Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Shoot the Moon]

WHat do you guys think about sending a cropped version of that screenshot showing the German stack composition at the WPC border? I think we should.

Give me a moment, and I can set up my report on the German army. Including garrisons and so on.

Sounds smart to me.

Their NAP offer is a bit more interesting. That would likely put them out of range for conquering directly after the Germans. That being said, our border with them after the German war likely wouldn't be fun to defend, so that might not be a bad thing, at least as long as we make sure to explicitly include a clause for not letting other teams' armies through their lands.

[dazedroyalty]

We're in a jam because I think we need to keep them on the table as a potential future target but right now is the worst time to indicate that to them. Is there a way to talk it down to a shorter time to be closer to the time we expect to need to 1) take German land and 2) consolidate that land and make it useful? I'm not sure what that time table would be but T200 seems too long/far away.

[scooter]

I think we should get a quick response to them. My suggestion:

Tatu,

Hey, thanks for the message. Our preparations are definitely well under way - perhaps you've seen our power graph rising a bit lately . We're definitely looking forward to the Incan conquest!

I'll get back to you on the NAP issue once we've had a chance to discuss it as a team, but I wanted to get this quick reply to you given the circumstances. To aid in your planning, we seem to have found the main Incan stack here:

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Hopefully that helps you as you prepare. We will definitely be ready to declare war and move into Incan territory on T150. Will you guys be ready for that as well? I'll send you another email in the next few days with more details of course.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[sooooo]

I wouldn't want us to attack WPC after the germans. They're our only friends really and it would be bad to attack them. Turn 200 is a log time away, but I don't mind it.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think that while we've been keeping them open as a potential target, we need to decide now whether that's an option.
While they might be the best expansion target post war, I think for the sake of this war going smoothly and having a defensible front, we should agree to the NAP, with provisions against stack moving from other nations, spy missions and so on.

[kjn]

So, a better and fleshed out report based on the one I posted yesterday.

Known and estimated parts of the German power as of T142:

Population: 42k
Tech: 34k [1]
Buildings: 27k [2]
Units: 161k

[1] Hunting, Mining, The Wheel, AH, Sailing, BW, Construction confirmed. IW tentative.
[2] Barracks in Webringen, Worms, Wismar, Wittenberge, Wien, Wilhelmshaven, Wesselburen, Wanzleben, and Warendorf

The unit total is based a study of German military builds up to circa T100, to which has been added confirmed units (ie observed units that aren't are in excess of the earlier breakdown. Their army breaks down as follows:

15 axes (visibility on 14 during T141-142)
2 spears (visibility on both)
8 chariots (visibility on 5)
3 catapults (visibility on all)
8 quechua
1 galley (in Wismar)
1 visible workboat
5 visible workers

We haven't observed any quechuas for a while, so they might have been lost, acting as garrisons in backline cities, or have been upgraded.

Together, this comes to 280k in power, and we estimate the German power from the graphs to be at circa 315k, and we have visibility in the last two turns on 129k of their units (14 axes, 2 spears, 5 chariots, 3 cats, 1 galley), leaving circa 90k unknown and in the fog. If we assume an axe as garrison in all their cities we don't have had direct visibility on during the last two turns (ie 8 cities), that comes to 36k of true unknown units. It's probably mainly a mix of chariots, leftover quechuas, and some more axes, though it's possible they have a few more catapults.

Observed units and their location:

Wasserburg: 1 axe
Worms: 1 axe
Wolfratshausen: 1 axe
Wismar: 2 axes, 1 spear, 1 galley
Wilhelmshaven: 7 axes, 1 spear, 5 chariots, 3 catapults
Outside Wilhelmshaven (on pigs): 2 axes

We have also observed a Woodsman 2 axe some time ago, current whereabouts unknown. Most of their units that we've seen haven't been highly promoted, most having only a single one.

I have left out any of the force mix analysis that Sullla did.

[scooter]

I was thinking more like just sending this picture with the interface cropped out:

[antisocialmunky]

Attacking WPC while interesting probably doesn't help much in crushing CFC.

We should figure out how we want to win the game after this war (drafting millions of power worth of rifles I assume and killing enough stuff to force an out of game vote).

[regoarrarr]

Just make sure and save the pic locally before you send it

[SevenSpirits]

NAP is good but the potential issue is war spoils. For example, suppose WPC miraculously takes some cities that we were planning to take, and it's a big pain for us. We can't do anything about it if we have a NAP. Or suppose WPC does some other thing that screws us in the german war, like signing peace and giving germans all their units. That would be irritating. Or maybe we are greedy bastards and want cities that WPC took in the war. Not having a NAP is to our advantage in that we will be dealing with WPC quite a bit soon via the war partnership, and without a NAP we have great leverage to get good deals, because our army will be a lot stronger.

Meanwhile I guess we are planning to end up with a majority of german holdings by conquering faster, thus kind of screwing WPC a bit. If we succeed, having a NAP is potentially good in that WPC won't attack us over it, but potentially bad in that WPC might be angrier at us due to a perceived closer friendship.

I think all of these things are overshadowed by the fact that german land should be enough for us to assimilate for a while, we are concerned about some sort of dogpile in the t175 timeframe, and WPC is willing to be our friend. Let's NAP it up.