Gillette Diplomacy Thread: Dossiers, Scheming, and Puppet Strings

[Old Harry]

From m3

> Dear our friends of the sharp blades,
> Yes, we see that the end of the current NAP is quickly approaching and we as well would like to have it continue.  This peaceful growth that we are both going through is something we all benefit from.  Nobody wants to see any bloodshed, so we concur with the extending of the NAP to turn 125.

[Old Harry]

Just sent this to M3:

Dear our friends of the many animals,

Sorry about the delay getting back to you - I've been under the weather this week. That's excellent news on the NAP. Lets hope we can use the security to gain some ground on Trolls. Just to be clear:

- The NAP will run until the end of T125.
- We won't explore your territory and you won't explore ours.

All the best
Gillette

[Old Harry]

Chat with plako of Trolls regarding this area (Note: I should have moved the City 11 sign two tiles north as per Mero's suggestion a little while ago):

plako: hi
me: Hi plako
me: Are you planning to leave any of the wonders in the demogame for the rest of us?
plako: sry got interrupted
Wonder . We like'em
me: You're pretty good at them too!
plako: The point I'm here is that we've mapped the north and the areas near marble are hard for you to settle so what about changing our settlement deal so that you could settle 1E your southern city and we would be settling e.g. above marble?
Have you discussed about 3M about settling there?
me: We haven't disscussed settling with M3, let me just find a pic of the area
...
plako: It seems you've a worker in the south so I guess you're planning to settle there.
soon
me: Yep, we're chopping what will be the city site into the settler atm
Would much rather stop that and settle 1e though.
What are you thinking of up north?
plako: Are you ok us settling on top of marble?
me: We're planning our marble city 1s of the marble - it's a crappy spot, but we do have some plans for the marble.
plako: WE could make an agreement concerning marble
plako: Prolong our NAP e.g. and gift it after settling the city.
me: I'll need to have a chat with the team and see what they think, we'd be interested in a NAP extension, but probably not at the expense of a city.
plako: We can continue with the current border deal and just prolong the NAP
me: I'll have a chat with the team about Marble - like I said it's not an attractive location for us, but we don't want to be locked out of the middle of the map. In the mean time what sort of extension would you like for the NAP?
plako: I've not given it much thought so I'm open for suggestions
me: Also can you tell me how much culture Bloody Mary is producing? Just so we know how unattractive the marble city will be...
Not straight away of course...
plako: 4 unless library culture has doubled, when it could be 6
me: Okay thanks. I'll go ask the team.
plako: thx. looking forward to your suggestion

Planting city 11 should push back first-ring Troll culture in about 20 turns after settling if we get a missionary in straight away.

So the questions are:
- Do we want marble for anything?
- Do we want the crappy city that would give us marble? It'll be a bridge to the middle of the map, but swamped with troll culture and vulnerable from all sides. Is it a tactical mistake to give up that area and concentrate on defensible borders?
- Moving city 9 a tile east is pretty good for us, meaning a decent cultural border, is that worth losing a crappy city?
- What have I forgotten?

[YossarianLives]

Depending on what our overall diplo strategy is, I think giving up the marble city could be worthwhile if in return we get 1) to settle our southern city 1E for the better overall city, 2) they gift us the marble when we request it, and 3) long-term NAP so we can focus any future aggression on M3.

This is a pretty good deal for the Trolls as it gives them the city they already conceded to us, as well as a long-term ally and a secure western border.

[Cheater Hater]

If we do this, does it make us want to attack M3 a lot more? If so, when do we want to attack? Berserkers? (3 techs away and a lot of beakers) How long of a NAP do we need to ensure safety--T175, or even later? What turn would we attack, and how many Berserkers do we want? For that matter, can we attack reliably without siege? Do we need to start heading that direction and not divert it even if the island route is much better than just the one spot?

[Old Harry]

I think you're both right. Going along with the suggestion and a longer nap pits us against m3 a battle i think we'll win. But they're not the score leader, trolls are, and I think signing a long nap with trolls hands them the game. They've just landed pyramids and tgl, have no military to speak of and plenty of space to expand to.

I don't really have a plan for dealing with trolls. Like I keep saying but not doing some scouting would be nice. Checking out their coastal cities seems like a high priority. If there are good targets there then Berzerkers are great. If not we'll need to beat them to knights and whip out a ton... I think they're likely to just tech as big an advantage as possible right now.

Team are the wild card in this, it might be worth trying to engage with them again.

[Cheater Hater]

Score doesn't matter much--they're first because they have 3 wonders, one of which is relatively useless in a game with no barbs. Yes, Pyramids+Library is a good combo, but there has to be an opportunity cost to going for Literature so early when we haven't done much in the way of diversions (Buddism, Priesthood into Oracle, and Monarchy) and we're only now heading to Civil Service. The problem is that by the time we could attack, they could probably power to Feudalism if they notice us getting any sort of force or deny them their NAP--how would we make a plan to attack them?

[Old Harry]

Yeah, you're probably right, I might just be going on reputation - Plako is a good player.

Looking at what we could do with Marble, we could build:
Taj, MOM or Hagia Sofia
and we'll get the National & Heroic Epics and Hermitage quicker too.

- Which of those do you want?
- Is anyone keen to keep the marble city for strategic reasons?
- And how long do we want the NAP with Trolls for?

[YossarianLives]

I would definitely say that Trolls are in the top position right now, independent of the score board. 'Mids plus TGL will quickly make up any teching opportunity costs with increased research power. If we do get into a long-term alliance with them, then I think we need to focus on taking out M3 (maybe with the help of the Pirates), to give our own chances of winning a boost.

Taj or MoM would be good to have. Also, we'll definitely be building the epics at some point. It obviously would be best to have the Marble under our own control for strategic reasons, but if Plako / Trolls agree to gift it to us when requested, I doubt we'll have too much trouble getting it when we ask.

[Old Harry]

Plako called again - hope I didn't give away the farm...

plako: hi
me: Hi plako, hows it going
plako: ok
Just checking, if you've had time to dicuss with your team
me: We've discussed a bit, still going through the possibilities
Do you need the marble or would you be willing to gift it on a permanent basis?
plako: We can gift it "permanently" meaning as long as we've a NAP deal running
me: Okay, that should make things easier
I'll get a consensus with the guys and come back to you (hopefully) tomorrow.
plako: That would be great. We've 1 desicion that is affected by the border deal so it would be great to get things sorted out before we had to play
me: Okay, will try to get back to you before that.
plako: thx- No hurry it is not our turn yet and we can use our full timer
plako: Have you considered NAP duration?
I would like to suggest that also to my team
So we would be ready to accept when you're
me: How long would you like?
plako: Not big issue maybe T140?
me: Sounds about what we thought, we'll try and work out where we'll be by then...
plako: So the deal to present our teams is - new border deal, NAP until T140, marble gift
me: One other thing, you mentioned settling on the marble - that would be problematic as you'd take the sheep from Halbard, if you can settle east or north of the marble that solves that problem.
Yep, I think that's the deal
plako: That could work too. Do you've access to 2nd furs?
If you could gift that to us smae way as marble
I think we could settle e.g. 1E of it
me: I don't think we've got 1st furs, we have two deer...
plako: Do you think you can get access to 2 of them?
We'll have deer of our own
TEAM stole the furs on the other borderand you're getting the one here
So I'm looking here possibilities
me: I'll have to check in game (in about 10 hours) but I'm pretty sure we haven't got fur (yet).
plako: Well you've one near the city you're planting now SE from your cvapital
There almost certainly is one bwtween you and M3
not sure, if you can claim it or not
me: I'll have to check the M3 border but I don't remember seeing one there. Yeah, there will be one on the peninsula, I'll check in-game and let you know...
me: I've just dug out a screenshot - there aren't any furs between us and M3 (unless they are much closer to them and we haven't uncovered them yet). Sorry...
plako: ok
me: So are you butting heads with TEAM on that border?
plako: TEAM has settled pretty much all cities towards us. Pirate border is almost empty
me: That's pretty smart given how weak Pirates are.
Looks like both TEAM and M3 get a weak neighbour bonus in this game...
plako: Yeah and us being Creative makes it more important to solidiy the border towards us
me: Yeah, we thought the same, but decided doing it with honest border agreements would make for less tension later in the game.
plako: This is typical for these diplo on games. As long as there is still land to settle best play is probably build in peace
me: Have you got a NAP with TEAM?
plako: yes
Do you?
me: We haven't had any more from them on email since they said Jihad about 4 months ago...
Do you mind my asking how long the NAP is?
plako: I rather not say it at least without consulting with my team. At least you don't share border with them
me: np
plako: I'm thinking the marble city 1E of current location. If you could somehow sweeten the deal I think we could move. What about offering furs for 10Timmediately you've got it improved
me: I think Lewwyn isn't a fan of diplo
plako: He is very slow at least in this game - I've tried to adapt to that
me: I don't think the guys will go for that, but I'll ask
plako: It would be just 10T and then yours
me: Got to go, will try to get back to you tomorrow...
plako: Keeping Sheep safely on your side
ok - cya

I think we should let them have marble 1e, but should avoid helping them out with the extra happy.

NAP to t140 sounds about right, but I'd be tempted to go to t150 - how far will we be technologically by then? I'll try and work out when we'll get Berzerkers this evening, I think we want to use them against M3, so having a NAP covering our asses with Trolls would be good.

So as you guys said, this puts us on a war footing with M3, conflict to commence t126, I'll put some thoughts on tactics into another post.