30-05-2003 17:31									#1
	Apolyton long term Strategy plan T.61 (AltSp61) adoption Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: As announced few days ago, this is the final draft of our long term strategy outline. This poll is being posted in order to adopt this strategy as our official team plan for the foreseeable future. A plan that would be binding for our representatives. The poll shall be open for three days.

Apolyton long term Strategy plan, Version T.61 (AltSp61)
(T.61 for Turn 61)

1. The First War

Sooner or later, we are bound to fight our Southern neighbour. Inevitable primarily because of the geography of our landmass. Our "natural" share of the weirdly shaped landmass is not big enough to allow winning the game peacefully. As CDG (or anyone conquering them) is our only immediate neighbour, chances of avoiding any and all conflicts with them are virtually nil – sooner or later, we will have to fight for more land. Our long-term strategy shall thus be centered around this inevitable „First War“ – everything or almost everything we are or will be doing should actually be part of the grand preparation for it.


2. Fighting on OUR terms

The First War shall be the point of break for us in this game. Either we win, destroy our neighbour, grab his land as far as Goatville, and keep our hopes of winning this game later on, or we die fighting, losing the game. Considering the importance of The First War, we have to do anything and everything possible to ensure we win it. Thus, the timing, the ground, and the weapons shall be preferrably of our choice. Once we attack, there shall be no doubts about us winning.

As long as the war is not imminent or planned to start, we shall maintain a standing army capable of delaying reasonably "expectable" CDG attacks for 10 turns, that would be spent switching our economy from growth/expansion-oriented to fully war-oriented. Preferrably, the size of such an army shall be modest enough to save us from extensive gold upkeep (considering our worker force needs, as a rule of thumb: 2 military units per every city, most units deployed defensively along our "CDG frontline", reserves kept behind the line, covering the rear against surprise seaborne invasions at the same time). Once we decide our growth phase is over and the date of the attack set, our economy shall focus on a massive military buildup, aiming at assembling a force as strong and numerous as possible to be ready at the outbreak of the war.

On the diplomatic front, our goal shall be to ensure CDG does not attack us before we want them to, leaving us free to accomplish our growth/economic goals first. Ideally, we shall lull them into believing our only plan is to peacefully build and "flourish" in the God forgotten piece of crappy land we‘re given for starters. One of the key goals shall be making GCA well aware of the threat CDG presents to the region and to them specifically. We shall do our best to prevent our international reputation suffering too much once we attack and we shall do our best to ensure we will be fighting just one enemy with no allies. This shall be achieved through being reliable and easy to deal with trading partners for all the teams that are not targets of The First War.

Our intelligence office shall make gathering/analyzing information about CDG its topmost priority, reporting as frequently as possible.


3. Winning through economic superiority

Our starting location did/does not allow for a quick, early military buildup, followed by a surprise rush. In addition, our early UU is less than optimal for winning wars - it's better suited for not losing wars. Thus, our only reasonable choice is to win the war by overwhelming military superiority, achieved through the economic superiority. We shall outnumber our enemy to such an extent that they will be unable to hold their ground. Technical superiority would be welcome, but should not be necessary. If the initial invasion fails to knock the enemy down immediately, we shall resort to the war of attrition, first crippling the economy of our enemy by massive pillaging and then wearing its thinning military down.


4. Strong war-oriented economy first, War next

Empire extent goal

Considering the relative advantage of our starting location (compared to that of CDG) and our double-granary-based expansion potential, we shall be able to build a sizeable empire faster than our enemy. This empire shall be of a clearly defined extent, including 11 cities in the area S/SE of the Northern mountains and desert, NW of Tripoli, and NE of the diagonal NW-SE line right in the middle between Apolyton and Elucidium - the line also known as the 6-tile "permanent" settlement line. Our expansion shall be aimed at securing strategic resources first (horse city), establishing a firm border against CDG next, and grabbing/back-filling the rest last.

Jungle clearing

As most of our potential territory NE of the line is jungle, we shall clear that jungle to make the best use of the land - without the jungle being cleared and resulting grassland improved, our cities would be next to useless. In order to clear the vast jungle, we shall build a strong workforce of workers dedicated to this task as fast as possible, prioritizing their production early on.

Production priorities

Until we start building up for The First War, we shall balance our production between workers ensuring timely clearing of the jungle (roughly two workers per every city), military units ensuring a reasonable level of safety against surprise enemy attacks (roughly 2 military units per every city of ours), and settlers ensuring our empire growth – in this order. As a special priority, we shall build at least one galley that will start searching for other teams beyond those we already have a contact with.

As The First War shall be fought shortly after we switch our government to Republic we shall assume our cities will not grow beyond pop 6 (no aqueducts), often not even beyond pop 4 (no temples at 0% lux under Republic). Thus, our spacing shall be generally quite tight (3-tile, or city-tile-tile-city) and we shall build no city improvements, but barracks and granaries - other improvements (temples) to be built only in rare, well defined cases, in cities intended to become high(er)-pop production powerhouses.

In case our intelligence reports show CDG increasing their efficiency as fas as clearing their jungle and founding new cities go, or otherwise change the course they have followed so far, we shall reconsider the timing and possibly strike earlier, until their economy gets up and running.

Our mantra: Efficiency

As mentioned before, our starting location is mediocre at best... to keep our hope of eventually winning the game, we will have to squeeze every single food, shield, and commerce out of the land we have at our disposal. Thus, we shall focus on tight management of all our resources – workers, labourers, population, city improvements, and military. Every single worker action, every single city improvement shall have its reason and justification.

Science/Research

The First War will trigger our GA. In order to not waste it, we shall try hard to be under Republic by that time, so our primary research goal is to gain the knowledge of The Republic and successfully switch our government to it prior to attacking our enemy.

Our tech trading policy shall be solely focused on getting to Republic ASAP, while delaying others from getting to medieval times and particularly Feudalism ALAP.


5. Timing

Our timing shall be dictated mostly by our transition to Republic. Once we have our 11-city empire in place and government changed to Republic, we shall strike as soon as possible. Tentative schedule is around turns 120-125 (170BC-70BC). As mentioned before, this may be adjusted to an earlier date if CDG starts to efficiently expand their empire or attacks GCA.

	30-05-2003 17:52									#2
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Yes, I agree! Great plan worked out by you consuls!
Big for your efforts here.
May the sun shine favourably on us

	30-05-2003 18:11									#3
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An excellent and comprehensive plan - one that I'm proud to vote 'yea' for!

	30-05-2003 19:09									#4
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And we have already started on this path - note the intense debate over whether to build a Wall, Barracks or NM in Tripoli - just one city! We are of course negotiating to further ease tensions with CDG, and we have already done so to a large extent thanks to the foreign Ministry's attitude towards them, if they are as friendly as the recent chatlogs suggest. The Horse city is planned, and the Iron city is in place. Our tech strategy is aiming for Republic, and the First War is being spoken about as if it is like the sunrise - it will happen!

Given all the latest devlopments and discussion, it is clear that this strategy is being fulfilled and has been accepted by many already. And all of the newer stuff has been excellently included in this summary.

You've got a helluva legacy, vonD - the reports and the writing of the AltSp in its final form, to say the very least!

	30-05-2003 19:32									#5
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What is this "yea" and "nay" thing? Why not use "yes" and "no" ?

	30-05-2003 19:48									#6
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Yea and nay are traditionally used in Government... likely starting with the old English Parliament. Actually it might have really been "Aye" and "Nay", but either or. It just makes it all seem so much more.... official.

	30-05-2003 20:08									#7
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Yea.

But be vigil in defense...

	31-05-2003 04:13									#8
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Yea.

Or I could've said:
affirmative, all right, amen, aye, certainly, definitely, exactly, fine, good, granted, indubitably, make it so, most assuredly, naturally, of course, OK, okay, positively, precisely, sure thing, surely, true, undoubtedly, unquestionably, very well, no doubt, or yep.

	01-06-2003 11:18									#9
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Are we down to 17 active members?

	02-06-2003 06:08									#10
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quote: Originally posted by vondrack Are we down to 17 active members?

We did have 36 people "vote" in the 'Are you still here' Thread.

I Imagine that the status of Apolyton's server has not helped our involvement any, either.

E_T

	02-06-2003 23:37									#11
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As one who voted in the Are You Here but not in this one, I didn't even see this thread until now.

	02-06-2003 23:43									#12
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On the proposel, itself, manually add +1 Yea!

	03-06-2003 00:04									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

hi ,

, maybe we should pm each member when a vote takes place , ......

have a nice day

	03-06-2003 00:51									#14
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quote: Originally posted by panag hi , , maybe we should pm each member when a vote takes place , ...... have a nice day

No we shouldn't. For one, I don't want to be bombarded with useless PMs, and for another thing, if people want to vote, they'll come here.

If people don't notice entire threads in a forum, how are they going to notice PMs??

	03-06-2003 01:06									#15
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Wow, I didn't even see this thread until today as well. Strange... otherwise I would have voted Aye.

	03-06-2003 01:16									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Panzer32 No we shouldn't. For one, I don't want to be bombarded with useless PMs, and for another thing, if people want to vote, they'll come here. If people don't notice entire threads in a forum, how are they going to notice PMs??

hi ,

PM and or email would make them feel they are connected , .....

people who dont want them shall not get them , ....

have a nice day

	24-06-2003 01:06									#17
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Our plan is still operational.

	24-06-2003 01:21									#18
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quote: Originally posted by BigFree Our plan is still operational.

That's good.

I have one question though. Suppose after our map trades with CFC and GCA that one of the two trades their map to CDG and they see that we are essentially closed off from expansion to the north, wouldn't they naturally assume that we will be coming after them in full force soon enough and plan accordingly?

	24-06-2003 02:43									#19
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Nah, we have some room to grow still. It shouldn't set off any alarms with CDG.

	24-06-2003 02:54									#20
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This looks really good.
Is there a plan concerning the fact that they might get suspicious when we have a strong millitary compared to them. I mean who else are we going to attack.

	24-06-2003 03:08									#21
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

We are just building "defensive" forces; is our official stance. We will attempt to stay within the "Average" rating by not upgrading any Warriors till the time for War comes.

	15-07-2003 04:06									#22
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Bump. Those examining plans for the next 20 to 40 turns would do well to review this.

	15-07-2003 04:37									#23
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It has been rumoured that (despite not being in the readme) war weariness has been reinstated for PBEM as of v1.21f. This would drastically affect out ALtSp and it's effectiveness. We are currently trying to confirm this. I will post again with the result.

	15-07-2003 05:28									#24
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Its effect should not be huge for the first part of the war. The quicker the war went, and the fewer losses we take, the less effect it would have. This would argue for massing greater force so long as we are outstripping CDG, to a point. That point would be where either we would have a problem maintaining further forces, or where CDG and or GCA got anywhere close to pikes.

	15-07-2003 06:06									#25
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Another question we should just ask Firaxis...


Dominae

	15-07-2003 13:26									#26
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We can check this ourselves, in fact I will. All you have to do is create a PBEM and play it against yourself. I will do so now.

	15-07-2003 13:40									#27
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Sir Ralph has reported this. It is hard to miss. Click on the unhappy people, and they will tell you that some say 'Give Peace a Chance'. That is war weariness.

That adds the level to PBEM, that it is preferable to provoke the war against you, so you get the boost, rather than declare war yourself. All things being equal, which they are not in our case.

	15-07-2003 13:52									#28
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Sir Ralph has reported this. It is hard to miss. Click on the unhappy people, and they will tell you that some say 'Give Peace a Chance'. That is war weariness. That adds the level to PBEM, that it is preferable to provoke the war against you, so you get the boost, rather than declare war yourself. All things being equal, which they are not in our case.

So, in other words, when we're marching our uber-stack into CDG territory, we hope they deseperately try damaging a few units before we actually attack one of their cities or would that be too much trouble?

	15-07-2003 14:11									#29
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No. It means that they will get the advantage of the happy boost when war is declared. I doubt they will be fool enough to declare war on us, and I assume we will declare war before we cross the border.

We may get the happy benefit of CFC and or GCA declaring war on us though, once CDG squawks about the stacks of doom that they can see and try to rally support. However, by then it is too late for them. They are lost if we build properly.

	15-07-2003 14:53									#30
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Here's a Happy thought:

We keep a couple of Warriors on hand and send them to CDG as an attack and pillage crew when we are nearly ready, only we don't attack or pillage. We let CDG declare war on us by letting them attack our intruding Warriors before they actually get a chance to pillage! If they do not attack our Warriors we send them all the way down to their Iron to Pillage it! We march other troops right in behind them. Hell, we can even walk right on by their border cities if we like! Head straight to the Capitol.

nye, I think you told me that the diplomatic option of demanding that a Civ remove its units from your territory and then having them auto transported out is not present in PBEM's. If so, then so should be the option that asks you to remove them or declare war. This is such a simple way around the problem.

IMO, I think war weariness should have been left out of MP games; too many ways to manipulate it.