Gillette Diplomacy Thread: Dossiers, Scheming, and Puppet Strings

[Cheater Hater]

Is there any reason not to just send him screenshots showing all of Trolls techs they need to research? They don't have Metal Casting or Monarchy yet, so they aren't that close to anything--they could possibly have Maces by T140, but probably not that many--depends on if they are crazy and race up the Liberalism tree and don't switch to military techs until they notice neither we nor TEAM are renewing our NAPs

Yeah, you can nudge M3--they nudged us

[Old Harry]

Is there any reason not to just send him screenshots showing all of Trolls techs they need to research?

No access to a civ-comp for a few hours, if you can grab one I'll send it...

[YossarianLives]

Here's the screenshot, in case we want to send it.



Edit: Hope no one minds that I logged in. I probably should have asked first. I didn't move anything, just took the picture and logged off.

[Old Harry]

Please log in whenever you want Yosarian, and let us know if you have any suggestions or spot anything that looks wrong or you think I may have missed!

Actually do we want TEAM to know exactly what tech we've got? I might not send that picture...

So I'll send this:

Hi Tasunke,

1) We know they don't have Metal Casting, Machinery or Feudalism, you can see it on the F6 technology screen now.

If you can get to guilds they're nowhere near engineering and pikes, 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 wars tend to go the way of the player who has a tech the target lacks a counter to (knights - pikes, maces - cats or crossbows, etc) and then whips out a big enough army that the target can't do anything... Otherwise you have to have massively more production than the target to get anywhere. To be honest between us we've got both!

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

[Old Harry]

And a reply from M3, I didn't have to prompt them in the end:

We do agree and know that the Trolls do need to be stopped from ruling the world. They do seem to be forming a very strong foothold there that is building up fast. We do have a current NAP with them, which I believe goes until T160. I do agree that the catapults are a nice tool, and will be useful when time comes. If we extend our NAP to beyond the end of that of ours (and yours) with the Trolls, that would probably be the best of plans. That is why I suggested a NAP until T175 or even T200.
Let us know what you think.
-M3-

So they aren't going to join us on t141. By t160 Trolls could have a huge military set up, I think we need to hit them before they start bulbing and running golden ages with the great people they will be producing.

We could ask M3 for some cats, but that gives away when our our attack will be - does that matter? If their NAP with Trolls says anything about not selling military stuff to neighbours they probably can't anyway, although we could just use them defensively...

[Old Harry]

possible reply:

It's a shame that you have such a long NAP with them, would it be possible for you to supply us with some catapults without breaking the NAP? We think that by t160 they will have leveraged their specialist economy into a big tech lead, meaning a dogpile is highly unlikely to succeed.

At present they haven't even got archery, and while I expect that to change over the next 20 turns this is the time when we have an opportunity to stop them winning.

I think it is in both our interests for Gillette to attack Trolls in the next 20 turns (we've been trying to persuade TEAM to join, but I'm not sure we're getting anywhere), but attacking by ourselves isn't likely to even dent Trolls if they defend properly. If you can donate some cats to the party or provide gold for upgrades (I'm not sure if it's possible to hide that from C&D somehow?) it gives us more of a chance of razing a couple of cities, making the rest of us competitive with them again. If that is possible for you then a t175 NAP would be very welcome, if it's not we're going to have to make a decision about where our military is going to give us the best chance.

Please treat this message confidentially, I'm sure you agree the last thing Trolls need is a warning (although I imagine they will expect something) and I'm not that familiar with the other teams, so please don't pass on to them either.

Not sure the red bit is helpful at this point?

[YossarianLives]

I don't think we should include the part in red. I'm even thinking it might be best to secure the NAP whether or not they donate anything to the cause. It would be a shame to pull out of the Troll attack now that TEAM is on board, but it would be really hard to commit the necessary troops if we have to defend our border with M3.

[Old Harry]

From Tasunke:

>
> Hey, does this map info tell you anything new?
>
> Also, Plako is offering a NaP till 160, but haven't accepted yet (don't really want to tbh).
>
> Meanwhile, current NaP (inherited from Lewwyn) lasts until t145.
>
> Plako indeed is only 1 turn away from Civil Service now, but doesn't seem interested in Machinery at this time. I'm going to guess that they are Liberalism rushing, and banking on getting muskets before any serious warfare breaks out. This would probably happen somewhere around t150 tbh (or maybe a bit further, I don't know).
>
> Until then however, I don't think that they will have much beyond Axes, Archers, and Spears.

Hmm, lewwyn said t140 to me. That's a worry. Will another five turns give them time to get a defensive force together? Or does it give them five turns to attack our exposed border cities?

[Old Harry]

Ps, the map didn't say anything we didn't know already... on my phone so can't post it.

[Old Harry]

Took on board Yossarian's comment and sent this to m3:

Hi M3,

We'd like to agree to a t175 NAP. And if we're going to collaborate to beat Trolls I think we'll need to allow right of passage this time.

It's a shame that you have such a long NAP with Trolls, would it be possible for you to supply us with some catapults without breaking the NAP? We think that by t160 they will have leveraged their specialists and wonders into a tech lead, meaning a dogpile is highly unlikely to succeed. At present they haven't even got archery, and while I expect that to change over the next 20 turns this is the time when we have an opportunity to stop them winning.

I think it is in both our interests for Gillette to attack Trolls in the next 20 turns (we've been trying to persuade TEAM to join, but I'm not sure what their plans are yet), but attacking by ourselves isn't likely to even dent Trolls if they defend properly. If you can donate some cats to the party or provide gold for unit upgrades (I'm not sure if it's possible to hide that from C&D somehow? Maybe with a phoney war?) it gives us a chance of razing a couple of Troll cities, making the rest of us competitive with them again. Would you be willing to do that?

Please treat this message confidentially.

Old Harry
Gillette