Lizzy's rise to greatness

[OzzyKP]

Wouldn't hurt to see what they'd offer.

[mzprox]

their offer was that they get the gspy and we don't need to pay them anymore. I think we could ask a bit more.. like give us 4 units and that 500g we already paid them.

[Dinner]

Ask for more but if they don't offer anything better just settle him in one of our cities.

[mzprox]

this really is about: should we make aztec stronger if we too get a bit stronger compared to the rest of the world. I think i have calculated that we would need to pay about 1600 more gold to aztec till t220 from our shrine and a great merchant which can give about 1700-1900 gold. in this regard we would give away the gspy for 3400 gold which is not bad. Aztec could steal 8-9000 beaker worth of tech from maya BUT: they can steal from maya anyway, they can gather that 3000 spy point for themselves instead of collecting gold for example.
As for us instead of getting 20 (and later more) spy points/turn + some science we could get the full shrine income which is definately better for short term. long term we can use the great merchant we would had to give away to get money boost or found a corporation.

I think i can sweaten the deal for ourselves by asking 4 cuirassiers which will help us against WPC for sure. I also want them to agree to let us plant taosim into their cities. after wall street each taoist city will generate 3 gold for us, for a 40 hammer investment that's not bad. I will also ask to extend time while they supply us with spice and gem.
I think this is what we can get out of this trade.

[OzzyKP]

Sounds great to me. Go for it.

[mzprox]

Aztec would accept our counterproposal. they suggested these dates.. I don't really understand why we need to complicate things, but anyway:
T220 - no espionage
T225 - resourse deals and OB
T230 - NAP

I put them here just to remember. (OB stands for open border agreement, resource deals: we get spice and gem, we give away pig)
Now that we get the full income it's really time to start spreading taoism everywhere, even into our neighbours cities.
We are building jails and after communism we will build intelligence agencies. With some specialists I can foresee that we will make like 500 spy points/turn and getting more spy specialists we can miss this one.

[OzzyKP]

Excellent. Good work.

[Dinner]

Sounds good.

[mzprox]

New turn, we executed the trade.

Today I realized something: our plan to get the free great spy and Kreml might be in serious danger.. i think aztec was planning to get it for a long time. So far I did not think of this, aztec was far behind us in tech, but there were things i did not understand: Why has maya researched liberalism before rifling as liberalism has no use for them, why aztec has researched chemistry, it's also useless for them, why would maya send their forces to help aztec, why aztec asks for money from cfc with high interest while they don't particulary need it..
And now i think i know the reasons: Maya is playing everything into aztec's hand. They researched liberalism so aztec can steal it and so they can beat us to get communism. The money from cfc will help them too and i'm almost sure aztec will get money from maya.
So poor aztec is about to get two great spies and probably close the gap between us while they got the better part of egypt (though it's true they lost lots of units). They have a civ who seems to working with them closely.. all these tricks made a bit mad.

So i popose the following: we kill the maya
at t210 when our nap ends we attack them with full force, together with cfc. I know they will join, they dislike maya and even aztec after tha last war.
to protect ourselves we make nap with uciv/hre and cfc.
I will try to do my best to get loans for ourselves. even if we have to trade away the gspy we get from communism, but I don't want aztec having it.
this is t185 we would still ahve 25 turns to preapre for war.

[mzprox]

I started negotiating to get money loan and fuel our research fully. I will maximize our research potential to do our best and pump out communism in 4 turns. If we have to, i suggest we even sell the great spy to cfc for a great sum of money, but we can not let aztec have it. it would be their victory over us, we can not allow that. Not to mention an other great spy to aztec is just too much.

[Dinner]

Won't we get stuck with just about all the heavy lifting in a war against the maya?

[mzprox]

We have an agreement with them about not using spies against each other

[OzzyKP]

Oerdin has a good point. CFC doesn't share a border with the Maya, we'll be in the cross hairs with that war. The idea of carving up WPC and then going after HRE seems to be a better one.

[Dinner]

I'd go after WPC as it makes more sense plus the panda pumpers deserve death for what they've done to those poor little pandas.

[mzprox]

We can probably attack wpc at t200 and maya in t210. the former will be no challenge.
about being closer to maya: I see it differently. It's much easier to conquer land when it is closer. we will have options to attack from multiple directions, and we will be able to make fair agreement with cfc, much easier than with the aztec for example.
But the reason I think we should kill the maya is this: aztec has emerged as a big threat to us. While we have huge tech advantage, it is only temporary. They can steal anything for supercheap and thanks to their traits they can even have stronger economy than us +++they have their mayan buddy. it seems to me that the whole maya nation works for aztec's success.
We have this and only time window to eliminate maya (nap with maya till t210, nap with aztec till t230). I think it's even possible that aztec will join the war too and maya will let them take their cities by aztec. then we need to kill aztec as well together with cfc.
I know you think cfc is the biggest threat to our victory, but they are really not. Aztec+maya together are much stronger.