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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:35
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I talked about the idea I am going to present here now with Kloreep few days ago in the chat. In the meantime, I ran some numbers and found out this was hardly a "backup plan" I hoped it would be... nevertheless, I believe the idea is still worth presenting and discussing:
However unlikely, we may end up lacking a key resource like aluminium or uranium (rubber really should be somewhere in that vast jungle we have brought down over the time), which would make our preferred victory, a peaceful SS launch, impossible.
Now, what our options would be in that case:
a) taking the resource by force; this would in fact be the most likely resolution - however, it is difficult to tell whether force would be effective. I can imagine circumstances which would make it extremely difficult to take a key resource by force.
b) attempting a UN victory; aside from being quite a cheesy way of winning a game like this, we would still have to take out at least RP (they will never vote for us) and get ND's vote (assuming Vox would support us). Extremely unlikely to impossible, iMHO.
c) attempting a cultural victory by accumulating 20,000 cultural points in Legopolis; well, yes, it's a crazy idea and would most likely never work, as others would launch their SSs before we could get there...
But if you think about it a bit more... the first (military) option shall be part of our general military doctrine, so getting ready for that case shall need no special plan (perhaps just keeping in mind there is a possibility like that).
The most we can do to make the second (diplo) option possible is to nurture Vox and ND and pray neither of them ever thinks about winning themselves (not that I would consider that possible with ND). Having surprise attack forces capable of taking RP out preferrably in a single turn is again nothing going beyond our general strategy of maintaining versatile, multi-purpose forces.
So, the only (im)possible option we are not really doing anything for ATM is the cultural win option. Winning by culture in Legopolis would need quite a lot of time - I do not consider it possible without a prolonged world war that would significantly slow down the tech progress... but who knows what might happen? If we end up with no uranium or no aluminium, everybody will find out we are pretty much out of game - and they will start staring at one another, because THEY will become as likely winners as us. A war would be a logical solution - and such a war would not have to be us vs. the rest of the world.
So, here is an idea that would cost us little only, while making time actually work for us (which might come in handy, who knows...):
Last turn, Legopolis finished colosseum, which left the city with only very few city improvements still missing there. Barracks - not needed, as our military might is supreme and we have got numerous high-shield, well-developed cities already barracked. Courthouse - useless in the capital.
Which more or less means, we have got little to build in Legopolis now. In the near future, we will want to build a factory there (already prebuilding), a hospital, and a stock exchange there. Later on, the Intelligence Agency, a hydro plant, and an airport (if we are playing it really safe, then a civil defense, too). And that's just about it for the whole of industrial era. That's (240+160+200)+(400+240+160)=1400S. Legopolis should quite soon get to 60-70spt, which means this is ~20t. But the industrial era is going to be much longer than ~20t.
We cannot build navy in Legopolis. We will be able to build airforce there, but talking airforce, we are talking late industrial era and now it's very early industrial era. So, I suggest that instead of having Legopolis idle, we use it to pick as many culture-generating wonders as possible. There are several wonders still not built (shield cost & culture per turn in paranthesis):
The Oracle (300S, 4/t)
Hanging Gardens (300S, 4/t)
The Great Library (400S, 6/t)
Shakespeare's Theatre (400S, 8/t)
and later on:
Wall Street (300S, 2/t)
Intelligence Agency (400S, 1/t)
Battlefield Medicine (500S, 1/t)
SETI (1000S, 3/t)
Manhattan (800S, 2/t)
UN (1000S, 4/t)
Internet (1000S, 4/t)
Apollo Program (500S, 2/t)
Admittedly, even with all of them, a cultural victory would still be a very long shot. But it'd still be something that might improve our chances a little bit if things went really wrong in the future - and at the same time, we would prevent others to play the same trick on us.
Were we lacking in military or city improvements in Legopolis, I would not suggest this... but we basically have (or will soon have) nothing better to build there...
So, what do you think about "backbuilding" an obsolete wonder or two if there's nothing better to build in Legopolis?
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06-04-2004 14:59
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