Peace with Babylon?

[Furiey]

It's 350 AD and we have achieved our Peace Criteria with Babylon – our 20 turn alliance with Russia has run out and can be cancelled at any time without penalty and Babylon will give us equality or better. But do we want to cancel our alliance and make Peace now?

The War has gone well so far:

• Germany has joined in without an alliance against Babylon
• We have taken 2 cities (in the jungle, South of Deux Rivières)
• All the AI Civs are in Republic, including Babylon!
• We are in Despotism
• Our alliance with Russia can now be cancelled without penalty
• We are still weak to Babylon

Babylon will pay us up to 4 cities. The deals on offer are shown in the following posts, along with the location of the cities concerned. Without the cities we only get 27 gold and a World Map, they will not pay even 1 gpt. The exact deals may change as we will need to stop our alliance with Russia first which may change things slightly.

So what difference will this make to the AI attitude to us (based on Bamspeedy’s AI Attitude Article)?

• We are currently in depostism the shunned government for Babylon, India and Greece (+ 5 attitude points)
• We have an alliance with Russia (-2 attitude points)
• Have a common enemy with Germany and Russia (-3 attitude points)
• We also have temporary -points for Russia and Germany due to killing common enemies.

We would change to Republic (I would guess) on making peace which would give:

• - 4 points Germany as their favourite government
• lose the + 5 on Babylon, India and Germany as we’d no longer be in despotism
• lose the –2 and –3 for the alliance and common enemy

This would give:

• Russia – probably still Polite (they were before this started)
• Germany – annoyed until we get into Republic then Polite
• India and Greece – improving back to Polite as we’re no longer in their shunned Gov
• Egypt will probably stay cautious
• Babylon – they were furious before anyway.

The questions therefore are:

1. Make peace now (cancelling our alliance first of course), or wait?
2. If we make peace, what deal do we take?
3. If we don’t make peace, when do we?

[Furiey]

[Furiey]

[Rik Meleet]

No, we have to capture Zariqum first. After that peace for cities is fine by me.

[tao]

Make peace asap, since regrettably people like despotism while at war.

[Rik Meleet]

tao: I agree (for a change) that we need to revolt to Republic NOW. But we can still fight this war, even in Anarchy. It is a completely different topic.

[Chieftess]

Remember, we're getting very close to pikes and knights. Babylon will have pikes soon, and I very much doubt our swords can hold up to them. We're still trying to expand at the same time, too. (Germany just stole a location near to our wonderful city placement in the jungle... why jungle? ). We took 2 cities. Let's not get overly confident.

Ok, take a look at this. Babylon is on par with us in techs. (mono from being scientific). What will they research next? According to the article in the War Academy section, the tech with units and wonders first (pikes and Sun Tzu). They *WILL* upgrade if they can. The next tech they'll go for is knights and/or theology. (I think the AI chooses a tech with an attacker or defender more if they're at war). Babylon also has horses and iron, so they will use knights if they can.

BTW, we're gonna need a LOT more barracks, too. Only 3 cities have barracks, but only 1 of them is producing swords. This is appaling. (and we want to continue the war?).

Of the 3...

Groton - 8spt (5spt lost to corruption). Building a granary.
Vo Mimbra - 8spt (1spt lost to corruption). Swords every 5 turns (we need this at 10spt, or else 6-9spt means nothing!).
Deux Rivieres - 9spt, building a spear (this needs to be 10spt atleast). However, it can use micromanagement to get it up in size in 2 turns. (all grassland and floodplains). This city needs to GROW, and fast! (We'll also need to control the lux slider for this one - NO ENTS!).

As you can see, there's gonna need to be a bit of micromanagement involved for these cities. I only hope our rules allow us to do that...

I think we really need to stop, and regroup first. We're 4th in Mfg. Goods, and 5th in Productivity. That's not very good... We need to do better... A quick glance at the F1 screen tells me that we'll have 3-4 swords in the next TEN TURNS! Santa Lucia has one partially done, so that could be 6 turns after this one is built. We have spears in other cities being built (some taking 15+ turns!).

[Rik Meleet]

CT: Babylon will have a hard time upgrading. They only have 27 gold. And Zariqum isn't connected by roads, so there is no Iron there.

I Agree with the peace thingy, but after Zariqum is ours. If we don't get that city we'll be hampered by it later on.

[Furiey]

While I would love to have Zariqum (much more useful than the cities that they'll give us in the Peace Deal), what have we actually got over there to take it? All our troops are attacking down the other side of the lake!

All I can see (apart from the single Spearman in each city) over the East side are

• 1 Warrior fortified in the mountains near the horses and Yakutsk
• 1 Swordsman in Sanction
• 1 Warrior protecting the Settler North of Sanction
• 1 Warrior fortified in the mountains next to the Gold N of Montpellier

So how long will it take us to get a viable force there? And in the meantime Mure is sitting there defended by a single Spearman, and Babylon are in Republic and probably their Golden Age as well. We need to be in Republic ASAP, so if people wont change while we're at war, perhaps we shouldn't be too greedy, take what's on offer and make peace now.

[zorven]

Taking Zariqum will require many turns to either produce units or move them from the other side of the lake. I think it may be best to make peace, get as many of those 4 cities as possible, give those cities to India, and change our government to Republic. Once in Republic, we will be able to grow our cities, military, and economy and be in a much better position to take out our neighbors.

[Chieftess]

Rik - I want Zariqum (and the other lake city) as much as you do, but we can't bite off more than we can chew. Let's look at the facts. We have about a half dozen swords ready to take a whack at Babylon's swords on the OPPOSITE side of the lake! Not to mention, we're building 3-4 swords per turnchat (assuming 10 turns). If we were making 3-4 swords per turn, then I'd say go for it, but we're not. This is no DG2 where we had a great start (and we nearly let that one slip away, too, but lucked out). We are weak compared to Babylon, and Babylon is in their Golden Age. While we haven't seen any units, they may very well be building a stack and coming for us. The shortest route to Zariqum is 11-13 turns THROUGH Babylonian territory, and the same amount of time if we went around the other side. Let's just be content with the dyes we have now (and hope the cities don't culture flip).

[Sarevok]

I think we should pull out now and take what we can in a peace deal.

[Rik Meleet]

ok then, you've convinced me. Peace please.

[tao]

I advocated peace, because many citizens require this as prerequisite for switching to republic. Now I looked at the 350AD save and I am not happy with the deals we can get.

What do we want with the cities we can get? We had enough problems with Mure, and now to acquire Eridu, Kish, Shurukpak, and Nippur creates more vulnerabilities.

Eridu and Kish we could get to weaken Babylon and donate them to India. I would not try to keep them, because they are undefendable and likely to flip.

What would we do with Shurukpak and Nippur, if we get them without garrison? Spend hard-earned money to hurry units? I would never do this.

Thus we should either continue fighting until we get a city worth keeping like Zariqum, Ashur, or Lagash, provided that we switch to republic nonetheless ASAP. Or make peace, get as much other valuables from Babylon as possible, get the cities and donate them, e.g. Shurukpak and Nippur to Germany and Russia, to create some future diversion.

PS: Note that you can't trade citied in any deals (except peace).

[Lecky]

This is a CRITICAL decision. I say grab Peace now (kiss bye bye to Russia 1st) and take all those cities. We aint never gonna get another deal like this. Chieftess rightly points out the pitfalls of a continued war. Lets avoid them.

Look - we didn't start this war, but we have sure come out on top. Lets not squander all these gains by getting greedy.

[Furiey]

Actually, what we do with the cities once we get them is a very good question. We're unlikely to be able to keep particularly Eridu and Kish from flipping back to Babylon. Shuruppak and Nippur might be worth a try - we could get some troops there quite quickly using the galleys in relay. I must admit I hadn't thought about giving them to one of the other Civs - who would that come under - Internal Affairs?

[Sarevok]

i think so...

[Rik Meleet]

The cities are more burdens than gains. Gor for max gold + workers etc. If we do get cities, donate them to India, or Russia or Germany. Having cities far away from their core makes them vulnerable as the AI will go try defend them and the Babs will go for those cities as it views them as the weak point. Thus granting Russia and Germany some breathing-time in their war to prepare for an offensive on Babylon.

[Furiey]

Unfortunately they only have 27 gold, 1 worker and will not pay any gpt. The deal for Nippur, Shuruppak, Worker, 20gold is pretty much the max we get. Taking the other 2 cites does not benefit us, but will hurt the Babs as they are ring 2 cities. If we get the cities we weaken Babylon, but will strengthen whoever we give them to. Germany is getting pretty strong, with 18 cities of their own already - do we want to strengthen them still further?

[Furiey]

Poll for whether we want Peace is here

Poll for what we most want to include in the peace deal eg: worker, gold, cities etc is here