require a barracks to be more effective. We can also build some frigates since all of our coast cities but one have a harbor. That will also work well with the picket duty they are requesting. We can upgrade our other two galleys, but we already have two other caravels ready to go for picket duty/exploration of the black tiles once we have navigation.

As to our research/gold output, I don't see a problem giving it to them. They could probably figure it out if they really wanted to know anyway. I can look into it tonight and send a message off to Vondrack.

	21-02-2004 19:15									#11
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I disagree about defenders though

defenders are only needed in agressive stacks or if you opponent can launch a sea invasion, in general attacks are better

especially (maybe only) if you are railroaded

Jon Miller

	25-02-2004 03:07									#12
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

iam for plan "a" and with Lego sort of pushing us that way it is probably best anyway.