Ilios Wrote:Ok here's my thoughts so far on the A4 message
Screenshots
I think we could send them a screenshot of the area to our west. But we'd first need to know the exact location of Aquilonia. Could we have them direct Hernan to their capital so we have an idea of the distances involved.
NAP
I'm really not into early NAP's, but as this our first contact, I am willing to consider the NAP they propose. We could maybe sign it the moment we have exchanged screenshots and have an idea of the future border. If we could leave our entire western border lightly defended, it would allow us to strengthen other parts of the empire.
Tech Trading
I’m actually happy their preference is Alphabet/Maths, because I was going to propose to go for the bottom half of the tech tree. After researching Pottery, I’d like to go for Poly/Mono and then finally Monarchy. You guys have probably noticed the lack of happy resources and I think Monarchy will be very powerful in the short and long run.
With some luck we can land a religion, but that’s not a must. A missionary would be another powerful bargaining chip though. Then we can revolt to Organized Religion + Hereditary Rule (at a discount, because we’re organized!)
I’d need to check the ingame beaker costs before we can see which trades we can do. I was thinking we could trade Writing and Alphabet for Monarchy (with Writing to be given as soon as it is discovered, we could flip them a cheap religious tech in exchange). We'll need to ask them if they plan on beelining. I'll check tonight how long the researching would take.
i like the monarchy path but ideally we'd involve someone who will trade CoL.
i have serious doubts we'll be first to any religion, but it doesn't look like a bad plan anyway. that is, if we can get other people involved. we should definitely work to include others into this plan. maths, aesthetics, iron working, CoL could all be included.
writing+alpha would come out = in beakers with mono+monarchy.
rsch will be slow. poly = 180, masonry = 144, mono = 216, monarchy = 540
*very* rough estimates, probably optimistic, are poly = 11-12 turns, masonry = 7-8 turns, mono = ~10 turns, monarchy = ~20 turns
let's say 50ish turns in all. considering we'd get started on turn ~60-65, that's a long way out. cottages will bring the rate up, maintenance as we add new cities will bring it back down.
i was thinking that since we're unlikely to go for either the oracle nor get to hinduism/mono first, if we can get someone to come in for monarchy, we can agree to trade around CoL + (hopefully) get the religion ourselves. i think we're looking at similar amounts of time for CoL and monarchy so worth a thought.