Military Crossroads

[dutchfire]

We are currently at at crossroad in our military plan. We could continue fighting Rome, or we could make peace with Rome after taking Cumae, and declare on Germany. We could make peace with Roma and stay peaceful.

Options:
Attack Germany after taking Cumae
Keep fighting Rome
Make peace with Rome
Abstain

Discussion Thread

 

[dutchfire]

Personally, I think that attacking Germany is the best idea. At the moment, the German military is still weak, we should keep it that way. And Berlin will be a beautiful city to have, with it's Pyramids. Berlin would also make for a good city to build the Forbidden Palace.

 

[ordinaryguy]

How about war with both of them if we can afford it, economically and militarily

 

[Falcon02]

I think for now we should foster good relations with Bismark. Make him an Ally as opposed to a conquest (at least for now).

 

[Provolution]

Moderator

Where is my voting rights?

 

[DaveShack]

Moderator

Where is my voting rights?

Oh, is that what the PM was about? Go to my account, then group memberships on the sidebar. Request access to "Civ4 Democracy Game II: Citizens".

 

[grant2004]

I've offered a vote for peace, however I would like to give the military a number of turns to capture or burn another Roman city so that we may receive favorable terms.

 

[Provolution]

I did that, still needs the voting rights.

 

[dutchfire]

@Provolution: You could post your vote here, if you can't get the voting rights to work. (At the moment you're still not a member of the Civ 4 DG II citizens usergroup by the way.)

 

[Provolution]

I did apply, even clicked the join group thing, but no one looked at it.

I vote keep fighting Rome, as they will be hanging on our backs and still hate us.
I definitely vote against War with Germany, so if there is a tie between "Peace with Rome" and "War with Germany after Cumae", count me in with "Peace With Rome".

This poll could have had an option for avoiding war with Germany in general, as there is marginal difference between making peace with Rome and to continue fighting war with Rome in avoiding war with Germany.

So I vote for Peace with Rome, since this is the only vote that could avoid War with Germany. Cleverly made to split the votes against a German war like that.

 

[Provolution]

Germany also got Chichen Itza wonder, which makes their defenses 25 % stronger until rifling. This will cost us more troops than what we want to sacrifice, and Chichen Itza is made obsolete by Rifling, which makes it less interesting to conquer, as we are confident that we may maintain the peace with Germany for a while. The continent is enormous, and we need to develop what we got, as we cannot defend this enormous coast with so few troops.

We need a stronger economy, not German conquest from our German friends.

 

[dutchfire]

I only added the Peaceful option to avoid people complaining about the fact that the poll did not include all options (we've had a lot or trouble with an issue like this during the discussions at the start of this game). I didn't think that anyone would seriously consider voting for peace, as I find it a ridiculous option and noone supported it during the discussion. I seriously think that stopping the war now will decrease our chances of winning this game considerably. Well, apparently the silent majority doesn't agree.

We could obviously have an interpretation problem soon, as there could be no clear majority for any option.
Hopefully most people will post their second preferred option here, so we can decide what people want. I personally wouldn't mind us continuing to fight Rome, I would however feel that having peace with everyone soon would be a completely stupid move in our current position.

@Provolution: I think the main point of difference between our positions is that you feel that we can live together peacefully on this continent with Germany until the end of times, while I think that we should try to clear our continent from AI's totally to insure our military safety. This is an interesting issue, and I think it should be debated more (and by more people) as our answer to that issue will determine our civics, technological policies, builds and foreign relations for the rest of this game.

 

[Provolution]

I suggest a double set of polls (speaking as Chief Justice), which would crystallize the options further.

The first poll would close down the Roman conflict, one way or another.

1. Continue fighting a war with only Rome
2. End war with Rome at earliest convenience
3. Initiate two front war with Rome and Germany

Then, we can discuss the potential for either a trade with Germany, or for a war with Germany, as the two options are mutually exclusive.

This require a much broader and sweeping discussion on a grander scale, as this is not simply a choice of two wars, but a much larger question to be answered, how our continental security ties in with our total set of policies.

 

[Provolution]

I only added the Peaceful option to avoid people complaining about the fact that the poll did not include all options (we've had a lot or trouble with an issue like this during the discussions at the start of this game). I didn't think that anyone would seriously consider voting for peace, as I find it a ridiculous option and noone supported it during the discussion. I seriously think that stopping the war now will decrease our chances of winning this game considerably. Well, apparently the silent majority doesn't agree.

We could obviously have an interpretation problem soon, as there could be no clear majority for any option.
Hopefully most people will post their second preferred option here, so we can decide what people want. I personally wouldn't mind us continuing to fight Rome, I would however feel that having peace with everyone soon would be a completely stupid move in our current position.

@Provolution: I think the main point of difference between our positions is that you feel that we can live together peacefully on this continent with Germany until the end of times, while I think that we should try to clear our continent from AI's totally to insure our military safety. This is an interesting issue, and I think it should be debated more (and by more people) as our answer to that issue will determine our civics, technological policies, builds and foreign relations for the rest of this game.

I think we should reassess Germany when we see what other Civs are out there. We need to kill them off before their UU, Panzer, comes into place.
Somewhere after Rifling, before Panzer, we need to attack Germany, but not now. They will be at their weakest with no Chichen Itza defense bonus after Rifle, and no magic UU or special building bonuses (Mass Assembly Plant).

In short, we should have a sweet Napoleonic War with a Germany in a relatively weak state. After we have figured out the other civilizations, Rome will be long gone, and we will have spent our resources on shaping up our nation in the meantime.

 

[dutchfire]

I think we should reassess Germany when we see what other Civs are out there. We need to kill them off before their UU, Panzer, comes into place.
Somewhere after Rifling, before Panzer, we need to attack Germany, but not now. They will be at their weakest with no Chichen Itza defense bonus after Rifle, and no magic UU or special building bonuses (Mass Assembly Plant).

In short, we should have a sweet Napoleonic War with a Germany in a relatively weak state. After we have figured out the other civilizations, Rome will be long gone, and we will have spent our resources on shaping up our nation in the meantime.

This is indeed the other option that should be considered. I think that it is advantageous to attack Germany now and take at least Berlin, but I agree that attacking Rome is another good option.

About the set-up of this poll, I think we have 3 realistically mutually exclusive options, fight Rome, fight Germany, don't fight. The third option was meant to be covered by "make peace with Rome". I hope that was clear to everyone.

@Assembly plant: we're playing vanilla

 

[Provolution]

This is indeed the other option that should be considered. I think that it is advantageous to attack Germany now and take at least Berlin, but I agree that attacking Rome is another good option.

About the set-up of this poll, I think we have 3 realistically mutually exclusive options, fight Rome, fight Germany, don't fight. The third option was meant to be covered by "make peace with Rome". I hope that was clear to everyone.

@Assembly plant: we're playing vanilla

I agree that these in principle are mutually exclusive. But, we also need to factor in the second preferred option to the first preferred option, and for that we need two sets of polls. The two front war is different from the two separate war concept as well, in case we wanted to explore that venue.

In order to be certain a war with Germany is not to take place, even though I want to fight Rome to the end, I had to vote for "Peace with Rome", for example. Bundling these two issues in the same poll creates ambiguity.

I say we fight out Rome before we even discuss what to do with Germany, that is my call. Bundling these issues is a bit speculative, as staging two wars with the last remaining civs is a too powerful decision to make in a simple poll like this without prior discussion on what to do about our continent.

 

[grant2004]

I agree with provolutions assessment that we'll be able to maintain peace with Germany for a fair amount of time, I also agree with Dutchfire that not much of Rome is left, that's why I consider peace a good option, we won't be threatened for a very long time. What concerns me is our slow research rate, and our huge deficit. I'm sure we'll be able to defeat these opponents in the future, with our large number of cities we can out build them militarily quite easily as long as we know enough technology to oppose their troops.

 

[Provolution]

I agree with provolutions assessment that we'll be able to maintain peace with Germany for a fair amount of time, I also agree with Dutchfire that not much of Rome is left, that's why I consider peace a good option, we won't be threatened for a very long time. What concerns me is our slow research rate, and our huge deficit. I'm sure we'll be able to defeat these opponents in the future, with our large number of cities we can out build them militarily quite easily as long as we know enough technology to oppose their troops.

You should read "Foreign Policy Review", which is a sweeping economic reform, which will add more worker capacity to build more towns that generate gold in our cities and build trade roads between them. Vassalage will also enable us a better and more cost effective force and finally organized religion will give us needed building capacity, to get more city improvements generating gold/science/happiness.

I agree with Grant, that our military deterrence is so strong, that the Germans will not do anything in a long time. I also think that a Napoleonic war with them makes much more sense.

 

[dutchfire]

I agree with provolutions assessment that we'll be able to maintain peace with Germany for a fair amount of time, I also agree with Dutchfire that not much of Rome is left, that's why I consider peace a good option, we won't be threatened for a very long time. What concerns me is our slow research rate, and our huge deficit. I'm sure we'll be able to defeat these opponents in the future, with our large number of cities we can out build them militarily quite easily as long as we know enough technology to oppose their troops.

I personally think that taking Berlin will not be harmful to our economy as I value the Pyramids very highly.

 

[Falcon02]

I agree two polls would have been better in this case.

Cause right now, you can interpret the poll as being 8-1 in favor of peace with Rome, and 5-4 in favor of remaining at peace with Germany.

While the too issues are related they are not exclusive to each other.

All in all I prefer peace in general in this case, we've pretty much finished Rome, and while Pyramids is nice, I see Germany as an ally, at least in the short term. And anyway I think we need to give our economy a bit of a breather before starting another war.