Our first priority should be OUR continent, not Uber Isle

[Captain]

Continental concentration versus more exploration discussion:
(very general, so I didn't make it into a War Academy thing, even though I'd love to get Academy input)

Given the new information we have from our map trades, I feel we should put colonization and defense of our Continental territory FIRST.

As tempting as it is to explore an island, given our other problems, how can we afford to divert our scarce resources from the key task of carving out a large enough, defensible territory with the necessary production potential, to contain necessary strategic resources?

We simply are too weak. We can't afford to split our efforts into exploring/colonizing some sketchy island where returns from the investment will take 100s of turns. We should spend our efforts on making sure we're strong and secure enough on the continent to avoid being pushed off it. I say forget the island until we're sure the island won't be the place of our last stand.

We can ALREADY see our main continent. We should concentrate on securing what we can already and postpone further exploration until we can afford to make use of it. Why bite off more than we can chew?

Even if the island is worth finding, it's not worth colonizing. Why? Because if we develop into a strong continental power, it will be no problem for us to take the Island from someone else later (we may even be able to have them donate it to us as a peace bribe). If we run over and split our efforts, half colonizing here and there, we'll likely get killed. Either a more powerful nation will run over our smaller homeland, or take the Island from us later.

Divide and conquer refers to our enemies. We should not "divide" ourselves.

Look at where we're at... weakest of all and with nothing but Jungle in our "natural" territory. If we want to grow, we need to expand agggressively. Look at how some other civs have so much lebensraum, esp. the Aztecs. We need to take America quick and then hopefully france too. Greece is too strong and Germany would bring us too close to the Aztecs... If we take France, we could later also effectively seal off the "narrow" portion of our continent and concentrate on dominating our half.
IMHO, for us to last through the middle ages, we need to have expanded to America and France by its start. That needs concentrated effort on our own continent.

Cull your adventurous spirit and breathe your ambitious fervour into the spirit of war. Our homeland needs you. Manifest Destiny calls.

[Sheik]

Re: Our first priority should be OUR continent, not Uber Isle

Originally posted by Captain
Look at where we're at... weakest of all and with nothing but Jungle in our "natural" territory. If we want to grow, we need to expand agggressively. Look at how some other civs have so much lebensraum, esp. the Aztecs. We need to take America quick and then hopefully france too. Greece is too strong and Germany would bring us too close to the Aztecs... If we take France, we could later also effectively seal off the "narrow" portion of our continent and concentrate on dominating our half.
IMHO, for us to last through the middle ages, we need to have expanded to America and France by its start. That needs concentrated effort on our own continent.

It is very tempting to go and explore new land but we can not run from our problems. Captain is right we must dominate our starting territory before we go off on adventures to places we know nothing about. There will be plenty of time to explore, conquer, and colinize new lands later.

[Epistax]

I believe you misunderstand out intentions.

We drop a settler off, maybe a defense unit and/or worker. It founds a city. This city is closer to our capital than any capturable city on the planet. It is able to help with tech and money, plus gives us a foothold on another land, possibly fertile land, where we can continue to expand.

There is no dividing of resources, each side of the water supplies itself.

[Aggie]

Personally I agree that we should ultimately do both. However our wars should not be slowed down at all by these exploration and colonization efforts. I think our current plan is very doable and good. We take over america and then france. After that we could perhaps spare extra resources(we will need a settler or higher luxury once our cities reach 4). Our next logical move would THEN be a period of expansion and probably war ultimately with greece, since an enemy can not safely be allowed to exist that close to us. Just my two cents.
Aggie

[Kuciwalker]

IMNSHO, we should try and immediately get Incense Valley, as the Greeks could very well do so soon. If we don't get there in time, we should take the Ivory Coast.

[Epistax]

sky walker.. lets kill the americans first, k?

[Captain]

But corruption/waste effectively screws this city over. Remember the formula's dependence on distance and how ROADS affect that. We'll likely only get 1 shield from that colony. That means far too many turns before producing anything useful, including another settler.

Unless we pop-rush. But that still takes time to grow to the necessary population and develop enough initial shields. If we go monarchy, we can buy it, but do we want to spend our LIMITED Treasury funds subsidizing these overseas colonies when we could be using them for trade or building continental infrastructure?

So we are dividing ourselves. The colonies will NOT be as productive as continental cities, or to get it to the same level it would require lots of subsidies. It is not self-sufficient in the same sense. Plus, any military those overseas colonies produce would require crossing the water to get to the fronts. Why bother? If we spread our cities to border our enemies, we can produce and mass our armies quickly enough for an immediate offense or defense.

Additionally, corruption-wise, the equalivent of road building is the harbour. But a harbour cannot speed movement. A road can be used for moving troops, settlers, quicker expansion, in addition to reudcing corruption and networking for resources. Continental development just makes so much more sense.

Productionwise, overseas colonies are less useful, due to waste and distance. Commerce wise, overseas colonies are useless, due to corruption. It is simply not worth the effort until we have a secure hold on our own continent, IMHO, when we own France and America, and preferably the Fragrant (Incense) Valley.

Furthermore, a settler would be better used to fill in America. We can't leave gaps for ai spread. The defense unit would be better used on our continent. We'll need it. We'll take the americans by surprise, but I doubt we can repeat that indefinitely. We need to locally outnumber the AI and take cities quickly. A long drawn out war will be our death as we cannot outproduce the ai. I want to remind everyone that this is emperor level. We can't afford specious adventures. A galley may be affordable and useful just to check the island, but I'd still prefer concentrating on securing our homeland first.

I hope our SMC can agree with this, even though the suspected island bears his name. I hope he can put our nation's welfare above personal pride. If not, well, I suppose I'll have to come up with some kind of bribe ... shall we rename Washington for Uber? Can I offer some bananas?

[Kuciwalker]

Uber Isle is VERY close to Apolyton, so corruption will be small.

[Papa Chubby]

I don't think that building a single galley, worth 40 shields will hamper our military strength so much that we will lose the wars. As for the thought of simply concentrating on war, well don't believe that that is a good idea. We will need to consolidate our gainst pretty quickly after taking on America, otherwise we risk the French, Greek or Germany to take a piece for themselves. Another thing is that we are the weakest, and if things start to go down hill. Well it would be nice to have a Safe haven a small distance from the continent.

[Captain]

It's not the single galley I'm against, it's the idea of colonizing overseas - at this time.

I just don't think we can afford it.

I'm not advocating endless war either. I want our colonization efforts to go towards OUR continent, esp. consolidating our war gains - as you said.

An extra city on our continent would be much better than on another island.

And if we do get pushed off our land, it'll only be a matter of time before we get kicked off whatever Island we ran away to.

[GoodFella]

Looking at the new map, I also think we should focus on our continent. I think after America we should put our resources towards expanding towards the ivory coast between Greece and the Aztecs.

[Epistax]

It's ok if people disagree with me-- I'm not very good at the game
I just hope the germans don't feel overwhelmed by the aztecs, and attack us.

[Robber Baron]

Captain speaks very persuasively here. Until I saw the scope of our continent and the depth of our challenge, I was intrigued by the unknown Uber-There. But now I agree we have to focus every erg of engery we can bring to bear on continental expansion north and (IMO) northwest. We have to break out of our pennisula and make ourselves the central power on [insert name of continent here].

(I'd rather not try to stake out the central ground, but that is where fate and the Banana have placed us. Eventually we will face 2-front wars. All the more reason to move north as fast and as hard as we possibly can.)

[Akron]

At this point, expanding on our mainland is definitely the way to go. However, if we meet substantial resistence from the Americans, then we may have to turn our heads to Uber Isle. Uber Isle won't be a priority until we have thoroughly strengthened our position on the mainland and further expansion on the mainland becomes difficult.

[BigFurryMonster]

Captain is correct. To colonize UberIsle, we would need at least one Galley and a Settler. Not to mention the problem of crossing the Channel, which is risky business.

The Settler can be used more effectively to grab Incense Valley or Ivory Coast. The shields used for the Galley can be better used for military units, or a Temple.