Machiavelly Institute: France's surrender

[Aggie]

I was just informed that we could also trade with russia since they won't get fuedalism until the end of the turn. so we could get republic from them and so 3 techs AND 2 cities for 411, thats 130 tech and maybe we couyld make more money with extra techs.
Aggie

[MrWhereItsAt]

And of course if a consensus cannot be reached the final decision might well fall to me...

Just so I get this straight, there are a LOT of posts here with changes, additions etc, and it's easy to get confused.

The two main views as I see them

1. Some elimination of visible French units, sacking of Rheims, then go for peace after about 2 turns. Peace MUST include Feudalism, anything else we can get but NO ROP.

2. Peace NOW, in which we go for the cities, ROP and Feudalism in a deal afterwards or we get Feudalism in a peace now and leave the cities for a future campaign.

ROP: WhiteBandit, Shiber, Spiffor, GenghisFarb, Aggie prefers
No ROP: Togas, Aggie can live with it, adaMada

Feudalism now: Shiber, Aro, Spiffor, GenghisFarb, Togas, Apocalypse(?), adaMada
Cities now, Feudalism after: Aggie

From these results it seems to me that Feudalism is the priority for the peace deal and, as said, everything else is just gravy. Sorry Aggie, it seems you are in a minority here.

The ROP is a bit more contentious, and I really hope some decision can be made soon. Personally I don't want to bond ourselves to any such commitments for 20 turns, that potentially opens us up to French invaders with only 100 gold recompense.

[Apocalypse]

I'm for Feudalism now. I've stated it in a few thread plus I've said I've always supported tech trades. They make me look good without actually doing anything.

I'm fine either way on the ROP issue. That isn't really my area.

[WhiteBandit]

Yet another post on my view of ROP

Well since I can do what I need without an ROP, you can probably add me to the oppose list. However, I don't think France will have the infastructure to be a military threat within the next 20 turns. I'd mainly support the ROP if it would get us a better deal in trading (such as for Feudalism).

Otherwise the ROP is of no use.

[DAVOUT]

No ROP.

ROP should not be considered as a source of income when you are not the day before chapter 11.

[Spiffor]

I can live without RoP : the French will charge us more when we buy feudalism, but we should be able to get much money back.

But I still think we MUST have peace NOW, and I strongly disagree with Togas. Should we lose Port Rouge, this whole thread will be pointless, because the conditions for peace will be completely different.
Should we lose one or 2 swordsmen, our attack of America will suffer a delay.
The worst is : Should we raze Rheims, the Greeks will settle the place. Don't forget the Greeks are in Golden Age, and their core is right next to Rheims. They'll get the 24 shields they need for a settler in no time. OTOH, our core is much further, and no settler is currently being built ; our closest roads are also pretty far away.

2 turns later is not a "minor wait" : it's a major change. And I think this change will be worse for us. Togas, I urge you to think more on this issue, and to change your mind.

[Shiber]

I don't see how we can compare this case to the Persian incident. Persia has an aggression setting of 4/5, France has an aggression setting of 1/5. Persia was bribed into the war, they did not prepare for it, and hence all the free slaves we got.
Furthermore, a lot of people are still afraid of France turning back on us regardless of the fact that France has the weakest economy and production infrastructure in Abananaba Major, second only to America.
I do not regard RoPs as means for gaining money. However, when someone is offering you so much money for something he can't possibly use against you, why pass the offer down?

However, after doing the math and consulting the civ3mod.bic file regarding the cost of various techs I have reached the conclusion that if we buy Feudalism from France for 345 gold (the price they would sell it to us for if we don't offer a RoP) we can get Monarchy and ~90 gold from Rome for Feudalism and then sell Monarchy back to France for ~320 gold, so in the end the RoP would make us merely 25 gold. I still think France is no threat, but if the monitary gain from a RoP is as low as that then there's no point arguing about whether we should sign it or not.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I can live without RoP : the French will charge us more when we buy feudalism, but we should be able to get much money back.

But I still think we MUST have peace NOW, and I strongly disagree with Togas. Should we lose Port Rouge, this whole thread will be pointless, because the conditions for peace will be completely different.
Should we lose one or 2 swordsmen, our attack of America will suffer a delay.
The worst is : Should we raze Rheims, the Greeks will settle the place. Don't forget the Greeks are in Golden Age, and their core is right next to Rheims. They'll get the 24 shields they need for a settler in no time. OTOH, our core is much further, and no settler is currently being built ; our closest roads are also pretty far away.

2 turns later is not a "minor wait" : it's a major change. And I think this change will be worse for us. Togas, I urge you to think more on this issue, and to change your mind.

Well spoken Spiffor.