I decided to copy couple of messages from the private forum:
Luddite:
My response:
Luddite:
Quote:Guys we need to seriously reconsider our plans. He got economics in 1 turn, which means he can research more than 2000 beakers per turn! And now he's in free market, which will pump up his research rate even more. By my count, he could get to rifling in just 4 turns, and then get to assembly line or railroad just 10 turns after that! Of course he might detour for techs like democracy or astronomy, but it hardly matters- he's going to have either machine guns or infantry before turn 200, probably both. His tech rate will go down after his golden age ends, but there's no reason he can't start another golden age in the next 20 turns.
One thing we should definitely do is organize a mass boycott against him by getting all civs to close their borders to him. That won't do much, but it will at least slow him down a bit.
But what should our main plan be? I can think of five realistic options.
1)Have someone who's not in NAP with him attack him, to slow him down. I think rego and Adlain don't have one with him. I'm not sure about mackoti and sleepingmoogle. And I have no idea if they'd even want to do this. We might have to offer them a large bribe (like, gift them all our gold for the next 20 turns) to do that. Or just straight gift them units.
2)We just break our NAPs and attack right now, while he still doesn't have an army. I would feel bad about doing that, but on the other hand, like Plako said, he lied to us numerous times to set up the NAPs, and it's better than just conceding the game. I think even if we attack right now it would be a difficult war- none of us except locke have a real military right now, and he can use his golden age to switch to nationalism instantly and start drafting rifles for defense, as soon as he techs rifling. So it would be a fair fight.
3)We continue to build up and prepare to declare on turn 200-210, like planned. Rifles won't be enough, because MGs are almost invincible against rifles. The only option I can think of is mass cavalry, with overwhelming numbers. 2 or 3 cavalry can beat a defending MG or infantry.
4)The cheesy option. We could do a mass spread of christianity to every city in the world, and then everyone picks one person and votes for them for religious victory. We could either pick one of ourselves by random number vote, or pick a safe neutral civ like Adlain.
5)Another cheesy option. Everyone runs mass artists, and donates them to one player for a surprise culture victory. We could claim it is an allied victory for the 4 of us. I think we could hold out on defense long enough to make this work, using cannons to shred any attacking force of infantry he sends at us.
My response:
Quote:I don't think he can make 2000 beakers just yet. There must have been quite a bit of overflow when he got Economics. However this doesn't diminish the fact that LPs science rate is very scary.
I dislike the way LP has played However when I think rationally I must admit he has played well and in that sense deserves the victory. He has burnt lot of bridges behind him and surely that should backfire him and that is why we're here.
Even if most of us me included, feel that anyone but LP would be best winner, there is a big difference how we try to reach this goal. Everyone should still try to win or survive as the main objectives. For me only wins allowed by game mechanics are the ones I can support. This means e.g. No allied victory unless done by game mechics (e.g. Permanent alliance, not sure if it is on and only allows 2 nations). Handling victory to someone that have played badly doesn't appeal me. Only if someone can convince others to support him for victory then the one deserves it .
Comments to Luddite's suggestions:
1) Not realistic. Based on LP's power he has a NAP with Rego and it would be nightmare to transfer troops to anyone else to be used against LP and essentially also violate NAP.
2) I'm not intrested in breaking my NAP. In the future I think we need a games with more role playing in them, that would allow breaking NAPs without it affecting to your overall trustwhortiness, but this game wasn't started like that.
3) I vote for this. We've a realistic chance even if he gets to Infantries and MGs, but we need grazy numbers of troops. Everyone just needs to start commiting everything on getting lot of troops on the border on T200 (or T210). Start building those cats and send them towards his border now. When you get rifles, boats or cavalry start building them in numbers and nothing else. Sure he'll have superior technology, but if he makes mistakes and don't start building units early enough we can have decisive advantage in numbers.
4) I'm ok with this, but the one wanting it needs to convince others that he deserves the victory.
5) Same as 4 i.e. If the one heading to culture can convince others I'm ok with it.
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