War Academy:Where the rubber meets the road

[roadcage]

Potential rubber tiles

While working on operation canyon tree, I noticed that we have a near monopoly on jungle tiles. And as we all know, or have been lead to believe by the Civolopedia, rubber appears only in native jungle tiles. So to determine if we really did have such a good thing here, I examined the oldest save I could find, around 500 bc and also 750 ad for the lost civs.

Drum roll please

Present borders:
Apolyton... >150 tiles (some already cleared so is est)
Greece...... ~ 50 tiles mostly in the salient into our core
Zululand... ~ 12 tiles(map not old, but this is reasonable est)
England....... 9 tiles (2 near Norwich rest near Oxford)
Germany...... 1 tile (sw,sw of Hamburg on our border)
All others..... absolutely nothing!

This does indeed look interesting. So lets imagine a rubber denial mimi-war strategy.

If we Pinch off the Greek salient and cleanse Oxford the numbers become:

Apolyton...>200
Zululand....~12
Greece......~10
England.......2 (near our border)
Germany......1 (on our border)
All others .... absolutely nothing!

about 89% world supply
about 93% home continent supply

I like these odds.

Humbly submitted,
Ssgt roadcage (retired)

[adaMada]

Wow. Very interesting post, roadcage. You've just made an excellent point for an early war with Greece to take their Jungle tiles (and to think I'd ever start wanting more of the damn things ).

I'll have to put more thought into this, but you've just brought a whole new dimension into the discussion over who we attack next -- how can we aquire the most squres likely to have necessary resources?

Again, very good post!

-- adaMada

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

This is an excellent subject, as it would allow us to control who has Infantry and who doesn't.

[Arnelos]

I LOVE THE NAME FOR THIS THREAD

[Arnelos]

roadcage... did you check for forest tiles that have since been knocked down? Forest tiles that existed AT THE START OF THE GAME can still have rubber on them when replaceable parts is discovered, even if the forest tile is no longer there.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Arnelos
roadcage... did you check for forest tiles that have since been knocked down? Forest tiles that existed AT THE START OF THE GAME can still have rubber on them when replaceable parts is discovered, even if the forest tile is no longer there.

Roadcage got the earliest sav he could find -- 500 BC -- out of concern for that issue. I'm sure people have older ones if someone wanted to try and recalculate, though I can honestly say I don't keep any saves . (You'd want the first save after we'd found all the other civilizations and traded world maps for most accuracy.) Either way, I suspect roadcage's major point remains -- the odds are already with us, and we can further affect that.

-- adaMada

EDIT: Oops! Now see the difference between forest/jungle. My mistake .

[roadcage]

My estimates were Jungle only. I see now that Forests should be included. While I have not had time to count them, and many civs have several, Germany still looks under supplied with Forests. The situation was too good to be true. Sorry guys, my bad.

[Kloreep]

Still, you bring up a very good point: we will likely have a lot of surplus Rubber, and we should consider who we will trade it to (and who we will try to deny Infantry).

Propping up the Aztecs in the north would be good, assuming we don't want to take their American cities. England, Germany, and Greece we should refuse to trade to (unless they have Rubber in their territory they'll eventually connect), so that we keep open the possibility of war with them.

[Meshelic]

I think supplying the Iroqouis with a portion of our soon-to-be rubber monopoly would be charitable to their cause. They've been to small too long, and could use a little grit in their teeth. Then we can send them to Rome and Moscow....

[Donegeal]

Here's a pretty old sav.

[Shiber]

Excellent.
After a few conquests wars (which we plan to go to anyway) we can achieve a complete monopoly of this super-important strategic resource until the Zulu discover rubber (in any case we can conquer their rubber tiles before they can sell any rubber).
See if the Germans ever get to use their UU.

[roadcage]

Sorry Shiber, please see my previous post this thread. I did not include forests in the analysis. (my bad)

[Randolph]

Even considering the forest issue many of the other civs will not have Rubber (i.e. we will have a large %). We simply have to target the ones that do have it...
Controlling the worlds rubber (even if not a technical monopoly) would make a military victory very, very possible (no infantry + no tanks = no chance)

[joncnunn]

Don't sell Rubber to anyone on our contientant! Don't allow any civ that doesn't have a local supply of Rubber to upgrade Riflemen to Infentry. Even if they are are currently our friends. (Rubber is also needed for Tanks, so they same civs wouldn't be able to build them either.)

Monopolize Rubber is much as possible. Oil and Uraninum will fall into the same category.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by roadcage
Sorry Shiber, please see my previous post this thread. I did not include forests in the analysis. (my bad)

Damn, I overlooked that post.
Yes, I guess the situation was too good to be true.