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Magna Graecia: A City State Quest

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Hmm, on one hand, we send them there, less loot and serfs.

On the other hand, they'll be in foreign lands, and not able to do much against us....
 
Ugh, it got pushed to the bottom of the page :mad:

If you're confused about where the update is, bottom of previous page. Happens.
 
Looking at the 'serf loyalty' statistic at 40, my thought is that we're pushing the point of serfs causing us a lot of trouble, So that +500 serfs is not exactly entirely a net benefit if the war prisoners prove a troublesome core of resistance. The loot would be nice, but we don't need it. On the other hand, acceding to foreign demands rankles a bit.

If there's something I'm not considering, though, I'd be open to hearing a devil's advocate.
 
10 Talents isn't that significant. The 500 serfs would be, though. However, we are in fact still surrounded by barbaroi that have ancestral ties to one another. So far we have been lucky that nonetheless they haven't united against us, but I don't think we should rely simply on luck.

However, it is of course entirely possible the Messapii will take the people of Azetion and then attack us regardless in two or three years time. Hm. And asking them to swear an oath of peace could be considered... untactful. Or is there maybe a tactful way to have them do so in exchange?
 
Susano said:
Or is there maybe a tactful way to have them do so in exchange?
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It is considered implied by the Messapii messenger that an oath of peace will be proclaimed, but they're not worth much. Recall that Drako had an epic line and promised peace with the Peuketii back ages ago and we saw how that worked out.
 
We should let them through with conditions: IE don't let their leadership out, some of their wealth goes to our friend Gnatia, etc.


Or maybe only let the women and children through- but maybe that's not as good an idea.
 
They want them out or not. It would be pointless to give them a population that will hate them for negotiating down.
 
My initial reaction to the offer is a flat out refusal. We'd be letting people go who would like nothing more than to exact revenge upon us, even at the expense of themselves which is something they've done in the past. And what do we get in return? Peace? Yeah right, I trust the Messapii king as far as I can throw him. He'll attack us when it's convenient, with or without an oath of peace. We gain nothing from this deal aside from a false sense of security.

EDIT: Also, I don't care about the 10 talents but it's not about the money, it's about sending a message. Letting them go kind of makes the whole expedition pointless.
 
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I'd say a counteroffer: the Messapii can ransom the population of Azetion. Talk of peace is cheap; if they really care so much for this batch of Peuketii, surely they can compensate us for the wealth we'd be losing from this.

Said compensation would include any captives/slaves they might have taken from Taras, who we would then give the choice of remaining in Eretria as metics or returning to their home city. Greeks enslave barbaroi; the reverse is an affront to the proper workings of the world, and should be rectified as soon as practicable.

...also, the Illyrians must be destroyed.
 
I don't trust the peace. I don't like the idea of bolstering the forces of an enemy we're gonna have to fight sooner rather than later. The tactical advantage is that we'd have our worries of a two-front war allayed, allowing us to weaken Arpi while not needing to worry about Daxtus. The obvious disadvantage is that Daxtus can easily raid Eretrea while our army is up North. We lack much of a southern buffer, though we do have a northern one.

A shame we lost our alliance with Taras. An anvil to our hammer would come in real handy.

We really do need a strategy for dealing with the remaining Iapyges.
 
A difficult choice in my opinion. There are good arguments to be made that peace and quiet on our northern front could be worth the price (and that many refugees could also have a negative impact on the civil stability there). And we also could use another trading partner and ally near us after losing taratine. On the other hand the slaves are valuable and a sastisfactory victory here could go a longer way to solidify our martial reputation.

I also think that this may also be a good opportunity to slow herodion down a bit.
 
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The Sandman said:
I'd say a counteroffer: the Messapii can ransom the population of Azetion. Talk of peace is cheap; if they really care so much for this batch of Peuketii, surely they can compensate us for the wealth we'd be losing from this.

Said compensation would include any captives/slaves they might have taken from Taras, who we would then give the choice of remaining in Eretria as metics or returning to their home city. Greeks enslave barbaroi; the reverse is an affront to the proper workings of the world, and should be rectified as soon as practicable.

...also, the Illyrians must be destroyed.
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I like that Idea so a counteroffer of 500(?) Greeks for 500 Barbaroi?
Question is can they gather up that many slaves in a reasonable amount of time? I suppose they would have to take them away from their own population .
 
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We could agree, and in exchange demand they settle the Azetion far to the south lest they accidentally try to raid us, and we accidentally murder them all.

Accidents happen, and all that.
 
Erandil said:
A difficult choice in my opinion. There are good arguments to be made that peace and quiet on our northern front could be worth the price (and that many refugees could also have a negative impact on the civil stability there). And we also could use another trading partner and ally near us after losing taratine. On the other hand the slaves are valuable and a sastisfactory victory here could go a longer way to solidify our martial reputation.

I also think that this may also be a good opportunity to slow herodion down a bit.
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Mark my words, the Messapii will come for us after they finish with Taras, no matter what we do here today. This just determines whether they have a sizable addition to their population at that time, and one that utterly despises us to boot.

No, the independent Peuketii must by necessity be brought to heel and eliminated as a threat, or the Messapii presented with a similar threat to their own endeavors in recompense for our accepting the danger of their proposal.

Spacegnom said:
I like that Idea so counter offer of 500 Greeks for 500 Barbarous?
Question is can they gather up that many slaves in a reasonable amount of time? I suppose they would have to take them away from their own population .
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If they can't, then too bad; we continue on with our planned course of action and sell off the people of Azetion. This counter-offer is meant to make it clear that we're not stupid, to give us an unshakable way to silence those who might protest if we rejected the deal out of hand, and if the Messapii accept it gives us a chance to start making amends with Taras for the betrayal Kerkyra forced us to carry out.

On a different subject, I would propose that if we do still have the Peuketii captives in our hands after this vote, we don't keep any of them on as serfs. Instead, we should take them to the slave markets of Persia, sell them there, and use the funds to buy back as many enslaved Eretrians as we can locate; if we still have money after doing so, we should start buying back other Greeks as well, preferably from cities neutral to the Athenian-Spartan dispute or at a 1:1 ratio of Delians to Peloponnesians if those are available.

Any Greeks we so purchase should receive the same offer I would extend to any Tarasians (Tarassoi? Tarasese?) we ransom back, although obviously with "return to Taras" replaced with "return to your home city/their colonies if the home city was destroyed". The exception is of course any Eretrians we find and free, who would remain as citizens of our polis.
 
Returning Greeks to each of their respective city states would be an extremely expensive endeavor. At most, I could see offering them the option to either be returned to the Greek mainland or to accept metic status within our own city.
 
Rakuhn said:
Returning Greeks to each of their respective city states would be an extremely expensive endeavor. At most, I could see offering them the option to either be returned to the Greek mainland or to accept metic status within our own city.
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Not so! We have to sail past most of them anyway in order to reach Persian territory, so we drop them off on the way back.
 
Ironanvil1 said:
How would Daxtus feel about a donation from the Messapii to build a new Temple of Artemis in Eretria, in celebration of our mercy towards Azetion? I mean, if she is his favourite Goddess...
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He's a bit busy to consider donations of that kind :V

The Sandman said:
Said compensation would include any captives/slaves they might have taken from Taras, who we would then give the choice of remaining in Eretria as metics or returning to their home city. Greeks enslave barbaroi; the reverse is an affront to the proper workings of the world, and should be rectified as soon as practicable.
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"No."
 
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