Poll (Official) Declaration of War on France

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

This isn't even a war!

It's a practice shoot at moving French targets with the hope that they don't take it personal because our SMC is afraid of them.

[Proserpine]

All we are saying, is give peace a chance.

[Togas]

It's not a war? Call it what you want. But what it is, is:

1) A method to trigger our GA
2) A "Froggie Shoot" to give our elite units a random chance at more GLs.
3) The recapture of Rheims, stablizing our borders.
4) The capture of two saltpeter resources.
5) The capture of Amiens, Dijon, Lyons, and Besancon, unifying all of our cities into a solid border, and giving us strategic control of the bottleneck on our continent.

Sounds good to me.

--Togas

[joncnunn]

Togas, in my opinion by the time #4 and #5 is done, the French military will be in such bad shape that we might as well finish the job unless we are having war werriousness problems.

A limited war that ends before the main French stack definately includes #1 and #3 but starts getting questionable at #4.

We might try rope-a-dope tactics against the AI to increase our odds of taking the 2 Saltpeters whichout actually having to fight the French main body but it's still not a sure thing.

[zeit]

-Politics are now a part of the equation, no longer just plain startegic and tactical interests. Since Aggie seemed to have commited himself to limited war, and the people vote yes, a complete conquest is not an immediate option. In a way, this is what the DG is all about- it's not just Civ3, it's also roleplay and politics.

Although i agree with joncnunn and GF- as long as we don't face stubborn resistance and WW issues the war should end with us finishing up with joan, I vote yes. It's not perfect, but it still has it's share of advantages, as Togas and others said.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by zeit
-Politics are now a part of the equation, no longer just plain startegic and tactical interests. Since Aggie seemed to have commited himself to limited war, and the people vote yes, a complete conquest is not an immediate option. In a way, this is what the DG is all about- it's not just Civ3, it's also roleplay and politics.

Although i agree with joncnunn and GF- as long as we don't face stubborn resistance and WW issues the war should end with us finishing up with joan, I vote yes. It's not perfect, but it still has it's share of advantages, as Togas and others said.

Don't give in. As long as we support poorly thought out strategy and ineffiecient warplans that is all they are going to give us. Put your foot down and make them do the logical choice.

As long as France exists that is ONE VOTE AGAINST US for a diplomatic victory. We take them out and we need one less vote to win the game.

So a vote NO is a vote to annex all of France AND a vote for improving our infrastructure. The only bad choice is a vote Yes to do a second-rate job at both and a good job at neither.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Actually no, Ghengis.

This poll is about being able to declare war in the next 5-10 turns, according to the first post. It has nothing to do with how complete the war is, again, the POLL, not neccessarily the thread. We can not completely destroy the French without going to war first.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Actually no, Ghengis.

This poll is about being able to declare war in the next 5-10 turns, according to the first post. It has nothing to do with how complete the war is, again, the POLL, not neccessarily the thread. We can not completely destroy the French without going to war first.

Actually yes.

This poll started as a declaration of war with France until Aggie promised we WOULD MAKE NO ATTEMPT to finish off France completely.

There is no way I will support a partial conflict leaving France 2-3 cities we could have effortlessly taken.

Aggie's declaration made the DIA and Hawk votes the same, for Total War or for Peace the only way to get your way is to vote NO.

[UnOrthOdOx]

The first post determines the meaning of the options. It explicitely states this poll is to allow the declaration of war in the next 5-10 turns.

We have court precedence that the poll creator can declare his own poll invalid, but there is nothing of the sort of the poll creator being able to alter the meanings of the options. Whatever has been said after reguarding the nature of the war is not considered, therefore, by the poll.

[Aggie]

Ghengis I DON'T do second rate jobs. I also don't fear the French and know we could take all of france. But just because you can do something doesn't make it in your best interest to do it. The current plan gives us just about everything but the head of joan. Earlier you said you were worried she would be taken over by somebody else and now you say you are afraid she will be around to sink us in the diplomatic vote. Which is it, they can't both be true. I worry far more about the former than the latter, she will be destroyed, hopefully by us, long before the diplomatic vote. NOT GOING TO WAR KNOW and taking these resources and connecting our nation would be the mistake, not stoping w/o joans head. Ghengis usually I share your opinions, but on this issue I'm afraid we will have agree to disagree.
Aggie

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Aggie
Ghengis I DON'T do second rate jobs. I also don't fear the French and know we could take all of france. But just because you can do something doesn't make it in your best interest to do it. The current plan gives us just about everything but the head of joan. Earlier you said you were worried she would be taken over by somebody else and now you say you are afraid she will be around to sink us in the diplomatic vote. Which is it, they can't both be true. I worry far more about the former than the latter, she will be destroyed, hopefully by us, long before the diplomatic vote. NOT GOING TO WAR KNOW and taking these resources and connecting our nation would be the mistake, not stoping w/o joans head. Ghengis usually I share your opinions, but on this issue I'm afraid we will have agree to disagree.
Aggie

THEY ARE BOTH VALID POSSIBILITIES IF WE DON"T TAKE ALL OF FRANCE.

Either way we give something away for nothing, France is going to trade for Saltpeter if they don't have it. IF we can take all of France except the three northwestern cities what is it they are capable of that has you so afraid of them?

Do those three cities have nuclear weapons? They certainly won't have the production capability of the cities we would have already taken. Why are those three cities invincible and the others considered to be pushovers?

[Aggie]

Unortho is absolutely right. This poll decides whether or not we declare war. The character of the war is determined by the SMC and FAM. This poll isn't a "do we take all of france or not poll". This is simply a do we fight poll. If this poll is defeated it is my understanding that we will be unable to propose another one until 3 weeks have passed. So the arguement that a no vote is a vote for a total war is not justified. A no vote says "I don't want a war".
Aggie

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Aggie
Unortho is absolutely right. This poll decides whether or not we declare war. The character of the war is determined by the SMC and FAM. This poll isn't a "do we take all of france or not poll". This is simply a do we fight poll. If this poll is defeated it is my understanding that we will be unable to propose another one until 3 weeks have passed. So the arguement that a no vote is a vote for a total war is not justified. A no vote says "I don't want a war".
Aggie

It should say that, but you OFFICIALLY declared you would stop short of total victory which makes the actual result different than the stated poll.

If you hadn't have said that it would be an easy choice for everybody, you would have been guaranteed the Hawk vote AND several realistic DIA crossovers who see the advantage of gaining more resources.

But you tried to side with the DIA by setting limits on the war and now risk alienating Hawks (and Hawkish independents like me) who could easily have carried it to victory.

[Aggie]

As I said earlier ghengis, the decison to limit the war was a political one. The closest RL analogy would be the Coalition forces stopping short of baghdad during the gulf war. The reason was that the UN mandate didn't call for further action(another comparison is that do you think the congress(senate in particular) would have approved of the war if the goal had been to take baghdad), well in this case the best I can figure the mandate from the people calls for the war to end after the intial objectives are met. Militarily there are no reasons to stop, but there are political and corruption issues to deal with. As we all know war is almost never fought without the political background(and sometimes foreground). This does add another wrinkle to the military side, but makes this game all the more like RL and interesting.
Aggie

[joncnunn]

Aggie and Unorthdox are correct in that the SMC & FAM determine the character of the war.

GF is correct in that if we leave France a few cities left, any of the AI's might annex the remaining sections.

The Most likely candidates though are Rome & Russia because both are more agressive than Greece. Rome is the more likely of the two to attack right away, Russia is more likely to want to attack until she has Cossacks to trigure her Golden Age.

GF is also correct that if for some reason Joan of Arc is still around when the UN votes, she votes against us, athough in my mind the proability of Joan of Arc still being around when the Modern Age begins is very slim.

I would encourage Aggie to pre-position troops in such a manner that it's most likely that we can take the Saltpeters & Rheims in the fewest possible number of turns after hostiltiy begins and use some rope-a-dope tactics to maximize probility of sezing those cities before actually having to fight the main French army.

I would also enocurage FAM & SMC to either stop short of the limited objective if we'd have to fight the main French army to do so or else fight the army and then take all the French cities. IMHO, Defeating the French army but letting Joan live is a waste.