T2 External Consul: Peace with Japan? Gift a city?

[Bertie]

RegentMan & Nobody notice that we can make peace with Japan and get 3 gold and a free city. We have a MA with the Hittites against Japan at the moment, but this will expire quite soon.

My initial thought was to recommend that we continue with the war. I’m not sure if we want the town the Japanese will give us (it’s at the other end of the world; even if we could defend it, it’s a huge flip risk). Also we want the rest of the world fighting as much as possible so they’ll be slow to develop their infrastructure (although in the unlikely event we actually see Japanese troops we might want to discuss peace with them). So my initial inclination was to continue with the war.

However, as I think about it, peace with Japan does present an opportunity: if we’re able to gain a city in the peace settlement, we can gift it to another civ. The benefits? We curry favor with that civ; and this increases the chances that they and Japan will soon be in a war. I’m thinking of gifting it to France in hopes they’ll get in a war on that continent. If they do, when we’re ready to go to war with them, many of their troops will be deployed elsewhere.

I’m undecided about whether this is a strategy worth following through on. And of course we'll wait until our MA expires before we'd execute this idea.

Thoughts? I’ll do a quickie poll just for the heck of it.

 

[Nobody]

absolutely, lets make peace. when did the war even break out? I say take the city and either gift it to some one or disband it. When it comes down to it one less ai city is better for us.

I’m thinking of gifting it to France in hopes they’ll get in a war on that continent.

Great Idea. lets make the french our freinds. (although they might not support us in resource wars latter in the game)

 

[mad-bax]

Well, Japan and the Hittites are already backward, and will never catch up now. The war has already been a success. We are approaching Republic, which means we can cash rush. If the city we can get is coastal, then we can build spear, temple, harbour and secure a trade route around half the world. Would be a big spend in terms of cash rushing of course - around 500g, but it's worth thinking about. Connection via road will take a long time.

Giving a city depends on its location. If it is within striking distance of a powerful civ - like the Maya, then we could give it to Persia wonce they are in Republic and declare war on Persia whilst signing an MA with the MAyans say. The Mayans would have little trouble taking the city and speed war weariness in Persia. The timing might be a bit off for that though.

The Japanese war is done though, whether we continue or not is no big deal really, and getting a city is OK but not wonderful. (Imagine if this had been a continents map!). Really we need to deal with Persia and the Byzantines and allow the MAya to remain strong for trading. The Game will end up with just us and the Mayans on the Map one way or another.

 

[Nobody]

how do you know this big old land is the only contient. its pretty skinny isnt it. there might be another small contient

 

[DaveShack]

how do you know this big old land is the only contient. its pretty skinny isnt it. there might be another small contient

However we have met all the other civs, so if there is more land nobody is on it.

 

[Nobody]

However we have met all the other civs, so if there is more land nobody is on it.

of course, i never thought of the amount of civs. was your pun intended?

 

[mad-bax]

Nobody who was anybody would make a pun about somebodies nick. It would irritate everybody.

 

[eyrei]

Any city they are willing to part with is probably far from their capitol, so risks of it flipping probably aren't that high. It could be one of those tundra island cities that have oil and rubber though...

 

[DaveShack]

Any city they are willing to part with is probably far from their capitol, so risks of it flipping probably aren't that high. It could be one of those tundra island cities that have oil and rubber though...

Excellent thought! What if we hold on to what we can get and monitor the flip risk, which gives something for the Culture Consul to do?

 

[Gregski]

I say we take the city and keep it. If someone declares war on us, they would probably go for that city first if they can, giving us more time to ready our defences of our core cities, not to mention readying our countermeasures. As a last ditch effort, we can always give that city away should we need to.

 

[RegentMan]

The only Japanese city we know the location of is Kagoshima. Perhaps the next chat should only be until we make peace and get the city so that we can discuss what to do then?

 

[Bertie]

Boy, my opening post is a great example of the dangers of posting without having had a chance to adequately think through a problem/opportunity! Sorry that I didn’t focus the discussion better, but thanks to everyone who did it for me.

We don’t know the location of the Japanese city, so it’s likely inland. I doubt if any city the Japanese would give us would be on a valuable resource; AI civs just don’t seem to do that. The goal behind gifting the city is to increase the chances we can get other civs at each others’ throats. However, until we actually know where the city is, it’s hard to decide who to gift it to. I’m inclined to agree with RegentMan that we should take the city, then once we have more information decide what to do with it.

 

[mad-bax]

Sounds like a plan.

A quick warrior from the city will give us some more exploration capability too.

 

[MOTH]

I would be cautious about who to gift it to as we could end up speeding research via AI-AI trades. There are 2 choke points, 1 controlled by the Chinese and 1 by the Persians. These chokes are going to limit the ability of the AI to make contact with each other. It is likely that the French do not know the Japanese for example. If we gift the city then contacts and trading will be expanded.

I am in favor of continuing the phoney war for a while yet. When we enter Republic we will get War Happiness from this war. We might also eventually be able to get a tech or more than 1 city.

 

[greekguy]

get peace with Japan, but keep the city. to have a city on the other side of the continent could be helpful for exploration. we could map out the inner part of the east side of the continent.