The Heathens Humbled.

[Ben Kenobi]

Our diligent diplomats report most favourable developments in our great war against the Heathen Alliance.

We have completely obliterated the Zulu civilisation and our missionaries continue to educate their former citizens to be civilised peoples.

We have gained two solid cities, Isandhlwana at size 11 and one of the top two cities in the world, Zimbabwe. With the expired Great Wall and Copernicus' Observatory our priests consider to use their wonders as most majestic cathedrals.

What do we have left?

Starting with the Americans, they possess 4 cities Bombay, Denver, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Although they only have a treasury of 137 gold, they remain in a Democracy. Apparently their legislators have managed to cobble a stable democracy and thus require more stern measures to ensure their admittance into the Apolytonian Imperium.

Next we have the Russians. Against their best interests, they have joined the Heathen Alliance with two cities; St. Petersburg and Moscow alongside 703 gold. They remain in a republic, thus St. Petersburg would be amenable to joining our Imperium for sufficient payment.

Still yet we have the two great powers, Greece and Germany, still allied.

The Greeks have become a significant threat having 30 cities and a Democratic Government. Their anemic treasury of 1065 will not be staying that way.

Finally, we have the Germans with their treasury of 8444 gold and 24 cities, and in a most aggressive Fundamentalist government.

Lots of war left, but we must now consider what the role of the foreign ministry ought to be.

We have 22 diplomats, yet no viable targets, except for St. Petersburg. Should we continue building Diplomats, or should we redirect that production to other goals?

Vote today, without delay!

[cavebear]

We seem to have almost an embarassment of Diplomats. Some are stuck wandering the desolate lands searching for cities to subvert, but most are near the action with the armies. I think we can stop training new Diplomats for the time being. We will, of course keep the training school in place, but with only a staff for keeping the knowledge alive.

What we really need are more Cavalry units. These brave and reckless young men have little regard for personal life or limb and charge straight at the enemy with no loss of strength regardless of distance travelled. Our Fanatics and Riflemen are great soldiers, but only the Cavalry training provides the real attack power we need at the moment!

[Sparrowhawk]

I suggest we continue building diplomats, though I am not sure we need to mass produce them. Their efforts are valuable and appreciated but I do not think we need to overuse their skills.

/me the diplomat himself

[cavebear]

If we must build Diplomats, at least let them be built near RR's. We have too many struggling to get to the important places as it is.

[Sparrowhawk]

Agreed, but this should include all cities, as our Railroad network includes most of our cities by now does it not?

[cavebear]

We have some groups of cities not near our RR system. I was told to focus our RR system on access to our enemies, not our own cities. While I have violated that directive to some small extent, I really did focus on getting RR into the places we are attacking.

[MrWhereItsAt]

A very good point to start a thread on obiwan.

Seems to me that a few more Diplos would be nice, especially if, with our new-found ability to research, we head for Espionage and Spies to aid in busting Walls. Also, as long as we are researching, bribing some more barbs would be an idea to follow as some of them come as NONE units and will be upgraded to Cavalry upon getting a new tech. For this some Diplos in the wilderness may help us as well.

But, for certain we don't need the huge numbers we have been using (I believe, from turn reports) until now.

Build some for the tasks above, but divert attention to Cavalry.

[duke o' york]

We have far too many dips as far as I'm concerned, but we'd be foolish to disband them into new cavalry, for example. As long as we get to Espionage before anyone reaches Automobile then we'll have an incredible force to take cities. However, I still don't think we'll even get that far. I'm looking for the game to be won in the next couple of rounds.
We won't be needing to steal any techs from cities, so the best thing to do with these dips is to keep a couple with the explorers so that they can bribe any surprise units or cities we come across, and send the rest to the front line to defend our troops by bribing enemies and then piling a lod together to take down Berlin's city walls.