Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

just a pic from the iceland. there would be a place to build the silver city where it had access to the silver and one of the clams, however it would take too long to connect it.. So i guess we will build this city on the silver then we will bring two more to the island later and build money cities for both clam resources.

[mzprox]

This turn we received the great prophet and a worker from Aztec, we send them the first cargo of riflemen. We have a sea route where our galley can go a full turnaround just in 3 turns and hopefully RB won't be able to see these transfers.
Meanwhile our powergraph is rising rapidly.. we are stil lbelow average, but our power is already half of EGypt's, I think we can keep up the drafting for long while also keeping a good science rate. We are mostly building barracks and units, but still finished universities, courthouses recently, so that part is not neglected. Soon we will try to build two national wonders, first the national epic, then we will try the globe theater.

[OzzyKP]

For the short term this deal is better for them, but later it will be better for us. And these rifles if manage to take cities from RB also help us. I suspect RB would rather give up land near inca than closer to their main land and that works for us.

Egypt has started to mass draft musketmen and builds wealth in their cities to get to rifling asap. A critical period comes soon, war is inevitable. I do my best to prepare for this war without harming our economy, but we must weaken RB now or our chances will be much lower later. Inca is eliminated already, they did not slow RB down.. instead they used their army to punish WPC (they took a city from them and renamed that city to "worstplayingcom" ) this is not good for us unfortunately, now RB got every single incan city while wpc is left for weak.. an easy target for anyone. (too bad they are not next to us).
Anyway our goal for the coming war to take cities from RB, hold them if we can, or raze otherwise.

A grim era approaches.

[mzprox]

For the short term this deal is better for them, but later it will be better for us. And these rifles if manage to take cities from RB also help us. I suspect RB would rather give up land near inca than closer to their main land and that works for us.

Egypt has started to mass draft musketmen and builds wealth in their cities to get to rifling asap. A critical period comes soon, war is inevitable. I do my best to prepare for this war without harming our economy, but we must weaken RB now or our chances will be much lower later. Inca is eliminated already, they did not slow RB down.. instead they used their army to punish WPC (they took a city from them and renamed that city to "worstplayingcom" ) this is not good for us unfortunately, now RB got every single incan city while wpc is left for weak.. an easy target for anyone. (too bad they are not next to us).
Anyway our goal for the coming war to take cities from RB, hold them if we can, or raze otherwise.

[Hercules]

Their response for the 3 rifles was that it's okay to give 3 rifles now, but later they receive two more units of their choosing... I told them that it's out of the question.. so after a long deate we settled it to 4 rifles.. since the votes currently in favor of the trade even with 5 we started to execute the trade, the prophet will arrive shortly.

We got rifling, now we collect money to pay back that 500 gold we received from the other civs. after that I think we should get aesthetics/drama/literature which will allow us to build some nice national wonders... or we can go for steel.. or corporation.. all path has its benefits (steel gives cannon, corporation gives+1 trade route and the ability to build the wallstreet)

Not an unreasonable outcome at all. Well done.

[mzprox]

Their response for the 3 rifles was that it's okay to give 3 rifles now, but later they receive two more units of their choosing... I told them that it's out of the question.. so after a long deate we settled it to 4 rifles.. since the votes currently in favor of the trade even with 5 we started to execute the trade, the prophet will arrive shortly.

We got rifling, now we collect money to pay back that 500 gold we received from the other civs. after that I think we should get aesthetics/drama/literature which will allow us to build some nice national wonders... or we can go for steel.. or corporation.. all path has its benefits (steel gives cannon, corporation gives+1 trade route and the ability to build the wallstreet)

[Hercules]

my vote is c

[mzprox]

pics from selected areas:

om the first pic there is the new source of silver, The second shows our workers connecting our cities in the west, the third pic is from the east. We will have the forbidden palace finished next turn, it will cut down our maintenance a bit. We are also improving the roads in that area so our army can maneuver better.

[mzprox]

(Dinner, it never was 50 gpt and 5-10 rifles. it was either this or that)
cities can heal from the effects of drafting quite quickly, when it's done right it's really only turning food into production. but when a pop works on a mine for example it does the same: turns food into production and drafting is much more efficient. Also it gives the unit at once, not just after working on it for long.

Today I continued the haggling with the aztec. They will not accept the trade without rifles.. we will not accept to give them 5 (at least that's what i told them ).. so i try to settle it as 3 riflemen.. they did not accept that yet they too need time to discuss it.

So let's try to make this vote for ourselves:

A- this is basically no trade, since aztec will not give away their prophet for gold, or our gs. (anything below the 'B' offer is probably a no-go)
B- we accept aztec's proposal, but only if we can go with less rifles
C- we accept the proposal even with 5 rifles (and the half gold, and the GP later)

B and C is not that different, and voting for C implies a vote for B too if Aztecs can settle for less riflemen.

So far:

A, Dinner
B, MZ
C, OzzyKp


---
side-notes: I will post pictures from our land later, but good news that we found an other source of silver in a closer island so we can settle that spot. I assumed there are more silver around since Egypt has their silver too for some time so I sent out explorers to find them. I also assume there will be other strategic resources on those islands.

now, at t162 we are one turn from getting rifling, we owe about 500 gold to other civs who helped us to get this technology sooner so we can draft riflemen for the same cost as we would for janissary. We are still second in score, but we may fall behind a bit after the drafts. Tech-wise we are leading and soon we can steal more .
Soon however a new age comes.. the age of wars.. probably neverending wars... so we must prepare.

[Dinner]

I'm willing to bet we lose more in lost income from all the extra drafting then we gain especially as they was 50 gold per turn plus 5-10 riflemen. My vote is not just no but hell no.

I'd be willing to go as far as they get out great scientist and no more than 25 gold for 20 turns and maybe, maybe we might let them borrow 1-2 riflemen but only if they agree to give them back on demand.

[Hercules]

ok go for it but get the best deal. see if we can get those riflemen mercenaries back at short notice if need be.

[mzprox]

it's not about getting a certain technology sooner, but giving us a stronger economy which could help us in military conquest or getting the spaceship (much) sooner.
the bigger timeframe we examine the better this trade could be for us. And i think overall our chances to win increases more with economic strength than with military power.

But note: I never said we should agree the aztecs proposal... ithink we can't give them 5 rifles by t170.. we already give them some for luxuries and catapults. My point is that we should try to negotiate a better deal but we must see clear how much the shrine benefits us. (the aztecs know this too unfortunately)

[OzzyKP]

I think it is a good deal and absolutely in our interests. Thank you for taking the time to explain the numbers involved.

Shrine income is critical.

[Hercules]

this is the bit that gets me

But can we make some sacrifice now... drafting even more soldiers we would normally do, so we ensure the shrine for great future benefits? could we look at it as investments against a common enemy?
So this is the question.

I'd like a more detailed cost benefit. That drafting proposal will cost us a lot in lost production, gold, research and food lost. Plus there are a number of 'ifs' there, that need examined.

But in the end I Suppose the 'Shrine ' is very useful. I just don't buy the benefit versus we need the soldiers ourselves.

We are last in military and this proposal gives away 5 riflemen.

The assumption is with all the gold we can what ?

Get Assemblymen 3 turns earlier than someone else.

Contact HRE get money from them or at least get to know their side. Do you want me to do that.

But for the moment, I am not convinced.

[mzprox]

Right now there are 22 taoist cities and we have 100% modifier in the holycity, thats 44 gpt. We'd also get 6 beakers/turn thanks to Sankore university, 20% less spy action cost in taoist cities, better passive religion spread chance, and some culture boost.
the 44 gpt will increase as we spread our religion and we can get an other 100% modifier when we finish wallstreet. So in the close future it will be about 50gpt (25-25 if we accept aztecs offer to share it) but later it can grow to about 100 gold/turn (wall street+further spreading) and after aztec got their great person all this could be ours.

Units can be calculated into gold roughly. food,hammer and commerce can be interchanged even unhappyness can be neutralized by money. if there wasn't a high probability of war I'd value a drafted rifleman to about 200 gold..
so let's say we accept the 5 riflemen, then it would look like this:

we get the benefit of the shrine: half the money, 22gpt, then 6 beakers and the other benefits for 50 turns while the money increases overtime. and we give away 5 drafted units worth about 1000 gold. Then we give away a great person,but from that point the full revenue of the shrine is ours.
it is profitable for us in the first 50 turns and after that even more.. there is however the problem that we need the soldiers for ourselves. But can we make some sacrifice now... drafting even more soldiers we would normally do, so we ensure the shrine for great future benefits? could we look at it as investments against a common enemy?
So this is the question.

I try to haggle that we give less units and/or in a bigger timeframe then let's see what we get.