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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:28
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Topic carried to a new thread at Vondrack's request.
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Originally posted by Dominae
1. More land. No matter how you look at it, we'll have more cities than CDG. They're hemmed in to the South, they cannot go very far to the North, and North-West is not exactly prime realestate. I estimate they'll max out at around 8 productive cities. We, on the other hand, will have 11 productive cities if we continue to grow at the same rate, and that's not even counting all the land to our South-East! |
8 productive cities VS 11? Wouldn't striking sooner be to our advantage then, so that we don't allow them to get those 8 cities to productive levels? Right now their capital is their only productive city, and I'll say that the goat city will count as a half (since it's at size 3). Right now we have 3 1/2 productive cities (Incensity counting as a half) with more potential ones as soon as we finish clearing some jungle soon. Isn't a ratio of 3 1/2 and increasing to 1 1/2 more to our advantage than 11 to 8?
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2. Willingness to use tight city-spacing. This is not much of an argument, because CDG might just decided to backfill later. But assuming they continue to play as badly as they've being playing since we met them, they will not make the best use of the land around their capital. We will. |
And as time goes on, they'll make that land surrounding their other cities more productive by chopping jungle, irrigation plains/desert and mining hills. As the size of our cities grows, we'll be able to take less and less advantage of the premium tiles around our capital. We can take advantage of CDG NOT using productive tiles now, then the more we have to gain in the short-term. It will take them time to get those other tiles and cities productive, while we'll have more at our disposal in the near future.
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3. Two Granaries. We will always have the population advantage. Population translates into anything you want, from tiles improved faster to more military units. This effect will still be very much present in 80 turns, since it is exponential, not linear. |
We can only get up to size 6 though. Over the course of 40 turns, do you not think we'll be able to get up 6 or near to it in almost every city that we'll have? If we had all of our cities on rivers or got free insta-Aquaducts then I would agree with you whole-heartedly. But we don't and we can't get our cities above size 6. A similar population advantage can be reaped now or then. The effect is exponential until you hit size 6. Which we can get very close to doing by turn 40 if we want to. Even if we don't get up to size 6, we will have more productive tiles than CDG to work, even if we have comparable city sizes.
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4. We both have a comparable amound of Jungle to cut down. Our Granaries help us do this; their lack of Granaries does not. |
They might build Granaries later, and later they'll also have more Workers, speeding up their clearing effort over time. Nearer in the future, they won't have those Granaries, and they won't have as many Workers to help clear jungle. But we will. Over time, yes, we will clear more jungle, but we will have the advantage of more cleared tiles than them at both 40 turns and 80 turns. But they will eventually start clearing jungle. And it will start to pay off for them after turn 40. We will be reaping dividends from our clearing effort long before then, while they will only have jungle.
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5. Two Luxuries. Surely they're sending off their Settler to claim the Incense close to the isthmus. But they will not have it hooked up quite as fast as we will our Dyes. And if they do just build Roads through the Jungle, they'll be wasting valuable Worker-turns, where we have an advantage due to our Granaries. |
Incense? Do you not think they're trying to close off the isthmus instead by placing their city where their Warrior is?
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6. Commercial trait. Their second ring will suffer from Corruption, ours will not (it's not that simple, but you get the idea). If you think Commercial is only a later-game trait, you're dead wrong. |
Our second ring will be well under way by the time turn 40 rolls along, and we will have productive tiles to work with them. If CDG has a second ring of cities, then they won't have any corruption anyways, because the jungle isn't good at producing a lot of shields or commerce.
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I'm sure there's more, but they're little things. The point is that all these things give us just as much of an advantage in 80 turns as they do in 40. CDG will not catch up to us economically if we stay at peace. Ever (unless something weird happens, like they conquer GCA). So your argument that we have "more of an advantage now" is simply false. Sure, CDG will grow. Apolyton will grow better. And that translates directly into a better war for us later on. |
Sorry, I'm not convinced.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
I have to admit I'm swaying back and forth on this. Our overall land is better than CDG's, and we have no evidence that they will even develop intelligently and clear tiles- after all, they're not clearing any so far. They may well attack GCA in the mean time, further slowing them- or GCA may (however unlikely) attack them. These would seem to be arguments for waiting. |
Are you really saying that you don't think CDG will clear any jungle in the next 80 turns, or am I misunderstanding you?
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On the other hand, I would be astounded to see GCA *not* attack CDG in the age of chivalry- which means they would get a pretty good piece of what we plan to take, if not all of it. They're closer, after all. This seems to be an argument for going now. |
I think GCA is more content with closing off any city sites even adjacent to CDG's capital.
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We DO have an economic advantage at present. But I think the intelligence/efficiency of our Interior is considerably greater than theirs, and our growth over time will be vastly greater. I agree with Dominae on this. I'm more interested in the potential lost tech factor, and also what GCA may do.... and what CDG might do in relation to GCA. |
CDG's expansion and growth efforts will sag. They will have a vast number more cities than productive tiles once they start expanding into the jungle. However, they will eventually start to clear tiles and make those cities productive. Our expansion/growth will coincide with our jungle clearing efforts. Giving us a more of an advantage over them short-term than we will have long-term.
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Adrian Hon
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Living in Perplex City
Nov 2001
time: 05:28
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From reading the arguments of Dominae/Vondrack vs. Trip, I think a war in the medium-term future seems best. Beginning preparations for a war now may be premature given the gains we could make in growth during the same time, and also given the fact that CDG are not likely to make anywhere near the same gains, judging from their poor interior management so far.
However, I don't think that CDG's growth will always be that much smaller than ours. As Trip says, eventually they will chop down the jungle, we'll run out of space and our cities will be capped at 6. So we shouldn't wait until that point to start preparing for a war.
Call it the third way - not simply an inefficient compromise, but maybe a more optimal solution. We still have some time to proportionally outgrow CDG, but we have to strike while we have our greatest advantage - and I think that isn't as far in the future as some think.
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Adrian Hon
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Living in Perplex City
Nov 2001
time: 05:28
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Maybe some testing using the game save is in order here to determine how much time is required to produce an effective army? I think we need some proper quantitative analysis.
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:28
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As of now, this is probably the research situation:
1) CFC (sci potential unknown, but no commercial trait) - researching Writing...  
2) GCA (sci potential unknown, but no industrious trait) - researching Polytheism (12), then Monarchy (24)... altogether 36
3) Poly - researching MapMaking (12), then HBR (5), CoL (10), Republic (28)... altogether 55
4) CDG (sci potential poor) - researching Maths (8), then Philosophy (6)... altogether 14
As far as I can see, there are two more crucial techs to discover: Construction (20) & Currency (16). Then Feudalism we fear so much (36!). And I am assuming Literature will not be researched...
I fail to see how to combine/assign Construction, Currency, and Feudalism to these teams in such a way that at least one of them would be actually able to get Feudalism soon enough to trade it to CDG. GCA could be able to squeeze Construction in. CFC might be able to somehow get Currency. But both should be finished at around the time we finish Republic. Only then, someone can start with Feudalism.
Feudalism is 36 research points. Researching it under Despotism will take forever. Republic will be "ours", no need to trade it until we want to. Researching it under Monarchy will take at least 12, but more realistically 15 turns with the research output of ~70+ bpt (which is the max I can imagine GCA would be able to invest into it - and that assumes it will not be attacked by CDG; CFC/CDG are out of question because of the need to switch govs which takes several precious turns). And that is EXACTLY the window we shall use.
Considering our commercial trait and ultra-effective land use, I believe we shall have Republic at about the time everybody else will be starting medieval tech research. We shall have ~15 turns to switch our gov, finish our military buildup and attack.
P.S.: I do not think that discovering other civs would dramatically change things - with the civs probably distributed 4 and 4 on two continents, the tech progress shall be similar.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:28
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Okay, time to flesh out what my "plan" actually entails.
First off, the plan has no time limit or time in mind. The only reason I've been throwing out 40 turns and 80 turns is because those are the points at which I see each type of plan reaching fruition.
The way I see it, there are two propositions on how to deal with CDG at this point. Each plan has a different focus. The focus of my opposition is us, and our buildup. We prepare our nation and our offensive forces until we feel confident we can defeat CDG and we then strike. Most of the proponents of this plan want to wait until we have Republic/Chivalry to make sure our economic advantage is supreme.
My plan has a different focus, that being CDG. My plan has us preparing for the inevitable conflict, but we wait until the time is right. We wait until we find the point at which CDG is weakest. We wait until the opportunity comes, and we strike. Whether this opportunity is CDG attacking GCA, or them founding a new city deep in the jungle which they have no hopes of defending, or if we just find that their own domestic choices lead to our power being much greater than their own, we wait for our chance to present itself.
In the meantime, we build up as we have been. We stockpile gold to make sure we have enough to upgrade a good number of Warriors should that opportunity occur sometime in the near future. We finish the Barracks in Mingapulco and Incensity and continue pumping out NMs. We continue building cities and we continue chopping jungle. We keep building up our economy as we have been, but we make sure that we're in a position where we could instantly change over to a wartime stance and have the army to ensure success. We make sure our road network allows us to transfer forces or reinforce the front line quickly and we make sure we connect/disconnect our iron when necessary.
As I've mentioned, the focus of the plan in CDG, and what they're up to. Waiting a long time will allow us to build up, yes, but it will also give them the time to do the same. Facing Pikes is not a fun experience, and ideally we attack before they get Feudalism, or before they have a chance to use it against us before their defeat is ensured.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:28
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Let me clarify:
We must attack before they acquire Feudalism, during the time when their cities are the least productive compared with ours. We can pick a time to attack, but those are the most important factors in my plan.
By the time we get Republic, the teams could be in the Medieval Age. Keep in mind, after this tier of techs is finished, we will be a total of three techs away from the Medieval Age. CDG could get Feudalism as a free tech. And that's when things go to hell (as much as they can, anyways).
If CDG doesn't focus upon hacking jungle and making their new cities productive at all, then I have no problem with waiting until later... and attacking before they get Feudalism. If they procrastinate in making their future cities productive through clearing jungle, then they only benefit us and hurt them. Finding the correct time where our cities are the MOST productive compared with theirs is the time I feel we should attack. If they don't clear anything at all, then we can basically pick when we want to destroy them. However, I don't think they will ignore the jungle, because doing so would easily seal their fate.
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Trip
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Hunt Valley
Apr 2002
time: 00:28
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Well, unless they plan on conquering every civ in the world in the next 150 turns, they're going to realize "hey, we have a lot of jungle, maybe we should start clearing it."
So, they basically have two options. Attack and try to destroy every other civ on this continent, then clear jungle, or clear jungle then do whatever they might do. If they attack us before developing any significant production capability, then as long as we're building up they'll play right into our hands, and we can crush them that way. Or we give it time, and let our buildup outpace theirs for a spell, before they get the bright idea of clearing jungle. That's when we strike.
If for some reason they don't start clearing any jungle in the next 50 or 60 turns, then we'll either expect an attack, or should plan on wiping them out before Feudalism.
Fighting Pikes is not fun.
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notyoueither
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of naught
Aug 2001
time: 22:28
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I spent the evening playing with builds. This is what I came up with. I didn't do it perfectly, I am sure E_T, BFW, and Dom can do it better, but it gives an good idea of where we could be by when.
I didn't do any warrior wiggling (cut road link to iron, build twice as many warriors as swords, repair road, upgrade warriors with 0 science rate). I'm sure we can get there a little faster doing that. Turn 60 would be a good target if we do that.
I also built 2 extra cities. City 5 in the desert. Really nice city with a temple to get the hills, and irrigation. Also built City 6 NE of IronCity. It contributed nothing to the plan, and might be delayed. Here are the times and forces built...
code:
turn year research City Sett Work Warr Arch Merc Swrd Hors Gall
16 1200 HBR in 1 6 0 7 7 1 4 2 0 0
20 1100 Phi in 5 7 0 8 6 1 4 4 0 0
24 1000 CoL in 11 7 1 9 6 1 5 5 0 0
28 900 in 05 8 0 9 6 1 6 5 0 1
32 800 in 01 8 1 11 6 1 7 6 0 1
36 710 Rep in 22 9 0 12 5 1 8 8 1 1
41 610 in 15 10 0 13 4 1 10 9 1 1
46 510 in 09 10 2 13 4 1 10 11 3 1
51 410 in 04 12 0 14 4 1 12 12 4 1
56 310 Anarchy 12 0 15 4 1 12 13 5 1
61 210 Mat in 03 12 0 16 4 1 12 14 5 0
66 110bc Cur in 38 12 0 19 4 1 13 16 5 0
72 10ad in 20 12 0 18 4 1 13 19 8 0
Last edited by notyoueither on 22-05-2003 at 00:54
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Dominae
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I feel compelled to continue this economic debate (sorry everyone, especially Trip!):
quote:
Originally posted by Trip
8 productive cities VS 11? Wouldn't striking sooner be to our advantage then, so that we don't allow them to get those 8 cities to productive levels?
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You're not getting the point. At whatever stage of the game we begin building our military, we will be stronger than CDG. This means that at whenever we choose to attack CDG, we will be stronger. I believe you agree with this. The point is that we will be "more stronger", later. "Overwhelming force" is not just some concept thrown around for fun: in an offensive war, you really do need overwhelming force, because the defender is seriously advantaged in Civ3. We need more time to create the advantage we need. You're saying we have enough of an advantage now. I disagree. What you need to show is why you think CDG will be better off later on (which you've done in the next few points, which I'll get to now).
quote:
Right now their capital is their only productive city, and I'll say that the goat city will count as a half (since it's at size 3). Right now we have 3 1/2 productive cities (Incensity counting as a half) with more potential ones as soon as we finish clearing some jungle soon. Isn't a ratio of 3 1/2 and increasing to 1 1/2 more to our advantage than 11 to 8?
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You're comparing number of cities, I'm considering all the factors. As usual, you're "numbers" have a funny way of supporting your arguments. We will have more cities and will have better cities, since they will have grown better than CDGs.
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And as time goes on, they'll make that land surrounding their other cities more productive by chopping jungle, irrigation plains/desert and mining hills.
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What will we be doing, twiddling our thumbs?!? The argument I've made is that we will be doing these things better, because of our two Granaries. How can they keep up?
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As the size of our cities grows, we'll be able to take less and less advantage of the premium tiles around our capital. We can take advantage of CDG NOT using productive tiles now, then the more we have to gain in the short-term. It will take them time to get those other tiles and cities productive, while we'll have more at our disposal in the near future.
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This I actually agree with. My answer is that: 1) we will not have overwhelming force in 40 turns, and 2) we will have overwhelming force later.
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We can only get up to size 6 though. Over the course of 40 turns, do you not think we'll be able to get up 6 or near to it in almost every city that we'll have? If we had all of our cities on rivers or got free insta-Aquaducts then I would agree with you whole-heartedly.
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CDG will probably have fewer fresh water cities than us, so we are advantaged in yet another respect in the long run. Your argument that our cities will grow to size 6 in 40 turns is invalid, because we will be popping out Settlers and Workers in the meantime.
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They might build Granaries later, and later they'll also have more Workers, speeding up their clearing effort over time.
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As you well know, if they start building Granaries now, they'll be way behind us even in 80 turns. And we will also have Workers (more of them, actually), which will also be speeding up our clearing effort (faster, since we'll have more).
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Incense? Do you not think they're trying to close off the isthmus instead by placing their city where their Warrior is?
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Ok, good, you've just provided me with another argument: with 2 Luxuries to their one, we're in an even better economic position than they are. If they want their cities to grow to productive levels, they'll need to use their Lux slider (or MPs). Yet another bonus for us (admittedly a small one, since we're playing Regent here...).
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Our second ring will be well under way by the time turn 40 rolls along, and we will have productive tiles to work with them.
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Right. This will only amplify our economic advantage/growth, which we can transform into a better military advantage later.
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If CDG has a second ring of cities, then they won't have any corruption anyways, because the jungle isn't good at producing a lot of shields or commerce.
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I thought they were clearing all their Jungle (faster than us, apparently).
Dominae
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Dominae
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nye, your screenshot of 10AD is a sweet, sweet sight.
City5 is a great location for a city. We should also probably put one a few tiles NE, along the coast (a long-term investment to get some serious Commerce out of those Coast tiles).
Dominae
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by Trip
My plan has us preparing for the inevitable conflict, but we wait until the time is right. We wait until we find the point at which CDG is weakest. We wait until the opportunity comes, and we strike. Whether this opportunity is CDG attacking GCA, or them founding a new city deep in the jungle which they have no hopes of defending, or if we just find that their own domestic choices lead to our power being much greater than their own, we wait for our chance to present itself.
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The problem with this plan is that it has no focus. You're just going to ask for more and more units, delay our research to get a bunch of Gold for upgrades, and call for strikes whenever you feel like it (like the one you just proposed in another thread, which was refused).
With more focus on what we want to do, we'll do it better. If the team were to vote to attack CDG ASAP, we would do it (and I would support it...eventually). If the team wants to stay with the "build up for now" plan, we'll do that better. Preparing for war as though we were going to war in the next 40 turns will only hamper our overall effectiveness. Adequate defense I'm fine with; enough troops to mount an offensive at the MoW's whim, I'm not.
Trip, please understand I'm being hard on you because I disagree with you on this, and for no other reason. Seriously.
Dominae
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by notyoueither
Also, it occurs to me that 2 of the forward cities without graneries could take over from Bananatopia as the worker pumps(s) as soon as Republic comes around (maybe all 3). That way Bananatopia could be bigger, better developed, and we could have more units by that point. Heck, cities 1 through 4 didn't contribute a single unit. They could all pump workers till the jungle cleared, at which point the workers join them and Bananatopia giving them a turbo boost. |
SO many options when things start humming along, eh?
We should attempt to clear most of the Jungle before we stop building Workers (we could slow down before then, just not stop completely). In your test, there's a big Jungle area that could definitely use some earlier clearing, since its right in the middle of our lowest Corruption radius. Thus, Bananatopia could grow to a nice plump pop, and City2 could also be allowed to grow a bit higher (making it a more efficient military camp, say).
Dominae
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:28
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Well, well, well...
After reading everything posted since I went to bed, I feel like we are getting more participation and more debate, here, right? Great! AltSp seems to work, at least in a way...
Now, I have seen a couple of fine posts here and there, but I am going to pick one and give big  to nye for his sim. Now, gentlemen - THAT is how we will move with our plans. And I am valuing his simulation not only because his resulting timing is close to the 60-65 turns I mentioned earlier in this thread (I'm claiming no credits - it was just an educated estimate of mine, nye's giving a SOLID PROOF). I am valuing his effort so much because he's actually been the only one taking the time to TEST the damn thing (E_T, I know you are working on that, too - just your results have not been published yet).
Trip, if you want to convince me your plan/approach is more viable and gives us better chances, do a sim, too. PLEASE. Show me your screenshot at Turn T+40 (or whenever you'd consider it sound to attack). Until then, I am not going to argue any more - everything that can be thrown in without any solid evidence has already been thrown in. Repeating it over and over gets us nowhere.
It's time for testing the plans. nye tested what it takes to follow the proposed AltSp, how long it takes to get to Republic, how strong our forces will be (admits he could and in the next iteration probably will do even better, if by just a bit). Now show us what it takes to follow your plan.
P.S.: nye, could you make your test scenario (the "current"/starting save) available for download somewhere (if it already is available, ignore me - I haven't looked for it yet).
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21-05-2003 02:22
) or.... to keep our offensive right on going into the next southern neighbor. I think we should prepare for the possibility of needing such an immediate offensive; if we don't find saltpeter in our territory, that will be our last offensive chance for a VERY long time. Let's be ready to use it.
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