Bismarck's College

[Hot Mustard]

It seems we need to get this going, having established contact with Vox in 3360BC.

Hand them an olive branch or the end of Grog's club?

[notyoueither]

I would advise we go peacefully.

I took a further look at the save.

No one's score went up this turn other than Vox. We know they got Polyth for sure on that basis. The culture graph should show it starting next turn as well.

The land area numbers tell us, or confirm for us, that Vox is coastal (we have 1.97% of world land area, they have 1.00%). They don't have many land tiles. They are at the end of the river, but which end? I doubt it is the tundra end, since this map was vetted, but we shall see.

Contact is likely established by their scout moving in and out of view. A good move since it keeps us in the dark about their whereabouts longer (you can't rush what you can't see).

I should send them a greeting sometime later today. Anybody have anything they desire communicated?

[Metaliturtle]

"All your base are belong to us!"

[vmxa1]

Say hello to my little friend. j/k

[Mudhut]

I know this is dependent on scouting, but the odds of a skirm choke succeeding improve if they are on a coastal start. Particularly if they are on an isthmus. A skirm on a hill would stop them from getting anything past, forcing them to go to sailing and build a galley - which takes much time... This is another reason why we shouldn't finish Poly but should switch to Hunting asap.

And I know that some of us don't like the skirm choke idea. But it's still an option that we should discuss.

[Arrian]

We definitely want to get archery soon, that's for sure.

As for the question of killing their scout (if the option even presents itself)... I'm still unsure.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

A successful choke would involve covering their strategic resources and forcing them to spend 3+ Archers just to dislodge one of our Skirmishers. Any more than that (grounding their Worker) is just gravy. If we can manage this, we win the economic war and their eventual defeat is assured unless they bring in an ally against us.

[Cort Haus]

Of course if there are other civs than Vox around, that changes things further. In fact, any religionless Civ on our landmass might agree with us that Vox have painted a target on themselves.

The only civ to survive a 2 v 1 conflict in the 2 PTWDGs was GS in the DG1 after Team Roleplay fell, but we weren't actually defending ourselves. I think it's fair to say that all targeted Civs in 2 v 1 DG conflicts are toast, even if it takes a long time.

[Mudhut]

It could be a while, however, before we know if there is a third team (or more...) on our landmass. Our scouting resources really need to go towards Vox right now, which means we'd have to wait for them to come to us (at least until the medium term).

[Blake]

I really think that our ONLY possible tech path is now:
Hunting -> Archery
(it's the one I've always supported)

Our worker mines the sheep, and then either mines another hill, or farms a floodplain or maybe starts a road.

With 2 mines we could crank out Skirmishers silly-fast, on the other hand with higher food we can surprise them with quickly whipped out units (it's harder to read what's going on in demographics).

Not saying we need to USE fast skirmishers, but we have to get them quickly to be a credible threat, either to cripple Vox or have a stronger bargaining position in any alliance agreement.

[Cort Haus]

I like the idea of getting a good bunch of Skirms up-and-running. They should get us off the back foot, in terms of exploration and diplomacy at least.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
I really think that our ONLY possible tech path is now:
Hunting -> Archery

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Of course if there are other civs than Vox around, that changes things further. In fact, any religionless Civ on our landmass might agree with us that Vox have painted a target on themselves.

Okay, let's list some reasons why:
- we're on the same river, and have a trade route
- they have a religion, we don't
- if they analyzed stuff, they should have picked up we went for Mysticism, and so logically would go for a religion next
- we can expect Hindusm to spread very rapidly to us
- they can scout EotS for free (once the shrine is built?)

So, we both get a hefty price, and solve a problem with our defenses if we would go for Vox.

In general, I agree with this. However there is one major problem: Vox knows this too. They know that from now on, they are in extreme danger.
We can expect them to go for archery asap, resources immediately afterwards.
We can also expect them to forego any other tech or building (no Oracle gamble, and other wonders are unlikely too).

The thing we've got to solve, is to decide what we do:
- go for them, or leave them alone?
- unrelated to the above, do we let them believe we go for them, or do we let them believe we leave them alone?

DeepO