What do we do now ?

[Donal Graeme]

After careful examination of the map, and the placement of the other civilizations, I have come to the conclusion that Sir Ralph is right. Simply put, we must make a gamble: Do we want Apolytonia to be just another civilization, or a great nation? If we do not knock of France now then the answer is no. France, and Greece(but attacking them with hoplites is suicide), block our expansion into an open, centralized country. To truly maximize our efficiency, we must have a Palace, FP as the hub of a major part of our empire. At present we can have but one hub. taking out the French will put us in a position to have two hubs, one west and slighty north, and the second east and a little to the south.

Three points:

1. Sir Ralph is right about luxuries, we need 'em, and we need as many as we can get our hands on. Ergo we have to go for those of the French, which we can link up much easier than the Ivory Coast. And the Incense Valley merely awaits the arrival of our military.

2. The French have not had a reason to develop a military after our campaign. Unlike a human player, the AI does not easily recognize our goals here: expansion. Given that Joan is the least agressive leader, she is almost certainly not building up for an attack against us.
And so she will be just as vulnerable as the Americans were. And if we don't hurry, then it is only a matter of time before she gets musketeers. Strike against the French now!

3. The Greeks will expand despite whatever we do, and frankly we can't take them on at the moment. The Germans are warmongers, so they almost certainly have a larger military, we have to accept they may crowd us. However, they are very close to running into a wall of Aztecs, which means that the AI will likely focus on a military build-up, to attack them. Thus is we treat Bismark well, he should focus elsewhere. And frankly, after we take out the French, the land is pretty much as good as that the Germans may beat us to. And it puts them closer to us, not us closer to them, so in a war those cities will be very vulnerable.

These three points I believe highlight the situation at hand. Thanks for the good points, Sir Ralph.

[Will 5001]

We need some settlers, temples, then a buildup for war, in a nutshell!!

[GodKing]

My opinion........

Defence must be number 1. Get at least 2 defensive and one offensive unit in each city on our perimiter.

Culture, second most important. We are religious, so lets set up a temple in each city.

Filling in the gaps, ties for second. There is lots of space around munich. Also, we can settle around the american cities. Perhaps we may even get some cities close to the ivory coast. This will make the americans easier to attack later, and perhaps give us some cultural cities (defectors) in the mean time.

Third, Connect everything we have with roads, plus roads going to france, persia, germany, and the greeks. This will alow trading of excess with them (but we must pay attention to their unfare trading practices). As a part of this, start cutting back the jungle. This has to be done sometime, better get started now.

Fourth, do not forget our offensive might. Once we hace swordmen, build a couple before they are needed. Continue with the horse units. Upgrade our archers and warriors as soon as possible. Place priority on upgrading with defensive units however.

Does anybody know what government type the egyptions prefer, and which one they do not like? This may effect whether it is better to go for monarchy or republic. Change to whichever is better as soon as possible. Then make a beeline for invention followed by the religious sciences.

Make war with either greek in the gunpowder age, or with the french when our military is full sized, updated, and in position. Set firm objectives before war, with a clear understanding of what we want.

Also, all through the mean time, keep peace with everyone we can. Even the Babalonians can bribe both the French and Germans to attack us at the same time.

We might also want to consider building one or two of the wonders. I wouldn't consider a palace jump unless we had a GL to do so rapidly. Thanks for reading this mess.

[Trevman]

Originally posted by GodKing
My opinion........
Does anybody know what government type the egyptions prefer, and which one they do not like? This may effect whether it is better to go for monarchy or republic. Change to whichever is better as soon as possible. Then make a beeline for invention followed by the religious sciences.

This only effects the AI; there is no bonus associated with it whatsoever.

I say, screw this jungle. We don't yet have the ability to clear it so let's get out of it. We should grab the fertile valley around the remnants of the American empire and move the center of our empire there. The time for our delayed REX is now. We must hurry before other civs expand into the valley. Build as many settlers and workers as we can and expand. Chicago would be a great place for a new palace; maybe we could culture bomb it, but I don't know if this is practical or possible with our weak position and culture.

Speaking of culture, we need at least a temple in every city except maybe Tassagrad or Termina since they are so close to Apolyton. We might be able to flip frontier cities encroaching on the valley.

Infrastructure is important, connect every city and improve the terrain somewhat.

However, another war is neccesary to grow our cities. Our objective has to be to obtain luxuries and it is doubtful that we would be able to aquire them through trade. After we consolidate the valley, we will probably have to war with France for luxuries and further expansion room.

So in summary, build, expand, and then war.

[BigRed515]

War, War, WAR! If we weren't in the middle of a jungle, I'd support the build option. We need those better, more productive city sites that don't require the 20+ worker-turn investment before the Aztecs chew through the Germans or the Abananaba Minor civs wander north. The longer we wait before pruning the French, the stronger they become. They'll not only have the iron linked up before we will, they'll have more productive cities to crank out units, which all adds up to a costlier later war and a more dangerous neighbor.

I don't worry about the French usually, becasue they're as aggressive as roadkill. I don't worry about the Greeks usually because they have a defensive UU. I don't usually worry about the Germans because they usually decide to take on the world instead of just one civ (especially with another militarist on their border and a weak expansionist nearby - powder keg to the north).

However, I do worry when there are 3 AI civs that ALL have more producitve core cities, are ALL stronger, and ALL border us. Law of probability screws us in the long run when the Aztecs DON'T fight Germany, or the Greeks decide Joan looks better than Ninot in a revealing dress, or Joan herself throws a hissy-fit over Timeline leaving the toilet seat up.

So, in summary, war, War, WAR!

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Trevman
Speaking of culture, we need at least a temple in every city except maybe Tassagrad or Termina since they are so close to Apolyton. We might be able to flip frontier cities encroaching on the valley.

I would worry more about our frontier cities flipping over.
I also worry about Munich expanding and blocking off our sources of iron.
Other than that, life is beautiful!

[Robber Baron]

War. France. Quickly. More-or-less asap, along the lines Sir Ralph proposes. Bypass Orleans, and march a stack right up to Paris, making the final approach via backdoor mountain route. A second, smaller wave, of horsemen, moves on Orleans as soon as it can be mobilized.
Meanwhile, plant a city to the south of Munich, start a southern road, and lay basis for major effort to swamp Munich culturally from all sides -- meaning, surrounding cities build temples.