Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[scooter]

I'm going to try to reach out to UCiv right now to gauge their interest in the Communism idea. I obviously won't commit us to anything, but I'd like to see how they feel. Hopefully he responds to my chat soon.

[scooter]

Brief chat with UCiv. I didn't get very long before he had to bolt, but I floated the Communism idea:

scooter
Hey Yuufo, do you have a few minutes by any chance?
Yuufo
Hi!
scooter
hey! glad I caught you
So I talked with my team, and we definitely would like to work with you however we can
we were trying to think of ideas.
Yuufo
good
scooter
someone suggested an interesting one.
We would like to get to communism tech. we have good science, but also extremely high expenses which is slowing us down
an idea: if you guys fund us with gold on our way to communism so we can get there quickly, we'll beat everyone there, getting a great spy. We could then gift you the great spy. you could use that to infiltrate us and steal a bunch of techs from us and catch up that way since tech stealing is cheaper then researching most of the time
I know it's a little odd, but if we arranged, it, we could make it so it's cheaper than researching the techs for you
Yuufo
i thought that would be forbidden by the rules?
(spionage economy)
scooter
I don't know of a rule that would prevent that?
oh no, spies are allowed. apolyton just used a great spy to steal 3 techs from us at once
a few turns ago
Yuufo
well in all pitboss games I am playing it is forbidden
cooperative spionage
scooter
yeah, that's pretty common, but the other teams voted to allow it here for some reason
so anyway, there's an idea to think about. we have not set our tech path just yet so we aren't 100% sure if it will work best for you and us yet, but it's something to consider
Yuufo
i don't think it would work, since we are far away from each other. the spies would take ages to get to your cities, or get caught, and the costs depend on distance
scooter
On costs: I can have some people on our team do the math and they can figure out the exact costs so we can make sure it works.
on distance: we can get the great spy itself to you very quickly for the gift since it has 2 moves and we have engineering. the other spies you could build in advance.
Yuufo
do you tech Communism just for the spy?
scooter
we would like state property and the workshop bonus
Yuufo
ah ok
scooter
but denying the spy to an enemy is a good benefit too
or using it ourself if we teched it without help. tech stealing is so cheap if there is no counter-espionage
Yuufo
yes I know
well I'll submit the idea to my team
I must go now
bye!
scooter
Okay no problem. Yeah jsut let me know if you have any questions or concerns and we can talk more
bye!

Guess we wait now.

[scooter]

So I had a chat with Apolyton about the NAP situation. I didn't make much progress on that front, but then we got some really great news at the end. Also, yes I asked a few rhetorical questions or said things just to get him talking, so if a couple of my comments seem odd, that's what I was angling for. Here's the whole thing:

scooter
Hey. so I see you guys are all geared up to attack us with CivPLayers soon :D
that should be fun. what is your goal in doing that if you don't mind me asking?
MZ
you know something I don't?
scooter
well you guys are both refusing to extend NAPs, they are funding you towards rifling, you revolted so that you can draft...
I can do math
MZ
well, seiously..
fate and circumstances will make us enemies one day.. we might not have the strength to attack you.. or defeat you.. but we believe we will be able to defend ourselves, so that's why we will not make nap.. to let the possiblity open when we can see a chance
right now we are the last in powers, aztec not much higher than us, cfc is at war with maya, wpc seems to be your friend, hre doesn1t answer mails.. but we also know that you too will get rifls soon..
scooter
so you'd rather a world where we both could just be opportunistic with each other?
MZ
you can say so
scooter
T170 is 10 turns away, and our war will be done well before that... So we'll definitely have everything on your border by then
so we'll be safe
I'd just prefer a world where we don't have to be in an arms race for no reason
and I'd be happy to give both you and civplayers the same NAP
MZ
we are disspaointed in inca in their lack of efforts to at least slow you down.. it seems they used everything against wpc.. now we see you a big threat which can not left in peace.. so if i1s only mking you to enter in race of arms and at least slow you down that way we will do it
scooter
we already *have* a large army :P
MZ
by not signing nap
i now
scooter
hah no, it's large because we built it up to run over Inca, not because of your team
we haven't lost much at all
MZ
you know we had to assume you and inca hada nap because we could not think they would be so blind not to notice your army building up
scooter
we did have a NAP, but it ended on T150. they didn't even ask to extend it until T148
MZ
that's why we made a nap offer to you, to figure out maybe you plan something against us with maya
sry, with inca
that's why i say they were blind..
to not use a more offensive word :P
scooter
ah okay. yeah, they just forgot about it I think
haha yeah, I understand
Anyway. we see your mutual rush to rifles. I feel if you were only intersted in defending yourself you would be happy with jannisaries and would tech economic things, but you are ignoring your UU and rushing to Rifles. so I can only conclude you plan to attack
and if there's anything that is worthwhile to you to extend a NAP, let me know
I feel like it would be much easier if you just "drafted" off of us with arranged tech stealing, but if you're going to not be friendly we'll just run counter-espionage constantly
MZ
about the nap. we can1t make it for the reasons i mentioned. so yes we might have alittle fun in the future.. when exactly i don't know.. maybe when you stomp over us with your cavalries
about espionage: i prefer to do it unannounced
scooter
why would we want to stomp over you with our cavalries when we've repeatedly offered you peace??
and it's going to be much, much more expensive if we block it with counter-espionage. way more efficient when it's announced :P
MZ
i know we wouldn't be your ideal next target
we are quite far ad soon have the ability to draft rifles
but you are too big already to give you security from our side
scooter
what does that gain you?
honestly asking, I can't piece that one together
MZ
i don't believe i need to spell it out .
scooter
I think so, yes. If you are trying to win, how does this help you do that?
I don't think your object is to beat us, you still have to beat CFC and CivFr too.
MZ
cfc aand civfr aare beating each other
scooter
nah, they haven't exchanged hardly any units for a few turns now, we've been tracking that.
very mild skirmishes, but it's not a serious war at the moment
MZ
so you would suggest a nap, and would promise not to attack civplayers too.. but what about you ad maya kill cfc then he two of you easily kill us both as we are much smaller
scooter
we can give you a very long NAP
MZ
til the end of game? so we might get second place :P
scooter
Like, I would have to talk it over with my team, but we would likely be willing to give you and CivPlayers a NAP until the end if you wanted

[those last 2 messages were sent at basically the same time in case that's not clear]

haha
MZ
nah.. i would1t miss some midgame fun..
scooter
you're saying you're afraid that relegates you to 2nd place. I'm not so sure, but does attacking us in 10T end up better than 2nd place somehow?
MZ
attacking you probably won1t happen unless circumstances would improve dramatically.. but what1s the point targeting second place till we have even a slight chance to win? and letting you grow even bigger would just lessen our chances to 0
scooter
I definitely can understand that at least. I'm all in favor of playing for the win whenever possible, so I respect that
MZ
one thing before i forget:
back to espionage I wanted to make this proposal to all teams about banning certain spy actions, talking about he civic and religion changing once
this would be an ingame agreement, those who sign it accept hat they will not use these kind of actions against hose who signed it too
scooter
that's a good idea. we would be willing to sign that agreement
that even if we were at war with you, we would not use those missions
MZ
so no official rule, just like naps but not end during wars
scooter
agreed
is anyone else interested that you know of in agreeing to that?
MZ
i will propose this to other team as well in some kind of foms.. i expect cfc not want to enter but we will see
i don't like cheap tactics.. though would hd enjoyed putting you into taoism6pacifism/bureau/caste system
ok i did not have enough spies but still
scooter
haha, yeah that's just no fun to play through
MZ
yeah, i agree
scooter
Anyway, I need to go, but I'll just reiterate once more that if you can think of any way we can prolong a NAP and it be beneficial to you, let me know. otherwise, I guess our border with you will have to be heavily militarized for safety's sake . thanks for the chat and for hearing me out!
MZ
ok, cya

Summary:
1) They very likely just will not sign the NAP. Too bad. I get where they're coming from, even though I pressed him on it here just to see him explain himself.
2) OMG YES on the civic/religion thing. That would help quite a bit if we got both Apolyton and CivPlayers to agree to that. CFC is less likely to agree, but even just getting those two on board would help a lot.

[scooter]

Ok guys, real quick. I got this from Beta:

Hi guys. Don't end your turn, please, without consulting me. I did not think I hit EOT yesterday. :dunno:

Just in case we do something jointly regarding Warendorf.

Thx!

btw - here's the pics of the four stacks of RB units lined up outside of Huron River.

There are two Longbows in Warendorf.

Cheers! Beta

I don't have time to download and then host the 4 pictures he sent, but they're basically just pictures of German team's stacks heading towards them like we expected. If someone wants to do that and then post them, that would be great. Anyway, I want to send this back to him real quick:

Beta,

I don't plan on ending turn until tomorrow, so no worries about that. Thanks for the screenshots. We plan on playing the war portion of the turn in 6-7 hours or so, and if we can coordinate something with Warendorf then we'll let you know. The issue is it's a little tricky to precisely lower the last longbow into a range where 1) your chariot is able to kill it and 2) we won't kill it ourselves. So we're discussing that internally, but I'll definitely keep you in the loop.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

Look good? This gives him a response, but it doesn't commit us to one plan or the other.

[NobleHelium]

Response looks fine.

[scooter]

Actually, I need to leave, so I went ahead and sent that draft. Sorry, timing is critical here. I'll be out for awhile. I'll try to make the stream time a little earlier than 11PM, maybe closer to 10PM will work. I'll try to post from my phone and give a final time later.

[novice]

Banning those spy missions would be huge. Yes please!

Who are the spiritual leaders in this game? CFC and ...?

[pindicator]

MZ
attacking you probably won1t happen unless circumstances would improve dramatically.. but what1s the point targeting second place till we have even a slight chance to win? and letting you grow even bigger would just lessen our chances to 0

Translation: We want CFC on board

[Lord Parkin]

Ok guys, real quick. I got this from Beta:

Hi guys. Don't end your turn, please, without consulting me. I did not think I hit EOT yesterday. :dunno:

Just in case we do something jointly regarding Warendorf.

Thx!

btw - here's the pics of the four stacks of RB units lined up outside of Huron River.

There are two Longbows in Warendorf.

Cheers! Beta

I don't have time to download and then host the 4 pictures he sent, but they're basically just pictures of German team's stacks heading towards them like we expected. If someone wants to do that and then post them, that would be great.

Here are the pictures:

[NobleHelium]

Yeowch, those war elephants. Leadership was a foolish choice though.