Imperio: Diplomacy Thread #2

[darrelljs]

I wonder whether they will trade MT to Banana for Astro?

I hope so. Maybe we should suggest it .

Darrell

[Sullla]

Well, I guess it's good to get the deal lined up with Imperio, but if they're also going to turn around and trade to PAL, then there's almost no point. It pretty much seals the deal that we have to attack this team and destroy or cripple them. They just won't stop trading with PAL. An RB/Banana trading block can never catch up to PAL so long as they can continue trading with Imperio.

[darrelljs]

It pretty much seals the deal that we have to attack this team and destroy or cripple them. They just won't stop trading with PAL. An RB/Banana trading block can never catch up to PAL so long as they can continue trading with Imperio.

Swap PAL/RB and Banana/Imperio and I'll wager the same post exists somewhere in the PAL forums .

Darrell

[Sullla]

No doubt about it! Except that PAL's already ahead, so it's probably more like "we've got to eliminate Banana to keep down those RB upstarts."

[Sullla]

Let's ring up Imperio again:

- We'll be ready to trade Education for Military Tradition next turn.

- Ask if they'd be willing to cover our chariot one tile west of Calakmul on this turn. Templars cannot attack Calakmul, and one of their longbows could easily protect our unit.

Thoughts?

[sunrise089]

Draft

Imperio,

We will have Music next turn and will offer the Military Tradition for Education like we agreed.

Also, we see your stack has moved into Templar land. We wonder if you could protect our Chariot next to Calakmul for one turn only. The Templars can't attack Calakmul, so moving the longbow should be safe.

Good luck versus the Templars!

-RB

[Zeviz]

Asking for help protecting our chariot that will help us backstab them might be a bit too much. (It's one thing to attack them because they violated the treaty and generally didn't act like proper allies. It's much worse to ask for help that we'll use against them.)

[sunrise089]

Asking for help protecting our chariot that will help us backstab them might be a bit too much. (It's one thing to attack them because they violated the treaty and generally didn't act like proper allies. It's much worse to ask for help that we'll use against them.)

Ok, question:

Lets say Imperio had never declared war on us nor against Templars. So no attack, no pillaging of resources, and no broken Gunpowder trade. We fight Templars, then Templars declare on Imperio and Imperio is poised to take city.

For me, even then I favor a backstab. Imperio still has land we want, and they still refuse to stand against PAL. As long as PAL is in the lead, any team that won't ally against PAL is hurting us. It would be different if they acted like Banana and choose a side, but Imperio is more like the Rabbits. Would any of us want to not attack the Rabbits if it could help us? 160 turns of relative isolation, schizophrenic diplomacy, and an inability to see PAL for the enemy they are aren't suddenly corrected by one or two helpful emails and a single unit moved on a single tile

In short, I would never want to betray an ally, but even the most charitable interpretation of Imperio doesn't make them out to be an ally even over the last turn.

[Zeviz]

Maybe you are right. I just don't like the idea of asking for a favor and then turning around and attacking them next turn. I am not arguing here against attack itself. They've voided the treaty by their actions (and inactions), so they shouldn't expect us to keep abiding by it. However, asking for a gesture of good faith (no matter how minor) and then attacking them just feels wrong.

[mostly-harmless]

C&D Internal Security starts keeping Zeviz under tight observation.

mh

[Sullla]

Imperio had this waiting for us today after they played their turn:



Obviously I declined... What do we say to these guys to stall for one more turn before the big stab in the back?

- We'll turn over the cities at the end of the war against Templars.
- Nothing at all.
- Actually hand over the city and recapture it.

I don't like the third option one bit - we have some important builds taking place at Jerusalem - but it's a possible option. OK, how do we play this, everyone?

[ruff_hi]

I would suggest a message of mass confusion that says that we thought we kept Jerusalem and gave them X (some other city, the iron city for example). Where is Audin?

[mostly-harmless]

Sullla, for some reason, I cannot see your embedded pictures.

So what were they offering?

mh

[Zeviz]

We can send a brief "got your message, discussing response" message and hope to stall for 2 days. Or we can send an email saying that because they didn't give us Gunpowder we aren't going to give them Jerusalem. Or we could say nothing. Saying nothing would be suspicious, so I suggest emailing them about "no Gunpowder, no Jerusalem".

[Iamjohn]

here's the link to his image:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=162912&stc=1&d=1248196051

I definitely don't think we should give it to him, but don't give some random response either that doesn't make much sense, we do either and it'll be the highest chance of anything that they'll realize what we're planning.

IMO give something saying that we want to complete a build or give the cities all in one go or something along those lines.