 |
| |
|
|
Dominae
|
|
Good philosophy-discussion here (exactly what we need, IMO):
1. Vox is not be trusted. Just because the chat with Jon Miller went well does not mean that everything is peachy with Vox until time's end. Jon Miller may be insincere. Or, he may be sincere but does not in fact call all the shots within Vox. Or, Vox as a whole is sincere at this time but is perfectly willing to throw away any deals at a moment's notice (see my comments about this in the Turn 42 thread). Based on all this, the smart move right now is to trust conditionally; if they want us as friends they'll need to make us believe that. We need them right now, but not so badly that we should restrict our future plans.
2. Concerning the division of land, I would be much happier doing so after we know where the Iron lies. I imagine that if all the Iron falls within their borders we'll be more than a little unhappy. Should we then renegotiate the deal (again, as they've done with the tech-trading). Better to keep our options open until we have this much-needed information.
3. I fully expect for Vox to jump on any opportunity to betray us. Tihs is not real life, this is a game, and the advantage they obtain from betraying us can very well bolster their strength with very little negative long-term consequences. This is a point of contention between you and I, but I much more respect a strong betrayal than a weak trust. I'm sure many people on the other teams agree: if Vox and LI team up to betray us, will the rest of the world be angry with them? I think not. Rather they'll say: "Ha! GS got outmaneuvered".
4. In real life, historically the strongest partnerships were obviously built on trust. But the strongest empires did not always become that way through peace.
Essentially what I'm proposing is that we cooperate with Vox for the moment, tolerating their presence because we have no other choice. Once we contact other civs and get a wider picture of the diplomatic world, we can then reevaluate our position and determine if Vox is truly best as an lifelong ally. Just because Vox is "the only game in town" right now doesn't mean we have to play it forever.
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DeepO
|
 |
supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
|
|
Dominae, I tend to agree with you with minor differences. I think Vox is our only hope of getting out of the tech-disadvantage we are in now, we can have the best research possibilities, but if we constanly are 3-5 techs behind it will take us forever to get even. Which means we need Vox...
But indeed, I don't want to commit to a long-term relation (say into the middle age), even if we need a middle-term relation badly. Getting to republic seems a worthy goal, on which we both can contribute. Getting a joint war party together is something else... But on the middle long term, one of the biggest uses I can think of is having them trigger our GA at the best possible timing, when we return the favour.
In respect with all this talk about sharing research, we should seriously consider one other thing: the GL. If this deal goes through, we do not need to spend all our resources on defense, even if we need to keep a sizeable defense force around, of course. Maybe we should revisit the idea of going for the GL... it will instantly make our research problems gone, and we protect our investment on research later on.
Even if this situation might make the GL possible for us to focus on, there are some grave consequences: at least one other team has writing already, and one other (RPG) said they want to aim for the GL. No doubt there is a prebuild going on already somewhere, or is starting very soon. If we want to have a shot at it, we need to sacrifice growth... a lot of growth. I suspect at least 3 workers added to Hurricane, and to be safe 4... we can do that (it will cost EotS 10 turns to produce 5 workers, 4 for adding to Hurricane, 1 for extra improvements), but that is costly, it means also we have 2 less cities. If we have a border treaty with Vox, we can get our 13 cities up by the time they have their 10, and be reasonably sure we get the GL too.
So... any ideas on this path? We don't need to tell Vox of this, of course, but some internal discussion, together with everyones ideas on the chance to pull it of would be welcome.
DeepO
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dominae
|
|
DeepO, your idea of a border agreement that helps us get a shot at the GL is very very interesting. The time to figure out if we want to do this is now: the earlier we build and join the Workers, the earlier we'll be finished; plus, we should stop research once we get Literature (or before).
The main problem I see with this plan is that it makes us even more dependent on Vox. First, we have to trust them not to attack us or violate the border agreement. Second, we have to trust them to give us contacts, because we probably will not be getting Map Making if we beeline for Literature and turn off Science. Third, we have to hope that Vox trades The Republic with us, unless we plan to build the whole GL under Despotism. My inclination is that this is too much depend on, especially from Vox. But, I admit, the rewards are great, and we're in fine position to utilize the GL.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Dominae
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
asleepathewheel
|
|
listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
|
|
Question:
With this talk of the library:
Is warrior farming for leaders against the rules or the spirit of the game? I can't remember if we discussed that. I'm not sure it is the most ethical thing to do, but it may be a way Vox could help us out even more.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
asleepathewheel
|
|
listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
asleep, I don't consider it against the rules, but we need an awfull lot of warriors to be sure to get a leader... it spreads the production a little, but does not lower the cost of the GL if your not military.
And as we are the producing ones, we would need to produce the warriors, and let Vox kill them, giving them the GL. No thanks, if we do it, we should aim to get it, as the extra insurance we need
DeepO |
I was thinking more along the lines that we would funnel money to Vox, let them rush ten or more warriors, then let our vets go at them.
I certainly wouldnt let them get a leader!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
asleepathewheel
|
|
listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Yes, but money doesn't work... first of all we need 40 gold per warrior rushed, second of all, we need to be in another government to do it. We will probably not get both another gov, and a lot of gold in time before someone else's builds the GL
DeepO |
Ah good point. but maybe a plan to keep in our pocket for when our economy is better?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
asleepathewheel
|
|
listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
I'd rather have well timed prebuilds on techs we discover first, or leaders standing by the moment we research a tech first. The way I see it, it won't be possible to get to literature first, but in this case it won't matter much, as nobody can have the GL ready in 25 turns from now... that would require a lot of growth (it was possible in the test scenario, by starting before we met Vox)
DeepO |
When are we planning on starting? Where is it to be built, hurricane? Is there a viable alternative if it is finished first? The lighthouse perhaps?
The plan is to, what, rush to Republic, then to literature?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DeepO
|
|
supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
|
|
asleep, if we would go through with this strat, there is but one option: get to literature first, before bothering with teh republic. Build the GL in Hurricane (our least corrupted city, with most commerce (will help on keeping everyone happy)), and pump the city with at least 3 workers (which need to be build immediately). If it fails, we will have a number of things to fall back to, pyramids perhaps, but more importantly Collosus, or the lighthouse if Vox could get to MM in the mean time. But we can't fail, any half-meant attempt is bound to fail, it's all or nothing.
Oh, and the risk has increased on losing the GL over last time I proposed to think about it: we are some 15 turns behind in production, so we need to catch up in size if we want to be sure... this will cripple our expansion quite a bit.
DeepO
|
|
| |
|
|
|
nbarclay
|
 |
Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
|
|
If we go for the Great Library, what I envision is to build about six workers, have them work on tile improvements while Hurricane is growing to size 3 (maybe adding as many as three workers along the way if we can spare them), and then bring the city the rest of the way up to about size 9. Let's see any other civ try to match that kind of production, even with a head start. We might even be able to grab a second wonder.
I already talked to Jon and BetaHound about the idea of going after Lux shortly after we get Republic, and they liked it. Part of the idea includes trading some of the territory we conquer for some of Vox's jungle cities, since part of Lux is a lot closer to their capital than the jungle cities are. (The other reasons I like Lux as a target are (1) if we could talk Vox into letting us preposition follow-up forces in their territory, the crossing would be almost trivial, and (2) Lux's score looks like they won't be a very powerful foe. From there, we'd have a beachhead on the other continent for further military action.)
Adding the Great Library trick to that plan would take it from powerful to devastating - especially given the relative timing of the UUs involved.
Edit: Note that the thoughts of war with Lux are still in a highly preliminary stage.
Last edited by nbarclay on 28-01-2003 at 12:08
|
|
| |
|
|
|
asleepathewheel
|
|
listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:24
|
|
Nathan-
Since the cold war has thawed a bit, would they move their warrior so that we could view their land for ourselves, and vice versa, or would that still be a bad idea at this point. It would be nice to see exactly where our future insertion point lies across the sea.
I saw that they thought Lux only had 2 cities. Shocking, though they have always lagged in the score. Bad terrain? Are they similar to Vox on our island?
(I wish we could house units (galleys) in Vox cities, thus hiding our intentions more easily)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
nbarclay
|
|
Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:24
|
|
Problem: I just looked back over our old city placement map and realized I've been undercounting our number of cities by one (I missed the city that was missing a number on that map). That means we'd have 14 instead of 13 cities under the current border proposal. I notified Jon of the error, and it's up to him whether we have to start haggling again now.
Edit: Make that two I undercounted by; our capital also wasn't included. I'll be preparing a revised proposal for Jon's consideration reducing our number of cities back down to 14 and letting them crowd theirs a little less.
Nathan
Last edited by nbarclay on 28-01-2003 at 13:47
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Shiber
|
 |
Haifa, Israel
Jul 2002
time: 07:24
|
|
Nathan, I understood and in fact supported your actions when you sent Vox proposals that the team hasn't approved yet regarding the tech trade, because that was an ultra urgent issue, but that is not the case with the city placement plans.
Last edited by Shiber on 28-01-2003 at 17:02
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DeepO
|
|
supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:24
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
If we go for the Great Library, what I envision is to build about six workers, have them work on tile improvements while Hurricane is growing to size 3 (maybe adding as many as three workers along the way if we can spare them), and then bring the city the rest of the way up to about size 9. Let's see any other civ try to match that kind of production, even with a head start. We might even be able to grab a second wonder. |
I think that we need to do it this way... in the test scenario, I got Hurricane up to size 8 (last pop was rather late, it should have been earlier), with not much gain from getting to 9... I was already using forests at that time, and had no growth left. But, IIRC, I got the GL ready in 35 turns or so. Size 9 would be better if we can make it work, but spending 6 workers on it would be a serious commitment! We definately need to have a border treaty with Vox, and we definately have to start planning on this if we want to do it. Already, last chop went to the Barracks in Hurricane, so we can only build a braacks or something like that in there, and can't switch to a palace now. That's already a waste.
With the 2nd settler pump in the works, we might be able to do it... this needs urgent discussing, as we'll have to switch to a prebuild asap (preferably in 1 or 2 turns).
DeepO
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:24.
Apolyton Time is 00:24. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
27-01-2003 19:10
Yes, it would be a serious gamble on trusting Vox, but the power of a combined force of warriors upgraded to swordsmen and normally built WCs from us, and warriors upgraded to immortals from them, would be devastating. And our superior wealth generating capacity would give us a weight of numbers of swordsmen to offset the superior individual power of immortals if Vox would try a doublecross.
|