Lizzy's rise to greatness

[Hercules]

It seems WPC is now eliminated.

[mzprox]

yes, I wonder how many of their units went to uciv..

[Dinner]

There is really nothing to report. Turns can last for a week now, still 3 turns till railroads. Maya doesn't seem to be preparing for war yet. Aztec is building an army, I don'T know what for. I keep sending our units to the west.

On the map it looks like the Aztec (yellow) can only really attack either us or CFC.

[mzprox]

India and aztec has no nap with each other while we have with both. So I wouldn't worry now. Eventually war will be inevitable between us, so far we have the biggest army and it won't be changed for a while.

[mzprox]

new turn, we got a great merchant. Next turn we will get an other great person.
This is the path I1m considering right now:
unless we get an other GM (12%chance) we enter golden age
We switch to universal suffrage and state property and start building the statue of liberty. Now we can1t build it sooner than uciv who will have big advantage, but we can see ther progress due to spying and we can rush/buy it before they get it. probably spending 4-7000 gold, but I think it's still worth it. soon we shall have 40+ cities, 40 free specialists is very nice to have.

Next turn we get railroads, we will steal democracy from maya and we will start collecting money.

[Dinner]

What is our plan to win? Military domination? Is that even realistic? If not then we need to get our production and population up so we can go for the science win or something else.

[mzprox]

We stole democracy from maya and entered into golden age. Switched to US, Bureau, state property. Started to build Statue of Liberty in the capital. In my calculations we can get it in 6 turns if we pay 3408 gold (about 3 turns revenue at this stage). Uciv is almost builded the half of it and i've heard they are too planning to enter golden age, so I expect to pay this gold to beat them. Previously I told them we are not interested in this wonder, but it was quite a long time ago.. I did not think we have a chance then . If it takes them this long to build we might as well take it.

About victory conditions: I don't know yet. I think every big powers in this game can be broken (taking it's capital for example).

As you know we are preparing to invade maya together with cfc whom we have great relations. Recently Aztec has approached us and asking help from us against cfc&uciv. He raises good points about if uciv is helping cfc then they are a threat to both of us. (we are killing maya because they are helping aztec).
I'm not sure which civ is igger threat on us, cfc or aztec, but I think uciv should be destroyed after maya. unfortunately we have long nap with them. Aztec is asking non military units (30 spies and 10 workers) to support him while he fights his war alone against cfc+uciv. He may not know that we and cfc will attack maya in 5 turns.
So it is in our interest that aztec goes into war with cfc+uciv, but on the other hand we will fight with cfc as ally soon...
I don1t know what to do yet, any suggestion?

[Dinner]

Keep the workers and spies but tell him we would help him if we could possibly do so but right now we just have other things on our plate.

[Hercules]

Popped in for a look.

Building Statue Of Liberty in Aurora. Would take 9 turns based on 180+ per turn but of course after we get Railroad next turn I presume we go for max gold zero research; currently 540+ gold per turn.

We also have a GG in reserve.

Uciv building SoL in Babaorum: a 17 pop city but with less hammers than us. As Mz notes thay are just below half way. But they may feel untouchable.

Amazing that with our spy points we can see city builds in UCIV and in CFC. Also Maya, but I think because of agreement with Aztecs, turns ago, we haven't built up esp against Aztecs.

The GA means we are raking in the gold at the level Mz indicates and with some cities growing next turn, maybe even more.

Re next target and alliances, that needs some thought.

Yes I agree that Maya should be next target. Do Maya have defensive pact agreement with Aztecs?.

Atm Maya are building observatories as a fast as they can, but have not upgraded their military as far as I can see.

[mzprox]

I've noticed maya will get a great person next turn, 26% chance to be great engineer. That may cause problem especially if they gift it to aztec, hopefull they get a GS instead.
Yes we can look into almost every city of the world, except aztec's as we have agreed to not spy on each other. This might change however as I think both of us would like to steal from the other. (aztec has accumulated even more spy points than us, but our epsionage potential is about the same.) In this turn we stole Democracy and the espionage point cost was no more than 3 turns espionage income at 0%!! slider, so only the passive points and a few spy specialists. if we went 100% espionage then in one turn we generate more than enough points to steal democracy two times. With normal reseach it's about 4 turns.
At 100% money our gold income was 1100 before the golden age. now it's about 1500-1600.
I made an estimation about our invasion force: 60-70 riflemen, 10 cannons, 10 machinegunners, 4 cuirassier. Cfc will send an other 50-60 units, i think maya has no chance. I don't think aztec will help them, but they might join too to get cities for themselves.

[OzzyKP]

Statue of Liberty would be an excellent wonder to get if we can. Would there be any plans to run Representation if we got it?

[mzprox]

I'm considering representation, yes. But I'm also considering an other plan: that is to slow down research after getting 1-2 more techs and collect money, use the money on buying infrastructure in cities, and for that we need US instead of repr. The reason for this is that we had a big tech lead but others are closing now by simply stealing every technology for cheap. (not from us though, but HRE and maya are perfect target for this. We too will steal 3-4 techs). So instead of working hard on research we can make a very strong economy which can make a big jump once we get back to research. We could buy banks and markets in our cities, later factories and power plans (we will get assembly line after railroads) etc.

i think we reached a point in the game where gold and science are not that important anymore.. for science we can easily steal whatever we would want, no one could get a significant advantage in techs anymore. And the gold might be better spent on buying military units and kill our competitors. I plan on buying machinegunners against maya.. spending a few thousand gold. Those will protect us against mayan cavalries and cannons.

[OzzyKP]

Is there a time table for the CFC+uciv war against Aztec? And who would be attacking who?

[mzprox]

I don't know what will happen.. both cfc and aztec has asked for help, but I told both we don't want to pledge ourself. I'm not sure any of them would risk a costly war, both sides are very strong and th defender has adavantage.

[OzzyKP]

As for the strategy of deproritizing science, where do we stand with others in terms of espionage? Last I remember we seemed to be well ahead of everyone in ESP. If we decided to buckle down and defend while shooting ahead with tech could we fend off the tech thefts?