GoW- Diplomacy comments #2

[notyoueither]

It is tricky wording, I grant. However, the intent is that we do not go to war with GoW by ourselves, or in combination with others where GoW is, or has been, attacked.

If they gang up with RP to attack ND, we would be allowed to intervene.

[notyoueither]

I just realised that this alone would give us no assurances in the face of a Vox breach of the peace terms.

We would add that GoW will in no way assist Vox Controli against GS. A 'just in case' clause.

[Theseus]

Let's leave Vox outta this for a moment.

Lemme see if I understand:

We will not go to war with you alone, nor in coalition. But if you (GoW) declare war on someone else, all bets are off.

Sounds like throwing a match onto the Bobian powderkeg to me.

[I like the idea of some kinda special deal with them, and in fact with each team, but I don't get this one]

[zeit]

Sounds like throwing a match onto the Bobian powderkeg to me.

On the contrary- we'll be acting as a balance. GoW would be able to trust us not to join against them, so they would feel safer (after all, that's what they want- safety, it seems to me they are not so keen on conquest on Bob right now) and that might deter them from "striking first" against ND, maybe, before RP joins in. I think that should ND be attacked by GoW, they'll just sit and do nothing, and let the two kill each other, perhaps dealing with the remains themselves. By joining an attack against ND, they run the risk of losing troops, as well as making it easier on GoW, who's gonna be their new and only neighbor (besides us, of course).

I think we could see some "behind-the-scene" action that would lead to a delicate balance of power, one that we might be part of (willingly or not) that would prevent war for a while...

I havn't made my mind yet regarding this kind of limited NAP- it has some problems. Picture this: GoW declares war on ND (or the other way around, it matters little), and GoW seems to be kicking their butts pretty badly- do we intervene or not?
And if we have reasons to suspect RP is funding GoW? This could mean ND will be wiped out, GoW is somewhat weakend and their forces stretched quite thin, and RP can claim Bob (eventually), while we missed our chance at striking on Bob at the right time, because we were bound not to attack GoW unless they gang up with RP (or ND) on the third Bobian.

And, even if it is 'secret' that doesn't mean they can't do something to take advantage of our obligation, by, for instance, suggesting the idea I came up with (RP funding GoW against ND, or provoking ND and then funding GoW) to RP, under the excuse of "not drawing unwanted attention" of a 2-Vs-1 war...

[Theseus]

That's what I mean zeit... there are so many permutations and games within games, that a military agreement of ANY kind wiht any of the Bobian civs alone seems to me to be the precursor to an inevitable war.

[notyoueither]

My concern is to ensure that we are not the targets of such a war.

I was in favour of avoiding NAPs with Bob for a reason. I even think I was among the first to suggest we should avoid them, until such a time as we get an indication of which way the winds are blowing on Bob. Well, we have that indication now. No one on Bob is actively planning to attack, but they are all deathly afraid of the consequences when it comes. This is very far from an optimal situation for us. It is a powder keg. The only thing that is needed for it to go off in our faces is for some bright light on Bob to get the idea that they can all get their GAs triggered in a fairly simple crossing of the Channel; and who knows, maybe they'll get lucky and discard of those aloof and never quite understood GS fellows.

My point is that the situation is very dangerous, not just for those on Bob. It is dangerous for us as well. I think we would be very wise to secure at least one safe flank and to have at least one friend on Bob. GoW is a good candidate for that, going by geography.

We are England now, my friends. The only times England was ever in peril is when she became isolated from those on the continent through being out manuevered diplomatically, or when she lost her friends through war. We need to pick a friend. One who is in a position to harm us in the near term so as to defuse that threat, and one who is not in a position to be a longer term threat in the South. That civ is GoW.

[Theseus]

nye, you have some Churchill in you. And, unlike the MPs in his time, I listen and agree.

(I was about to go on, but as I kept looking back at nye's post... damn, , and damn well written too. Once upon a time, someone said one of my posts was "Vel-like", and I treasured it. nye, that was as Churchillian as I could ask for, and I am just... stunned.)

(And to the rest of you, anybody who thinks I'm over-reacting, you slovens, well, flip you , I still say two to nye . Read it again.)

[notyoueither]

Thank-you very much, Theseus.

[DeepO]

Well... if we have to pick one civ to ally on (and I agree on a safe flank), it would indeed be GoW. However, you could hardly call them ideal partners. The biggest problem is their mercenary nature, which in itself makes them untrustworthy.

But, looking at the alternatives, we have no choice if we need to protect our flank. I'm not so sure on that: we heared very little from Bob in chat the past weeks, most of it coming from GoW. They have played us before, I don't think it is so wild a guess that they are doing it again, and that in reality plans are already made. Their delaying of Chivalry was worrysome.

The thing is: we have made very clear that the reason why Vox nearly won the war was because of superb diplomatic dealing and a thick smoke curtain, deceiving us in thinking we were not the target. All Bobians know that, all Bobians must also realize that a good diplo act can make up for lack of military. So, I wouldn't trust the chats and PMs we get, these could all be well doctored, especially if they are sparse (and they are, atm).

One things that struck me in last chat was how many times MZ told nye that we were the least easy targets, that we had nothing to fear. Of course he's right (we possibly have as much units as the whole of Bob together), but why push it? If it would be part of a deal where we get wines for a NAP, I can understand why he would want to suck up to us, telling us how good we are. And he did mention that (So no 'free' NAP, let them pay!).

OTOH, Vox told us the same kind of stuff re: our economy, yet happily attacked us later. And, if GoW is already under contract, they would not be breaking their honor code if they outright lie to us.

My only fear is that if a secret deal with GoW would get spilled, it will polarize the rest of Bob. If we really want to stabilize Bob, we could declare publicly that we will not start a war against any Bobian, nor join a coalition against one. However, if a 2-1 war would break out, we could lend our assistence to the one in need. That would really make them think on delaying any agression they might feel, even if it has a slight risk of us facing a 3-1 war.

DeepO

[FrustratedPoet]

Indeed. I agree with NYE's analysis.

If the Bobian Civs are too nervous to wage war on each other then it's only a matter of time before they realise they can get their kicks up disposing of us. 3v1 will not be any contest at all.

GoW are the most obvious candidate for a partnership.

The tricky bit comes in sorting through all the propaganda of diplomatic communications and working out exactly what is going on behind the scenes.

The wrong move here could cost us the game.

[vulture]

I agree with nye's point, that we need an ally on Bob, and geographically, GoW is the ideal choice. In other ways they are not, as we know they are one of the least trustworthy civs around. We know they fiddled some of the screenshots they sent us, and we know that they didn't exactly honour their contract to land 6 (or maybe it was only ever 2) units to help Vox, since they more or less warned us in advance and tried to get us to go along with faking their attack. Plus they are still mercenaries, and may take contracts that hurt us without violating a NAP style thing.

There is also the secrecy issue. As we know, individuals within teams can disagree with team policy and share information with other teams that should be kept secret. Admittedly I can't see how anyone in GoW would think that a NAP with us would be bad, but it is still possible that the info might make its way to another team. If that team is ND, it hurts us diplomatically, given that we turned them down. And RP already have a bad enough opinion of us.

Additionally, a NAP means that we don't attack GoW (duh!). But you probably don't have to look too hard to find a situation where we would want to do that to gain a significant beachhead on Bob (although once we do that it is only a matter of (short) time until we are at war with all remaining Bob civs).

I think NYE is right that no alliances on Bob are formed yet, and all three of them are primarily concerned about being the punchbag. This is an unstable situation, but also a nice cold-war type situation, especially with Riders and Ansars just around the corner. Do we want to diffuse the situation by provoking a war in some way, or try and prolong the cold war state to keep them spending too much money on armies and upkeep, and not enough on research and infrastructure for as long as possible, so that when war does come it has cost them even more? I think we gain from prolonging the peace for now - we don't want Bob to implode until Vox are gone, we have fully settled the continent, and have a good infrastructure in place, and then it'll be time for us to expand overseas (we don't need to do it while we can still expand at home).

So our aims are to avoid being invaded (GoW alliance very helpful in this regard) and to try and prolong the peace as much as possible. As long as the GoW NAP remains secret, this doesn't hurt our aims, but if word of it gets out I think we'll see RP approaching ND about an invasion of GoW. We won't see an RP-GoW alliance I think, since RP don't like us and GoW seem not to have good relations with them either (come to think of it, nor do ND or Lego...). There will be a possibility of persuading ND to join an alliance against RP, knowing that it can be a 3 on 1 war, which is a far less risky proposition that either a 2 on 1 or 2 on 2 war. It might also represent our best chance of getting a toe-hold on Bob that is (temporarily) acceptable to GoW and ND - they'd leave off trying to drive us off until RP was more or less finished, if we entered the war on their side. This is my preferred option.

Hmmm - I'm still ambivalent about a NAP with GoW. It can be good, but it could trigger war too early. Is GoW a small team? (small team means fewer people to let it slip). NYE, I think you need a little more Churchillian rhetoric to fully convince me.

EDIT: obviously the NAP needs to include clauses about GoW not taking any contracts that hurt us in any way, even if they don't involve declaring war.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by vulture
EDIT: obviously the NAP needs to include clauses about GoW not taking any contracts that hurt us in any way, even if they don't involve declaring war.

I can't imagine that they'd agree to that.

Oh, and what actually happened in GoW about that public bust-up between Ghengis and Panzer? It sounded like more of the same manipulation and bluffing/roleplaying to me, but I could be wrong.

My impression is that Panzer or Unorthodox would be easier to deal with than Ghengis.

[vulture]

Re GoW's reliability and contracts. We know that they will break contracts, honouring the letter if not the spirit (witness their contract against us). And they are always going to put their own interests ahead of any contract. Possibly this is why the help-Vox contract wasn't honoured - they didn't want to antagonise us too much. They certainly don't want to now (could we mention that we have good relations with ND in an offhand kind of way?). So as long as their security depends on us being nice to them, they should be trustworthy (kind of). The only time they are going to attack us is if all there Bob civs have organised themselves to do so. And as I've opined previously, I think that that is an unstable alliance - there is too much profit in one civ sending a fleet of empty boats and then blitzing their neighbour while their army is elsewhere, gaining a whole load of towns that are far more usuable than towns on Stormia would be. RP would probably have most to gain from this, since they are furthest from the boatloads of returning troops (and the most exposed to treachery for the same reason, so the least likely to go along with it).

[Shiber]

Vulture: as far as our guesswork goes, Lego ordered the contract against us, hoping that this would pressure us to end the war and accept a Voxodus. Then they cancelled the contract when we decided to accept, and so GoW withdrew.

[zeit]

The contract was there long before there were talks of an exodus, but we have heard from GoW that the contract involved 6 units, out of which they only sent 2, and then it was 'suprsingly' cancelled, after we told Lego that: 'foreign presence on our land would not contribute to the stability and peace-making efforts' or something of that sort. A day or so later- GoW tells us the contract was cancelled.

Too quick for Lego telling someone else to cancel it in my taste...

As for a limited-NAP, what if we secretly sign it with ND as well?

I mean, ND is certainly not a target for us- and signing with them might stabilize the ND-GoW border, while we'd be helping our relations as well, don't you think?