Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Sullla]

Brick is actually not that difficult to defend anymore; we have a secure road connection going over there, and will have Engineering tech for the bonus road movement before CivPlayers could potentially attack. It also has 60% culture and control of all tiles in 3 directions from the city center. The danger is not defending Brick by itself, it's defending Brick along with an attack from another direction at the same time. I'm hoping that we'll be able to minimize that risk through diplomacy.

[scooter]

In terms of how to respond to CivPlayers, I think we at least wait until after we've declared war on T150. It's going to be difficult to say something new right now, but in a couple days we can make a better case for why this is important for us to wrap up sooner.

Of course they'll reject and reiterate their "wait and see" approach, but our communication with them will have a lot more reason to exist in a few days. Right now any pressure from us to get them to sign an agreement will seem odd to them. Also, hopefully in a few turns CFC's assault will bog down and we can point out that CFC will not be ready on T175.

The other thing we'll have to do is inform them that if they do not extend the NAP with us, we will be initiating the cooldown on T160. What we really don't want is them letting it auto-extend until T165 and then canceling, perfectly syncing up their NAP expiration with CFC.** We want them to know they'd have to be on their own for 5T if they 2v1'd us with CFC, and that might also scare them into peace.


** for those who don't remember - our NAP with them is a rolling NAP with 10T cooldown that cannot be canceled prior to T160. If it's canceled on T160, war can be declared on T170. If it's canceled on, say, T168, war can first be declared on T178

[Sullla]

scooter, can we draft up a message to send off to WPC with the following information:

* We are both declaring war next turn (T150) after the Germans have ended their turn. It never hurts to repeat this stuff to avoid confusion.

* I offered them a map trade in-game, and we'll probably offer to trade maps each turn the war goes on to keep our respective info up to date.

* On that same note, we've got a chariot who's going to be tagging along with their units. Might want to let them know that this guy is coming along for the ride.

* We may as well remind them that we last saw the main German army down by our border. Our chariot just moved past Wittenburg, Warrendorf, and Wilhelmshaven, and they all had exactly 1 axe inside. The WPC/German border is wide open with nothing there, at least as of Turn 149. They can go all-out aggressive if they want.

* We might also want to try and set up some kind of periodic chat session with them to coordinate strategy. Worth a shot, perhaps?

Many thanks as always.

[scooter]

Yep, I can draft something in an hour or two. Couple things.

1) If someone could take 2 minutes and crop the photo into a ready-to-send manner of the German army traveling and/or the lack of garrison on the German/WPC border, that would be really helpful.
2) I think chat sessions would be nice - maybe we can do a few evenings (EDT) a week? I believe both Sullla and their turn player are in that timezone (I am too). It's difficult to line it up for this first turn of the war, because we're so dependent on when the German team presses enter next turn. However for subsequent turns I think it would be nice to make sure the best choices are being made.

[antisocialmunky]

@CivPlayer Discussion

Well they could pull a Locke and Cervantes and go along with CFC by committing a token force to the RB attack just to weaken the leaders. There's a pretty big spectrum of decisions yet for them to choose from between Friends of RB and DEATH TO REALMS BEYOND.

Just gotta try and narrow it down.

[kalin]

I want to mention one thing: if we send something to the Germans it should be careful because that may be shared with other teams later. We don't want to give diplomatic ammunition for a possible dog pile.

Kalin

[scooter]

So about sending a message to WPC - about this picture:



I just realized I'm not sure how useful sending this picture will be since they already have all that visibility on that city due to the peak. Anyways, here's a draft to them:

Beta,

Just checking in on the turn before the war. We're pretty excited . I'll get right to business, here's a few random noteworthy things I wanted to pass on to you:

1) Our turn player offered a map trade in-game. Hopefully you don't mind, but I'm thinking it will be really helpful to both of us to trade maps throughout the war so that we always have up-to-date information on cities and cultural borders and whatnot.

2) The German team has continued to send their whole army in our direction, so we believe you guys will have very light defenses to deal with. That should allow you guys to attack pretty aggressively since you will not have to worry about their main catapult/axe stack. Hopefully you can punish them for that, and we can win this war quickly! We will let you know if we see things shifting in your direction, but right now they are almost right at the frontline with us. Wittenburg, Warrendorf, and Wilhelmshaven each had exactly 1 axe as garrison when we just walked passed them, so you should be in great shape.

3) Also, we have a chariot on the border between you and Inca. He can't make it home for the war, so we'll have him tag along with your army if you don't mind.

4) What's your availability like? Our turn player had a helpful idea - maybe we could schedule occasional chat sessions so we can sync up war-turn strategy? Are there any nights/times that work well for you? Our primary turn player and several others here are on east coast US timezone.

Ok that's a lot, hopefully it's at least slightly useful!
scooter - Team RB

It's late for me, so I'm not confident enough in my late-night writing abilities to just up and send this, so I'll post this here, and if I get the general thumbs-up from you all I'll send it in the morning.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Looks good, and I'd say send the cropped photo even though they have vision from the peak tile, there's no harm in it. I'd maybe end with an exhortation to KILL THEM ALL but that may be too much.

[Fintourist]

Let's include the reminder that we both declare and enter WPC borders on T150 after Germans have played!

[scooter]

Added in the note about T150 and sent:

Beta,

Just checking in on the turn before the war. We're pretty excited . As a reminder for both my team and yours, we'll wait until after the German team ends turn on T150, then we'll both login and declare war. We've been playing after them for a couple turns now so that there are no double-move issues. Anyway, I'll get right to business, here's a few random noteworthy things I wanted to pass on to you:

1) Our turn player offered a map trade in-game. Hopefully you don't mind, but I'm thinking it will be really helpful to both of us to trade maps throughout the war so that we always have up-to-date information on cities and cultural borders and whatnot.

2) The German team has continued to send their whole army in our direction, so we believe you guys will have very light defenses to deal with. That should allow you guys to attack pretty aggressively since you will not have to worry about their main catapult/axe stack. Hopefully you can punish them for that, and we can win this war quickly! We will let you know if we see things shifting in your direction, but right now they are almost right at the frontline with us. Wittenburg, Warrendorf, and Wilhelmshaven each had exactly 1 axe as garrison when we just walked passed them, so you should be in great shape.

3) Also, we have a chariot on the border between you and Inca. He can't make it home for the war, so we'll have him tag along with your army if you don't mind.

4) What's your availability like? Our turn player had a helpful idea - maybe we could schedule occasional chat sessions so we can sync up war-turn strategy? Are there any nights/times that work well for you? Our primary turn player and several others here are on east coast US timezone.

Ok that's a lot, hopefully it's at least slightly useful!
scooter - Team RB

I'm trying not to be paranoid, but I am noting that it's been 4 days and they never answered about whether anyone had contacted them about dogpiling us. Hopefully that's because Tatu is slow to respond and Beta is only interested in turn-by-turn stuff and is not as in the loop as Tatu.