Gillette Diplomacy Thread: Dossiers, Scheming, and Puppet Strings

[Old Harry]

And this:

Dear Tasunke

Welcome to the Demogame! Hope you're enjoying your new domain, not working your new subjects too hard - is it just you, or are Sian, Lewwyn and Qgqqqqqqqq helping out too?

You probably already know you have a NAP with Trolls until turn 140 - we'd had a little bit of communication with Lewwyn about coordinating an attack around about then, would you still be interested? We'll be happy to share map info of the bits of their land that we've looked at if that'll help your decision.

All the best
Old Harry
Gillette

[YossarianLives]

Both messages sound good to me. Looks like things are falling into place nicely.

[Old Harry]

Cool, sent them both.

[Old Harry]

Heard back from Tasunke:

Yes, I would certainly be interested in discussing this possibility.

I guess we offer a swap of info in that case - maps for maps and what little C&D we have. How about:

That's good - I guess there are a few stages to go through:
1 - share map info
2 - share C&D info (ours is somewhat threadbare, but we do have research visibility as of last turn, so it may improve)
3 - plan an outline attack
4 - agree that we'll both attack on a certain turn

It'd be good to get to stage 4, but should we start with the first two? As a start here is what we know about their territory:


And we know they've been concentrating on the Music-line techs - they don't have Horseback Riding, Construction or Iron working. They researched Alphabet last turn and are 3 turns from Civil Service.

Have I missed anything we need to do?

Cheers
Old Harry
Gillette

Is that giving too much away? It's to our benefit for TEAM to know as much as possible about Trolls - stuff that makes them want to attack, obviously...

[Cheater Hater]

I don't think you're giving too much away, mainly because you aren't giving much if anything away about us

Also, I checked the game and saw they didn't even have Archery :o

[YossarianLives]

That message sounds great to me. It's nice to be getting a clean slate with TEAM. I don't know much about Tasunke, do you guys?

[Old Harry]

Only from his Werewolf games - where his style is best described as interesting...

I think he plays FFH multiplayer mostly, so I was surprised when he took over. Hopefully he'll put a good attack together, but I don't think it's guaranteed.

I'll send this now:

That's good - I guess there are a few stages to go through:
1 - share map info
2 - share C&D info (ours is somewhat threadbare, but we do have research visibility as of last turn, so it may improve)
3 - plan an outline attack
4 - agree that we'll both attack on a certain turn

It'd be good to get to stage 4, but should we start with the first two? As a start I attach what we know about their territory.

And we know they've been concentrating on the Music-line techs - they don't have Archery, Horseback Riding, Construction or Iron working. They researched Alphabet last turn and are 3 turns from Civil Service.

Have I missed anything we need to cover?

Cheers
Old Harry
Gillette

[Old Harry]

Another quick reply from Tasunke:

1) Do you know how far they are up the Machinery/Feudalism lines?

These defensive techs may be important to keep tabs on as well. If they are close to Civil Service, it is doubly important to know if they have Machinery, imho, even *if* the maceman is considered an inefficient unit


2) The Animal lovers, I feel, are a huge unknown in this equation. The pirates are perhaps a weaker player, but still they could provide just enough units to spoil any party. The Animal Lovers however ... it is hard to say just what they are thinking. I hold no ill will against them and would be willing to work with them ... but I just don't know. Could you let me know their temperature? If you know that is, if not ... I suppose it'll just have to remain an unknown.

Still, if we are to cooperate in a more organized manner, we should attempt to control the field of battle as much as possible.

If we can get his help, splendid ... but honestly I am uncertain how likely this would be. If he wants trade routes with me, I think I could give it to him (without RoP of course -> except in newly conquered zones for ease of coordinating combat).

Anyways, I suppose I need to get HAK's e-mail ^_^ ... but yes, if you could give me any diplomatic info on him, it would be appreciated.


3) It looks like no one has much of a military at this point in time. It had looked like there was a huge gap between Plako/You and myself when it came to the power graph ... but the building of one unit seemed to cut that gap in half.

Tell me, how do these wars tend to be fought? Or rather, how quickly are armies constructed ... I must say I am surprised to see everyone go this route, and I suppose not all BTS games are fought this way ... perhaps its an artifact of having more time each turn (rather than simul games on Gamespy?).

Or perhaps its just the builder phase of the game ^_^

either way, I'm not that familiar with BTS (anymore ...) perhaps you could fill me in a bit?

This last line has me a bit worried...

[Old Harry]

A proposed response:

Hi Tasunke,

1) We know they don't have Machinery or Feudalism - can you do a GNP check on metal casting to see how many people have it other than us?

If you can get to guilds I don't think they're anywhere near engineering, so won't have much to oppose your knights... Have you got an eta for guilds (and HBR)?

2) M3 are in negotiations for a NAP extension with us at the moment, I'm going to try and extort some catapults out of them, but will be willing to buy them if needs be. If you can make out to them that you're not interested in going after Trolls they may be more willing to help us out - they can see Trolls are the game leader, but don't want to make taking them down too easy for us. If they think it's just Gillette vs Trolls they won't be that concerned and may help us out. If they see it TEAM+Gillette vs Trolls they'll see both our teams pulling away from them.

I think HitAnyKey is pretty experienced, but the other players are fairly new.

Their email is menagerie.trois@gmail.com

3) Spot on - most of our military power is warriors in our capital for HR Bureaucracy. We're planning to whip out a force of about 30 units in the five turns before the nap expires. No idea if that will be enough, but if we can get more we will!

I think these wars tend to go to the person who researches a war tech for which the target lacks a counter (knights-pikes, maces-cats or crossbows, etc) and then whips out a big enough army that the target can't do anything...

In this case Trolls will be threatened in two cities on their coast due to our Berzerkers and 3-move galleys, then by cats/zerks in two border cities on our side. If you've got knights incoming on the northern border and can fork them they're going to have to choose their fights. I assume we'll need to raze anything we take due to culture crushing (except one coastal city that looks quite isolated), but it would be nice to keep some stuff. I think that the great Library and MOM are on your border, so you probably want to work out how to keep those! Is your map info better than ours? Can you show us where you're thinking of attacking?

Have you mostly been playing FFH recently? Isn't your username one of the characters? I love that game, but I totally haven't got it figured out yet! I struggle enough with BTS...

Cheers
Old Harry
Gillette

Any thoughts?

[Old Harry]

Also is it worth nudging M3 yet?