Operation "Backstab"

[MyOtherCar]

Ok, let's start bombarding then, we can always say we're helping Imperio out.

[sooooo]

I agree with Sullla but I wonder if Templars parked units outside Calakmul. If they did then Imperio will be preoccupied and use their stack against it instead of advancing on Constantinople.

[Iamjohn]

I didn't think they had the units to take out of their city with out the chance of losing it?

[MyOtherCar]

I agree with Sullla but I wonder if Templars parked units outside Calakmul. If they did then Imperio will be preoccupied and use their stack against it instead of advancing on Constantinople.

I'm fine with whatever way that Imperio and Templars exchange units, although Imperio loosing more than Templars is preferable.

[Sullla]

Here's an easy solution to that issue: have Lady Godiva go scout out Calakmul on our turn. We'll be able to see very quickly whether the Templars have advanced into Imperio territory, and if Imperio needs to move their uberstack in that direction to counter.

OK, I was wrong about grenadiers needing Military Science in the expansion, but that only makes my point even more valid about not needing to rush in and attack right now.

[sunrise089]

Here's an easy solution to that issue: have Lady Godiva go scout out Calakmul on our turn. We'll be able to see very quickly whether the Templars have advanced into Imperio territory, and if Imperio needs to move their uberstack in that direction to counter.

OK, I was wrong about grenadiers needing Military Science in the expansion, but that only makes my point even more valid about not needing to rush in and attack right now.

Sounds like a plan Sullla. And I admit I'm perhaps over-eager to capture Constantinople...the strategic control of the middle of the map is just very appealing to me. However, because Imperio will probably be at least wary of a possible Templar attack I think we have a good opportunity here.

First, Imperio will probably be slowed down a bit by this declaration and may delay a turn or two before attacking Templars. This gives us the time we need to capture Constantinople, heal our units, and maybe even get some more Oromos on hand.

Second, I'm guessing this declaration has Imperio a bit shaken up, if simply because it was so unexpected. Imperio has already not forced the issue about Jerusalem. Now we can cover the capture of Constantinople by telling them that we wanted to weaken Templars ASAP, and that Imperio couldn't simply be gifted the city because Templars would re-capture it due to the war, and have those claims come off as less suspicious, if Imperio even thinks to ask about the city.

Of course, I'm as anxious as anyone to sneak attack Mutal and Chichen Itza, since they may not stay basically empty forever. But capturing Constantinople gives us a lot more flexibility to move our army toward the Imperio stack for the ideal 1-2-3 knock out combination

[dsplaisted]

Sorry to bring this up so late, but...

From a gameplay perspective I think backstabbing Imperio is the right thing to do. However, I would rather try to avoid doing so so flagrantly. They did break the treaty by not giving us gunpowder, but a much more reasonable response would be to keep Jerusalem and Constantinople for ourselves rather than a surprise attack which razes their cities and decimates their stack. Of I'm a late joiner to the team so I think I missed out on some of the events that lead to animosity between RB and Imperio.

What would the situation look like if we didn't attack Imperio? How soon might be able to stage a surprise attack on PAL?

And if we do end up backstabbing them (which I think is likely), please don't use the excuse that they failed to declare war on the Templars. To me that makes us look worse-- they were moving into position to do so when the Templars declared on them. The fact that they didn't give us gunpowder, as well as whatever historical grudges we have against them, will have to do.

[Zeviz]

I was away when deal was negotiated, so somebody correct me if I am wrong, but here is my understanding:

The only reason to make peace with Imperio on such insanely generous terms (we promised them all Templar cities besides Jericho) was to launch a joint attack against PAL before they got a chance to attack Banana, securing PAL's domination of Eastern continent. However, Imperio showed no interest in pursuing this agenda: They didn't follow through on Gunpowder deal, and took so long to declare on Templars that they got attacked themselves instead. So they failed to follow through on the only two promises they've made in return for our promise of Templars' entire territory.

As for attacking PAL without Imperio's full cooperation, that would be just asking for a backstab. (After all, Imperio already betrayed their Templar allies making a secret agreement with us, so there is no reason they wouldn't betray us either.)

PS I'd feel very guilty for backstabbing Imperio if the peace deal hadn't been so generous towards them and they hadn't broken their side anyway. If either Imperio had actively followed through on their side of the deal, or if the deal had been fair, I'd have voted against backstabbing them.

PPS To clarify, the problem with Imperio failing to attack Templars is that it indicates Imperio breaking the spirit of joint war against Templars clause by letting us fight alone for so long that Templars declared on them themselves. So it's not just about extremely literal interpretation of the agreement's terms.

[Sullla]

Well dsplaisted, since you weren't on the team for the whole game (not that I blame you, it's been going on for over a year now!) here's a quick summary of our history with Imperio:

- We met them fairly early, around T30. Early relations were cordial, although they didn't respond to many of our messages, probably because Imperio is a team of Spanish speakers.

- We negotiated a Non-Aggression Pact around T75, which was to last for 50t, up until T125. This was in contrast to Templars, who refused to ever sign anything formal with us. I think everyone was feeling pretty good about Imperio at this point.

- Almost immediately thereafter, we grabbed the Cape Town location right out from Imperio's nose. I think it was T78, offhand without checking. Imperio felt that this spot was "theirs", and have held it against us ever since.

- Around T100, we noticed a major uptick in Imperio's power. Thanks to our Open Borders, we sent a chariot into their territory and ran around watching all of their cities, noting all of their military builds. (Why they didn't kick us out, I have no idea!) This forced us to trigger our own military buildup in response, and a cold war of sorts lasted for several months on end.

- Right around T120, Imperio began running the Espionage slider, and sent spies to pillage our copper resource. They succeeded in doing this once, and failed on two other attempts. We traded for iron with Banana in response, and kept on building elephants/maces.

- When Templars declared war on us (~T130), they made it clear that Imperio was on their side and about to do so as well. Indeed, Imperio declared war on us a few turns later. They remained at war with us until it became clear that we were shredding the Templars, at which point in time they opportunistically changed sides and signed peace with us. It's obvious that their plan was to let Templars do the fighting and dying, then pick up the spoils; when that didn't work, they changed their target.

- After signing peace, Imperio refused to give us Gunpowder as promised. They also refused to stop trading with PAL, including sending them techs and refusing to drop Open Borders and resource trades. Imperio claimed that they would help us fight Templars, and yet almost 10t passed with no action from them! Hardly the actions of an "ally". It's pretty clear that they intended to rent RB's military force against Templars, and then reap all of the rewards - without any real intention of working as a team against PAL.

As far as I'm concerned, we have causus belli with them simply for their earlier war declaration against us, and sabotage attempts. They have not adhered to the letter of their treaty with us, nor do they care about the spirit of it either. Since we can't trust them to work with us against PAL, I see no reason why we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. They'd turn on us in a heartbeat if they thought it was to their advantage.

[Swiss Pauli]

We're big enough to admit it's a backstab, so we just tell Naldo: 'sorry about the backstab, but you broke our balls with the peace treaty & gunpowder trades, so we couldn't see a long term alliance against PAL working out. It's a cold-blooded move, but we didn't see any other option open to us'.

[Swiss Pauli]

Sullla's post relating to backstab copied from Turnplayer thread:

However, I would like to make a slight objection here. There is no reason why we need to attack Imperio in 2t. Certainly we want to be prepared to do so, but we should NOT consider it a certainty. Remember, aside from capturing their cities of Chichen Itza and Mutal, our big goal was eliminating that uberstack of Imperio's. We will not be in a position to do that in two turns!

As I see it, we should wait a couple of turns and let Imperio bloody their stack against the Templars at Damascus. This is the best possible situation for us, the #2 and #3 powers on our continent wasting their power against one another in a pointless war of revenge. We capture Constantinople, yes, then heal up, wait for Imperio to weaken themselves against the remaining Templar cities, and only then plunge the knife into their back. If we attack too early, we'll be facing not only Imperio's current forces and whatever they can whip/draft out of their cities, but also whatever remnants are left from the Templars. Why not let them batter each around around for a couple more turns yet?

I don't see any need to hurry in our sneak attack; time is definitely on our side. We can start a second draft round at no penalty in 3t. Every turn that passes gets Jerusalem (and soon to be Constantinople) out of resistance and producing RB culture, giving us more control over the disputed zone in the south. We have lots of young cities that are just getting started, and slowly contributing on the military/industrial front. And if we cancel our horses deal with Banana, we could even crank out a couple more knights at Cape Town. The key thing is just to be ready to attack Imperio at any point in time; we simply need to have the Mounted stack and the galley pair ready to move out whenever the moment seems right. Ideally, we capture Constantinople, spend a turn or two healing the forces there, start moving them east, and then hit Imperio at Damascus right after they capture the city from Templars. So this would be our same plan as before, only taking place outside Damascus rather than outside Constantinople, as we originally envisioned. For whatever reason, Imperio is NOT pressuring us to sign over Templar cities to them. Let's take advantage of this! There's no need to rush into another war until we can deliver the complete crushing blow, and we need Imperio's army to be vulnerable for that to happen.

This a critical decision, and we need to start planning for it immediately, so let's get some feedback here. I know that sunrise wants to move Lady Godiva up by Mutal, but I'm going to plead again here to keep it in the Calakmul/Damascus area, so that we can watch what's going on with the Templar/Imperio fighting. Sorry about that!

[sooooo]

Sullla makes some good points. We still should prepare for a T166 attack though and get our workers and knights in position, since we want to be in a position to move at a moment's notice. However, I wouldn't sail the galleys out into Imperio's line of sight - that looks way too suspicious.

Not that it should be a deal-breaker, but if we declare on Imperio we lose 2 happiness in each of our cities (currently only relevant at Pink Dot) and if we do it before we get astronomy we lose our trade routes again.

[MyOtherCar]

Not that it should be a deal-breaker, but if we declare on Imperio we lose 2 happiness in each of our cities (currently only relevant at Pink Dot) and if we do it before we get astronomy we lose our trade routes again.

Unless we convince banana to take Acres.

[Swiss Pauli]

I guess Imperio's time-line is as follows:

T164 - move to Damascus.
T165 - bombard, attack & take Damascus.
T166 - heal.

Given Imperio was in Vassalage for while, I'm assuming they'll have enough Accuracy cats to bomb down and attack with cats on the same turn. I could be wrong, and they may delay to T166 before taking the city.

In any event, should we consider leaving a few, seriously wounded defenders in Constantinople next turn, and take it on T166? If we take it on T 165 before Imperio moves, there's the chance they'll realise we're up to no good.

[sooooo]

In any event, should we consider leaving a few, seriously wounded defenders in Constantinople next turn, and take it on T166? If we take it on T 165 before Imperio moves, there's the chance they'll realise we're up to no good.

Hmm, an interesting idea. The city cannot build anything since it will be happiness-crippled (especially when we kill all the military police) and templars are still not in slavery so the only downside appears to be a lack of movement on templar roads and the 25g we are paying for unit supply.