Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[novice]

Apolyton are tech and infra leaders, have no power to speak of, our army is close to them, and the NAP expires in, what, 12 turns?

Why don't we hurt them a little with some leftover units, and then extort a NAP and/or other concessions?

[scooter]

So Yossarian from CFC poked me on chat. I'll have to post the log later, but I also floated the same "NAP through T200 with an out" type thing we talked about. He seemed interested. It would be pointless though if we roughed up Apolyton, so we sort of have to choose between one or the other.

And I really like the idea of messing with Apolyton. They have 0 military. Of course they might start drafting now that they nabbed Nationalism.

[kjn]

That said, Apolyton can get a lot of power quickly if they adopt Nationhood, which they can do this turn if they want to without penalty (though I imagine they want until their golden age is about to end, since they adopted Pacifism when it began).

I also imagine they're picking up Gunpowder right now, so they can draft muskets (janissaries).

Ie, I really doubt we can threaten them militarily in any worthwhile way in the near or medium term.

[Ubercannon]

That said, Apolyton can get a lot of power quickly if they adopt Nationhood, which they can do this turn if they want to without penalty (though I imagine they want until their golden age is about to end, since they adopted Pacifism when it began).

I also imagine they're picking up Gunpowder right now, so they can draft muskets (janissaries).

Ie, I really doubt we can threaten them militarily in any worthwhile way in the near or medium term.

What if you declared that the espionage was a violation of the NAP, and just invaded them immediately? How much damage could that cause before they raised an army?

[SevenSpirits]

Apolyton is obviously going to be drafting janissaries and we don't want to fight them. In fact I'd rather not fight anyone else without a war ally.

NAPs are good. Let's get NAPs.

[pindicator]

It'd take at least 5 turns for our mace and cat army to move out if german culture and to a spot where we could threaten their border city. And that's ignoring the fact that we're still at war with Germany

[kalin]

NAPs are good. Let's get NAPs.

I'd also get Gunpowder to be on the safe side

Kalin

[novice]

Why don't we hurt them a little with some leftover units, and then extort a NAP and/or other concessions?

Apolyton is obviously going to be drafting janissaries and we don't want to fight them.

Ok, I guess that's why.

[Brian Shanahan]

Apolyton are tech and infra leaders, have no power to speak of, our army is close to them, and the NAP expires in, what, 12 turns?

Why don't we hurt them a little with some leftover units, and then extort a NAP and/or other concessions?

I'm thinking along the same lines, but I don't think we have to even hurt them. All we have to do is lay the facts on the ground:

1) You're a five stone weakling who couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag.
2) We're the 300lb orang-utan with the tensile strength to unscrew your head from your neck.
3) Of the teams you're hoping to help you, a) CFC are in a hot war with CivFr who are a bunch of MP veterans (we're frankly putting our betting budget on CivFr here), and b) CivPlayers are as weak as you, they won't do squat unless CFC have roughed us up to surrender point already.
4) If you want to push your luck with tech steals we can arrange a fair exchange, capture one city for each tech stolen.

&c. I honestly think if we push Apolyton hard enough they'll back down, they know the facts of the game as it stands currently (i.e. that CFC fucked up the anti-us coalition by needlessly needling CivFr), and without the muscle of CFC we can pretty much bully all of our neighbours at the same time if we do so wish.

[Speaker]

We just ate another civ, and have spent tons of turns slaving and drafting. Our tech situation is pretty crappy at the moment. What we need is a period of consolidation, to grow our German cities, finish courthouses, markets, and ideally, Universities in our core, and research some key economic and military techs before our next war. Realistically, we would not accomplish much of anything by attacking Apolyton, especially considering they are not a long-term threat, and can draft their UU in the very near future. Sorry, but our unpromoted, drafted, cannon-fodder macemen and 10 or so Knights don't really pose much of a threat to a Civ with access to Janissaries.

Let's avoid sending threats and posturing as the big guy on the block. We should try to stay as far under the radar as we can, to give us time to breathe, before our next conflict. If we go and threaten Apolyton, and don't have the muscle to back it up (which we do not, in my opinion), well, we just gave CFC a naturally ally who shares a border with us. No thanks!