[SPOILERS] Dip4 Turkish Delight: scooter dies first

[scooter]

Got an interesting reply from Twinkletoes:

scooter,

I definitely agree that a Black Sea DMZ could send out a message of cooperation and inspire the Italians and Austrians to ally, though it would seem like the Italians could be won over to our side. His first message to me was simply "do you have an alliance with Turkey or something?" so it seems the word is going around.

Now we could go crazy and try and kill these rumours early by letting me into BLA in the spring. The MOS army will not move to SEV (UKR looks the most likely choice) and I will move to Rum with the BLA fleet as expected in the Fall as its much easier to get a centre and trying to stab you this early would be very limited in terms of profitability and make the Balkans even more of a clusterfuck.

I only suggest this as it would give you great opportunity to badmouth me to A & I which would give a great smokescreen to our cooperation plus potentially give us the possibility of greater gains against Austria who will expect a DMZ or bounce. It may also draw some players into re-assessing your threat level, thinking that you've made a 'noob mistake' letting me in, which could be profitable given that three nations have already named you as their most fearsome opponent!

Of course, this would require major trust and you may not have the will to give it a crack. I would understand that entirely. My worry is that people are mentioning a juggernaut already and the only way to catch them off guard with it is to do something unexpected. I am someone who would like to play a pretty honest game and win with an ally than try stabs all over the place and end up in a long tie or defeat. We can work together, and while I may be putting the cart before the horse, I am prepared to offer this to you and put some cards on the table.

Take some time to think about it, and if there are demands/concessions you would require for a plan like this to work, I would gladly listen to them and try and accommodate some adequate reward for your trust.

TT

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Gaspar and I exchanged a couple quick messages about it:

Hrm. Not sure I like this alliance setup where theres a lot of chatter about you and we give TT BLA and uh... we get, wishes and hopes?

Yeah I'm not sure what to say to that, I can't think of what real benefit we get here. I don't really think Twinkletoes is the type to 1901 stab, but this just seems like unnecessary risk.

The one thing I would want down the line (if we're going to work with TT) is for that Sev fleet to get disbanded. It really serves no purpose for Russia other than for stabbing Turkey, and Turkey really wants to get fleets into the Med quickly rather than holding back to defend against Russia.

So I'm trying to figure what measure of risk is acceptable if it brings promises of that fleet disbandment in a year or two. One perk of not moving into Black Sea in 1901 is if I'm sure of Russia's honesty, I can slip into the Med quickly to try to prevent Italy from trying anything funny if he goes that route.