Gillette Diplomacy Thread: Dossiers, Scheming, and Puppet Strings

[Old Harry]

Just sent this to Trolls

Hi Plako,

I've got a games mechanic question I didn't want to post in the main thread in case of spoilers - with spies off what are you permitted to do with a great spy? I've read a few different opinions in different games, so I don't know if there is a convention...

Cheers
Old Harry

[Old Harry]

This just in from Trolls:

Hi,

Sry For long delay. I check this email account way to rarely. I Interpret the rule "No spies" that one has to keep spies and Great spies on their own territory (No one probably builds Spies). Main options then are sparing it to Golden age, setlle or building that 100% espionage building.

btw. Any intrest to prolong our NAP past T140?

Plako

Thought I'd leave it a few days, declare on M3, then suggest back to Trolls that we'd be interested, but make some ridiculous demands so they don't want to, then keep lowering our offer until they accept, then say no, we're not interested. Does that sound stupid?

[Old Harry]

Tasunke also sent this today:

Lewwyn confirmed t145.

Looks like that is our date.

Im in.
Tyler

And then this:

to me
Once we get closer, I'll let you know when an attack might actually be possible. Its somewhat hard for me to predict these things due to my unfamiliarity with both slavery and binary research. (moreso slavery though)

So do we just put more units together and attack later, or go for our t141 attack and let Tas join in as he sees fit?

[Cheater Hater]

Honestly, since Trolls is already trying to negotiate a NAP, we have to attack ASAP, and then TEAM will surprise them from the other side--any other opinions?

[Old Harry]

I fear that we won't have enough without a two-front attack, but let's see what we can do with a little bit of deception, this just in from Menagerie:

Hey,

Very sorry for the late response - your message caught us at a bad time; half our team (ie. HAK) has been travelling. I don't think the transfer of the catapults would be difficult to disguise from a demographics perspective - it would just look like war losses - but you're right, dancing them around the Trolls' scouts, while maintaining the appearance of active warfare, might be difficult. I at least remain interested in trying to make this work, but I need to talk with HAK to make sure this is the route we want to go. He got back this evening, so hopefully we'll be able to talk it over presently. Anyway, I just thought I'd send you this message since you were obviously and understandably waiting on a reply - I should have sent one sooner!

Talk to you very soon,

THH

[Old Harry]

Okay, possible reply to M3:

Hey Menagerie

We've got research visibility on Trolls. At the moment they are 2t away from Education, so gunpowder wouldn't be far behind - at which point our Zerks are considerably less useful! If you are happy with the idea I think we need to declare on you in the next two turns in the hope they'll be reassured and skip gunpowder.

At that point you could ask Trolls for aid (either money or to declare on us themselves?), then if they ask how it's going a couple of turns into the war say you stuffed your nearest cities with enough units that we didn't attack but you think we're going to fork your back line cities from the sea (insult our inept planning as much as possible please!)

I know one Troll scout was near pigpen last turn, have they got any other units in your lands that could expose this misinformation?

If you can gift catapults to us for an attack on t141 they will need to be in Halberd by eot138. So we could have a brief war from t130 or t131 to t136 then
- I offer peace eot136 with open borders
- you accept and gift units t137

This won't be completely convincing as we won't have any war weariness showing up, but I think it's our best shot.

What do you think?

I haven't asked them to pin down a number of Cats, because I think we'll get more this way - am I right?

Possible reply to TEAM:

Thanks for the info.

What is it about slavery that you need help with - I'm not an expert but I think if you set up right you can 2-pop whip for 60 hammers every second turn for five turns ending up with 3 or 4 expensive units. Binary research isn't so useful at this point in the game - so if you're finding it hard I'd suggest ignoring it!

Anyway Trolls are a turn away from getting education and could get gunpowder in a few turns after that, so I think they'll grow stronger the longer we leave them be... We're planning on attacking t141 at the moment - I don't want to leave them too long to grow stronger - but we could delay a couple of turns (maybe attack t143 or 144) if you are attacking on t145. If you're going to be later I think we need to concentrate on being ready for t141.

Let us know when you have an outline for an attack.

Cheers

Possible reply to Trolls:

Hey our eastern friends,

Sorry for the late reply - I'm sorting stuff for a holiday next week so don't have much time for the game this week. Thanks for the info and the marble. Not sure what we'll use it to build, but I'm sure it'll come in handy...

We'd be interested in extending the NAP - what sort of date are you thinking? Whilst sailing around the world our navigators noticed an island to the south of your Maui city - we'd be keen to settle there if you haven't got plans for that already?

Cheers

Then we just don't reply to anything they send back in future unless it can be to prolong the NAP "negotiations"...

[Old Harry]

Just sent to M3:

Hey Chaps

We recently got research visibility on Trolls. At the moment they are 2t away from Education, so gunpowder wouldn't be far behind - at which point our Zerks are considerably less useful! If you are happy with the idea I think we need to declare on you in the next two turns in the hope they'll be reassured and skip gunpowder.

At that point you could ask Trolls for aid (either money or to declare on us themselves?), then if they ask how it's going a couple of turns into the war say you stuffed your nearest cities with enough units that we didn't attack but you think we're going to fork your back line cities from the sea (insult our inept planning as much as possible please!)

I know one Troll scout was near pigpen last turn, have they got any other units in your lands that could expose this misinformation?

If you can gift catapults to us for an attack on t141 they will need to be in Halberd (on the PigPen border) by eot138. So we could have a brief war from t130 or t131 to t136 then
- I offer peace eot136 with open borders
- you accept and gift units somewhere near Halberd t137

This won't be completely convincing as we won't have any war weariness showing up, but I think it's our best shot.

What do you think?
Old Harry

Just sent to Trolls:

Hello to our eastern friends,

I thought I sent this earlier in the week, sorry - I'm sorting stuff for a holiday so things have been hectic:

Thanks for the info and the marble. Not sure what we'll use it to build, but I'm sure it'll come in handy!

We'd be interested in extending the NAP - I've been meaning to ask you guys for a little while - what sort of date are you thinking?

By the way, whilst sailing around the world our navigators noticed an island to the south of your Maui city - we'd be keen to settle there if you haven't got plans for it already?

All the best
Old Harry
Gillette

Lying in diplo is okay isn't it?

And just sent to Tasunke and the TEAM email:

Hi Tyler

Thanks for the info.

What is it about slavery that you need help with? I'm not an expert but I think if you set up right you can 2-pop whip for 60 hammers every second turn for five turns ending up with 3 or 4 expensive units. Binary research isn't so useful at this point in the game - so if you're finding it hard I'd suggest ignoring it!

Anyway Trolls are a turn away from getting education and could get gunpowder in a few turns after that, so I think they'll grow stronger the longer we leave them be... We're planning on attacking t141 at the moment (I don't want to leave them too long) but we could delay a couple of turns (maybe attack t143 or 144) if you are attacking on t145.

If you're going to be much later than t146 I think we need to concentrate our attack on t141.

Let us know when you have an outline for an attack.

Cheers
Old Harry

All this diplo is exhausting!

[Old Harry]

Straight back from Trolls:

Hi,

I'll discuss with my TEAM about concrete NAP suggestion, but to initiate discussion would e.g. T180 be ok for you?

We've plans concerning that island. Actually we've settled there few turns ago.

Best regards,
Plako

I'll reply on Sunday saying "I'm on my travels but have posted in our forum for discussion. T180 probably too long, etc etc..."

And from TEAM:

Yea, it will probably be wise to go ahead with your attack on t141. I am not completely certain when I can attack but it will likely not be t145.

That being said, it all just depends on when I get the Guilds tech. If possible I'll try to put some pressure on her if you need it later on.

-- About slavery, sometimes its hard to know when to grow and when to whip. For instance, if 8 pop and a 4 pop whip, I tend to be hesitant, but I've done it a couple times and wonder if that was a mistake, or if the fast re-grow makes up for it.

granted, the plethora of cottages makes me wonder if whipping less would be best ... (and just doing 1 or 2 pop whips)

any advice?

To which I quickly replied:

Okay, keep us up to date on your tech progress.

You need to put a turns worth of hammers into a project first, then you should very rarely need to 4-pop whip (forges and markets are the only exception I can think of). If you don't put a turn of hammers in I think each person only gets you 20 hammers, while if you do they are worth 30 hammers.

I'd normally 2-pop whip spears, pikes, axes, maces, horse archers and 3-pop whip knights and anything more ... 1-pop whipping is generally a bad idea, but when you're trying to build a quick army it can be necessary!

Good luck!

[YossarianLives]

I'm a little concerned about going it alone against Trolls. I was really excited about the attack when it looked like we could coordinate with TEAM, but Tasunke has left us hanging. We're committed to this now so let's have fun with it, but I'm not sure how much benefit we're going to be able to get from this...

What is this guy thinking doing 4-pop whips?

Maybe what would be helpful is if he can convince Trolls that he will be attacking on T145 so they focus their defenders on that front.

[Cheater Hater]

I don't like trying to engage in that much active conversation with Trolls--the only thing that will convince them that TEAM would be attacking is if we sign the NAP, which obviously we can't do :/

I don't know why things will be so bad with regard to going it alone--we're still first in power, and they won't have that many muskets by T140.