The German War - The Objectives

[Provolution]

In the latest poll, we got a tie of the votes wanting to conquer the entire Germany, and those who wanted to only wanted to conquer Berlin.

We are to have a new poll, following the conquest of Berlin, so we can have a simple poll asking for the continuation of the war or the discontinuation of the war. We could do that, or set up the poll as previously, excluding the Berlin option (Conquer Cologne, Essen and Frankfurt, vs Conquer all of Germany).

This time, it should be a single choice poll, with a simple majority to win the poll.


Any specific requests on the matter?

 

[Methos]

Any specific requests on the matter?

Yes, let's spend a few days discussing this before polling it. Besides, some people are going to be busy due to the US holiday (such as our Chieftain). Let's give them all time, including the rest of us, to discuss all of our options and opinions on the matter.

Having said that, please note this also gives me time to even understand what is going on! I've spent all my time getting to know my aimag.

For those of you who have been here since the beginning of this war, or at least a large part of it, here's a few questions:

• What was the primary goal when the war was started? Was it achieved?
• What are our goals right now with the war? Are/Can they be accomplished quickly?
• Do we have the military and/or ability to afford a war past the taking of Berlin?

 

[Provolution]

I agree, we need to discuss this a few days, and we do not need to make any decision on this till Berlin is conquered.

 

[grant2004]

Yes, let's spend a few days discussing this before polling it. Besides, some people are going to be busy due to the US holiday (such as our Chieftain). Let's give them all time, including the rest of us, to discuss all of our options and opinions on the matter.

Having said that, please note this also gives me time to even understand what is going on! I've spent all my time getting to know my aimag.

For those of you who have been here since the beginning of this war, or at least a large part of it, here's a few questions:

• What was the primary goal when the war was started? Was it achieved?
• What are our goals right now with the war? Are/Can they be accomplished quickly?
• Do we have the military and/or ability to afford a war past the taking of Berlin?

The primary goal of the war when it was started seemed to be to take Berlin and the pyramids, I may be wrong on this point but that was my understanding.

The current war goals are unclear, as shown by the tied poll result between taking just Berlin and taking all of Germany.

I think we do have the military ability to continue quite a bit further, Germany's military is weakened due to the previous war with Rome which only ended a few turns ago, if not we completely outmatch them in the ability to produce a military and have a few military technologies over them.

 

[Provolution]

I think we need to discuss this in good detail, and then see how the RNG pans out in the Berlin Battle. That battle will tell us some.

 

[DaveShack]

I think we should aim for being 30% or more larger and more powerful than our largest offshore competitor, and at least twice as large and powerful as both Rome and Germany. That's if we stop short of conquest -- I wouldn't object if we just assimilated them completely.

If we stop short of taking all of Germany, we should decimate their military and pillage their improvements, so they will be unable to rise again.

 

[Provolution]

This is why I thought about getting a few more Keshiks, for a pillaging campaign and to kill off stray and weakened Germans. When we got more hammers and more commerce, we can upgrade these to Knights or even Cavalry, with their promotions. Keshiks are cheaper, and pillage as good as any knight.

Also, pillaging reaps us gold.

I was for completing the Romans first, then take the Germans. But that is history now. I am prepared actually for a Roman attack now.

 

[Hyronymus]

The policy changes too often. First we attack and eliminate Rome, then we also attack Germany followed by peace with Rome and then attack Germany. Now that we are at war with Germany there seems to be support for attacking Rome again, at the same time. I feel sorry for the warlord!

Just to be clear: I'm not against new ideas but they should at least sound sensible and attainable. Ideas sometimes lack that, definetly when it comes to waging war.

Maybe the Warlord can answer what he thinks is the right thing to do tactically spoken. Do we have a better position if we conquer Germany first or Rome first? How much access to strategic resources does Germany have compared to Rome? Who has the most cities left and how well defended are those cities?

 

[Provolution]

This is very simply about three things, logistics, relevant troops and economy

Logistics- Germany would take much longer to conquer
Engineering would be essential to make the wars much shorter, as infantry units move double as fast on roads, something which is badly needed in a prolonged war. With Guilds and Banking, with the intent of building banking and groceries - this seems and feels more like a peace economy. Maybe we should just stop at Berlin right now, until we catch our breath.

Relevant troops, we need to fill up with lost catapults and lost assaulters, as well as we need new garrison longbowmen to be built. Now, we are not needing knights from Guilds at this point, we are far stronger than the opposition in all respects.

Economy- The more units we build, the more we would have needed Vassalage. We now have bureaucracy, which is a fine peacetime civic. With the technology research preferences, the intended builds and our economic goals and the intended Civic Change, I think we can run a low key pillaging war for a while. The problem of keeping the Romans alive was the risk for a two front war, which we got by attacking friendly Germany. Now we the Romans are ready for a War of Vengeance.

This is why I am gearing Formation promotion units and mounted units to Rome, and Schock and Cover infantry units towards Germany, as Germany got no horses, but more longbowmen and spears ( very few elephants), where Rome have chariots, legionnaires and so on.


For this I have three scenarios:

1. Armed Vigilance, we make peace with Germany, and keep our troops ready in the narrow Cumae-Berlin-Munich axis ready to make a good defensive war till we can make a counterattack on Germany and/or Rome.
This would be the case if we are to rebuild the economy right now.

2. Adjust the German East West border farther North, by taking Cologne, Essen and Frankfurt. This would require us to build more units missing to take these three cities,

3. Full German annihilation would require us to research Engineering before Banking, since we would need to replace non-cavalry via road from cities like NOTA and Riversight, a very long stretch to Hamburg and other far northern cities. Engineering makes wonders for roads.

I would like to see the people to seek to unify policy goals more holistically, not putting together a birthday party wishlist. If we want to reach internal goals like those presented on gold and beacons, let us reach those without jeopardizing these with war efforts. War costs money. And if you want full scale war, give me vassalage, and we will see many and promoted units being built. I can fight all war scenarios, but please give me the right tools to do the job.

 

[dutchfire]

As one of the proponents of these wars, I'll try to explain our military history. First off, a link.

During our first two terms, we where mostly peaceful, discovered many techs and founded Confucianism.

At the start of the third term, France attacked us. During that term, and the start of the fourth term, we completely annihilated them and took most of their territory.

At that point, we had a very strong, experienced army. We decided to use it against the Romans as they were closest and they had been fighting (and winning) a war against Germany. We easily took their south, but then we came near Cumae and it's desert. I then suggested to make peace with Rome, as they were mostly defeated anyway, and declare war on Germany.

There were various reasons to wage war with Germany:

• They were quite weak at that time, still suffering from their war with Rome.
• Their capital Berlin, their most important city, was right on our border. It would be relatively easy to take it.
• They had the Pyramids in Berlin. This would fit perfectly with my plan to improve our economy by running mercantilism.
• They were our only real competition on our continent. Knocking them out would mean continental hegemony.

 

[Provolution]

Actually, I agree on large parts of the analysis. Were we differ, is the timing on things, and choice of method.

For example, I would prioritize vassalage for better troops to fill in our ranks, Engineering to get our troops to the front, serfdom to build more roads and improve our land and organized religion to build buildings as we fought on (compensating lost building production due to unit production).
I also thought that doing a revolution right after Berlin would make sense.

I am all for eliminating Germany, but to do so with the right tools.

 

[Methos]

With our economy the way it is, I'm loathe to continue this war. We're currently at 50% research with around -30 or -40 /t. We only have approx. 160 in our treasury which means very shortly we may have to lower our slider again. Hopefully we gan gain enough in our capturing of Berlin to hold that off for a little while, but we'll still have to lower it.

I'm thinking it would be best to capture Berlin and sue for peace. Let us build our economy back up and reorganize our military before continuing with any wars.

Granted, I haven't looked yet to see if any of Germany's remaining cities are worthy enough to take.

Also, I propose that Berlin being placed under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Aimag under Dave Shack's guideance.

 

[DaveShack]

I'd like to see Germany, and then Rome, culled back to the point where they would be vassals if it were warlords. If we want them alive at all, and that's a big if, we want them so docile that no foreign power can get them to attack us for any price. It will be easier in the long run to just eliminate them.

Continuing war with Germany isn't that big a problem if we choose to pillage and raze the non-coastal low value cities.

The +2XP of vassalage promotion boost helps a little, but with proper preparation it is possible to take any German position with the units we have. The additional free units would help with unit maintenance, but then when we move away from the civic we'd see a jump in costs. Better to just have more cities and higher population, which also supports the units.

We should just move new units in behind the veteran ones to protect acquired territory, and move the veterans forward once they are healed. The remaining requirement is a steady stream of catapults to use as softeners.

 

[dutchfire]

With our economy the way it is, I'm loathe to continue this war. We're currently at 50% research with around -30 or -40 /t. We only have approx. 160 in our treasury which means very shortly we may have to lower our slider again. Hopefully we gan gain enough in our capturing of Berlin to hold that off for a little while, but we'll still have to lower it.

I see it like this: We capture Berlin and get some cash, this will be enough to finance research until Mercantilism kicks in. We then go low science on the slider and rely on specialists for the research.

 

[Methos]

We then go low science on the slider and rely on specialists for the research.

The problem with this is we are currently incapable of providing enough specialist to make this work. My aimag alone is predominantly setup with cottages. NOTA is the only one that could be adjusted for it, but would require a lot of terrain work and even than, I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Based off of just my aimag, running specialist would be worse for our economy.

 

[dutchfire]

The problem with this is we are currently incapable of providing enough specialist to make this work. My aimag alone is predominantly setup with cottages. NOTA is the only one that could be adjusted for it, but would require a lot of terrain work and even than, I'm not sure it would be worth it.

Based off of just my aimag, running specialist would be worse for our economy.

With Mercantilism, we'd get like 20 free specialists. 20*6 beakers is a lot.

 

[DaveShack]

It's actually 15 specialists, right now. We'd only get the full 6 beakers per if we select them all scientists -- which I don't have a problem with, and if we're in representation, which we will be.

Our current science output is 120 beakers.

But the current question (already answered) is caste system vs serfdom, which was decided in favor of serfdom.

 

[Provolution]

I think Dutchfire has some merit on the Representation/Mercantilism combination, which is a good one. Where he totally went off the charts, was on the Serfdom one, it is evident Serfdom beats Caste System as it is.

 

[Provolution]

I think we can begin to talk big business, what separates men from boys, war objectives. Please go ahead and give some citizens input, I will listen and poll the options without presenting my own initially.

 

[DaveShack]

I have already posted my war goals. As they say in Pirates of the Caribbean, "take all you can, give nothing back."