Proposal: Road to Greece

[Shiber]

By examining our border with Greece I have noticed that if we dig a road in the tile E E of Mycenae we'll have a trade route to Mycenae. Mycenae itself is not connected yet (requires two tiles of road minimum) but I'm certain that Greek workers are already working these tiles. Once it is, we could have a trade route with Greece.
I thereby suggest that we send a worker to the tile E E of Mycenae to dig a road. There's no need to send more than one worker though because we're not really in a hurry since Greece hasn't connected Mycenae to the rest of its towns yet.

Pros:
* We'll have a trade route with Greece. Finally we could trade off our dyes for some gpt. Once Greece connets its new town in the ivory coast (which I'm sure they regard as a high priority task) we can exchange those dyes for ivory.
* If we trade our dyes with the Greek they will become somewhat dependant upon us and would be less prune to attack. France currently has 159 gold which is certainly not enough to convince Greece to ally against us, if we trade with Greece.

Cons:
* We'll have to divert one worker from our other projects. Other than that I don't see any reasons why we shouldn't do it.

What do you think?

[Sheik]

This is a good idea. Greece would be a nice friend to have.

[GhengisFarb™]

Agree, this has great potential.

[Aro]

I agree. After the french war, we will need someone to love us... everybody around is annoyed or worst.

[Shiber]

Not just after the war. We should start trading with the Greece before the war to make it much harder for France to recruit them to their side when we declare war against France.

Greece may also be a good ally in a possible war against Persia. In my experience, military alliances in Civ3 follow one of two patterns:
- You & Everyone vs. Someone
- Everyone vs. You
If we get ONE ally to help us in a war with one other civ, it seems to sway the others to our side as well (of course, this is late-middle ages and early-industrial, but it could apply here). Plus, if we decide at a later date to crush Greece, it would be good to catch them off guard in a relaxed state towards us. Moreover, any additional exploits we can get are a plus.

[Shiber]

GoodFella: As the Minister of Public Works, what do you think of this?

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Edrix
Greece may also be a good ally in a possible war against Persia. In my experience, military alliances in Civ3 follow one of two patterns:
- You & Everyone vs. Someone
- Everyone vs. You
If we get ONE ally to help us in a war with one other civ, it seems to sway the others to our side as well (of course, this is late-middle ages and early-industrial, but it could apply here). Plus, if we decide at a later date to crush Greece, it would be good to catch them off guard in a relaxed state towards us. Moreover, any additional exploits we can get are a plus.

You've raised many good points here.
My experience of playing civ in emperor depicts the same.

[Captain]

good idea, but no rush - the Greeks may take their sweet time building roads.

I once sent workers into a rival territory, they told me to leave, but when i started building a connecting road (in their territory) so I could trade luxes for gpt/tech, they never asked me to leave again.

is it worth the effort to get one of our workers building for them? just for the trade?

[Donal Graeme]

I believe that it is. The new source of revenue will be extremely important, and something we should try to get as soon as possible. My economic plans are centered around a massive treasury buildup, and trading is one of the best ways to gain a lot of dough(cash).

edit: We should also consider a road to England, Persia or Germany in the future as well.

[Aro]

Shiber,
You're right, of course. We need to neutralize the greeks right now. What I was trying to say is this: after the war we probabily will have just the greeks as friends, but ONLY if we start to bribe them now. I can imagine the scenario: everybody around hate us, but with a solid relationship with the biggest civ (and we will be big, also), who will be so stupid to declare war?
Edit: trying to make sense.

[Inverse Icarus]

we monopolize the dyes (the germans didn't connect them yet, and munich will son be ours ) Any trades we get would be pure profit.

[Epistax]

I agree (I'm happy to hear uber agree actually): WHORE THE DYES.


There is never a downside to opening trade routes, except the time to make them. An AI is going to be an ******* with or without us getting free money. And of course an AI getting dyes from us has about a zero chance of declaring war.

[Inverse Icarus]

the only problem i have with trading dyes is that it makes us wait 20 turns before declaring war.

but thats PLENTY of time for greece

[adaMada]

Good idea -- let's either assign a worker to it, or just build one.

-- adaMada

[Shiber]

I wouldn't say zero... but let's just say France or another AI will have to pay double to get Greece to join a war on their side.

[OPD]

Originally posted by UberKruX
we monopolize the dyes (the germans didn't connect them yet, and munich will son be ours ) Any trades we get would be pure profit.

Yeah lets corner the dyes market

[carpathia]

Great idea. We need to open our selves up to trade for greater profit in the future. Plus if they ever want to go to war it means easier acces to there cities.

If we decide to build a road to Greece, I think one worker will suffice. We've got bigger plans at the moment, and we need all the other workers in locations where they'd come in more handy. There's still a lot of jungle to be cleared, yet.

[GoodFella]

I like the idea and will definately take it into account when I look at the game.

[Shiber]

Here's another idea: if we capture France's iron deposit we'll have two iron resources, which would mean we can trade iron. However, we want Greece to have access to iron as late as possible in the game. Greece itself is on the way to acquiring an iron resource of its own, but first their colony on ivory coast needs to culturally expand and has to be connected by a road.
I suggest we do the following: we'll keep a close watch over Greece's progress on the way to bringing iron to its empire by exchanging world maps with Greece frequently. When we are convinced that they are about to connect their iron tile in a turn or two, we'll offer them our own iron for a 20 turns deal! That way we could squeeze some sweet gpt from them without giving them iron significantly earlier in the game than they would have gotten without us.

[adaMada]

Hm... interesting idea. I like it . Let's just worry about connecting two sources of iron ourselves first, though . After that (if we can do it before the Greeks can), then I'd be all for a twenty turn deal...

-- adaMada