Team Info and Contacts - Imperio

[Swiss Pauli]

Swiss, you are painting a too black a picture. We are not losing this conflict at the moment. So why are you in panic mode?

There's a huge difference in this game between not losing, and actually winning a war. And in our case, we need a total victory over one opponent, not just the Lebensraum that PAL was able to settle for. If we were facing the AI, we'd have no problem, but - based on what Rabbits did - we'll be facing opponents who will whip their entire empires into the ground. And that's not considering the enormous problem of a two front war.

What concerns me most about our team (Ruff excepted) is that everyone has closed their minds to the possibility of a short term alliance based on respective self-interest. We've turned into German WWI generals with no plan b (and our plan a is more hope than strategy as far as I can see).

And what the heck do you want with Jerusalem anyway? Look at the spot. It's a mediocre city at best and does not even have any infrastructure, besides a barracks. If you think that by getting Jerusalem, we will be able to settle the spot south of it, we can do that in any case.

mh

Jerusalem in Templars hands is a waste, but under our control, we'd have those jungles cleared in no time, and have a strong city on the coast that's not easy to boat because of the river and peaks.

The other reason for this deal is to make Imperio slog through the war with Templars whilst we offer minimal support (e.g. a bombard stack), and we finish up with a much bigger army than them, even though they've added cities to their empire. PAL wouldn't be happy with this development, but their only option would be to boat Imperio, but that would a bold move and would take some time to organise.

One other possibility I have considered, but not mentioned as it's based on my reading of the sub-text in Aidun's last PM, is that a Imperio-RB alliance might cause Templars to throw in their hand. If they consider their fate sealed, then with only one turnplayer they may give up altogether. But this outcome is not one than we should plan for, but should merely be borne in mind.

[sunrise089]

Ok Swiss, you have convinced me of one thing: the land near Jerusalem would be nice for us to conquer. Since you mention trading Jerusalem for Cape Town and Imperio "slogging" through the war with minimal RB assistance, I would propose offering Imperio all of the Templar lands east of Jericho, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. RB could conquer Jericho and Jerusalem, and we'd agree to burn Constantinople. Imperio gets everything else. This would give RB more land, but not by too much. It would also end the Imperio war and get our trade routes back. So what does Imperio get? They don't have to field an army. In exchange for the NAP and a "morale-boosting" declaration of war, we agree to fight the Templars totally on our own and gift each city past the three I mentioned to Imperio.

I'm sure Swiss could design some sort of safety mechanism to make sure RB behaves in good faith. Though I don't think such a proposal is necessary, it distributes land without the craziness of giving up Cape Town.

[Zeviz]

I was going to suggest something like Sunrise's proposal in the next message. This plan is perfect for us and the only question is whether Imperio is going to agree. I would even offer them Constantinopole, to make it look like they are getting a bargain. (With our creative trait it shouldn't take us too long to culture-flip it anyway. )

The reason I am not too tempted to offer Cape Town is that when you sacrifice a queen, you have to go into a combination that leads to checkmate, or at least a huge advantage. And I don't see any scenario in which sacrificing Cape Town gives us a stronger benefit than just using that city's production to hold off Imperio, while the rest of our empire concentrates on wiping out Templars.

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok Swiss, you have convinced me of one thing: the land near Jerusalem would be nice for us to conquer. Since you mention trading Jerusalem for Cape Town and Imperio "slogging" through the war with minimal RB assistance, I would propose offering Imperio all of the Templar lands east of Jericho, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. RB could conquer Jericho and Jerusalem, and we'd agree to burn Constantinople. Imperio gets everything else. This would give RB more land, but not by too much. It would also end the Imperio war and get our trade routes back. So what does Imperio get? They don't have to field an army. In exchange for the NAP and a "morale-boosting" declaration of war, we agree to fight the Templars totally on our own and gift each city past the three I mentioned to Imperio.

I'm sure Swiss could design some sort of safety mechanism to make sure RB behaves in good faith. Though I don't think such a proposal is necessary, it distributes land without the craziness of giving up Cape Town.

The problems with this are firstly, we have to to trust Imperio not to backstab us and attack Cape Town, secondly, Imperio has to trust us to actually hand over the cities. I think we'd have to hand over Constantinople, as Zeviz notes, but I think there's too much trust, and too little quid pro quo involved for it to work.

That said, I'm glad we're trying to find an incentive to get Imperio onside And let's not be shy about offering a deal that Imperio might think is well in their favour: with our superior play, we'll be able to turn wipe out any advantage before Imperio knows what hits them.

[sooooo]

A wild and slightly amoral idea came into my head: We could tell Imperio that templars have offered to join us in a war against Imperio in return for signing a peace deal and not capturing their city. We then say to Imperio that we'd rather ally with them since they are better players and have a stronger army.

[Swiss Pauli]

I think Imperio and Templars are talking to each other too much for that to work. Once we take Jericho then I think it'll be easier to persuade them to come over to the Dark Side.

[ruff_hi]

sure - all this talk is getting us no where - lets have some fun with it.

[ruff_hi]

actually - we need to take a leaf out of Aidun's book here - keep talking but not saying anything ...

Imperio,

We are actively discussing a peace deal with Templar and we both would like to include you in this arrangement. Lets met to discuss terms before PAL sets sail for the new world and we all become an after thought.

Team RB

[Zeviz]

My preferences for allinces are:

1. Alliance with Imperio.
2. Just conquering our continent.
3. Alliance with Templars.
4. Continent-wide alliance.

I am not a fan of the idea of continent-wide alliance, because that would force us to rely on Imperio and Templars to invade PAL. What are the chances of that happening successfully?

[darrelljs]

Swap #1 and #2 and my list is the same as Zeviz. It used to be exactly the same but I've soured on our neighbors lately, and now want to kill them on general principle.

Darrell

[ruff_hi]

... I've soured on our neighbors lately, and now want to kill them on general principle.

Its funny that you don't hear many politicians talking like this.

[sunrise089]

I guess...

1. Just conquering our continent.
2. Continent-wide alliance.
3. Alliance with Imperio.
4. Alliance with Templars.

[Zeviz]

We haven't heard from them in a while, so how about the following message:

Imperio,

PAL is as strong as both our teams combined. Our war is at a stalemate, tilting slightly in our favor. (We are still managing to build infrastructure and found cities while maintaining military parity.)

If you continue current war, even with PAL's help, PAL will get insurmountable lead. (We are still playing for the long run, but if we see ourselves going down, we'll whip all our cities down to size 1 and drown you in troops.)

If you ally with us, you can get half of Templar lands and the two of us, plus Rabbits and Banana, will have a good shot at taking out PAL. At that point, Imperio and RB will become top and second teams in the game.

So you can continue this stalemate and let PAL win, or you can give both of our teams a shot at victory. The choise is yours.

TeamRB

[sooooo]

I like it.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd favour sending them a chase-up on our last email, where we covered the same ground.