From some discussion found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=114699&page=1&pp=20), I am curious as to whom the DG community feels about a possible war and against whom.

The choices are:
War Against India
War Against The Netherlands
War Against Both
No War
Abstain

Note that the "War Against Both" option means a war against the Indians and the Dutch simultaneously.

I would want a war against the Netherlands. Their Swiss mercenary are something to be afraid of: A 1/4/1 replacement of the pikeman. Essentially they're getting 30 shield musket men. I'd prefer to take on war elephants with our knights than these Swiss baddies.

Yes, I'm for taking out the Dutch first. If we wait too long it looks like we'll be boxed in and allow the Dutch to get too powerful.

India first. Give us a good base that isn't too spread out. Once the Dutch send their armies north, we'll raze from the south! ;) (well, not raze, but conquer)

Reworded Play-on-phrase from Jeff_ATARI a year ago.

Well if we could get India quick, I haven't seen how big they are yet really, then it should be alright, but as Regentman said, I fear we'll get wiped out if we wait to long and the Dutch get their UU.

Probably within the next 1-2 turnchats we'd get a better idea of the Dutch territories. While the UUs are a big factor I'd be more interested in the kind of territory we'd be getting - it looks like a lot of desertish land in the case of the Dutch, and more fertile pastures(aka grassland) with India. Clearly for a very early war, going against India would probably benefit us more with regards to expansion. However, war with the Dutch has its merits as well: Instead of us being boxed in by the dutch, we've got India boxed in. Not to mention that if we choose City Site #4 in the third settlement poll(which doesn't seem likely, unfortunately) once we build a temple we'd have IMMEDIATE access to The Hague.

I say that once we knock out India that we redeploy our military forces onto the Dutch-fana.... border and invade Dutch we will have an mobilised military and with our new indian possession we can destroy the Dutch b4 they become a liability.

Ok, I for one, was for building site 4. Anyway, now that you put it that way, war with India might be a better choice for a quick war to build up power. Although the Dutch do have that flood plain with 3 wheat, don't they? That could help our expansion northward greatly.

I would take Netherlands first, since they grow so fast, and we should box in India, and assure we got to expand to China along the coast undisturbed as we box in India.
We are a long way from Chivalry, and we can easily take them (India) out later.

The biggest reason to take the Dutch first, is that they compete for the same strategic and luxury resources as we do, and they impinge on our capital core, as well as our wines and central east coast. With India, we seem to get a well fortified border build on hills, so they cannot really attack us as the Dutch can do.

Take the wheat, get peace, and hopefully the Dutch are stopped dead in their tracks settler wise. Then we can acquire India as a colony province, and come back to clean up the Dutch.

DS got a very valid point there, Rotterdam may well be our future capital corruptionwise, and we need to stop that settler machine sooner than later.

The biggest reason to take the Dutch first, is that they compete for the same strategic and luxury resources as we do, and they impinge on our capital core, as well as our wines and central east coast. With India, we seem to get a well fortified border build on hills, so they cannot really attack us as the Dutch can do.

I agree with Provo. This argument makes it clear that the Dutch are more of a threat to us; and they will continue to be because of their proximity to our core. Take 'em out.

I say take india, then consider the dutch.

India. We can expand at our usual rate through India and gain an extra lux quicker. This will give the Netherlands time to settle more cities and grow them so that we capture, rather than raze. We will have more elites by this time so more chances of gettting a leader for an army, which will help conquest. Our production will be better by then too.

BTW, having looked at the save I can't see the Dutch settlers that are supposed to be swarming all over us, and I can't see an Indian swordsman. We appear to have expansion room to the East and North East. Rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated IMHO.

why exhaust our limit resources on a war against Dutch without first acquiring india and have larger economical and other resources to wage war with, wat if we fail in a war with the Dutch we would be rather backtracked would we than still have the resources to conquer the indians??...no we must take india 1st they are a easy target than once we have consolidate our position we shift our forces for an attack against the Dutch and stop their expansion once and for all.

it is a myth India is easier, they are equally large, but the Tuch expand faster.
We should take out the expander first.

wat if we fail in a war with the Dutch we would be rather backtracked would we than still have the resources to conquer the indians??
What if we fail in a war with the Indians? Would we rather be backtracked than still have the resources to conquer the Dutch?

Let's take out the pain in the butt first. A 30 shield musket man will make life very difficult. Better cripple them early than let them expand, like others have mentioned. More expansion = more power = Dutch golden age = ouchies.

You're scaring me guys. :rolleyes:

We are talking about a plan to deal with them both, before they get their UU. The Dutch need iron for their UU IIRC. So we know how much we have to do to them. The Indians require NOTHING for their UU. We must therefore deprive them of their productive cities. The quicker we do this the better. Add CTs argument to this and there is no choice to make. You only think there is. :mischief:

Although I, too, can find reasons to attack the Dutch first, the way the game is developing taking on India first is the better move. By attacking India first we'll put a good portion of our battle-hardened vet swordsmen north by the Dutch capital: exactly where they are needed. Hopefully that sword stack will include a few elites. By attacking India first we’ll have more swords available to attack the Dutch then if we attack the Dutch first because we'll be producing new units during the Indian war.

Our newly-minted units will be coming from the South. As Chieftess points out we can send these new units to capture the Dutch southern cities. A two-front war offers several tactical advantages, one of which is that it should be a much shorter war.

The same could be said for attacking the Dutch first. We will be producing swords during a Dutch war as well as in an Indian war. We can then send them all forward and show Gandhi who's boss. All our forces on one front might be wiser than splitting them in two.

No one can stand against our mighty hordes of men in loinclothes! Both at once!

Playing the save is not allowed unless you are the DP during a turnchat. Information deleted. Please, don't do it again. That is the one thing that will get you kicked out of the game. Eyrei.

Good arguments on both sides. I was a proponent of the early war against Ghandi and I'm going with India first. I think the clincher for me was actually posted in anonther thread (that I can't recall right now). It gave me a clear vision of of forces moving up the west coast and conquering India then turning right to smash the Dutch.

The Indians first, then the Dutch. But we must have swordsmen inplace before we make the operation. Oh and we should also start the war when there are no Indian units close to our cities since they are not defended by a single spearmen as of now.

Can the elected officials give us an overview of the relative strengths of the two nations? Generally, I'd attack the Dutch first as that would box in the Indians and we'd be able to attack them at our leisure, but we need to know how much we have to overstretch to conquer them.

I say get writing, ally Indians and attack the Dutch from two fronts, look at how close they are squatting our core, they show no respect.

I say get writing, ally Indians and attack the Dutch from two fronts, look at how close they are squatting our core, they show no respect.
That is exactly what I would be doing. We should be making India an Ally of ours so that we can use their commerce for our benifit. The nation of our greatest worry is the Dutch. Since they are Argicultural, they we grow quickly and that is what will hurt our progress is the fact that we cannot expand like we want to do. After the greatest thing we should be doing is expanding in the early stages of the game. Take out The Dutch and we have eliminated our greatest rival in expansion.

At least this is an unoffical poll. Now that we know whom the target will be, The head of the Forgein Affairs can poll an offical one and I do expect to see support for the war against the Dutch.

If I can only get a hold of the Lt. Governor.

At least this is an unoffical poll.
I just wanted to see who everyone was leaning towards. I had hoped to get some discussion brewing; looks like I succeeded. An official poll will be more accurate now.

Since the Dutch appear to be expanding faster than the Indians and the Dutch are expanding into our territory (or what should be our territory), I say let's take out the Dutch and worry about the Indians later.

There's also the matter of honor. The Dutch are encroaching on our territory, taking our resources, and threatening our survival. The Indians are doing none of these, and any attack against them would be an unmitigated act of aggression. I, for one, would much rather participate in a war of civilization survival than a war of greedy conquest.

Don't let the cry "Perfidious Albion" ring true in this Demoworld.

The two main objectives in wars against either will be:
1. the denial of resouces (primarily Iron)
2. the acquisition of luxuries.

India:
1. Iron can be denied by either building an agressive city or by capturing Delhi.
2. Silks can be obtained by capturing their other city.

Dutch:
1. 2 sources of Iron. The first can be nuetralized by capturing the Hague. The second is much deeper and we would need to capture another distant Dutch city.
2. To obtain Spices we would have to capture the Dutch capitol.

As we will start the 1st war with a small army it seems the only real possibility to obtain these objectives would be a quick war on India while we continue to build forsces for a war on the Dutch.

Our main goal is to be expansive. If we go to war with India first, we are going against that goal. They are in just as bad a situation as we are because they are also being closed in by the Dutch. The Dutch are enclosing on the territory that we should be claiming. There is territory to the north that they could be claiming. We must get rid of threat or we might become the first DG to lose a game. We must go to war with the Dutch first. I believe that we would be waisting a good ally if we go to war with India first.

Like another has said, we might want to persue an alliance with the Indians against the Dutch.

whys everyone here so against genocide? in my games i would take out both of these states. its 3000bc morals havent been invented yet

Just a reality check here.

If we fight the Dutch first, we have to take on their weak outlying southern cities first. We will lose units doing this, and some of their cities will be razed at size one, and some will pop rush a spear and then be razed at size 1. During this time their most productive cities will be churning out archers and swords like there is no tomorrow - and in fact there might not be a tomorrow for us.

By going up the West coast we get a starting point for the Dutch war at the gates of either their capital or second city. We can also pause for a few turns to heal up and get reinforcements there. If we take and raze the Dutch capital or second city on the first turn of war then the rest is easy. We will have four or five connected and productive cities. They will have seven or eight low shield unconnected cities - and no fast units BTW.

Taking the Dutch first is a tactical mistake however tempting it might be. The purpose of a plan is to achieve an objective. I have set out elsewhere what that objective could be and in broad terms it mirrors what MOTH says. The northern iron source may be a step too far - ATM I don't know, we'll need to see how it pans out over the next 15 turns. But in 15 turns we should be declaring on Ghandi. 20 tops.

WE don't have the time to muck about with fabricated moral arguments and niceties. A lot of people have a lot of their free time invested in this game. Let's concentrate on not losing first, and we can talk about honour then.

Double post. Cock-up on the copy and paste front I'm afraid. :blush:

WE don't have the time to muck about with fabricated moral arguments and niceties. A lot of people have a lot of their free time invested in this game. Let's concentrate on not losing first, and we can talk about honour then.

Ah, but honor is an integral part of the game, my friend. We're going to win this game whether we go against the Dutch or not. That's not the point. The point is to act like a government, have a plan like a government, and have the respect for our people that governments have. Clearly, the Dutch are encroaching on our territory. For heaven's sake, they have a city 4 tiles away from our capital!

Now, we can wage a war of aggression. We can conquer India, pat ourselves on the back, and build a few more cities. But, the Dutch will still be there. 4 tiles from our capital. Sooner or later, we're going to have to fight them. War with the Dutch is inevitable. We can attack the Indians, who are just as blocked in as we are, or we can focus on the nation that is already a de facto enemy of the state. The longer we wait, the bigger they'll get; and the more of a threat they will be to Fanatannia.