Ally with the French against Persia?

Citizens,

The office of Minister of Foreign Affairs is still empty, so let's give some guidance to our DP's.

We're going to be attacking the Persian's fairly soon, but what do we do about the French? They are perfectly positioned between the Western Persia empire and us. We can wipe out the Northern Persian cities, then sweep west and south. The French would act as a nice buffer and distraction for the Persians, preventing them from coming after our main cities.

This would, of course, mandate a 20 turn peace with the French. They will build up their military with this delay, building Cavalry and Muskets, perhaps even Rifleman. I don't see the Persian war lasting 20 turns, probably 15 or so, so 5 extra turns to reposition and reset for France might not be a bad thing.

Thoughts?
-- Ravensfire

France is weak to Persia, I feel that they will come off far worse in the war with the larger, stronger Persia. Whatever deal they make, they are likely to break it first allowing us (if they do break it earlier than 20 turns) to attack before the time is up. As the French and Persians fight they will use up each other's units, and if the French lose cities to Persia then we can take them as Persian cities. France will therefore be reduced before we go to war with them. So even if we do wait the full 20 turns of the Peace deal there is very likely to be much less of France to deal with.

France has only just got Saltpetre and is trying to build a Colony on the Horses near Rome so has not yet got Cavalry. We could, by pillaging roads around this Colony, prevent France from getting Cavalry if we wished.

It therefore makes sense to ally with France.

There is also the possiblity of allying with Japan (after making Peace of course), mainly to keep them from trading with Persia rather than fighting assistance.

Thanks for getting this started, I was also thinking the same thing upon seeing the military planning threads.