Should we pursue a peace treaty with the Babylonians when our alliances have run their course? Or should we continue punishing them?

When our alliances are over against Babylon, we should make peace. We should still keep plenty of units in the area and consider fortifications on their border as well as the Iroquois border.

Id delay a couple turns between the time the alliances end and we make peace (maybe 7 turns) So we can assure babylon will never reach the strength it once had.

I think that 7 turns will be enough to take what we want from Babylon. make peace in 7 turns.

Make peace in 7 turns, to finish the job proper.

I say we make peace any time after the alliances run out and Hammurabi gives us the secrets of steam power.

We should wait those 7 turns, and see what Hammurabi is willing to for over for us to spare him the humiliation of destruction,,,

I say 7 turns. We cannot take a rep hit, but we can't just go war happy right now.

I say we keep them under the fire until they are ready to part with something we would like and until we get at least one more Great Leader out of them.

Let the alliances run out if our so-called friends don't have the stomach for the fight, but we should take advantage of our situation and torch the Babylonian countryside right good while we have the chance. The more damage we do, the more chance we have of getting another Great Leader (which, by the way, is feasable as we have several Elite units heading to that area now...) and the more harm we do to Babylon's chances of posing a threat to us in the future.

We have them under our heel at the moment. Don't let them up while they still have a chance to stab us in the back.

We should continue the war against Ira- I mean Babylon. ;) (listening to Colin Powell..)

I say we keep them under the fire until they are ready to part with something we would like and until we get at least one more Great Leader out of them.

A good idea, as long as it does not divert resources from our building program. Without their saltpeter and iron the Babs are no longer a threat to us. We should either conquer them or pull back and not waste any more energy on them.

7 turns seems a good enough delay.

Feodor

With all due respect, Feodor.... Seven turns may well prove to be the perfect number of turns, but how can we simply assign a number of turns to this issue?

We should establish quantitative goals in this conflict and continue to pursue them until they have been met. Stating that we'll end this war in 7 turns is almost as ludicrous as ending a war because 100 hours had passed since hostilities began.

We have the production capacity to maintain sufficient forces in Babylonian territory without sacrificing any "building" program back in the homeland, unless you're proposing the cessation of all military unit production for a period of time (which, I might point out is likely directly responsible for India and Babylon attacking us in the first place).

We should use the Babylonian wasteland (as it hopefully will become soon) as a Great Leader breeding farm. We will need another Great Leader to rush completion of Mr. Darwin's project one day and then eventually to complete that monstrous Dam that was proposed by my former aide, Mr. Hoover. Unless we are at war with someone, we will not be able to produce these much-needed leaders. I would rather be using Babylon in their current state to produce these leaders than take on a new foe in hopes of producing them.

Furthermore, we should take this opportunity to completely destroy Babylon's capacity to trade. Not only will this significantly affect their relationship with the other nations, it will significantly delay their ability to cover their countryside with railroads - a delay which will set them behind us in every way for many, many turns to come.

I do not think it wise to establish a set deadline to terminate hostilities. We should press our advantage until we have achieved all of our goals.

I will point out, 40, that I quoted the time period of 7 years -- and I did not state it as an absolute -- because it was already posted in a number of e-mails, it represents the earliest legitimate terminal date that would not cost us a rep hit, and it approximates the amount of time necessary to achieve the goals you describe.

Other than that, I would expect to pursue the war with the same rationales and objectives covered in your letter.

I do not believe in setting a fixed length of time for a campaign, but I also think that allowing wars to drag on indefinitely is bad policy. Unless there is consensus for a domination victory as our goal, let us get this war over with and switch to Republic or Democracy. We can build up our infantry strength to an appropriate level and work on an economic and scientific infrastructure that will be competitive with the Persians and Chinese.

To that end, possibly CivGeneral can tell us what he things can be done in 7, 10, 12, or 20 turns. And how much it will cost us.

Forty, hopefully we can get a GL within the next seven turns. That is the only reason to consider keeping this war going. The cavalry we are using to pillage Babylonian infrastructure have a good chance of getting picked off by Bab cavalry, and I don't think we should sacrifice them that way. Replacing units that shouldn't have expired in the first place should not be our goal at this time. The only military units we should be producing right now is riflemen, maybe cannons.

When this is over, I do think we should keep those cavalry near the Babylonian border in case Hammy tries something ill-advised.

I voted the 7 turns, but I think it should say "at least until our alliances are over".

I have included in my turn chat instructions that the alliances should be cancelled, and the turn chat stopped after 7 turns. Therefore, we can further discuss peace with the Babs.

eyrei, if we are going to stop the chat for more discussion, shouldn't we just wait to cancel the alliances as well? We may need to keep them if the ensuing discussion beckons us to press on....

It will be impossible to see what the Babylonians are actually willing to offer for peace while we still have those alliances. To avoid a rep hit, we need to cancel the alliances before we sign a peace treaty.

Good point. I guess if Hammy doesn't offer enough we would have to sign on with our allies for another 20 turns?

I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We seem to have public approval to end the war, though.

Peace now? We ain't gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. At this juncture. We already have proof of Hammurabi's weapons of mass destruction... I would show them to you, but then the enemy would know we have them. I say we continue fighting our righteous crusade for world peace by disarming the Babs and ending the war when the Coalition is over. (7 turns... plenty of time to make Hammi sorry he ever went to war with the World's Only Superpower. :) )

Feodor
I think we both feel similarly about this war, and I apologize for singling you out in my rant earlier. I think it was a result of frustration with this poll. I certainly understand the rationale behind the choices provided, but I also wish they were worded slightly differently and that a few more options were added for good measure.

DZ
Great avatar! That's what I call devoting yourself to the job. :thumbsup:

I certainly hope that we can promote a Great Leader within the next seven turns. I was actually hoping to get two of them considering the number of elite troops in the area, and the fact that I think we're due for a couple.

With respect to your concerns about our Cavalry being at risk of attack from Babylonian cavalry, the number of Babylonian Cavalry are limited so long as we prevent them from reconnecting the Saltpeter resource we recently pillaged.

Fairly soon, the only units roaming the Babylonian countryside will be our Cavalry and Babylonian Longbows. Also, if we are able to pillage a significant portion of their road network (as I would like very much to see), they won't be able to get to our units to attack them as we would have 3 movement points to their 1. We could move in, pillage and move out leaving them too far away to reach us in one turn. If they tried, then our Cavalry could easily eliminate them and move on to a new area in which to wreck havoc.

Back on subject, though... I would agree that we should not re-sign our alliances with the AI. Also, I wouldn't worry about cancelling them either. We're never going to get a fair shake from the AI with respect to our reputation in this game, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over making peace with Babylon provided the 20 turn minimum has elapsed.

I think we need to take a set number of their cities, then make peace. If we took a third of all their cities, or even half, that would cripple them permanently. so my suggestion is:

Make them consideribly weaker than russia on the powergraph, then go for peace.

We have an excellent opportunity now. If we make peace with Babylon as soon as we are free to do so (no active alliances against them) they will take a big rep hit for breaking their alliance with Persia. In the mean time we can renew the Phony Persian War.

I agree with man with the slightly schmaltzy new gavel ;)

Wrecking Babylon's reputation will give us a greater edge later in the game when it finally is time to purge them from the face of the planet, since they will find it that much harder to sign alliances and to keep allies on side. I would really like to sign peace as soon as our other alliances run out, and then finally launch that long overdue attack on the invertibrate Russians. We need those FP zone cities! :hammer: