Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[mostly_harmless]

Oh, I was not really thinking anyone would be convinced of not making this deal. And scooter and kjn point it out nicely, why this is deal is good for us.
I am just thinking, that if we had not touched on the subject of NAP renewal for another 20 turns with CFC we still would have gotten a longer NAP with them, without all this rushing.

I think the long term time table is a bit hard to judge and I am certainly not the expert on timings, but I get the feeling that T150 is awfully far in the future and we might actually be in a position to fight someone a lot sooner, seeing how this snowball is ridiculously getting bigger with each turn. On the other hand I think 20 turn (T150- ~T170) is not much time to grab and safeguard the German lands. I am putting T170 as a limit here, as I am sure every team, including CFC will have realized by then that we need to be stopped pronto, and we might need 5 turns to reshuffle the heavy-promoted veteran units around for deterrence.

Another issue, which is of course completely unpredictable is the chance of a Sommerswerd-wiggles-out-of-the-deal situation and a NAP backstab.

As for Civplayers, I think their behaviour actually makes some sense, assuming they have some memory of the Apolyton game, where Team RB steam rolled over the Templars and executed a finely orchestrated decapitation strike against Imperio. So a rushed military build-up is a prudent reaction if the weakest-army all of a sudden finds out it is next to the biggest army in the game.

[scooter]

Caledorn: I have posted your reponse in the forum now, and I need to go to sleep very soon <snip personal things>
However, before I go, I would just like to say quickly that I see no problem with what you have suggested
scooter: ok, yeah get some sleep! and that's good - looking forward to hearing official word whenever
Caledorn: you may hear from another member on my team
scooter: sounds good
Caledorn: as long as there is no other addendums that need to be discussed and both our teams agree to the deal in it's entirety with point 3.2, 3.3 and 5.5 as you have suggested, I'll just tell the other guys on the team to send you a confirmation email that we agree to the deal
and with that confirmation email, we both can consider the deal binding and signed
scooter: sounds good! thanks

So he's in favor of accepting. Now we just wait and hope our friend Sommer doesn't torpedo it.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Maybe not torpedo, just improve with a trove of "Super Friendly Advice"

Oh, I was not really thinking anyone would be convinced of not making this deal. And scooter and kjn point it out nicely, why this is deal is good for us.
I am just thinking, that if we had not touched on the subject of NAP renewal for another 20 turns with CFC we still would have gotten a longer NAP with them, without all this rushing.

I think we'd just be faced with the crisis of moving them and that settler away from an idiotic city placement with stone 1st ring if we hadn't already been initiating discussion.

I think the long term time table is a bit hard to judge and I am certainly not the expert on timings, but I get the feeling that T150 is awfully far in the future and we might actually be in a position to fight someone a lot sooner, seeing how this snowball is ridiculously getting bigger with each turn. On the other hand I think 20 turn (T150- ~T170) is not much time to grab and safeguard the German lands. I am putting T170 as a limit here, as I am sure every team, including CFC will have realized by then that we need to be stopped pronto, and we might need 5 turns to reshuffle the heavy-promoted veteran units around for deterrence.

This is the tile micro from the current turn. I've posted this to get an idea of how many turns it would actually take to get our forces back from former Germania to the eastern CFC front, if necessary. Assuming their city 1S of the rice on the Eastern Dealers border, and that we'll certainly have Engineering by this time, the new CFC city would be 11SE from the tile 1E of Wasserburg, the closest German city. We'll begin the conflict around here, not end it, so depending on how deep into German territory our army is, we're looking at least at 4 turns to reposition from this border, assuming our roads are going in the most direct route between fronts. We would have time to cover this distance with two movers in the time you mention, but Stack of Doom and collateral would be longer than 5 turns in any event.

Another issue, which is of course completely unpredictable is the chance of a Sommerswerd-wiggles-out-of-the-deal situation and a NAP backstab.

As for Civplayers, I think their behaviour actually makes some sense, assuming they have some memory of the Apolyton game, where Team RB steam rolled over the Templars and executed a finely orchestrated decapitation strike against Imperio. So a rushed military build-up is a prudent reaction if the weakest-army all of a sudden finds out it is next to the biggest army in the game.

No disagreement on this point.

[zakalwe]

Shitty evasive response from CivPlayers.

Indeed. On the other hand, do we really need anything else from them other than a 10-turn rolling NAP? 10 turns notice is pretty nice. Since we're planning to settle the ivory, border talks could be awkward, too.

We can do without open borders. Really, there are just a couple of specific city sites that we want them to avoid. If we think that is really important, then maybe we can buy them off with our other surplus spices. Probably settle ivory first, though.

I get the feeling this team is all bark and no bite. They're just trying to haggle for the sake of it.

[waterbat]

Why did we back down from t200 so quickly. If anything those 25t may be quite valuable for us.

[Fintourist]

When our power is starting to spike in the late 140s we might have a pretty good negotiation power for extending the NAP. Of course that does not answer your question, waterbat. Just wanted to mention that despite our possible run-away status we might still have a possibility to extend this agreement later.

[Cyneheard]

Why did we back down from t200 so quickly. If anything those 25t may be quite valuable for us.

We didn't back down. We offered T105 stone in exchange for a T200 NAP (and moving the settler to 1SE of the rice instead of 1S), and they didn't take it, and didn't counter-offer the T200 NAP.

[Shoot the Moon]

Keep in mind also that we're almost certain to offer to CFC a NAP renewal sometime before t175, so it's not like we're going to be blindsided by them. We'll know a fair number of turns in advance if they don't renew the NAP and we have vision on all of their core cities to track military builds if we fear they are building up an army.

Also, by t175 we should be able to start drafting if need be. Probably won't be quite at riflemen yet, but drafted muskets should be able to produce all we need to stop a CFC attack. I wouldn't be terribly worried about how long it takes to get back from German lands--if need be we can simply send the production from the core to the CFC border after invading the Germans. In essence, we're going to have more than enough of a heads up to deal with any threat CFC can possibly pose come t175 and need not worry about how long it takes to get back from German lands.

In regards to CivPlayers, I think the easiest response is probably to tell them that we have NAPs with all of our neighbors except them past t150 and that we have obviously proposed a longer NAP with them (that is we don't want to attack them either) and use that as evidence of our peaceful intentions. I'd simply say something along the lines of we want peace with all our neighbors and hope you want the same and are willing to show it by signing the longer term NAP we have proposed.

Telling them that we have NAPs with all our neighbors also has the nice benefit of giving them the slight warning that they can't expect any help from our neighbors if they are looking to declare on us.

[scooter]

Looks like we have a deal in place:

Hey scooter/RB,

I am happy to confirm that we are in agreement. The entire treaty, with the addendums 3.2, 3.3 and 5.5 officially added, is hereby accepted and signed by Team CFC.


Caledorn on behalf of Team CFC

[Ceiliazul]

Nice job scooter! That was a whole subgame by itself.