A quick war against the Russians?

Several people have suggested that a quick war against Russia to take a few of their cities that are near our FP would require little preparation and would be a good idea. Since it seems this action could be taken in conjunction with other war preparations, it is a different issue, and needs it's own discussion thread. So here it is....

Personally, I think this is a good idea, provided we take our target cities very quickly and have troops in place to defend out borders. What worries me is the diplomatic repercussions, namely the possibility that the Russians drag someone else into the war. This would prolong the conflict and possibly put us in a very precarious situation, so I suggest we look at the possibility of signing an alliance with one of Russia's neighbors (Iroquois or India would be my preference) to keep them occupied and reduce the chance of one of our neighbors being dragged in on the Russian side.

Do you mean an alliance with India or Iroquois against Russia or against someone else? If we ally aginast Russia then we can't have a quick Russian war without damaging our reputation. If you'e talking about an alliance against someone else we might as well ally against Persia since we're already locked into that one.

Before we head into the war against the Russians, we must seriously consider reenforcing the cities that the russian units and cities are near.

Before we even consider a Russian war, we need to consider the possible repercussions. India, the Iroquois and Babylon all have frighteningly good relations with Russia. What would happen if India got pulled in? Then, the chance either of them pulling in Babylon and/ or the Iroquois will be a big one. If that scenario would happen to play out, Western Peninsula relations would be destroyed, and a war against this ‘quadalliance’ would be nearly impossible to win.

Sorry for always being the crazy guy on the corner of the street speaking of the apocalypse, I want what is best for this nation just as much as all of you do. If we do decide to pursue a Russian war, we will need to do a little diplomatic maneuvering to make sure India, Babylon and the Iroquois do not support the Russian side in this war, as it is, they will not support us.

We can try and get Babylon, India, and the Iroquoi nation to sign a trade embargo against Russia. Would that stop them from jumping on Russia's side?

Can we even do trade embargos yet?

20 turns is really not that long for a war. We do not have to worry about war weariness, so all we have to do is defend our borders for this time. In all likelihood, any ally we procure will make peace with Russia before this time anyway. Without alliances, we would seriously be risking a war with every one of our neighbors. Thus, without alliances, I consider such a declaration of war on Russia a very bad idea.

Do you think there would be a possibility of suing for peace after we took the two Russian cities on our Western border? If we can sweep in and take their cities, and then contact them every turn, do you think the would fess up with a peace treaty before they went looking for allies?

Originally posted by Cyc
Do you think there would be a possibility of suing for peace after we took the two Russian cities on our Western border? If we can sweep in and take their cities, and then contact them every turn, do you think the would fess up with a peace treaty before they went looking for allies?

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I think that they will immediately go looking for allies, and may find one in Babylon, as the Babylonians' military strength matches ours. While they do not have much gold on hand, they could pay in gpt.

If we are to declare war on Russia, I propose the following diplomatic steps:

1. Sign an alliance with the Babylonians against Persia. This will cost us nothing, and will make the price of Babylonian allegiance go up significantly when the Russians come calling.

2. Sign an alliance with the Iroquois against the Russians. These civs have no trade or diplomatic agreements at the moment, so the Iroquois price should be much lower than other civs. I believe it very likely that the Iroquois will sign a peace treaty with the Russians before the 20 turns is up. By this time we should have acquired the cities we want, and can then sign our own peace treaty. It is also possible that the Iroquois will drage other civs into this war, making our job of fending off the Russians that much easier. This, in fact, would be ideal, since we could then concentrate our military buildup to the east for a strike against America.

3. If the Russians still have troops in our territory, they should be told to leave the turn before we declare war. We might even get them to seem like the aggressors.

I like your thinking on points one and two, but I was looking for a quick decisive strike on the Russians. Although your plan sounds good, I may swing back to just waiting to attack Abe.

I think we all have our own ideas about what a quick decisive strike is. I don't see the need for a peace treaty immediately afterwards, but rather just a defensive posture.

I dont think Russia would listen after taking only two cities. It would probably drag on longer then that unless Russia is weaker then she seems. Which would work well for me, I would suggest that if we go to war, we aim for a GL and get a golden age going right away (rush a Wonder).

Babylon and Iroquois should be our targets for diplomacy. Babylon match us in military strength and Iroquois can be fodder while we strike. Chinese should be a secondary goal to leave them stranded in the middle, ensure they stay out of the war.

This is implying the war will happen.

As it is, the only civ that is anywhere near to Russia that will even consider a Russian war is France. And that's just crazy. We need to treat our adversaries very well if we hope for an effective ally in a Russian war.

Originally posted by Plexus
As it is, the only civ that is anywhere near to Russia that will even consider a Russian war is France. And that's just crazy. We need to treat our adversaries very well if we hope for an effective ally in a Russian war.

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We must actually declare war before most alliances become available.

I think Babylon is already at war with Persia. Since we are bound and determined to renew the alliance with China we might as well ally with Babylon as well and keep them all on the Long March to Persia.

I'm not so sure we need (or want alliances against Russia). I still think we need a good 20 turns to prepare for a Russian war so there is time, especially since our governors, domestic leader and president have not run over each other in their enthusiasm to prepare for any war. I think we want to time a Russian war so as to be able to extort military tradition from them anyway so we can take some time to prepare and we could stay at war for 20 turns if we do ally.

Cyc has used the term surgical strike. Perhaps we should lay out our objectives. What cities do we want from Russia? What luxuries or resources do they have that we want? Let's try spelling it out and seeing what we need to accomplish those goals.

We may want an ROP with Babylon simply to be able ot place our troops in position for a blitzkrieg. I don't think we can do trade embargoes yet. (What do we need to be able to do that anyway?) I think Russia is getting horses from Babylon. If we could cut of that supply Russia would be easy prey...

I would be against allying with anybody against Russia. Continue using Persia as our rallying point for allies.

Can we drain Russia's funds? Is there anything we can sell them (with no term duration, of course - things like workers, maps and techs) to reduce their treasury?

Objectives should be clear cut. We should be able to take their 3 cities that are already in our territories the first round of conflict. Estimate 2 or 3 rounds after that to take another 2 cities. At that point they should be willing to talk peace.

We should atack Russia.

Conquest Osaka, Rostovo and Minsk. I prefer to raze Riga, it overlaps Androbius and Nocsfiedera.

:flamedevi

Russia currently has only 18g. We can sell our WM to them for 9g and their WM.

We should be able to take Riga, Osaka and Rostov in the first wave by placing sufficient forces just outside these cities. For less than 200g we can investigate those three cities to determine how much of a force we need to take those cities. Note the force should also include a permanent garrison for these cities.
Minsk, Odessa and Vladivostok are in line after Rostov. I suggest we try to get those cities as well since the next in line is Kiev which has a source of silk which we would benefit from owning.

The rest, which is mostly hills and mountains we can leave to Catherine.

If we can get an ROP with Babylon it would be to our advantage to place a strike force inside Babylon near St. Petersburg. The objective of this strike force would be to cut off Russia's saltpeter supply near St. Pete and her iron supply near Moscow. Since the terrain is hilly and mountainous, musketmen or pikemen would be sufficient for such a force.

for a quick war it would be a good idea to do 22 turns of "plan A" when we would have built 10 knights for attack and 17 musks for defence of the borders and to be reserves.

we should also get good relations and alliances with babylon and the irqois.

just another idea:
if we do the 22 turns of "plan A" we can get an ROP with babylon and send two or three knights or musks around and attack the core of the empire and destroy everything they can before they are killed and will become heroes of fanatika. this is ofcourse only a proposal and it will risk a long war. but then again it would increase our chances in a long war.


if we do it without my "just another idea" its a bullet proof plan.

if we do it with my "just another idea" its atleast arrow proof and it will weaken the russians extremely