[Spoilers] I have enough games already. Oh look, a PBEM !

[Miguelito]

The turn greeted us with a question:




...to which we got an answer:


(btw, historically inaccurate lots of clothes the Civ4 hoplites are wearing, it seems...)

of course the difference here is that just our guys got shields&spears



so we got our deserved dot after all
I suppose there's nothing wrong with offering peace now?

Now a new discussion: We can finish the Oracle in 5t, probably even faster with an additional chop (I kind of screw up last night by not whipping in overflow, sorry). We could then pick one of Currency, MC, CoL, Calendar or whatever.

However, we should be able to research CoL witn no more than 7 turns. Then it would be Civil Service. Thats awfully tempting. But of course a gambit, and we would have to eat anarchy for a revolt as our GP plan up to now has been that we don't care for GPs yet. The question is if us taking Buddhism is enough to deter the others from going Oracle.
Two variants of that would be to go MC or Monarchy (each probably 6t) and oracle Machinery or Feudalism.

I'll leave the turn unfinished until you can tell your opinion. If we don't go that way, the path would be

[Commodore]

.

Athenian Greek: "For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
Melians Ottoman Sumerian: "You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational."
Athenian Greek: "Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do"

[Miguelito]

.

Athenian Greek: "For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
Melians Ottoman Sumerian: "You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational."
Athenian Greek: "Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do"

Uh, my supposed classical education doesn't go that far... but Google's does, and the reference is very well fitting indeed, so...

[AdrienIer]

Great ! Send a peace offer right away, I expect him to have a long term grudge but he won't act on it for some time. It would be good to watch his EP and make sure we have graphs on him at all times to track his power.

I'm in favor of oracling MC ASAP build colossus and rule the world via coast tiles. Unless our expanses rise too much. What's the current breakeven rate ?

Then I feel like going calendar. Yes, that's right. The economy is probably going to be ok with Colossus fin coasts so the problem will be happiness to grow into the coast tiles. Monarchy would solve that but calendar gives us dyes plus spices, and the MoM. Other possibility : construction for our UB.

These are words from someone who hasn't seen the save in more than a week, do you think it's a good idea ?

[Miguelito]

the argument agains oracling MC is that RtR lowered the beaker costs. We can get the tech by research in 6t, or via oracle in 4-5t (of course that lets us research sailing etc meanwhile). So no love for the CS or Feudalism slingshot? If not then I think MC is valid.
hmm construction does have some appeal. Not interested in Currency at all? Imo that would be the default choice for the Oracle though I support MC because it's full of joy.

[AdrienIer]

Feudalism is meh. Machinery is ok but our army will be full of phalanxes so cb are less interesting. MC also allows workshops so it could be a good investment. CS is also a good choice although we could get some prereq bonuses by going currency before col

[Miguelito]

well the main argument for CS imo is of course that it converts the 100 Oracle hammers into 739 beakers, while MC is just 277b. The downside is of course that we would be locked in researching CoL, which we don't really need right now, for the next seven turns, while otherwise we can pick up Sailing etc. Otoh, atm we need settlers more than anything else, so not really in need to unlock new build options.

Of course I cowardly leave the decision to you . Good night, it's gotten way too late.

[Miguelito]

btw I don't consider Feudalism meh at all. The Vassalage civic is really good, can be combined with an HR revolt, and even the Serfdom worker bonus (75% in this version) could impact our early game quite a lot (not sure about it though). Also, a third part of the way to knights done, and who would attack the guys with longbows?

[AdrienIer]

The main thing I see in feudalism is longbows plus on the path to knights. Bureau> vasssalage economically. Early serfdom would def be interesting though, it would mean growing tall without whips to control the pops so HR revolt with serfdom. Dunno, it certainly sounds fun. I'm almost tempted to do it just to read everyone's reaction to a t55 revolt to serfdom

The thing that keeps coming to my mind is that thanks to good UU shenanigans I don't fear a war : just build phalanxes everywhere. I'd like to meet Retep though, when we'll have enough troops I think we should send a warrior to explore. Also why not send Sian a map trade ? It could be a way for Grimace to screw us if he gave away our map to the others.

Fake edit : after giving it some thoughts I think I'm going to follow you when you said we needed more settlers, MC needs us to build the colossus (plus forges) so choose one of the others. If you feel like going crazy go feudalism via monarchy else either currency or CS through CoL. I actually think we can get the Colossus later on even without the bulb. CoL also gives us confu for even more possibilities.

TBH even if I was making the decision with the game in front of me I'd probably look at lots of irrelevant ingame data stuff before making a gut decision. So I suggest you do that tomorrow (yes I know you wanted to leave the decision to me but I can hardly decide without the game in front of me)

[Commodore]

Bureau> vasssalage economically.

Someone isn't building enough military!