Team Apolyton - Strategic Planning

[OzzyKP]

Btw Egypt is not my primary concern.. they have enough enemies.. but cfc/india is just abbout to get zulu's land, maya will stay out from wars and are very strong economically..

We should really set some long term goal and i don't have one yet.

Good idea.

I propose we decide what our ultimate goal is for the game and what victory condition we plan to pursue. Then we should take stock of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Once we've assessed that we can figure out more particular objectives and strategies that make sense for our situation that will help us reach our goal.

Let's start by answering some questions.

1. What is our mission for this game? Are we planning to win this game ourselves, or be a king maker for a winning ally? Or just try to prevent someone else from winning?

2. If we are aiming to win this ourselves, what path do we see as best for victory? Conquest, domination, space ship, cultural, or diplomatic?

3. What are the top external threats (i.e. enemy civs) to prevent this from happening?

4. What are the top internal challenges that stand in our way?

5. What are the top external opportunities (i.e. allies, conflict between enemies, etc) that will help us achieve our goal?

6. What are the top internal strengths that make us best suited for achieving our goal?

[Dinner]

The only victory we realisticly might get to first is the space race victory.

[mzprox]

Right now our position suggest a very strong kingmaker. This might change but this is how things look like now. In the close future RB and CFC will be the big powers, I think we and maya will be in the second line, aztec and hre will be strong, but not as strong as us.
I think what we should do is to try to keep up the balance of power. allying with cfc is kinda natural as we have good reltions with them, but even if I wouldn1t like it we must prepare to abandon this partnership if cfc grows too strong.
Our position between the current powers is not too promising.
from west to east:
-we don't have plan against HRE, we have nap with them till t210, and they are quite far away
-I don't like the maya.. they are greedy and not co-operative. they are pushing their culture against us. Also they are a bit stronger than us at the moment. we have nap till t180, a war between us is very likely even if it would have a big gain war at all.
-with aztec we have good relations, but they are very weak, and unlike us I don1t think they are planning mass drafting.
-the big evil RB... If we want to get cities it shouldbe from them, former incan cities. I hope we can get into a limited war and not just help cfc to get the no 1 position.

Overall our best bet is to stay away from big wars (especially we should void to get dogplied by any alliances). We need to get more cities, hopefully we ca conquer some from EGypt, but we should also try to colonize in the arctic sea. those sites are bad for production, but still not that bad for commerce.

[OzzyKP]

Can everyone answer the 6 questions? It helps to guide the process so we can look at things more objectively. Thanks.

[Dinner]

Since the only realistic way we can win is via a space race it would seem science and production are needed for that.

[mzprox]

As i have said in my previous post we must prepaare to abandon cfc if they grow too strong, and with current events this become a very likely outcome.
While RB will strugle with inca who has war elephants and soon longbows (thanks to our help partly) cfc will destroy the zulu in a few turns and they told me they have 70 units next to maya borders. There is a chance that cfc will make great damage or even destroy the maya too. Then their power will be much greater than RB's.
This kind of event no one could foresee.. stupid mayans caused this to themselves. I hope to find power balance somehow.
as a rminder: we have naps with:
RB/egypt t170
Aztec t170
Maya: t180
cfc/india t200
Hre t210
WPC/natives t200

[Dinner]

So CFC is waging war on the Zulu and still has enough spare units to leave 70 units just sitting there? Even with mass drafting we won't be able to play in the same league as that and remember we have the second smallest population to begin with. We simply must expand on a massive scale if we hope to even keep up as a second rate power.

[mzprox]

it's the same army they are using against the zulu. Cfc just as RB did heavy draftings recently.