SMC orders 1784

[cavebear]

I anticipate seeing a poll from our City-Planner soon. He has asked me some very good questions and is preparing to conduct a very difficult job as quickly as possible. It will take him a little more time to develop polls, being new to this task (as we all were once), but I have no doubt he will do a good job of it once he tries things out. I was quite uncertain about posting polls the first time I tried it too.

I am pleased to see the SMC and FM polls up. I look forward to seeing the Science Minister and City-Planner polls up later today. It would be good to see the polls all up "today" (time zones and all that) so that there will be 3 days of voting/discussion (Sun-Tues) and reports on Wednesday so I can play Wednesday or Thursday.

[Ljube]

This is my first post as member of President Cavebear’s cabinet and I regret to be the sole voice of dissent.

I voted against this plan in all of its details.
Allow me to explain why.

We have a treasury of 1974 gold. We should put it to good use. I suggest we stop losing time with Americans and don’t send any more units towards them. Instead, let’s bribe them away since they don’t have the capital any more.

According to the Great Library the following formula applies to the cost for city bribe:

Price of a city = (civ’s treasury + 1000)/(distance + 3)*(city size)
Coefficient = (civ’s treasury + 1000)/(distance + 3)

If a civ has no capital distance = 16, American coefficient = 73

Prices of American cities:

Boston, Sent Luis, Philadelphia – 876
New York – 730
Detroit – 657
Bombay – 584
Atlanta – 438

New York is size 10 for sure, but Detroit, Bombay and Atlanta may be larger than the sizes that show.

If any of the cities is in disorder the sum required for a successful bribe is halved.
If any of the cities has a courthouse, distance is no longer 16 but 8 and the Coefficient = 127.

To put Americans in history books we need to maximise the taxes and to sell all unneeded improvements to get the required money. I suggest we start eliminating the ballast by selling city walls in all of our cities first. As Mr. President has already noted, we have ample defences in our cities, so we shouldn’t fear any attack.
The next to come are the libraries and universities (only after we have discovered tactics which we may decide to speed up after the demise of America).

Secondly, I suggest we stop producing so many military units and focus on tax improvements instead. We should only produce canon and only in cities containing barracks. The cities without barracks should focus on diplomats. In addition, we should try and build barracks in each of our border cities. It is also imperative we locate Pharsalos and bribe it.

I also suggest our engineers build roads first and irrigation later (to maximise the money). I shall also suggest the rearrangement of workers to maximise the money output.

So, my plan is:

1. Bribe Boston

2. Bribe New York

3. Sell city walls

4. Don’t bribe American dragoon (WE NEED THE MONEY FOR AMERICAN CITIES). Move fanatics and diplo combo away to 79, 91.

5. Approach Detroit with rifleman and diplo combo (36, 38)

6. The troops heading for Detroit move towards Zululand

7. Bribe Detroit next turn selling aqueducts if needed

8. Continue in the same way

[cavebear]

I don't know about that. I tried it on some old games, and that formula didn't seem to work. I'm not the world's most experienced person at observing the pattern of bribe-costs, though. If it's worth it I do it, if not, I don't. But I could be wrong based on what governments etc the civs were. Someone more knowledgeable than I will have to discuss the costs of bribery under the specific situation we are in.

[shade]

Originally posted by ljcvetko
According to the Great Library the following formula applies to the cost for city bribe:

Price of a city = (civ’s treasury + 1000)/(distance + 3)*(city size)
Coefficient = (civ’s treasury + 1000)/(distance + 3)

If a civ has no capital distance = 16, American coefficient = 73

Prices of American cities:

Boston, Sent Luis, Philadelphia – 876
New York – 730
Detroit – 657
Bombay – 584
Atlanta – 438

Somehow I think the pressence of wonders will shoot this straight to hell

So, my plan is:

1. Bribe Boston

2. Bribe New York

3. Sell city walls

4. Don’t bribe American dragoon (WE NEED THE MONEY FOR AMERICAN CITIES). Move fanatics and diplo combo away to 79, 91.

5. Approach Detroit with rifleman and diplo combo (36, 38)

6. The troops heading for Detroit move towards Zululand

7. Bribe Detroit next turn selling aqueducts if needed

8. Continue in the same way

4.= get hunted and killed or just step into an ambush ...=lose diplo=takes a lot of turns to get an other one there(the Dragoon won't be that expensive(and will prob be a NONE))

Selling stuff might be great, when the game is almost finished but we are just starting our fights. There are still some >60 cities which we need to conquer...and that won't happen over night.

Shade

[Ljube]

According to the Great Library the following formula applies to the cost for unit bribe:

Price of a unit = (civ’s treasury + 750)/(distance + 2)*(number of shields)*0.05
Coefficient = (civ’s treasury + 750)/(distance + 2)

American Coefficient = 63
Price for dragoons = 157

Too much for a useless unit by my standards (half of our net income).

Wonders don’t influence the price of cities.

I wasn’t suggesting we should sell temples or such. Only useless improvements.

[shade]

dragoons are the best we have atm...and cavalry won't be comming soon.
This unit might prove very usefull clearing the path for our diplo and fanatic, It's not because we don't see any units between them and Bombay there couldn't be any.
(anything further then 1 square from those units is invisible.)

Shade

[Ljube]

Dragoons may be our best unit, but they are far from the unit we need.

The money is needed for bribing cities.
A lone dragoon can do nothing against Bombay.

Here's the route to Bombay I propose.

[atawa]

Originally posted by ljcvetko
Prices of American cities:

Boston, Sent Luis, Philadelphia – 876
New York – 730
Detroit – 657
Bombay – 584
Atlanta – 438

When we attack the American city's our cannons will destroy many of the city's improvements, if we can get about half of the bribing cost back by selling improvements I would say bribe the riverbasin, S-America, Atlanta and New York.

Cavebear is making a good point when he says:

My thoughts are that, from Detroit, the army there can start to sweep south through the unexplored area where we can start on the Zulus and find out more about the Germans/Russians. But we *do* want to take over the American cities first (hence, attacking Detroit) so we don't have to worry about them any more.

In the meantime we can get some roading/railroading to Zulu's done. I would propose we use the bulk of our engineers to make a RR to Zululand asap.

Btw, can we have another 25 or so engineers?
Our attackspeed will depend largely on how fast we can build railroads to our enemy's and we have a lot of work to do.

When finished it could look something like this, first stage being the red lines, second blue after we have taken the remainiing american city's and third the orange railroad to Greeks for the final blow.

[Sparrowhawk]

I don't like the idea of selling any of our city improvements, as shade has correctly pointed out they take too long to build to consider selling them. (only exception: Granaries)

I think we should be bribing Detroit rather then attacking it, and as such we need more information about what else surrounds Detroit (should that army continue to move towards Detroit in anticipation of sending it on from there or should it move in another direction and let the diplomats (with escort) take Detroit?)

atawa's map above helps someone in showing the 8 American cities we have located, but it might be helpful if we could match names to locations (for those of us without the benefit of the save)

/me Citizen of the Apolyton Imperium

[cavebear]

I agree it is time to build a RR network. That's why we worked hard to get the RR tech after all. Investment in a RR network now will make our lives easier the whole rest of the game. Atawa's general diagram looks good!

[shade]

A lone dragoon can do nothing against Bombay.

I wasn't planning of using it aginst Bombay, I intend to use it agains possible units which might be outside Bombay, hereby clearing the path for our diplo.

The railroad plan above looks very good, that would give us the possibility of ruling this planet.

Sparrow: the cities...lets try by hard:
the most south one is Bombay
the middle one is Detroit with a little north of it New York
Boston, St Louis and Philadelphia are the trio.
(that is if I'm not mistaken )

Shade

[cavebear]

"lets try by hard"

I don't understand that one. Sorry.

[Sparrowhawk]

and the one south of Detoit?

[shade]

Originally posted by cavebear
"lets try by hard"

I don't understand that one. Sorry.

(I meant without looking at the save...sorry )

Shade

[Zedd]

ljcvetko:

The vowelless one has a good point, By bribing a city and consequently selling some of the improvments gained we will still have come out better than attacking and killing 1/2 the pop and destroying 1/2 the structures at a loss of at least one of our units. As far as selling existing structures I think a case by case basis for this approach is needed. Banks and universities in citie where there is a gain of only 2-3 gold or beakers are not worh the price when we could ZEN on worker for no reacurring cost.