MPPs and the campaign against Germany

Shiber · November 23, 2002, 08:20

We've already discussed the possibility of using MPPs to our favor in the German campaign, but since D-turn is approaching I think it's time to reanalyze this possible (and very favorable, IMHO) course of action.

The plan: it's quite simple. We sign a Mutual Protection Pact with Aztecs and Greece. The purpose of this plan is to give Germany a multi-front war which will make it harder for them to block us off. Additionally, the MPPs will serve as an insurance policy in case Germany decides to join allies on their side. I expect that no leader will dare move to Germany's side and declare war against a pact such as this.
Why Aztecs? Aztecs have a lot of forces locked off in the American conquered territories, which are adjacent to our border, as well as Germany's. Though these units are somewhat outdated (we're talking knights and longbowmen here), they'll be very useful in keeping a significant portion of Germany's defenses busy while we attack from our front (near Napoleton). Furthermore, their main forces will keep the Germans busy in the north, which makes a pact with Aztecs especially worthwhile - they'll add two fronts for Germany to fight.
Additionally, we don't want Germany to recruit the Aztecs to their side instead for the same reason - they'll attack us with their forces from the ex-American cities, and while they can't cause us substantial damage, they will stall our campaign against Germany.
Why Greece? Greece is a powerful ally that can deter any AI civ from attacking us. Additionally, they have Ivory, and since the war with Germany will last for 20 turns because of the MPP (see sacrifices), we may want to beef-up our happiness with Ivory. Anyway, the last issue is debatable.
The chances and sacrifices: first of all, when we sign a pact with another AI and drag them into war, we must consider the possibility that they will drag us into a war as well. However, the chance of that will be greatly reduced by the fact that both our allies will be very busy with dividing and conquering Germany and will most likely prefer not to start any more wars while they're already fighting Germany.
Second, in a pact such as this we are not allowed to sign peace with Germany in less than 20 turns after the pact has begun, or take a rep hit. This is probably the major sacrifice that this plan requires.
The pros: this plan will make the war with Germany much easier. We will suffer less casualties and make swifter victories. Additionally, we'll get an insurance policy against Germany bringing allies to its side. Other than that, I believe that signing a pact with an AI improves your relations with that AI, and if I'm right we'll improve our relations with Greece and Aztecs.
Summary: for making the sacrifice of not ending the war with Germany until the MPPs end and taking certain calculated risks, we can make the war much easier for us and decrease the risk that we'll have to fight against another AI in the process to a minimum.

Please note: I'm not a member of the government and this plan isn't official, plus we're still several turnchats away from D-turn, so the details aren't set in stone. In fact, the reason I have started this thread is so that we can discuss the specifics of this plan and refine it, or choose to scrap it altogether if the public shows overwhelming disapproval.

Panzer32 · November 23, 2002, 09:45

Make sure Germany attacks us on our territory once if we go ahead with this, so the MPPs are activated.

Shiber · November 23, 2002, 10:06

Once we start taking German cities the Germans will react and we'll have to defend our new acquisitions. Then the MPP will kick in and Germany will find itself in war with Greece and Aztecs.

Epistax · November 23, 2002, 13:10

ManicStarSeed · November 23, 2002, 14:33

I am all for this...

One thought however...

If we are really concerned about getting dragged into another war due to Greece or Aztec aggression, should we consider alliances instead? This is especially true if we see ourselves in a 20 turn conflict. I know that the alliances will cost more, but it could be worth it considering we can keep the conflicts contained?

Mss

Panag · November 23, 2002, 14:47

hi ,

what about a ROP , ........

have a nice day

Shiber · November 23, 2002, 15:12

Manic: alliances instead of MPPs would eliminate the advantage of having an insurance policy against Germany. Only if we have an MPP with another civ will it come to our aid. In an alliance, the other civ only promises to go to war against the civ that you're allying with, but it doesn't promise to come to your aid in case you get in trouble.
Panag: I don't see why not. They can't abuse the RoP if we have a pact unless they don't mind taking a huge rep hit for violating two treaties and getting the other nation in the pact to declare war on them as well.

Panag · November 23, 2002, 15:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
Manic: alliances instead of MPPs would eliminate the advantage of having an insurance policy against Germany. Only if we have an MPP with another civ will it come to our aid. In an alliance, the other civ only promises to go to war against the civ that you're allying with, but it doesn't promise to come to your aid in case you get in trouble.
Panag: I don't see why not. They can't abuse the RoP if we have a pact unless they don't mind taking a huge rep hit for violating two treaties and getting the other nation in the pact to declare war on them as well.

hi ,

we could sit back a bit with the ROP , letting the others do some of the hard work , then we could profit and take the cities , .....

or we could sign one with germany and abuse it , ...

we should study our options a bit further , ....

have a nice day

realpolitic · November 23, 2002, 15:53

Any MPP will drag us into a war that's:
20 turns long
OR
lasts until Germay is destoyed.
No Democracy can survive an offence war that's more than 10 turns. We'd have to change to Monarchy or Communism or go to Republic immediately and build Police stations. None of these options will help us get ToE.We could ally with any neighbor except Greece, else Greece would get too much territory after we made peace, and remain a competitor.

Panag · November 23, 2002, 15:57

Quote:

Originally posted by realpolitic
Any MPP will drag us into a war that's:
20 turns long
OR
lasts until Germay is destoyed.
No Democracy can survive an offence war that's more than 10 turns. We'd have to change to Monarchy or Communism or go to Republic immediately and build Police stations. None of these options will help us get ToE.We could ally with any neighbor except Greece, else Greece would get too much territory after we made peace, and remain a competitor.

hi ,

ahem , if you plan your actions you can even make war for more the 40 turns , .......

have a nice day

Shiber · November 23, 2002, 16:07

Sure we can survive it. We have 7 luxuries. We can get an 8th luxury (ivory) from Greece for a reduced price in exchange for an MPP+RoP, which will give us four additional happy faces. We can build colosseums in some cities, which will give us 3 additional content faces. In the worst case, we can use an entertainer or two. War weariness isn't as catastrophic as you imagine when your population can't grow beyond size 12.
Alternatively, we could sign the MPP five turns before we declare war and then lower the minimum length of the war to 15 turns.

Togas · November 23, 2002, 16:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
Alternatively, we could sign the MPP five turns before we declare war and then lower the minimum length of the war to 15 turns.

We can agree to the MPP 10-15 turns before we actually declare war. The MPP lasts 20 turns and then it will either be renegotiated by the AI, or remain on a turn-by-turn basis. We do not have to agree to the renegotiation.

We should sign it long before we declare war. Get all of our allies involved in the war. Do not renegotiate the pact. Declare peace as our leisure afterwards.

The only risk is that one of our allies draws us into war, OR that Germany signs MPPs with England or other nations. We need to weigh that possibility as well.

--Togas

Shiber · November 23, 2002, 16:23

The risks of signing an MPP ahead of time are too great. IMHO we should sign the treaty the same turn that we declare war and bite the bullet on war weariness. With 8 luxuries and cities that don't grow beyond size 12, we'll only have to use entertainers near the end of the war and I'm sure we can handle it.
Hell, we might get lucky and the other pact members will "betray" us and sign peace with Germany before the pact ends. But then again, I've read somewhere that there's a bug in 1.21 and 1.29 that causes you to take a rep hit whenever a treaty you're involved in is broken, even if an AI has broken it.

Zero · November 23, 2002, 18:24

I say sign MPP in advance, I see very little risk in going to war prematurely due to our ally.

Arnelos · November 23, 2002, 18:37

Shiber,

I'm glad someone brought this topic up

Personally, I tend to like using alliances more than MPPs, but I agree that MPPs would help better in terms of cost. Looking at the price of buying techs, Greece IS willing to give us something of a break on techbuys if we package it with an MPP, so it's worth thinking about.

Shiber · November 24, 2002, 07:41

We can further increase the discount that they'll give us on tech or ivory by throwing a RoP into the deal, if the FAM approves.

Panag · November 24, 2002, 08:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
The risks of signing an MPP ahead of time are too great. IMHO we should sign the treaty the same turn that we declare war and bite the bullet on war weariness. With 8 luxuries and cities that don't grow beyond size 12, we'll only have to use entertainers near the end of the war and I'm sure we can handle it.
Hell, we might get lucky and the other pact members will "betray" us and sign peace with Germany before the pact ends. But then again, I've read somewhere that there's a bug in 1.21 and 1.29 that causes you to take a rep hit whenever a treaty you're involved in is broken, even if an AI has broken it.

hi ,

ahem , why dont we take lux no 8 , .....

and the cities that have unhappy people in them could make a worker , .....

have a nice day

Shiber · November 24, 2002, 08:26

The whole purpose of getting an 8th resource is so that we won't have to turn workforce into workers and delay the completion of important city improvements.

Panag · November 24, 2002, 08:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
The whole purpose of getting an 8th resource is so that we won't have to turn workforce into workers and delay the completion of important city improvements.

hi ,

only one or two , ...... they can be used to build RR and other stuff , and we can always let them join later , ...

have a nice day

Shiber · November 24, 2002, 10:01

Now that we are about to acquire the ability to build railroads, the domestic minister might want us to start producing workers. However, this is not the solution for war weariness since we'd still want to have large populations in our cities to complete improvements faster. It seems to me that the favorable solution is to try to get ivory for a decent price. With ivory, our large cities can continue as usual without turning workforce into specialists or workers and thus keeping production on full speed. They'll even enjoy WLTPD throughout about half of the war.

Panag · November 24, 2002, 12:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
Now that we are about to acquire the ability to build railroads, the domestic minister might want us to start producing workers. However, this is not the solution for war weariness since we'd still want to have large populations in our cities to complete improvements faster. It seems to me that the favorable solution is to try to get ivory for a decent price. With ivory, our large cities can continue as usual without turning workforce into specialists or workers and thus keeping production on full speed. They'll even enjoy WLTPD throughout about half of the war.

hi ,

, consider those workers a long time investment , with very fast results , ........

and we could always hurry here and there , .....

why propose this ; many shall ask , well the great banana has a gut feeling we are going to have loads of pollution , forests that need to be planted , mines and railroads to be carved out , some workers shall need to join other cities with to many "species" in them , and last but not least we are going to go for a lot of wars , ......

have a nice day

Shiber · November 24, 2002, 13:10

Panag, I have no doubt that we'll need those workers, but building workers is not the proper way to combat war weariness.
Besides, we're better off building our workers in the conquered German cities. That way we'll get German workers (aka slaves) which work only half as fast but don't cost maintenance at all!

Panag · November 24, 2002, 13:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
Panag, I have no doubt that we'll need those workers, but building workers is not the proper way to combat war weariness.
Besides, we're better off building our workers in the conquered German cities. That way we'll get German workers (aka slaves) which work only half as fast but don't cost maintenance at all!

hi ,

well those germans shall need to be moved , twice as the time needed to move them

we are better of selling them , in true slave spirit

its not a solution , but it shall do the job , a worker here and there , .....

have a nice day

E_T · November 24, 2002, 14:51

With the current state of our Cities, size & happiness wise, we should be able to maintain an offensive War for about 20 turns without resorting to extreme measures (i.e. specialist). We WILL lose WLKD is a few of our Larger cities, but we have Powerful Cathedrals in all of the main cities.

My greatest fear is that we lose the 3 Imported Luxes at a most inopertune time, through them declaring on us or through a Trade embargo. THIS is the main reason that I'll be building Coloseums before Hospitals (of shortly afterwards, depending on the circumstances), to buffer this possibility.

We have 74 'Native' Workers currently, with a few more to come online shortly. We should be O.K. for workers for now.

E_T

Shiber · November 24, 2002, 15:13

How many slaves, btw?
Just curious...

E_T · November 24, 2002, 18:37

66 Slaves.

E_T

Panag · November 25, 2002, 07:04

Quote:

Originally posted by E_T
With the current state of our Cities, size & happiness wise, we should be able to maintain an offensive War for about 20 turns without resorting to extreme measures (i.e. specialist). We WILL lose WLKD is a few of our Larger cities, but we have Powerful Cathedrals in all of the main cities.

My greatest fear is that we lose the 3 Imported Luxes at a most inopertune time, through them declaring on us or through a Trade embargo. THIS is the main reason that I'll be building Coloseums before Hospitals (of shortly afterwards, depending on the circumstances), to buffer this possibility.

We have 74 'Native' Workers currently, with a few more to come online shortly. We should be O.K. for workers for now.

E_T

hi ,

indeed we should get coloseums right after hospitals if that aint done yet , .....

, a trade embargo is something we dont need , ....

could any one make a serious prognosis ?

have a nice day

Shiber · November 25, 2002, 10:35

Actually, colloseums should come before hospitals IMHO. We should start working on colloseums in every city immediately after it finishes its bank and university.

canyontree · November 25, 2002, 11:11

We already have a domestic worker surplus. However, we can always use more slaves!

joncnunn · November 25, 2002, 13:33

Canyontree, We haven't even starting build rail roads yet, we will very quickly need as many workers & slaves as we can get our hands on.

Shiber, We are currently trading for enough luxaries to wait for Colloseums until pop 14 or 15 even if we didn't have Sistine Chapel.

On MPPs, Don't sign MPPs more than 1 turn in advance. Tie an RoP into every MPP to make the deal more profitable for us. (I think the Civs may be willing to pay us for this.)

In addition, I think we should try to get a massive Trade Embargo set up against Germany. Usually this is a no money exchange operation or else a "can't be done" with nothing in between. For nations that tell is it can't be done, add them to the MPP list as well. Let's see Germany try to build anything with only local access to luxaries.