For voting for the peace option, I also want to remind people of the context in which that peace comes.
Let's start with the text of the choice:
[ ] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
As presented, the option says that...
1. They will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations
2. The peace plan offered will significantly better for them than what we offered
3. That we will have a chance to accept or reject it
4. Practical campaigning will be done with if we take this option
I have already gone over why I find 1 to be unacceptable, as if we allow Victoria committing War Crimes against their own population to benefit them, what's to stop them from doing it again?
Yet, even if I put that aside, given what we know will happen in spring if we bunker down and don't achieve anything else militarily, this in effect means that we will
have to take the deal offered, or face the prospect of the Farmers accepting Victoria's first peace offer - even if it is decidedly less than ideal.
Our guarantees from
@PoptartProdigy concerning accepting peace now are as follows:
Relative to what you gave as an ultimatum and the fact that your internal dissent is publicized, yes. Like, the Farmers are playing to the electorate here. Victoria can hear them too. If you come to the table now, the perception is that you're bowing to internal pressure. So it would hardly be a negative deal, you are presently occupying Victorian territory, but Blackwell would take the chance to snip the choicest items from your demands.
1. We lose the choicest items from our demand - this is likely to include
Seaway Access,
Free Migration, and either Annulment or Free Trade.
2. The treaty will not be a negative deal - meaning we will not be giving more in concessions than we get in demands in DC
However, we have no guarantees about several items that I find very concerning. The first of these is
whether the 40 DC of demands we could make for free following the Detroit Campaign applies here, in part or at all
. The second is that the possibility space between our demands and a 0 DC treaty (especially with the 40 DC stripped out) leaves room for the deal to be substantially better for Victoria than even
Victorian Response.
Last of all, though, we get this choice tidbit from
@PoptartProdigy:
Ahahahahahahahaha there will be no further negotiations. I'm ready for this arc to be done with. You will get the treaty your military operations secure for you.
Full disclosure, the emphasis here is mine. However, I think it is important to consider, given that so far, we are mostly occupying territory Victoria has written off, without having managed to hurt them enough to bring them to the table on our terms. Indeed, so far, Victoria is counting their actions in Buffalo as a victory for negotiation purposes, with the prospect of the CFLP accepting the first offer that comes their way should they come into power -
an offer which is not guaranteed to be positive - serving as a strong incentive to simply accept what we are presented with.
...unfortunately, I must also implore people to think about what will happen to the civilian population of Buffalo in the case we accept a Victorian peace. Should we simply pull out without taking provisions for their safety (and I'm not sure how much we
can without a favorable treaty), I think it likely that the civilians will be massacred. Keep that in mind.
