Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Nakor]

Sounds like a good plan!

[kalin]

That said, I'm kind of wary of buying off CP with units. We can probably survive a NAP-stab in this game. We probably can't survive one fueled by the number of units we'd need to gift CP to make them agree to that plan.

I am not suggesting we gift the units. We would attack alongside CP. I am not sure we would trust anybody to not turn around and attack us with our own units.

EDIT: @scooter: I am quite short on time for a full explanation, but again I was not suggesting gifting units. If civfr gets mad at us, what do we lose? It's not like we have OB or trades or anything with them. If we declare on them and attack them with CP we will weaken a strong opponent *and* keep CP off our backs! I think sending some knights is a low cost.

Kalin

[SevenSpirits]

FYI that does take away our ability to preemptively declare on CFC which we may wish to do.

[scooter]

Mardoc - I won't break your whole reply into quotes, but I think you're halfway right. However, the chat with CivPlayers really, really sounds like they're tentatively planning to split us in half with CFC. I don't know, I have a hard time reading this as something else:

scooter:
hah, okay, here I have a theory. you can tell me if it's crazy or true
you're waiting to see how the CFC/Zulu war goes
because you know that if CFC can win it quickly, they would like to attack us. but they know they need a partner to do that, so they've tried to get you on board.
am I close?

OT4E:
I think I never went so far, heh

scooter:
what do you mean?

OT4E:
In general, you are right. We are weak and small nation. Being neutral is becoming too expensive for us. I cant predict what happens in 10-15 turn to enter 40 turn NAPS

Am I reading that wrong? The CFC chat with Yossarian yesterday even more blatantly signaled their desire to attack us if they can get enough teams on board.

[scooter]

FYI that does take away our ability to preemptively declare on CFC which we may wish to do.

We could probably get them to exclude CFC from the deal. I get the sense it would not bother them in the slightest if the #1 and #2 power clashed. They are more concerned with us gobbling up a weaker civ unopposed (CivPlayers seems to be their concern).

[Zargon]

You'd definitely want to nail down CP to the t180 deal before making that offer to Apolyton. Do it in the other order, and now if CP and Apolyton talk, CP learns they get to have their cake and eat it too, and proceed to declare on turn 175.

Even if we get CP on board for t180, we'd be giving up the option of an opportunistic first strike against CFC. It seems unlikely given the geography, but maybe they'd leave a city open for boating or something.

So then if Apolyton takes the deal, it indicates that they were honest in their assessment that they won't have a substantial military and wouldn't have attacked us, t200 pact or no.

If they don't take the deal, I suppose we learn that they're definitely in rather than just being pretty damn sure when they decline to re-up at turn 160.

I don't think they'll change courses if we can convince them to accept the nullable t200 NAP. Either they're in on the t175 plot, and they'll decline, or they're not in, accept, and we lose an (admittedly kind of low-value) option. I don't see the upside for us.

[kalin]

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.

I like this idea a lot too.

Kalin

[pindicator]

We may not even need a NAP with Apolyton. Teams are rightly starting to look at these agreements with skepticism as our true intent. Perhaps it would win us better goodwill by trying for resource deals or information sharing. Especially if we believe Apolyton has little likelihood to actually build an army in the next 20 turns.

It probably couldn't hurt to phrase the German war as us agreeing to help WPC. We look more magnanimous and less like the big bully

[Mardoc]

@scooter: That seems likely, I just wouldn't say that it's certain. Treat my post as a hypothesis, not an assumption. Edit: Or perhaps as wishful thinking? I want it to be true, anyway. I'd be happy if you pushed to see if it's true, but I certainly would assume we've got incoming if you can't prove otherwise.

I dunno, a lot of what OT4E has said seems like he's looking to hear something specific from us and assuming the worst if he doesn't hear that. But he doesn't want to give us a hint on what he's looking for.

I realize I might have been assuming this: I would propose the NAP-with exception to CivPlayers, not to Apolyton. While it'd be nice to nail Apolyton down, we probably have to declare war on someone if CivPlayer and CFC are still dogpiling.

[SevenSpirits]

Mardoc - I won't break your whole reply into quotes, but I think you're halfway right. However, the chat with CivPlayers really, really sounds like they're tentatively planning to split us in half with CFC. I don't know, I have a hard time reading this as something else:

I think you are missing the point. CivPlayers wants us to be tied down in defense and building a lot of units, or get something out of us in exchange for NAP. CFC I believe wants that too, and probably Apolyton as well. I really doubt anyone is excited to invade us.