26-09-2003 04:01									#1
	How do we win this game Support Apolyton

I thought it might be interesting to resurrect the “How do we win this game” thread. Just to get some long term plan suggestions.


Here is mine.

We wipe out GCA. (Already in progress)
And then we continue to roll forward with our army and battle CFC.
Thus dominating and taking control of our continent.
I say we do this now, for three reasons.
- We want to destroy CFC while they are weak and an easy target.
- We want to do it before they get their riders & a Golden Age.
(We would be stupid to give them any chance to rebuild)
- The other two teams on the other continent could hardly influence the outcome of our war while they only have galleys and cannot send any military units. Ie before Astronomy/Navigation
(The only thing they could possible do is to gift/sell CFC Chivalry, which is another reason to make the war happen now ASAP)

Meanwhile, we begin to manipulate the two remaining teams on the other continent.
I think it would be wrong to play the middle guy, and try to keep them even, so that neither can gain dominance.
The big risk is that they will see through us and/or suddenly realise what a huge threat we are. They could decide to align and work together. Perhaps they will do a joint invasion of our continent. Or if they don’t trust each other to send military units, they could easily set up a tech trade embargo.
Either way… I think we will soon loose our veil of “going under the radar”.

For this reason, I say we choose one, and encourage them to start a war and fight.
Help them dominate their continent…. Thus only leaving them, and us, left in the game.

The team we choose to align with must be able to win the fight, and conquer the other. Secondly, they must be “weak” enough, that in the long run our civ will be able win the tech race.

I suggest we align with Web Ring for four reasons.
They will soon have their UU…which is a really potent unit, and they will get their GA with it.
They should be able to out-fight CGN…even if it takes a whole GA of producing military units, they should eventually get the upper hand.

The second reason is that we do know them from the PTWDG. Our Foreign minister is Master Zen, who already has a good relationship with their PTWDG team. They are more likely to trust us.

The third reason is that once GWT has expended their GA to defeat CGN, it is unlikely that their Religious/Expansionist traits will be able to defeat our Commercial/Industrious ones. Sure they have the pyramids, but I don’t think it is a guaranteed game winning wonder.

And finally the forth reason, CGA are the ottomans, which means they are Scientific & Industrious, and will have Sipahi. If they succeed in war, and become the sole survivor on their continent, they have the ability to jump ahead of us in tech, and still have a GA to come when they invade with Sipahi

Once GWT have achieved continental dominance, we have a choice on how to win the game.
2 teams… each with their own continent.
Being Industrious, we can out-build them
Being Commercial, we can support a bigger military and spend more on technology.

Our only risk, is that is they go for a cultural win.
But really, we should be able to choose a military or spaceship win.

Regs

	26-09-2003 04:18									#2
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I think a military victory in this game is *extremely* ( I cannot put enough emphasis on that word) unlikely.

By the time we are prepared to make a major crossing, you can bet that the victory of the CGN/GWT war (who really doubts it is coming) will have railroads around the outer edges of the landmass facing us - assuming of course that they are not total morons, which I'm betting they wouldn't be.

Even if there isn't a final resolution to their war by this time, they would be absolutely insane not to put aside their differences at least enough to smash any beach we might try to establish. That means, quite simply: To even establish a beach head, we would have to completely wipe out the largest part of one or two armies.

If you assume we launch our beach attempt with the arrival of galleons, you are anywhere from zero (scientific civ) to three techs from the arrival of railroads; we won't destroy GCA and CFC quickly enough to have a major navy prepared for such a major undertaking. Once the age of rail begins, naval beaching is simply impossible. Take it from someone who has played out that scenario countless - well above 100 - times. Once a solid rail network is complete, there will ALWAYS be enough cavalry or tanks there to smash you on the turn you land. We cannot realistically hope to establish a major beaching prior to that - particularly if you bear in mind that the other continent is in the worst possible location from our own. Consider also that we will NOT be able to kill CFC before they get riders; if we turned around instantly and attacked CFC after killing GCA and the war against GCA went perfectly, we would probably arrive on CFC's borders right as they upgraded all their horsemen. If we wanted to easily destroy CFC, we should turn the army around now.

By the time you could bring enough air power to bear that would cut rails, the enemy can bring enough air power to crush you out of hand as well.

This game will be won either by space, or by points in 2050; even odds on that, especially since intelligence networks will enable nukes to fly at space-building targets, unless we use the ICBM gambit.

	26-09-2003 06:52									#3
	Full PM-box? Change here!

For the other continent, my suggestion right now (while knowing as little as we do about their continent) is that we allow for the stronger of the two powers to attack the weaker of the two, then do everything in our power to boost the war effort of the inferior power. The two teams will hate and distrust one another, and we'll be the one propping up the inferior one.

That's a better situation than helping either of them fully CONQUER the other one. I'd like to avoid a conquest if possible.

As for final victory in the game, I don't believe that a military victory is feasible, either. The greatest danger we face is losing to either GWT or CGN in a cultural victory, so we're going to have to watch out for that. Beyond the worry of a cultural victory, we'll probably need to aim for a space race victory (or perhaps a diplomatic victory) ourselves.

	26-09-2003 08:28									#4
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I haven't had all that much experience in MP games, but I tend to agree that a military victory is pretty much unworkable after the end of the middle ages. A spaceship victory or a diplomatic victory is probably our best shot. I'm not entirely sure we'll need to worry too much about a cultural victory though. If things play out right then CGN and GWT will be taking each other's cities down during their inevitable war, possibly razing them. If that's the case (and it is an "IF"), we'll be sitting pretty with no worries about either one of them winning that way...especially if we enter builder mode after our GCA war and start building some culture of our own.

	26-09-2003 09:44									#5
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Our victory in this game depends solely on one thing: one of CGN or GWT cannot get the upper hand on the other continent.

If one or the other does, we will be hard-pressed to oppose them, simply because our lands are not as good, and we have two opponents to deal with on our continent instead of just one.

We could leave this to chance and just focus on our own continent, but you can bet CGN and GWT will want to finish each other off as quickly as possible.

So, although military conquest might be a difficult and dirty endeavour in this game, it may be necessary. If one of CGN or GWT takes the upper ahnd, we must be there to strike them immediately (in their moment of greatest weakness) and on their own turf. Hopefully this will happen in this era, before Railroads (if at all).

IMO, we simply cannot afford to not take part in the festivites (ha!) on the other continent. Once GCA is gone, we must prepare for an invasion of either CGN or GWT (all the while keeping an eye on CFC).


Dominae

	26-09-2003 10:30									#6
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I agree with Dominae in terms of we must act as the balancing power on the other continent. I simply feel that the optimal way in which to do so would be to have one of the powers on the other continent clearly be the stronger of the two, so that we can remain STABILY allied to the smaller of the two and thus keep a situation where they NEED US and develop a working relationship over time...

That said, in order to pull that off, there is absolutely no question that we would need a large and navally mobile military force capable of striking the other power from across the ocean when necessary.

To do this, we will need both a fleet, and we will need forces capable of tearing up their countryside and doing as much damage as possible.

Ultimately, should we fight a war on the other continent, we don't really need to conquer their cities, just do damage (pillage improvements, raze cities, generally tear things up). The exception would be that we might want to found a colony from which we can conduct operations after Railroads, though we could also (with a RoP) simply use the lands of our ally.

	26-09-2003 16:32									#7
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Hmmm.

I am surprised at the amount of people who want to try and play politics with the other continent.

There is some good argument for it...it would be nice for them to be in eternal war and neither gain dominance.
But I have always had good results in my PBEM’s by picking an ally early in the game, and helping him to his victory…I just always pick someone who I think I can handle later in the game.

When thinking of these things, I try to do it as if someone was trying to play me the same way.
If GCA tried to manipulate CFC and Poly into a long war…would we see it happening?
What would be our response?
I suggest we would see it, and the best of us would be trying to negotiate a peace with CFC with the argument that GCA is pitting us against each other while they become strong. Or better still, recognize it happening and not go to war in the first place.

So if we would see it happening, why wouldn’t they?

Say that even with us helping GCA, GWT was able to use their Ansars & GA to gain continental dominance.
Would they then turn to us and say…”Yes we know you were helping GCA, but all is forgiven now, no hard feelings?”

I doubt it.

My two cents is….
Make an ally with GWT
We help them with their war against GCA.
They help us with our war against CFC.

Then proceed with a one vs one game.

I acknowledge that things don’t always work out like you want. But then...there are dangers in playing for both sides as well.
It is true that CFC may have Chivalry & Riders before we war with them, but it would be a long term plan I would try to put into effect.

	26-09-2003 19:36									#8
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

It would seem that three general courses of action have evolved from this thread.

1. H_E's suggestion to pick our ally soon, and trust in our traits over the longer term.

2. The 'laissez-faire' approach to the other continent, first postulated by F-P. Conquer our own continent, and hope the war is a long and gruesome affair on the other.

3. Dom's suggestion of being ready to jump into the fray on the other continent if one team gets the upper hand.

Hmmm... I would suggest #2 is trusting in fate too much. And I see merits, and pitfalls, to both 1 and 3.

	26-09-2003 19:37									#9
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The problem with H_E's suggestion is twofold:

1. If either GWT or CGN defeats the other one, they have a FAR larger continent upon which to build up their forces and build lots of big pretty cities to beat us in either the space race or domination victory.

2. The best method for manipulating CGN and GWT into war is to sit on our hands and just let them do it themselves. There's little need to be too "manipulative" or tricky about it... it'll probably happen on its own without our help or hindrance. It's rather inevitable as far as I'm concerned because we look like a bunch of squabling weak teams on our continent, they're the two powerhouses on their continent, and no-one has Navigation. The chances that GWT won't attack when they get Chivalry are effectively nil.

My point is that while we certainly want one of them to attack the other, we should side with the INFERIOR of the two powers rather than the superior one. Ideally, we want there to BE a war (so they hate each other), but we want said war to end without one power growing too powerful (because that's game over for us).

If GWT looks like they're going to be the big bad boys with Chivalry and their cheap 3-move UU, we'll side with CGN. If CGN is the more powerful, we'll side with GWT.

The trick is whether we should stick with the ally we start with or stop helping them when they reach parity with their opponent. That's the part that I believe remains an open question.

	26-09-2003 21:34									#10
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Agreed about GCA. (Or at least convert them into a vasal state)

I'm wondering if attacking CFC right aterwords would be a good idea? If we take a lot of losses against GCA, it may be best to leave CFC alone and instead cooperate on sciences to give us a better chance to win a space race.

	27-09-2003 00:18									#11
	Remove this text

If we're going to attack CFC, I agree we should do it ASAP, while we have a strong GA-backed military. I'm skeptical that's the path to take, though; if we could trust them (perhaps trust backed by control of both Equilibrium and Balance of Power ), it would be nice to have an ally. We'd need both FP and palace cores to make good use of this continent on our own, which likely means jumping the palace to CFC after building the FP.

	27-09-2003 01:55									#12
	Got spare money?

We either attack CFC right afterwards or much later. If much later we must take contol of most of the continent to prevent them from becaoming a threat to us in the futre. The benifts of having a good friend/ally cannot be so easily dismissed. But, we must not ever let them think they would have a shread of hope in attacking us. CFC must willingly become vassals without either of us openly admitting it perhaps.

	27-09-2003 02:29									#13
	Support Apolyton

Trying to attack CFC immediately after is not a good idea. First of, we are bound to take at least take some losses against CGA, making us vulnerable to a counterattack if we dont have enough forces. Second, CFC will have boats, meaning we will have to build more boats ourselves and more units to defend our homeland, meaning less offensive units to bolster our current forces. Unless we are still strong to CFC after the CGA war and feel we can deal them a mortal flow very quickly and they don't have Chivalry, I do not recommend this plan at the present time. Lets worry about one war at a time....

I also agree we are not going to be invading anyone after RR's. Only if it turns out they are missing a key resource (such as rubber) will this be feasible. We are better off tryin to tech better while keeping pace culturally.

	27-09-2003 02:40									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

How exactly do we propose to influence a war on the other continent? What, suicide galleys on a large scale? Send cash? We have FAR better uses for cash over here, thanks. If all we're going to do is send technology, I don't think we'll find ourselves all that useful- there are only two tech lines to follow for a good portion of this era. Let's be real here- we CANNOT affect a war between CGN and GWT, most likely, until that war has already gone beyond the point where our influence could change things. By trying to influence it weakly as we might now, we could have very little real effect, and end up earning the ire of the other party, which might win...

Also, how do we know that the other continent is in fact larger than ours - nevermind FAR larger than ours? I'm thinking that they are pretty close to even, based on water percentages and so on - we should simply take our cue on whether or not to wipe out CFC from whether or not GWT and CGN try to wipe each other out as well.

	27-09-2003 03:43									#15
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Btw, just for reference, if we're either shooting for a diplomatic victory or we'd like to prevent someone else from making a diplomatic victory, we can't afford to let GCA survive. If we attack her, we wipe her out.

Granted, this is not the AI we are dealing with, but that's part of the point. GCA might play nice because they have to, but there's nothing we can threaten them with to prevent them from, as their very last action in the game, giving us the finger by voting for someone else.

	27-09-2003 03:45									#16
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As for attacking CFC immediately, this discussion is entirely academic. We'll find out the wisdom of that when we're far closer to having defeated GCA. Speculating about it now doesn't serve much purpose.