T3 External Consulate - Sneak Attack by the French! Opportunity knocks.

[Bertie]

The French have declared war on us. Although this is an unplanned distraction, overall this probably is a good thing. How should we react to this affront to Fanatannia?

First, the External Consulate proposes that we should form MAs with several other civs against France. Portugal & China will sign a MA and give us all of their gold. Maya will give us gold in various combinations (I suggest we take their offer of 1 GPT & 63 pieces of gold). Japan will do so for currency and will give us 1 gold. Spain will do so if we give them 12 GPT & 16 pieces of gold. I suggest we form all of these MAs. Even though the Spanish one is somewhat pricey, I think this is the most important of all: they are close neighbors to France and will be able to battle them most effectively. Besides, this will weaken Spain which is to our advantage.

Second, we should take the French cities closest to us. These would be the cities of Marseilles (which has a luxury) and Avignon, and are located on our home continent. These should be fairly easy to take. Because France has high culture and these cities will be closer to their capital than ours, I suggest we raze both cities (Marseilles in particular). After we deal with these cities – and after our MAs expire – I then suggest we make peace, getting whatever we can from the French in peace negotiations.

I’ll open a poll on this after we’ve had a chance to discuss and refine our plans.

 

[greekguy]

The Spanish deal might be pricey, but it is the only one that will do any real damage to France. The other's will just hurt France's tech trading oppurtunites, but Spain could take some land from the French.

 

[zyxy]

France is actually a fairly weak civ, half of its 8 cities are colonies. Razing Avignon and Marseilles should pose little problem, it's just a long walk.

Most of the deals look good. I am not sure about the Spanish one, I am afraid Spain will make toast of France. Spain has GWall, iron and horses. France has none of those.

Portugal should be able to do some damage too. Those acient cavs are pretty good.

FYI, here is an intelligence report on France.

 

[Ranger99]

hehe, i like it a proper intel report is a GOOD thing to have, ur not to bad at putting one together zyxy, very nice, it's very clear and concise on the OVERALL place of the nations, before we go to war smaller and more precise ones are needed at individual cities and improtant resource areas. but its a quite good intel report, a lot like a SNIE, a small one though...

how old are they???


on to the regular topic now, im personally against this war with France NOT because we can't beat them but it's a LONG walk and it might spread us a little thin...

the long walk is the bad part though... our fighters have a chance of being ambushed at every turn if we dont provide proper escort, which can be kinda costly to do.

those are the two main reasons im against this certain war, we also need to build our culture after the dutch war...

 

[zyxy]

...
how old are they???

Thanks, glad you like them. The dates are in the heading, they're from the last save.

I realize it's a long walk, but we'll have forces nearby anyway to take some Indian cities up there. I haven't looked carefully yet, but I think our present strength should be nearly enough. A few more horses may be handy, and that's it.

We could even start retiring some spear and warriors soon.

 

[vikingruler]

I think we should make MA's with all the civs. However, Spain, as zyxy said is very strong and could easily destroy the french before we get then. Like ranger said, it is a long walk, which would give spain plenty of time to severly weaken the french. i suggest waiting until we take a few french cities before making an MA with the spanish. we should also keep this war going for awhile, we will get war happiness which could come in handy.

 

[Nobody]

take there citys on our subcontient, and then send a few boat loads of elite swordsmen and burn paris to ground, show them not to sneak attack us.

 

[Bertie]

Avignon is definitely a long walk; Marseilles is only 4 tiles north of Jaipur, so that's not far for our troops to go. Although I'd like to take both Marseilles & Avignon, I'd be happy with just Marseilles.

I don't think it's much of a problem if Spain becomes temporarily stronger if it weakens France. We want to knock both civs out of the game, but France has a better UU than Spain, so weakening it now makes sense to me. I expect we won't take out Spain until we have Cavs, by which time the Great Wall won't be a problem.

Spain is at war with India; I just noticed that if we sign two MAs with them - against India & against France - that we won't have to pay any gold to them. If we can declare war on India quite soon, I don't see any downside to signing two MAs with Spain. I doubt if they'll be able to take any territory from the Indians or French on our continent; I'd expect them to focus their military on the French cities close to them.

 

[Bertie]

Poll is up HERE .

 

[Furiey]

If we sign an alliance with Spain against India don't we get a rep hit if we eliminate them before the alliance expires?

 

[greekguy]

If we sign an alliance with Spain against India don't we get a rep hit if we eliminate them before the alliance expires?

Yes. (i think)

 

[Bertie]

If we sign an alliance with Spain against India don't we get a rep hit if we eliminate them before the alliance expires?

Yes, I think we do. After thinking about this, I've decided that this idea is just too much of a gimmick and doesn't really serve our best interests. Thus we won't be entering into an MA with Spain against India.

 

[Chieftess]

Actually, I think it was the Byzantines that signed an alliance with the French against us.. If we sign a peace treaty with the Byzantines, then that'll be a nice little rephit for France and Byzantium.