Machiavelly Institute: France's surrender

[Shiber]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
And where does Joan get her magical sum of money?

Well, the idea is that we pay Joan money for Feudalism, then we sell it to Rome in exchange for Monarchy and some money and then sell it back to France for all the money we gave them in exchange for Feudalism.
Eventually we get Feudalism and Monarchy for absolutely free! We might even make a bit of money if we get lucky and the deals work out on the best side. It's brilliant I say, brilliant brilliant brilliant!!
Of course one downside to this would be that we'll be strenghthening the Romans a bit, but I think that's excusable for two free techs.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Togas
When I changed the offer to Rouen + Feudalism, France would not accept, even if I gave France 371, 10gpt AND a RoP agreement.

The AI will only agree to give cities in exchange for peace. If you put technologies, money or other goods on the bargaining table it will not accept your offer because it would be like he's selling you his cities, not surrendering them to you.
Yeah, I know it's kind of stupid that you can't throw in cities to a peace deal which also involves cash and goods but that's the way the AI plays.

[Aggie]

Well spoken Shiber. Togas I have been analyzing and watching the military situation very closely the last 2 weeks. And though I am no longer acting SMC, the analysis still is true. It is time for peace. We have done all we can do. In anger at losing rheims i too called for an attack, but after I calmed down I saw there was nothing to gain. But I have analyzed our situation very closely and though I hate ROP's more than almost anybody, I also see little way it could hurt us. Much of the pop rushed swords are dead. The is little else he will build. He has small cities now that can't produce(even with the advantages the AI) quickly. He simple is pretty much stuck with what he has right now. In short within 20 turns he will not be able to build a threathening force much less bring one into our territory.
Aggie

[Togas]

Originally posted by Shiber
So Togas, basically you are saying that Joan with her 1 pop. and 2 pop. towns and absolutely no gold (= slow production and no ability to poprush or moneyrush) will retaliate within the next 20 turns and will retaliate so hard that our fortified veteran spearmen (which will be replaced by pikemen in about 10 turns, 12 at most) won't be able to fend them off until reinforcements from Mingapulco arrive?
I'm sorry, but this is just plain absurd. I urge you to change your mind.

No, what I'm saying is that we're not going to agree to a Right of Passage agreement with France as a part of the peace process or as a future consideration. Furthermore, I do not appreciate your characterization of my position.

I DISAGREE with your opinion on the harmlessness of Right of Passage agrements, as I have previously stated several times. I have read and considered the debate on the issue and made a decision.

Unfortunately, I cannot please everyone and I expect that any decision made will have some detractors. Lately, it seems, Shiber has been one of them.

--Togas

[Togas]

Originally posted by Aggie
No togas, Fudualism does Not have to be peace deal. They should be done seperately.
Aggie

Feudalism WILL NOT be done separately. The current price for Feudalism is all of our money, plus 14 gpt. That is what Joan will charge us after Peace is declared. That is unacceptable.

--Togas

[WhiteBandit]

Re: Public Works on ROP

Originally posted by Shiber
According to my experience the AI gets mad at you at first and asks you to leave but once you start improving the terrain (IMHO any improvement, not just road, though we only plan to build a road until Chartres is ours. :evilgrin he forgets about it.

I just ran a quick mock game in Civ and this appears to be so. I sent a worker stack into a foreign territory and they warned me to remove my units. After that though, they seemed to have forgotten about it. I was even able to use the worker unit as a type of explorer. It was somewhat slow going since I could only move 1 square at a time.

However, this shows that a ROP agreement isn't neccesary in order to connect occupied France in the quickest way possible. I am really hesitant to divert workers from other tasks in order to create a Timeline - Port Rouge road at this current point in time.

[Aggie]

Togas we can't know what she will charge us after peace is declared we can only estimate. Tell me this, what would be necessary to convince you that an ROP wouldn't be dangerous to our cause. If I did the math to show how many units could be built and movement time would that be enough(and perhaps I would change my mind).We are wise intelligent people and experienced players. Hopefully we can all come to a concensus.
Aggie

[Shiber]

IMHO we can mathematically prove that the French can't possibly assemble an army strong enough to take towns from us (provided that we've garrisoned each town with two veteran spearmen) and then move it into our borders within less than 20 turns. The main reasons for this are as follows:
* All of France's towns, with the exception of Lyons and Besancon are surrounded by crappy territory shield-wise.
* The French currently have iron in two towns, or four after we sign a peace treaty with them (Besancon, Lyons, Rheims and Rouen). All of the abovementioned towns have 1 population, and two (Rheims and Rouen) are surrounded by terrain that is bad shields-wise.
* France has 6 towns with 1 population and 2 with 2 population.
* We are 99% sure that the French don't have a single barracks since we haven't encountered any veteran French units yet, so whatever attack the French can mount within 20 turns (that is, IF they mount an attack) will be made of regular units. Since our garrisons are veterans they have a huge advantage over French attackers.
* France's aggression setting is the lowest possible. Although they are furious at us they are not as likely to declare war as you might think. From my experience at playing civ, France has only declared war on me twice, and both times were in Deity level and after I was already fighting several neighbors (and losing), and even then they declared war in the form of a military alliance with one of the civs already at war with me (meaning they were probably bribed to go to war).

[Apocalypse]

The plan to get Feudalism and Monarchy is great. I support it fully.

[Aggie]

Good work shiber. Now Togas I have done some thinking and if you don't like the rop I can live with it, though I will agree to disagree. But why do you insist on connecting the peace and feudalism. The cities would helpmus in the long term. And so what if we pay 371 gold + up to 10gpt. The cost would be total of 611. however I supect with tech wholing we can make up at lst 300 + from the romans and the french so 311 for 2 techs. I say WHAT A DEAL. Also we don't know maybe we can sucker the russians in(I never tried to trade right before the got a tech through GL). Imagine how much better our country would be with monarchy. And all this WITHOUT the ROP. Obviously I can't be sure and these are just estimates, but the more i think the better it looks. even if we 200 from france we still get 2 techs for 411 still that is 200 per tech. Still a winner and just to help with the decision I'll call it "The Togas Finagle)
Aggie

[Shiber]

I personally think we can give up on the cities and just take tech. We can take those cities from the French later, in a 2nd campaign, whereas gold is becoming increasingly important (now that we're nearing a government switch).
Furthermore, we should avoid gpt deals when we can because if we agree to pay gpt to another civ and attack during the next 20 turns we'll be breaking a treaty (this is just as bad as violating a RoP).

[Aggie]

True shiber, but i included 10 gpt in my plan. So we could get all of the above AND the cities for 411 and with ROP 311. Anyway you look at it a deal. We could even end up ahead in raw # of gold. You know I'm feel like a used car salesman. Remeber we are probably not going to war with france anyway in the next 20 turns and GPT agreement would help them since if the broke that they would have broke 2 treaties in the last 20 turns. Also if we get the cities that is +2 GPT so we will be -8 gpt, not too bad. I usually hate gold per turn too. Hummm mabe france could swithch gov and we could get them in a GPT to us..
Aggie

[adaMada]

My thoughts...

I've got to agree with Togas on this one. This is exactly the same sort of thinking I had with Persia -- they're in REX, they won't dare attack us, the RoP will help stop them. I was proven wrong. Togas, who was against the RoP, was proven right. I don't see that an RoP will help us much now, and I do believe that if we sign one, France has at least an even chance of declaring war again before the twenty turns are over.

Togas is the Foreign Minister -- it is his job to listen to all the input (from everyone), and then make a decision. Sadly, there really isn't a clear cut majority in this case, but that doesn't mean he can just not decide . I think we all should, however, abide by his decision now it's been made, though if anyone has an arguement that they think will win him over they should (of course) post it.

As for cities -- I'm inclined to believe they're worthless. Size one cities, no economic potential, and very currupt -- we'd be better off getting a tech we'll need to defeat the Persians and Germans, and then build our own cities later. I don't think France will be able to regain much of its former power, and those cities should be easy mop up/cultural switch once we take care of our enemies and get our economy rolling.

-- adaMada

[Aggie]

Adamada, that is why I mentioned doing it without the Rop. It still is a good deal. Also there is a real risk we can lose Port rouge if we continue. Yes the odds are in our favor, but if the archer attacks we could lose. Since ROP and money were Togas main arguements against peace and the deal I proposed I think I have answered those concerns since even w/o ROP it is a Wonderful deal. Also NOTHING we do now will help us get a better deal. In short waiting can only hurt us not help us.
Aggie

[adaMada]

Originally posted by Aggie
Adamada, that is why I mentioned doing it without the Rop. It still is a good deal. Also there is a real risk we can lose Port rouge if we continue. Yes the odds are in our favor, but if the archer attacks we could lose. Since ROP and money were Togas main arguements against peace and the deal I proposed I think I have answered those concerns since even w/o ROP it is a Wonderful deal. Also NOTHING we do now will help us get a better deal. In short waiting can only hurt us not help us.
Aggie

Togas' plan was basically to wait maybe two turns, and then do it, right?

It's not a major wait, and (since we are doing a turnchat) he or whoever else from Foreign Ministry who's there could do it early if anything got really bad. Having said that, I don't think it'll be a major problem -- we're talking about two turns, which we'd need anyway to get enough money based on the plans that I've seen (which involve spending some cash on the first turn).

Sorry if I'm off base here -- I missed the whole fact that timing was even an issue here. I kind of assumed that the two turn thing was ok with everyone, but I must have missed a post or two about timing, or only read the parts of them about other issues... my mistake. (Still not sure how I managed that ).

-- adaMada