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Like everyone else, I'm greatly appreciating all the work that scooter is doing right now. The more we talk with these teams, the more chances we have to drive a wedge between CFC's attempts at alliance building.
The CivPlayers gift of 40 gold to the Germans is just baffling to me. It's too low to make any real difference in getting the Germans to a key tech, but it's also easily visible to any tech with Currency (which is everyone at this point in the game). In other words, it makes an enemy of our team while doing almost nothing to actually slow us down. I really wonder what they were thinking with that move (?)
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It probably is exactly what he said: an existing agreement being fulfilled. Their team probably didn't think of the diplo angle of how we would perceive it. I'm willing to take CP at their word for now
Suffer Game Sicko
Dodo Tier Player
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Agree with pindicator.
Caught Apolyton on chat, I'll see if it gets anywhere.
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Great work scooter! It's getting fun!
Completed: SG2-Wonders or Else!; SG3-Monarch Can't Hold Me; WW3-Surviving Wolf; PBEM3-Replacement for Timmy of Khmer; PBEM11-Screwed Up Huayna Capac of Zulu; PBEM19-GES, Roland & Friends (Mansa of Egypt); SG4-Immortality Scares Me
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Assuming the worst, it entirely makes sense if the Germans are 40 gold short of making Feudalism on some given turn and they wanted to slip the gold in before we declared.
Assuming the best, it also seems possible that CP had to bribe the Germans to get them adopt Buddhism. Maybe the bribe was a loan at some future date or gpt that the Germans just took out an advance on to push up feudalism by a turn.
Either way, I doubt being pissed at CP will help because it's not really possible to tell the difference between the two scenarios. We could argue over which is more likely, but are we going to declare war over it, or even alter our plans in any way whatsoever? No, we'll do what we perceive to be the maximum EV action at every fork, and this will be water under the bridge, because punishing teams for misbehaving isn't a victory condition.
I doubt an Apolyton chat will go anywhere. I just don't see anything to talk about from their point of view. Especially don't mention open borders. I think we'll start losing bunches of trade route income if anybody else closes borders, and Apolyton seems like the most likely candidate for that. For them, open borders with us is a button that says "give RB ~10-20 commerce per turn for free" (1.5 commerce per their city, if I understand correctly, less whatever buffer we have left after CP closed borders). Right now, that switch is on by default, and we don't want them to think about it, because if they do, they'll realize the obviously correct move is to close borders.
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Chat with Apolyton. For some reason his keyboard is turning apostrophes into 1s, kind of odd since on my keyboard, those are on the complete opposite side. Also, bolded emphasis is added by me as usual. Here it is:
Chat with Apolyton/MZ Wrote:scooter
Hey, just wanted to say thanks - got your message
MZ
heya, yw
scooter
and I assume by your reply that means CFC has been pressing you guys into attacking us too huh? 
MZ
quite off the record i can tell you that i1m as concerned about cfc as about you
scooter
hah, why's that?
I won't tell them or anyone of course, just curious
MZ
you are growing too big and too strong
scooter
oh, I meant why are you as concerned about cfc?
MZ
They are too will grow too big.. i assume they will finish off zulu quite fastt
scooter
yeah they will. and now they're attempting to recruiting everyone - including you guys right? - into dogpiling onto us
which... if that works out,a ll that does is make cfc the big leader and not us, which doesn't change a whole lot for the rest of the world
MZ
Yes i1m aware of hat.
that*
scooter
yeah I figured. so what's your thoughts on cfc's proposal against us? what would you gain from joining?
MZ
I can1t really answer ths question, for at least two reasons: 1, i can not confirm nor deny what you say about cfc's plans. 2: We are yet unsure about the future. Nevertheless I can tell you that the ereason of refuing the Nap is that I'd like to avoid the situation in which the inca is now
scooter
what do you mean about avoiding their situation?
MZ
that you have nap with everyone else and inca has no chance aganst you alone
at least this is what we expect a qucik and devastating war againt the inca from you . They were slep too long.. we suspected they hve nap with you too as they were not preparing at all
scooter
well, since you will neither confirm nor deny, I will do the same 
I guess I don't see how a NAP extension coudl put you in the same place as Inca
Inca is in the tenuous position you've described because we didn't agree to an extension. we're offering you one, though.
MZ
since i don't want you to see too much into this refusal I tell you:
we believe an other civ might meet the same fate as inca, and we wouldn't like that, especially if it close to us
scooter
at our hands you mean? or somebody else?
MZ
at your hnds ofc
scooter
and you would like to have the ability to help them out if we do that is what you're implying?
MZ
maybe yes. that's why we don1t want nap extension yet. we want t osee how things develop.
scooter
how would that happen in the next 20T though
?
if you think Inca is about to be in trouble, and you know CFC is plotting against us in 25T, where are we going to find the time to invade another team?
MZ
i'm not sure cfc would attack you in 25T
scooter
you know they want to, and you know they're recruiting for it
and zulu sure aren't going to slow them down very much, hah
MZ
if i1d deny it you probably wouldn1t believe it anyway . But still: we haven1t been recruited
scooter
I'm trying to believe, but my job is to be skeptical and a little paranoid
MZ
don't worry, I'm ultra paranoid as well.. at some point I thought you and inca working together and plottingagainst us
scooter
haha yeah, it's better than being oblivious
anyway, our main concern is the ending of our NAP puts you in a window where it coincides too closely with CFC. even a minor extension would help us trust you.
are you afraid we're going to gobble up civplayers or weplayciv?
my understanding is you think we're going to kill inca, then use the peace with you to kill somebody else. just curious who you think that somebody will be
we have no plans for such a thing at the moment, but if you gave me specifics maybe i could explain better
MZ
there are things I can not reveal to you, especially without approval of my team, but you more or less see the thins as they are. Right now we believe this is our interest
scooter
well I'll just clear things up. our NAP with WPC runs very long - longer even than what we suggested with you. so that invasion is not happening
civplayers also cannot happen, because CFC is aligned with them. the minute we walk into civplayers territory, CFC's large knight/mace army enters ours from the other side and we're in big trouble
i'm talking after T170 when our nap with you runs out
MZ
it's too hard to tell now what will be the state of game in 20 turns. We probably won1t hve a big army anway.. our current defense is quite a shame. now you may think you will nt have the opportunity to attack cp, but i could change. and while you and cfc might have a power balance which would suit us, but it's also possible that one of you becomes much stronger and then we might need to act somehow.
scooter
Ok that's fair. How about we check back with you in 6-10 turns or so.
like you said, things are changing quickly, so maybe that will have an impact
MZ
yes, we should get back to this lter
scooter
well thanks for the chat, very informative. I'll let you go
MZ
k, cya
Summary:
1) They claim CFC is not really recruiting them, and/or they aren't really interested in joining. He backs this up by agreeing that helping CFC do that just makes CFC the new runaway and does not help their team
2) His main concern with us is that we'll NAP everyone except 1 team, and then have an easy conquest, kind of like what we're about to do with the German team. He wants their team to have flexibility to help CivPlayers if we attack them
3) Either way, they're not making a deal now, period. We'll come back to this sometime before T160.
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Nice work. I'm inclined to believe apolyton when they say they won't have a big army at T175
Even if they attack, it won't be a disaster.
We're top dog, and for that we'll have to pay for it. We'll get invaded heavily by CFC and mediumly by CIvplayers and the outcome of the game will depend on the outcome of that war.
To Nukes!
(and communism )
June 6th, 2013, 14:44
(This post was last modified: June 6th, 2013, 14:46 by darrelljs.)
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Why not offer them a NAP extension until t200, but have it revert to t170 (or whatever the current expriation date is) if we DoW on someone? The mirror of a defensive pact, and if they're honest it should be acceptable. It limits our ability to pre-empt CP, but then we can time the signing of these two agreements to make that acceptable .
Darrell
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(June 6th, 2013, 14:44)darrelljs Wrote: Why not offer them a NAP extension until t200, but have it revert to t170 (or whatever the current expriation date is) if we DoW on someone? The mirror of a defensive pact, and if they're honest it should be acceptable. It limits our ability to pre-empt CP, but then we can time the signing of these two agreements to make that acceptable .
Darrell
I like this idea. Any other opinions on this? I wouldn't say we send it immediately, but maybe in a couple turns.
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Oh, that's very interesting, scooter. I have an alternate explanation for the observed facts that might also fit, beyond CFC having a dogpile planned for us. Although they have high quality diplomats, you do have to remember that they're objectively in a bad position to convince people to dogpile - 'please help me win instead of those guys'. And remember, not everyone understands the snowball - they might still think they can catch up later on.
Suppose CFC instead approached our other neighbors with a mutual defense pact? Or at least pointed out that mutual defense is impossible if your hands are tied, and asked those teams to delay NAPing us and watch to see how aggressive we get?
If this happens to be true, then our worst-case planning might actually cause that dogpile. We're issuing threats, trying carefully to get staggered NAPs, building power - all things that would make a neighbor really want a MDP. Heck, declaring on CivPlayers would certainly tip other teams into a nervous place.
How to tell them apart: I'm not really sure. And I'd hate to be hit by dogpile unprepared. One possibility, though: try to get a NAP with a MDP exception. Phrase it carefully to allow the german war, but otherwise, see if they bite? But I assume that we don't really want a war after we eat the Germans, at least not for another age. We can't war profitably with anyone else just yet. So we wouldn't be giving up anything we care about.
Crosspost: ok, so I was writing this up while darrell and scooter also saw that same idea. Maybe that means I'm right?
EitB 25 - Perpentach
Occasional mapmaker
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