Lost alliances and the war with the Persians.

It seems the French, English and Chinese have all backed out of our alliance against the Persians. I suspect the Persians gave them each the Invention tech for a peace treaty. The Iroquois, Indian and Zulu nations still remain our allies, as do the Romans.

Here are some ideas for discussion:

Should we sign a ROP with the Iroquois? They have a lot of troops in our territory, and they will leave faster if they can use our roads.

Should we reinstate our alliance with the Chinese? This will cost a decent amount (the equivalent of 20 gpt though a ROP and our world map lessen this a little). If we do this, should we also include a ROP to get those Riders through our territory much quicker.

Should we reinstate our alliances with the English and the French? I think we should not. The Roman and Zulu armies, not to mention the horde of Iroquois units, should keep the Persians immortals in check. The English and French are both far beneath us in military might, and therefore should not be too ready to start a war. In fact, I suggest we tell the English to remove their troops from our territory, since they no longer have any business there.

Is it now time to eliminate the Aztecs? I believe it is, but I also insist that we declare war before moving troops onto their territory, and end the war within 3 turns.

We still have alliances with the Indians and Russians against the Japanese, so these civs are occupied at least until the Japanese are destroyed. We must remember to cancel these alliances first if we decide to sign a peace treaty with the Japanese.

Here is my proposal:

Sign a RoP with the Iroquois to cement their 'friendship' and get their troops across our territory faster.

Sign a RoP and alliance vs. the Persians with the Chinese. This will cost 17gpt and our world map. The Chinese are likely itching to attack someone, and this will make sure it is not us. They are going to move troops into our territory whether they have a RoP or not, and if they have one, the troops will remain in our territory for a shorter period of time, and they will be far less likely to declare war. Just to be safe, put two or three knights on mobile garrison duty to follow any significant stack of chinese units as they move close to cities on their way to Persia.

Tell the English to remove their troops or declare war. I would be willing to place money on the English backing down due to the relative sizes of our militaries.

Move troops into position to take out the Aztecs. Declare war as soon as they are ready.

Remain at war with the Japanese, as it keeps the Russians and Indians in an alliance with us.

Begin preparations for a war on the eastern front against the Americans.

I will be at my parents house until Sunday afternoon, and will not have access to civ3, though I will be able to check the forums every couple hours. If you propose something, please state the exact deal.

I really fear the English (why would they cancel the allience when they have troops in OUR borders?? They're on to something). I shall create 2 build queues. There are undefended workers, and moving the English troops would give us some breathing room to evacuate/protect the workers if nessecary.

This is one crazy World War...

BTW, anyone notice the Aztec settler/spear far to the west (by the new Japanese capital? You can see it with the knight).

I missed that. Somehow, that doesn't suprise me...

Eyrei's proposal looks excellent.

I am not particularly worried about the English army. We have them outnumbered and out-classed. They will want a peace treaty within a few turns of any declaration of war. If those were knights in our territory it would be one thing, but those are horsemen...

So for Trade Deals:

Is this correct? anyway, these deals sound good....

I'm not convinced that signing an alliance with the Chinese will keep them from attacking us. I've played more than one game where I've been attacked by a nation immediately after signing an alliance with them.

I don't trust the Chinese right now. I'd wait about two or three turns (assuming they let us wait that long) before signing anything with them. We should know their intentions soon enough.

Even more alarming, has anyone noticed that England has signed an ROP with Persia? That would send Immortals our way much sooner than expected. I think just to make Liz regret this, we should also try for an ROP just so she can play host to our battle with Persia!

Just kidding, of course, but maybe we would want to consider another alliance with England if only to nullify Persia's ROP. If you don't agree with this, then I would at least wait until we had a few more knights in Taliesin before kicking the English out.

Other than that, I think your plan is great. I am a bit averse to giving 17gpt to the Chinese but with Riders on the way, it is a justified expense.

I will get to work immediately on military plans for your proposals.

Donavon brings up an excellent point. With the use of English roads, those Immortals will be on Padmativa's doorstep before we know it. As governor of the South Doughnut Coast, the province closest to the Persian threat, I strongly support and recommend an attempt to get the English to declare war on Persia.

I also think it is imperative that we get the English on our side in the war against Persia. If we can't the consequences could be disastrous. We NEED to get the English to delcare war on Persia

We can also give England incense instead of GPT for an allience, (unless we can sell that incense to someone for more than what the allience costs).

The idea of giving gpt for the alliance is to help insure the length of term for that alliance. When you hire the contractor to put in a new floor for you, you give him half now and half when he's finished. This guarantees a satisfacoty job. If you give him all his money up front, you'll be waiting forever for completion and you'll have to settle for shoddy work. Same thing with the alliances CT. We're forkin' out gold and luxuries to these civ's and they're laughing at us while they break the contract. It is senseless to give our stuff away when we could be giving it out piecemeal for a continually good job.

Cyc
While your assessment of the typical contractor's work is quite accurate, as well as the need to pay over time as opposed to all up front, you seem to have forgotten that giving a luxury would have the same effect.

If the nation values the luxury, then they would not wish to break the alliance lest they would lose their access to it. In fact, once the deal has been in place for a short while, you could argue that Luxuries are a more powerful influence because losing them could cause significant happiness problems as opposed to a simple loss of income.

Yes, 40J. But they are getting the full benefit of the luxury for the time that they have it. This means their happiness problem is fully compensated for the time they wish to use it. If another deal comes up, they can drop us for something better. With gpt, they only get a small amount and we can use the full luxury to get something more valuable than a deal that going to be thrown back at us anyway. Sorry, I didn't forget . If you were a leader of a civ, would you want the full effect of a luxury for a length of time that suited you? Or would you rather have a small amount of gold given to you each turn? Obviously the first one, so we should give them the second one. It will make them stick around longer.

Cyc
Only if you value the luxury less than the gold per turn....

The value of luxuries is too subjective and dependent on the underlying situation to be able to quantify an absolute value in terms of gold or gold per turn. For instance, if Lizzie were producing temples and cathedrals and needed an additional lux to get her by until they were completed, then obviously the luxury's value is short-termed in nature. On the other hand, if Lizzie were fighting a war and needed an additional luxury to keep the peace (from war weariness or from lack of temples), then the value of the luxury becomes greater over time.

Consider also that we should be concerned about short-term benefits for both luxuries and gold payments. Admittedly, if Lizzie (sorry to keep pickin' on you girl... ) needed a lux for only five turns, then she could be more prone to cancel the alliance after that time had passed as the lux "payment" offered her no real value any longer. However, if she also only needed an additional 10gpt for five turns to help fund her research on a specific tech, then she could be equally inclined to cancel the alliance after five turns.

Finally, I'll spare everyone the net present value calculations of future payments. Basically, I agree with you when you say we shouldn't be trading world maps, or valuable techs, or lump sum payments for agreements requiring long term commitments. I just feel that you underestimated the value of luxuries with respect to these agreements.

Yeah, let's sign an ROP with the Iroquois so they can sack New PDX.

Better yet, let's give all this gold to the military advisor so we can upgrade our military. Then if some one wants to declare war on us we can just beat the tar out of 'em like they deserve.!

FortyJ, I have also been the victim of a civ declaring war on me immediately after signing an alliance, but it is always when I sign the alliance solely to keep them from attacking a city with a large force that is already within striking range. There is no stack of doom from the Chinese at the moment, so they are not yet intent upon taking some useless border town as normal. If we wait, then we may find them threatening a city, and nothing we can do can stop a declaration of war. Hopefully, Chinese forces will come through our territory in small groups.

A good point has been made about the English and their newfound friendship with Persia. Since it will not cost us too much to 'break them up', we need to do so. Will someone please post exact numbers for gpt, lump sum and luxuries for an alliance with the English against the Persians? I wish we could see a numberical representation of a civs reputation...that of the English must have fallen completely off the scale.


I guess I need to post a quick poll on this as their seems to be some disagreement. However, I will poll the English alliance separately, including both methods of payment.