Lots of diplo yesterday. There seems to be wide consensus that France has really not been pulling it's weight and not put an effort at all in meeting with the other Cartel members.
Portugal is negotiating with Babylon about their inclusion into the Cartel, together with Mali. Allthough I'd love for France to give us their researched tech, I'm afraid their play as been so dismally bad, that Carthage, the Cartel's top researcher, would probably finish Currency before France. And that's AFTER they researched Mathematics.
While we're waiting for the negotiations, there has been some tentative planning to eliminate France from the game. Just chucking them out of the Cartel wouldn't be enough, because then France would simply join the other teams.
England has confirmed they can get 4 chariots around France's (zero-culture) copper city. They would take out the city and remove France's metal access. England can then assemble up to 6 double promoted Horse Archers by T90... (I think what did us in was not being Creative, we lost so much time slow building those Monuments and waiting for borders to pop so we could start improving important tiles).
With Rome crippled, I think we could safely provide at least 4 Horse Archers for the surprise invasion force. Along with said England and HRE forces on France's western border, Egypt would be able to attack its east with at least 5-6 War Chariots.
With France gone, it wouldn't matter if Babylon joined or not.
Inca is rebuilding.
Exploit will soon be attacked by India.
Rome will be attacked by Portugal on T72.
Maya and Byzantium, currently don't have enough forces to threaten India.
Removing France would leave us with plenty of land to divide with England.
Now, nothing has been decided yet, but I can feel that a lot of Cartel members want France gone. Ottomand and India are indifferent and too far away to care what happens with France.
Portugal is negotiating with Babylon about their inclusion into the Cartel, together with Mali. Allthough I'd love for France to give us their researched tech, I'm afraid their play as been so dismally bad, that Carthage, the Cartel's top researcher, would probably finish Currency before France. And that's AFTER they researched Mathematics.
While we're waiting for the negotiations, there has been some tentative planning to eliminate France from the game. Just chucking them out of the Cartel wouldn't be enough, because then France would simply join the other teams.
England has confirmed they can get 4 chariots around France's (zero-culture) copper city. They would take out the city and remove France's metal access. England can then assemble up to 6 double promoted Horse Archers by T90... (I think what did us in was not being Creative, we lost so much time slow building those Monuments and waiting for borders to pop so we could start improving important tiles).
With Rome crippled, I think we could safely provide at least 4 Horse Archers for the surprise invasion force. Along with said England and HRE forces on France's western border, Egypt would be able to attack its east with at least 5-6 War Chariots.
With France gone, it wouldn't matter if Babylon joined or not.
Inca is rebuilding.
Exploit will soon be attacked by India.
Rome will be attacked by Portugal on T72.
Maya and Byzantium, currently don't have enough forces to threaten India.
Removing France would leave us with plenty of land to divide with England.
Now, nothing has been decided yet, but I can feel that a lot of Cartel members want France gone. Ottomand and India are indifferent and too far away to care what happens with France.