Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Then they just crunch the numbers and work out they lose alot fewer villages to us than us to them . Their chariots are already in place, we haven't even got units in their territory.

[Cyneheard]

Then they just crunch the numbers and work out they lose alot fewer villages to us than us to them . Their chariots are already in place, we haven't even got units in their territory.

Perhaps - but it's at least a starting point.

[Zargon]

Would there be anything left to pillage by the time we got there? Say we whipped out a chariot this turn and another next turn. They get there in 4-5 turns, and then what's left? Will there actually be decent pickings left? They'll probably have all the cities, and some will be coming out of resistance. They'll swap into caste and pop borders 3 turns after that. Would that leave us enough pickings to justify getting 2-4 chariots instead of maces?

Assuming there is, I think I like the plan, except that I think I'd prefer to get chariots out of our frontline rather than whipping them out of Starfall. If we whip a pair of chariots, then this turn is turn 153 (I think), we swap this turn, whip 154, and get it to move 155, and get a second chariot to move on 157. We could pull the 3 wounded chariots from the frontline now and have them at Starfall on turn 154, and move them into CFC on 155, same as if we whipped a chariot from Starfall now, except we'd have 3. Meanwhile, Starfall would then get to keep producing maces.

Additionally, I'd prefer to tell CFC on turn 156, after scumbag moving the chariots on 155, thus giving them 3 less turns to react if their reaction is to throw the sink at us and move more stuff up to pillage. We don't actually care about the tiles the chariot pillages between now and then.

Of course, we could make the decision about sending the chariots away until after we take Worms, to make sure there's no military surprises that we might need them for.

[NobleHelium]

There are two parts to the plan. Part 1 is threatening to counter-pillage. Part 2 is actually counter-pillaging (or not). We care about part 1 a lot more than part 2, so it makes no sense to delay telling them. You guys are too focused on the actual act of counter-pillaging.

[pindicator]

You can tell them that we were counting on the pillage money to fuel our economy...

[kjn]

Guys - we can't whip chariots out of Starfall. They're obsolete units now that we have knights.

[mostly_harmless]

Also, I would like KJN or someone else, to check whether the cultural overlap in Spanish lands actually alllows for neutral hamlets. We would look stupid if we walk over there, thereby inviting more CFC units to come to our front line, and then there is nothing for us to pillage, while CFC goes full force pillaging German lands.

mh

[kjn]

Also, I would like KJN or someone else, to check whether the cultural overlap in Spanish lands actually alllows for neutral hamlets. We would look stupid if we walk over there, thereby inviting more CFC units to come to our front line, and then there is nothing for us to pillage, while CFC goes full force pillaging German lands.

Yes, it does. The distance between cities is generally higher in Spanish land than CFC land, both between the the Spanish and CFC border cities, and between the Spanish cities.

[Zargon]

I'm not focusing on the actual pillaging, I'm focusing on their likely response if we tell them we're going to pillage them now. It's to throw a bunch more units our way to strip the German territory bare.

The goal is to actually make them stop, right?

So we tell them now, CFC looks around, sees no chariots in their lands, and thinks, well, I can get more stuff up to Germany faster than they can get stuff into Spain, plus I can protect my acquisitions far better due to capturing them faster and running artists, so I'll set up a few knight whips that will be useful in future wars, or divert some newly produced knights, or take some chariots from the Spanish front and send them up. As bad as one chariot pillaging is, more would be many times worse.

Or we tell them when we already have several units in their territory, 2 turns away from doing some damage. I've already gotten to do some pillaging, which I've entirely gotten away with.

In one of these scenarios, CFC is more motivated to give us the finger, and in one of them, they're less motivated. Let's go with option number 2.

And all that is predicated upon us actually having decent pillaging prospects by the time we get to the Spanish territory, which doesn't seem like a given at all. All the cities currently captured can probably have popped borders by the time we get there by running 3 artist turns, with the rest following shortly, presuming they all fall in short order. If we make a threat that's not even feasible, it only has downsides.

[kjn]

The pillaging of Spanish land is an empty threat - and if there is one thing one shouldn't do it is to make empty threats.

We don't have any units to send over there, when we get there the fighting will be mostly over, and it would leave us with units stuck in a bad place once the curtain goes down.

I still think we should officially inform them that we consider further pillaging of former German lands as a breach of their treaty with us, and telling them that the next case will mean us cancelling the spice deliveries. As such, it is their choice now if they want to escalate this conflict more - we have told them that if they do A, we will do B.

As for the ivory to the Spanish, if they had paid us for a trade embargo beforehand against the Spanish, they wouldn't have the trouble with war elephants in the first place. They've made it quite clear that the only deal they are willing to make with us is the one we pay for, so I think we should treat them the same.