What do we do now ?

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Ninot
so you want another war? then what about the cities we have? they stay backwards. And there will always be another civ that is bigger untill the jungle goes down.

I never said I wanted war. I just said that if we concentrate our effort on just clearing the jungle, then our other areas will be left lacking. If we're to make any kind of concerted effort (i.e. 10 or more workers), then that will cost us gold in support as well as production costs.

[Ninot]

well all im proposing is that we dont aim ourselves into a war, and we dont build up the army excecively

we have a nice period now to build on what we have, and expand peacefully. we should use it.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Ninot
well all im proposing is that we dont aim ourselves into a war, and we dont build up the army excecively

we have a nice period now to build on what we have, and expand peacefully. we should use it.

wrong. we have a nice period to maintain a basic structure, to expand rapidly, and to throw up a few temples to make people happy.

this is not a time to let our army go to nill. remember, our army is just archers and spearmen, it's crying for modernization.

Joan is an easy target in my eyes, and we shouldn't give that up.

[Harovan]

I think a short war with France would yield the same benefits like the war with the Americans. Hit them, before they get too strong. The AIs are less aggressive in the early game (confirmed by Firaxis), so let's use this fact.

And people: As big as other civs is not enough. We need to be the biggest civ. We still have no chance to outproduce the AI. And we badly need a leader for a FP or palace jump.

Anyone disagrees?

[Inverse Icarus]

/me does not disagree with anything you have said.

[Harovan]

Another thing is, that the French may give us another luxury. We need 3 luxuries for a good republic, or else our cities can not grow. It's Emperor, the 2nd citizen is unhappy, just to remind. The Americans will give us another one. Where will we get the third from, if not from the French?

We need to pick on 2 neighbors. If the first war with the French is as successful as the first, we can settle down, apart from 2 small wars with swordsmen and horsemen to finish off the Americans and French completely. No need to attack a third civ. But the war against France is necessary. Its too early to be content with our size.

[MrWhereItsAt]

But dare we risk losing all the decent land we have to other civs whilst involved in another war? I agree we need to use this time to concoct another plan to act out, but I do not think war is the necessary option anymore. We have survived (our top priority), now I think we need to take advantage of what we've got. At the very least, to fight a war with France (or anyone else), it is IMPERATIVE we get Iron from that Uber city to the rest of the nation. In the meantime we can fill the spaces we have available to us, and acquire some badly needed non-jungle land and as many luxuroes as we can swipe!

[Inverse Icarus]

What do we do now?

oh yea, this.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
But dare we risk losing all the decent land we have to other civs whilst involved in another war? I agree we need to use this time to concoct another plan to act out, but I do not think war is the necessary option anymore. We have survived (our top priority), now I think we need to take advantage of what we've got.

Too early. It's not sooo many we got.

At the very least, to fight a war with France (or anyone else), it is IMPERATIVE we get Iron from that Uber city to the rest of the nation.

We will be as successful as we were with America, if we do it quick. No need to wait to connect the iron. By then, a war will be expensive. By now, it's still cheap.

In the meantime we can fill the spaces we have available to us, and acquire some badly needed non-jungle land and as many luxuroes as we can swipe!

There's nothing more to "swipe", or can you show, where? All we can grab, is by war. Wines from France. Incense from America.

People! Don't let us go sidetracks now. Don't misunderstand me, please. I don't want to conquer the whole continent, that would be insane. But I have a good purpose to continue warmongering for a while. Consider the following facts:

• We have nothing to make our cities content. Think of our future Republic government. With only one luxury, we can grow our cities to a maximum of size 8, with temple, cathedral and colosseum. For all above, we need to increase the luxury slider. Is it that what you want? The AI doesn't have this problem. It plays Regent, with 3 content citizens.
  
• It's still cheap to go to war. You have seen, what awesome things can be done with just a couple of archers, if they are in the right hands. Later we need BIG stacks of swordsmen, to achieve the same.
  
• It is pointless to expand in the gaps. The cities get farther and farther from our capital and thus, more and more useless. Think of the shape of our empire. Do you wish it to look like an octopus? We need to build up a shape for 2 productive centers, around palace and FP. What brings us to the next point:
  
• We'll need a FP soon. And our capital is located poorly. It shall be surrounded by cities, to take advantage from the less corruption. We can't achieve this. So we need to build an FP and a new palace somewhere. How do you want to do this without a leader?
  

Please, part with your party politics. Put away that DIA and UFC philosophy stuff. I think, there's no such types of players like "builders" and "warmongers". There's only "good" and "bad" players. A good player knows, when it's time to go to war, and when to build up. A bad player either goes to war till he cannot support his attacks anymore, or builds only and ends up with a tiny 10-city "empire" on a huge map.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well, your post is a truly excellent one for the case of continue the war gains, and if you are reading this and haven't read Sir Ralph's post - DO IT.

I guess this makes this post a case for rebuttal. I am no Civ3 genius, but what I see in the save troubles me deeply and I expect I am not alone in my trepidation towards an immediate continuation of the war, this time in France.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

We will be as successful as we were with America, if we do it quick. No need to wait to connect the iron. By then, a war will be expensive. By now, it's still cheap.

I beg to differ. In 1100AD, just before the attack on the US, our Foreign Advisor agreed that our military was larger than theirs. We lost only a coupla units. Now, France has a military about the same size as ours - it won't be so easy again. Furthermore, France has every tech we do (including Iron Working), and we know they have Horses linked up. Iron is right next to one of their mountain cities, and by now it is possible that this is now available to them too - if someone can correct me on when our map of their lands is from I would appreciate it.

We also have our troops from the US war scattered and disorganized. We need to regroup and certianly build many more before a French war. At present we only have 5 Archers, 7 Spearmen and 6 Warriors.

In brief, I fear this war may NOT be successful, in fact it may open a can on our soon-to-be-candy asses. If our military state is in some way able to deal with all of this - please, I implore someone - set my mind at ease. My issue here is that with the info I can gather from the save, the next war is a lot less certain than the first.

There's nothing more to "swipe", or can you show, where? All we can grab, is by war. Wines from France. Incense from America.

OK then. We have Horses, 2 Dyes (2 more when the city's radius grows) and 1 Iron. None of these are linked to our core cities, and as I hope I hinted at above, that Iron is pretty important. We can, with a few quick cities, acquire an extra 3 Dyes, and, more importantly, another Iron: if we are quick. Although this won't help us beyond what we already have, every chance we get to take something that the AI would given the chance, we should seize with both hands.

There are, as I see it, two ar three city sites just NW and N of Del Monte that are in decent land - grassland, hills, mountains, rivers and flood plains. This is GOLD compared to our jungle. It is ours provided we go get it NOW. If not, we will lost a sure thing to a war that may or may not be as successful as the first, but MUSt be tougher and likely longer.

It's still cheap to go to war. You have seen, what awesome things can be done with just a couple of archers, if they are in the right hands. Later we need BIG stacks of swordsmen, to achieve the same.

It is not cheap to attack France - they have more options open to them, resources, and we cannot strike their capital first.

It is pointless to expand in the gaps. The cities get farther and farther from our capital and thus, more and more useless. Think of the shape of our empire. Do you wish it to look like an octopus? We need to build up a shape for 2 productive centers, around palace and FP.

Yes we need to build uo to the FP/Palace model, but these cities are not useless if they provide us with resources to trade, gold, and most importantly, population as workers to improve what we have and settlers to go get more while it is there.

Please, part with your party politics. Put away that DIA and UFC philosophy stuff. I think, there's no such types of players like "builders" and "warmongers". There's only "good" and "bad" players. A good player knows, when it's time to go to war, and when to build up. A bad player either goes to war till he cannot support his attacks anymore, or builds only and ends up with a tiny 10-city "empire" on a huge map.

This statement I agree unequivocally with however. WE are still in a crucial "survival" phase of our fledging nation. Look at the arguments as an individual, as a Civ player: experienced or not. Find the POV that you believe will work best and post your thoughts. The American war was necessary right then. Now we have a little time, but we must use it fullt ge3aring towards what comes next. Think carefully on Sir Ralph's words, and my own.

[OPD]

Those damn greeks are taking/have taken all the good city sites. Remianing city sites would be surrounded by jungle. As for the French They have unconnected iron but there are 5 (I think) mountain tiles between the iron and their capital which would take a while to road.

Why clear your own land when you can take someone elses land.

[Harovan]

I see you get my point. And if I say, "go to war now", I mean "prepare for war now". Or do you consider me insane enough to attack with the sad remainder of our victorious rush of America?

Here's what we need (overall concept):

• Core cities complete our archer stack again. Yes, archers. Cheap units for now, and through the jungle they are as fast as horsemen. We need 1 archer and 2 spearmen.
  
• The newly acquired cities build temples. As soon as they have both 10 shields built and are pop 2, poprush the temple and start other buildings, for instance barracks. This will give us culture.
  
• Meanwhile, our workers and slaves connect Gaia to the coreland, allowing bigger cities.
  
• As soon as the army is complete, move it towards France. The core cities produce an horseman each, and one city produces a settler, to build an intermediate city about S of Munich. There'll be a thread about this soon.
  
• The workers connect the intermediate city and continue to hook up the iron ASAP. This will get them away from the upcoming war.
  
• The core cities switch production. The cities, that built horsemen, switch to settlers and vice versa.
  
• The horsemen go as 2nd wave towards France. Meanwhile the war has begun. (Auto-)raze the size 1 cities and go towards Paris. The horsemen back up the attack. After iron is connected (soon, if we build the intermediate city), our cities switch to swordsmen.
  
• It's unlikely, that the AIs throw massed of horsemen and swordsmen towards us in the REX phase. Apart from 1-2 occasionally appearing horseys/swords it will build 20-shield units like archers and spears, because these can be poprushed, which the AI loves to do.
  
• Paris is the only goal. As soon as we have it, make peace and sue for techs/some more cities.
  
• It's America time again, rinse, repeat.
  

Btw: It doesn't count if we have 2, 3 or 4 dyes. It's still only 1 luxury. And don't point on tradings. Unfair AI trades, anyone?

[DAVOUT]

Totally convincing ; just one point : to strike fast don't we need to have all cities participating in the production of units connected ? I am not sure how this point is covered (but it certainly is ).

[Harovan]

City connection is covered with the 3rd and 5th points . And units produce only our 4 core cities, which are already connected.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by GePap
We should build a harbor, probably in apolyton, to allow for foreing trade, since we will have an extra dye around, and to get more food out of oue whale and fish.

I strongly agree. Other than boosting the food economy in 'poly, it would allow us to trade with any other sea-trading civ pretty early in the game (which would most likely prove to be a good diplomatic move) and in case we find resources in Uber Isle and establish a settlement there, we could use the harbor to connect that settlement with the rest of our empire.
Anyone got any more thoughts to contribute about this subject?

[Donal Graeme]

After careful examination of the map, and the placement of the other civilizations, I have come to the conclusion that Sir Ralph is right. Simply put, we must make a gamble: Do we want Apolytonia to be just another civilization, or a great nation? If we do not knock of France now then the answer is no. France, and Greece(but attacking them with hoplites is suicide), block our expansion into an open, centralized country. To truly maximize our efficiency, we must have a Palace, FP as the hub of a major part of our empire. At present we can have but one hub. taking out the French will put us in a position to have two hubs, one west and slighty north, and the second east and a little to the south.

Three points:

1. Sir Ralph is right about luxuries, we need 'em, and we need as many as we can get our hands on. Ergo we have to go for those of the French, which we can link up much easier than the Ivory Coast. And the Incense Valley merely awaits the arrival of our military.

2. The French have not had a reason to develop a military after our campaign. Unlike a human player, the AI does not easily recognize our goals here: expansion. Given that Joan is the least agressive leader, she is almost certainly not building up for an attack against us.
And so she will be just as vulnerable as the Americans were. And if we don't hurry, then it is only a matter of time before she gets musketeers. Strike against the French now!

3. The Greeks will expand despite whatever we do, and frankly we can't take them on at the moment. The Germans are warmongers, so they almost certainly have a larger military, we have to accept they may crowd us. However, they are very close to running into a wall of Aztecs, which means that the AI will likely focus on a military build-up, to attack them. Thus is we treat Bismark well, he should focus elsewhere. And frankly, after we take out the French, the land is pretty much as good as that the Germans may beat us to. And it puts them closer to us, not us closer to them, so in a war those cities will be very vulnerable.

These three points I believe highlight the situation at hand. Thanks for the good points, Sir Ralph.

[Will 5001]

We need some settlers, temples, then a buildup for war, in a nutshell!!

[GodKing]

My opinion........

Defence must be number 1. Get at least 2 defensive and one offensive unit in each city on our perimiter.

Culture, second most important. We are religious, so lets set up a temple in each city.

Filling in the gaps, ties for second. There is lots of space around munich. Also, we can settle around the american cities. Perhaps we may even get some cities close to the ivory coast. This will make the americans easier to attack later, and perhaps give us some cultural cities (defectors) in the mean time.

Third, Connect everything we have with roads, plus roads going to france, persia, germany, and the greeks. This will alow trading of excess with them (but we must pay attention to their unfare trading practices). As a part of this, start cutting back the jungle. This has to be done sometime, better get started now.

Fourth, do not forget our offensive might. Once we hace swordmen, build a couple before they are needed. Continue with the horse units. Upgrade our archers and warriors as soon as possible. Place priority on upgrading with defensive units however.

Does anybody know what government type the egyptions prefer, and which one they do not like? This may effect whether it is better to go for monarchy or republic. Change to whichever is better as soon as possible. Then make a beeline for invention followed by the religious sciences.

Make war with either greek in the gunpowder age, or with the french when our military is full sized, updated, and in position. Set firm objectives before war, with a clear understanding of what we want.

Also, all through the mean time, keep peace with everyone we can. Even the Babalonians can bribe both the French and Germans to attack us at the same time.

We might also want to consider building one or two of the wonders. I wouldn't consider a palace jump unless we had a GL to do so rapidly. Thanks for reading this mess.

[Trevman]

Originally posted by GodKing
My opinion........
Does anybody know what government type the egyptions prefer, and which one they do not like? This may effect whether it is better to go for monarchy or republic. Change to whichever is better as soon as possible. Then make a beeline for invention followed by the religious sciences.

This only effects the AI; there is no bonus associated with it whatsoever.

I say, screw this jungle. We don't yet have the ability to clear it so let's get out of it. We should grab the fertile valley around the remnants of the American empire and move the center of our empire there. The time for our delayed REX is now. We must hurry before other civs expand into the valley. Build as many settlers and workers as we can and expand. Chicago would be a great place for a new palace; maybe we could culture bomb it, but I don't know if this is practical or possible with our weak position and culture.

Speaking of culture, we need at least a temple in every city except maybe Tassagrad or Termina since they are so close to Apolyton. We might be able to flip frontier cities encroaching on the valley.

Infrastructure is important, connect every city and improve the terrain somewhat.

However, another war is neccesary to grow our cities. Our objective has to be to obtain luxuries and it is doubtful that we would be able to aquire them through trade. After we consolidate the valley, we will probably have to war with France for luxuries and further expansion room.

So in summary, build, expand, and then war.

[BigRed515]

War, War, WAR! If we weren't in the middle of a jungle, I'd support the build option. We need those better, more productive city sites that don't require the 20+ worker-turn investment before the Aztecs chew through the Germans or the Abananaba Minor civs wander north. The longer we wait before pruning the French, the stronger they become. They'll not only have the iron linked up before we will, they'll have more productive cities to crank out units, which all adds up to a costlier later war and a more dangerous neighbor.

I don't worry about the French usually, becasue they're as aggressive as roadkill. I don't worry about the Greeks usually because they have a defensive UU. I don't usually worry about the Germans because they usually decide to take on the world instead of just one civ (especially with another militarist on their border and a weak expansionist nearby - powder keg to the north).

However, I do worry when there are 3 AI civs that ALL have more producitve core cities, are ALL stronger, and ALL border us. Law of probability screws us in the long run when the Aztecs DON'T fight Germany, or the Greeks decide Joan looks better than Ninot in a revealing dress, or Joan herself throws a hissy-fit over Timeline leaving the toilet seat up.

So, in summary, war, War, WAR!

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Trevman
Speaking of culture, we need at least a temple in every city except maybe Tassagrad or Termina since they are so close to Apolyton. We might be able to flip frontier cities encroaching on the valley.

I would worry more about our frontier cities flipping over.
I also worry about Munich expanding and blocking off our sources of iron.
Other than that, life is beautiful!

[Robber Baron]

War. France. Quickly. More-or-less asap, along the lines Sir Ralph proposes. Bypass Orleans, and march a stack right up to Paris, making the final approach via backdoor mountain route. A second, smaller wave, of horsemen, moves on Orleans as soon as it can be mobilized.
Meanwhile, plant a city to the south of Munich, start a southern road, and lay basis for major effort to swamp Munich culturally from all sides -- meaning, surrounding cities build temples.