18-08-2005 18:31									#1
	Standing at a Crossroads.. Enter the AD-FREE zone

The Options according to Moonbars:

this is based on a chat myself and Aqua had last night after replaying the turn for Euphorica.

There are some basic things to take into account:
a) 12 turns of GA left
b) Need to switch governments – options are Republic, Monarchy or Feudalism
c) Will Horde invade us as soon as Euphorica is done, or go for the LBs – or attack both of us(!)
d) Will we invade or be allies with LB?
e) What is AM’s next move likely to be?


We need to switch governments:

a) do it now, have 5 turns of anarchic GA, then 8 turns of Rep/Mon GA?
b) Do it the turn the GA is over, in 12 turns, have 5-6 turns on revolt?
c) Republic or Monarchy?

With the way that our builds are, I’d favour waiting until the GA is over, and then switching as we’ll have more workers, settlers, low-pop cities and granaries by then – so we can max our food during the revolt.

I am very wary of Republic, we cannot support much of a military now, or ever, under republic. However, we do have a fair bit of gold stored, so if we did switch we might have a chance to fund our current army for a while, without slowing research.

I am edging towards Republic.. but we do need somebody to do the numbers. I know it does not make sense to those of you who play SP a lot, but Republic can be a serious albatross in MP games.

So, assuming we go with a switch to a new government after the GA, we’d be up and running again in 17-19 turns. We’d have about 5 or 6 more cities. We would not have made many, if any, Military units in this time, we can assume the Horde will continue to produce units, so we’ll be very weak. However, with our strong force of Immortals, Catapults and spears we can cheaply upgrade to Pikes, we’d be reasonably secure on the defensive. However, upgrades would drain our ability to support high research.. We’d look like a ripe target as well, with all these new cities.

Due to this, there is some sense in switching now – mid GA – to republic. We’d get 8 turns of republic GA, and we’d have “jumped” the Horde’s timetable if they plan an attack. We could generate a pile of gold with those 8 turns, whilst we build pikes in barracks towns, setup a GA worker / settler pump and get settling..

The Next Step:

We need to decide what our next step will be, taking the above government options into account.

Attack LB?
Attack Horde?
Wait And See?

A lot depends on the Horde - can they be trusted not to attack us after we finish Euphorica? Myself and Aqua think that short term, we are safe - enough time to switch goverments whatever way we decide, at least 20 turns. However, med-long term, it is less sure.

I think our best bet is to finish Euphorica, settle those furs at beach boys, settle like mad all over, position our remaining units near the LB, but not in our cities as they could spy on us like AM, build and upgrade pikes in Barrack towns, and look to starting a new war with whoever we decide at that time. I think I favour helping the LB with the Horde, before the LostBoys are overwhelmed. We would tech trade with LB.

To this end, we may want to cancel Engineering, and trade it with the Lbs. we could store gold for upgrades or rushing..

Last edited by Moonbars on 18-08-2005 at 19:02

	18-08-2005 20:45									#2
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Agree with most things.

I doubt the LB will complete Engineering before us, but I could easily be wrong.

	22-08-2005 21:58									#3
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

LB have said that they are in anarchy, so we'll get eng first. I propose we offer to trade it to them in return for either lots of gold or a futrue tech they research.. we have AM doing the same with Theology (although this may be somewhat suspect as we are not sending them republic..)

	25-08-2005 00:29									#4
	Increase Your PM Length

I have created a sim of our current situation, by re-creating our map in the editor, adding rivers, roads, mines, luxuries, resources, bonus grassland (that one sucked) adding cities, adding improvments, adding a pile of 39 Immortals to sim our 39 units, and saved it out with different goverments selected as our current one.

No Golden Age & set to have break-even or slight profit tresury. Techs are based on us just having started Feudalism..

Republic:
70% tax 10% sci 20% lux, -1 GPT (Feud in 50 turns)
unit support is 56 GPT

Monarchy:
50% 10% 10% - +2 GPT, Feud in 39 turns
unit support is 19 GPT, 66 income with 6 lost to corruption
using 3 police in IS and Aquarius

	25-08-2005 03:58									#5
	Full PM-box? Change here!

How about Despotism?

	25-08-2005 06:18									#6
	Put an end to popups!

Damn - lost my reply - have to do it again

I haven't looked at the city screen for a while, but I seem to recall that we currently have an income of about 95g per turn. Thus your 66g income under Monarchy looks low.

Also, if we are on a war footing, we may not be able to maintain 3MP in our bigger cities, so we will have to use the Luxury slider more.

I agree that initially Republic will be more expensive, however as number of cities and city size grows, it improves rapidly to the point where it overtakes Monarchy/Feudalism. From that point on we will have a long-term advantage over the other civs. Remember, even the Religious civs who wish to swap again still need to research Republic

If we need to drop research for a while to afford Republic support costs, I don't see a problem since we are already the tech leader.

	25-08-2005 10:33									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

do you realize exactly how many cities it takes though, to get any research done in Republic. How many do you think we'll have when our GA ends? The MAX extra we can have is probably about 10. I'll sim a situation with that tonight.

On MP - I just placed 3 in the bigger cities, I'd bet you could get by with 2, which is the same as the current situation. if you plan more war, we should NOT change government to republic under any cirumstances - suicide.

Also bear in mind that the number of units has to go up as well along with the number of cities, I am not sure republic will ever make sense when we have a big pile of Immortals.

About incomes - currently under golden age = double trade..

@Trip - I also simmed despotism, and can post results from that. I'll also do Feudalism to be complete.

	25-08-2005 14:41									#8
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Moonbars About incomes - currently under golden age = double trade..

Ah yes, stupid me

	25-08-2005 14:44									#9
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Moonbars do you realize exactly how many cities it takes though, to get any research done in Republic. How many do you think we'll have when our GA ends? The MAX extra we can have is probably about 10. I'll sim a situation with that tonight.

At a guess, I'd say we will want 15 towns, of which 7 are cities. This will give us free support of 29 units. We will probably have at least 50 units by then - mostly more Workers and Pikes. This would give us support costs of 42gpt. With pop of around 80, we would by that stage be at least as good as Monarchy, and moving ahead.

With war in Republic, Luxuries are the key. We will have 3 short term, and will need an extra 2 with Marketplaces in our major cities. Then we will be rocking.

	25-08-2005 21:45									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

OK guys.. brace yourselves.

Advanced Sim performed, based on 18 cities (max I think we will have land for) with 1 or 2 pop added on to most existing cities, and 4 size 7 cities. (aqua's 80 pop is very optimistic IMO if we need to drop 2 to make settlers - total here is 56)

Results arebelow. Feudalism is the winner.
No kidding!

based on 18 cities, 4 siz 7+
50 units
56 pop in cities
Mon uses 3 units as MP
Feu uses 6 units as MP
Des uses 6 units as MP
Feu can support 78 free units!!!!
Des can support 72 free units

code:


		Rep +	Mon+	Feu+	Des+
raw income	185	117	121	114
corruption	-49	-31	-32	-34
entertainments	-27	-6	-6	-6
unit costs	-48	-6	0	0
balance		61	74	83	74
slider		4.4.2	4.5.1	1.8.1	1.8.1
		

	25-08-2005 22:37									#11
	Increase the size of your Attachments

feudalism IS after all made for small city civs, so not surprising. but with the high corruption, high unit costs for growing cities and still with WW, it's not really a great choice unless we expect the game to end by the end of this era.

anyhow, by the time we have 18 cities (faaar future at this rate), more than just 4 ones should be over 7 pop. at least all river cities should have grown above 6.

republic looks nice, monarchy 2nd best, imho

but then... i've been such a quiet lurker lately that my opinion doesn't count

	25-08-2005 22:40									#12
	Support Apolyton

the game will end before the end of this era - dont see it lasting long. and tech rate will slow now 2 teams are nearly gone.

SOmebody suggest what pop levels we'll have in 10 turns, after our GA is over, and i'll sim that. I dont think republic will ever be worth it.

	26-08-2005 16:35									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I have decided to model the worker positions and build queue's from out current situation, and start a GA. I will then play out the next 30 turns and try different goverments...

	26-08-2005 16:40									#14
	Re: Standing at a Crossroads.. Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Moonbars The Options according to Moonbars: c) Will Horde invade us as soon as Euphorica is done, or go for the LBs – or attack both of us(!) d) Will we invade or be allies with LB? e) What is AM’s next move likely to be?

Well, our course has been set by our inability to decide what to do for ourselves. The Lost Boys have declared war on us, so it looks like we will have to fight them next, and hope the horde doesn't turn on us, in an exact mirror image of what they did to Euphorica whilst jointly engaged against us.

All that remains is to decide when we can change governments, and when we can do this.