Best Interest

I just entered the Modern Era and am coming to the end of my game. I realized that I have accomplished a lot of great things, for example flight and nuclear weapons, while staying peaceful and in good terms with my surrounding neighbors. This was not easy at sometimes. For example, the Indian Empire proclaimed that I have fallen under the heathen religion and to stop trading with one of my strongest trading partners, Greece. Obviously, changing my religion and ending trading with Greece would not be in my best interest, so I had to smooth things over with India in order to keep things mutual and on good terms. I presented them with a gift and accepted the trade of fur for incense (two luxury items which I believe not to have that much overall impact on my game).

My overall goal in this game is to create peace between my nation and all the other nations, while still acting in my best interest. Acting in my state best interest will always be my number one goal; in the real world states must act in their state and their people’s best interest in order to accomplish anything. If you do not act in your state’s best interest then the ruler will lose the support of his own people while putting his nation in bad standing in the international system. I believe that I accomplish acting in my state’s best interest while keeping peace perfectly, even though at times it would have been very easy to just bomb or end all ties with another country. I wanted to stay peaceful with every nation because I did not know what nation could provide me with the best source of resources or protection. However, as I start a new game my plan is to be more aggressive and conquer more territory.