Foreign Policy: CivFr

[bistrita]

Its not about that, until now we talk about posibilities we talk now about facts.

 

[2metraninja]

The last 3 hours since Bistrita showed me the pics I think the very same - we need to tell French we see their forces and tell them we have 50 units in Zululand, so they cant hope to take and keep Nobamba. Not only this, but they will lose more.

 

[2metraninja]

We must tell them this:

Dear CivFR,

Next turn we take Zulu capitol and the Zulu are history. Then it is our two teams left to play the game. We see your 4 knights and 1 holkan and we know that if you want, you can capture Nobamba from us. But then, we have 50 units who can be at Nobamba in 2-3 turns. We prefer to settle this between us and everyone continue on his way.

 

[bistrita]

sent it, and propse peace in game.

 

[Aivoturso]

Here is my suggestion for a full message:

Dear CivFr,

With the current positioning of troops we feel need to speed up the negotiations. We see your four knights and a holkan and we know that you can capture Nobamba from us if you want. However, next turn we will capture Ulundi and war with the Zulu will be over. This frees up approximately 50 units for us that can be at Nobamba in 2-3 turns.

Right now the situation can escalate to a full scale war very easily. We would prefer to avoid that. We would rather not waste precious resources in a war where even a victor has to pay a heavy price. The choice is yours. If you capture Nobamba we will interpret it so that you wish to continue the war until one party has been beaten to submission.

Hoping to hear from you soon,
Team CFC

BTW, the could also raze Nobamba just to spite us. Should we warn also them not to try such foolishness?

 

[Aivoturso]

Darn, seems that I was a bit late. Well, 2metra's message captures the point anyway. I just thought that it was a bit rough and did not shift the blame for continuation of the war to them sufficiently

 

[2metraninja]

What about:

Dear CivFr,

With the current positioning of troops we feel need to speed up the negotiations.
Next turn we take Zulu capitol and the Zulu are history. Then it is our two teams left to play the game. Everyone took what he could from poor Zulu. We see your four knights and a holkan and we know that you can capture Nobamba from us if you want. But then, we will have 50 units that can be at Nobamba in 2-3 turns. If you capture Nobamba we will interpret it so that you wish to fight a full-scale war with us. We prefer to settle this between us and everyone continue on his way. I am sure each of us have better things to do and better hopes instead of fighting game-long war.

Team CFC

It is mix of mine and yours messages.

 

[2metraninja]

Proposing them in-game 10 turn peace and sending them this as e-mail.

Dear CivFr,

With the current positioning of troops we feel need to speed up the negotiations.
Next turn we take Zulu capitol and the Zulu are history. Then it is our two teams left to play the game. Everyone took what he could from poor Zulu. We see your four knights and a holkan and we know that you can capture Nobamba from us if you want. But then, we will have 50 units that can be at Nobamba in 2-3 turns. If you capture Nobamba we will interpret it so that you wish to fight a full-scale war with us. We prefer to settle this between us and everyone continue on his way. I am sure each of us have better things to do and better hopes instead of fighting game-long war.

Team CFC

 

[Maga_R]

What about:



It is mix of mine and yours messages.

I sorta like the idea, but it is risky - if they bound on fighting us, we are giving them the ideas what to do - to raze Nobamba (because they cannot keep it), exact intel on number of our troops in the area

What I would do is to try to find us informally if they are inclined to listen to us - otherwise giving them more info can be costly. I understand we cannot talk with them in-game because of the war - do we have any chat option? Can we ask through OT4e if they are leaning towards peace? Do we have only couple hours?

 

[2metraninja]

Little more than 1 hour.

Last time I spoke with ot4e, he said French are not answering him about how much army they intend to send to help Ot4e vs RB.

I want to send him a mail (cant chat with him since I am on the move) telling him to tell CivFR that we are in the anti-RB alliance and we will send 70 units against RB if we have long NAP with French. Maybe French will be happy to know someone will take care of RB while they lean back and build and see this as good enough turn of events for them?

 

[Maga_R]

Little more than 1 hour.

Last time I spoke with ot4e, he said French are not answering him about how much army they intend to send to help Ot4e vs RB.

I want to send him a mail (cant chat with him since I am on the move) telling him to tell CivFR that we are in the anti-RB alliance and we will send 70 units against RB if we have long NAP with French. Maybe French will be happy to know someone will take care of RB while they lean back and build and see this as good enough turn of events for them?

So we have to decide it before the turn rolls? Then no idea, best ask Sommers . Anyway, I do not think we will get any answer from them withing an hour, it is past midnight in France already and that is probably where their turnplayer lives.

If we have time until they play - we prolly have some time - I would try to ask through any intermediary we can think of if CivFr is leaning to talk with us. If they are inclined to talk, show them our cards. If they do not want to talk, if think it is best we remain silent. For example, they may not realize Nobamba should be razed or how many troops we have in the area.

 

[2metraninja]

I think they can know from Spaniards.

Anyway, proposed them in-game peace.

Nobamba is not big matter, it is more if they want to fight us seriously or they will take agreement.

 

[Maga_R]

I think they can know from Spaniards.

Anyway, proposed them in-game peace.

Nobamba is not big matter, it is more if they want to fight us seriously or they will take agreement.

I think what you did is best course of action - proposing peace in game and waiting for their answer to our letter, also what Sommers proposed. Another problem with sending another message before they answered our first is that - whatever the message says - it sorts of signals the weakness anyway, so we may encourage hawks on their team to press on. I do not even have a gut feeling on it - I normally do not do "hammer & sword" - but probably whatever we say now will not change theirs views much. I thought that when we decided not to tell them even why we DoW'ed them the plan was to beat them in the field first, and then talk about peace. We may have to do this

 

[vranasm]

dunno how pitboss plays, but can they take nomamba and then peace offer or is the peace offer jumping on them when they log in and they have to decide before moving troops?

if the former... well they could really screw us at this...

 

[2metraninja]

dunno how pitboss plays, but can they take nomamba and then peace offer or is the peace offer jumping on them when they log in and they have to decide before moving troops?

if the former... well they could really screw us at this...

First thing they will see is the diplo-screen with our in-game peace offer. So they either need to accept it, or they need to reject it, but they need to do this before being able to move any troops or do other in-game options. So we are safe from this.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think that our position has not changed much...

We cast this die a long time ago when we DoWed them and trapped their Merchant. We made a decision then that we wanted/deserved the bulk of the war bounty and we would not give in to them for peace. We still feel the same way I think, as in we are not willing to give them Nobamba. So what we are trying to do now is exactly the same as before, scare them into giving up on Nobamba. There is only one way to do that, which is to destroy their stack and then march on their core cities.

As I said, we made our decision whether to fight for the Zulu bounty or to let CivFr have their way. We chose fight, so now is the time to fight. If we don't want to fight then our DoW was a bluff and they are getting ready to call it, so we will have to give up Nobamba afterall. On the other hand, if we are not bluffing, then the correct play is to say nothing else to them and proceed with destroying their stack and then invading them. Eventually they will come to us and ask for peace, and then we must be prepared to be generous if we wwant to end the War.

Sending a bunch of messages asking them for peace will not change their minds, just as we would not change our minds that we were entitled to get Nobamba and there was no way we would let them take it from us. Chances are good that they have decided the same, that they are entitled to Nobamba, and it is us who are taking what is rightfully theirs.

I said this before we DoWed them, and I will say it again. We have two choices:

1. Destroy (Or at least cripple) CivFr
2. Give CivFr all (or most) of what they want.

UNLESS WE ARE PREPARED TO DESTROY CivFr stack and invade them WE SHOULD GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT. Taking what we want by force and then saying "OK, OK, OK, Time out, time out!" will probably not work, sadly.

 

[vranasm]

^^ my position is always on the side of hammer diplomacy where possible. but I don't have broad overview of the situation on hand.

but I have to agree at this point civfr won't hear to talks... they didn't before, why that would change now?

I think they probably will surrender after some casualties and our stack near their core though .

I am still very unsure about the RB-CivFR relationship... I have a feeling there is some masterful diplomacy from RB going on.

 

[Maga_R]

I think that our position has not changed much...

We cast this die a long time ago when we DoWed them and trapped their Merchant. We made a decision then that we wanted/deserved the bulk of the war bounty and we would not give in to them for peace. We still feel the same way I think, as in we are not willing to give them Nobamba. So what we are trying to do now is exactly the same as before, scare them into giving up on Nobamba. There is only one way to do that, which is to destroy their stack and then march on their core cities.

As I said, we made our decision whether to fight for the Zulu bounty or to let CivFr have their way. We chose fight, so now is the time to fight. If we don't want to fight then our DoW was a bluff and they are getting ready to call it, so we will have to give up Nobamba afterall. On the other hand, if we are not bluffing, then the correct play is to say nothing else to them and proceed with destroying their stack and then invading them. Eventually they will come to us and ask for peace, and then we must be prepared to be generous if we wwant to end the War.

Sending a bunch of messages asking them for peace will not change their minds, just as we would not change our minds that we were entitled to get Nobamba and there was no way we would let them take it from us. Chances are good that they have decided the same, that they are entitled to Nobamba, and it is us who are taking what is rightfully theirs.

I said this before we DoWed them, and I will say it again. We have two choices:

1. Destroy (Or at least cripple) CivFr
2. Give CivFr all (or most) of what they want.

UNLESS WE ARE PREPARED TO DESTROY CivFr stack and invade them WE SHOULD GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT. Taking what we want by force and then saying "OK, OK, OK, Time out, time out!" will probably not work, sadly.

Maga of course agrees with Sommers

And yeah, we are having the same discussion all over again:

I think we all (almost) agree that there are 2 options:

1) Prioritize peace, gave CivFr most of what they want - or at least a lot.
2) [Be prepared to] Kill them

There is of course other option, which I prefer. To give them nothing and force them in to NAP

 

[classical_hero]

Well our declaration of war was a call on their bluff saying they could take 3/4 of Zulu lands. We could have destroyed their GM, but we didn't and that showed our intentions on not wanting a full scale war, but to get them to seriously negotiate terms with us. Since they never were treating us as equals, I think they never wanted to have a fair deal with us and thus we need to treat them with trepidation. They have been wanting to bully us and if we give in to them, then we are going to expect such tactics for the rest of the game.

 

[2metraninja]

Inao from the French said to RB that it was not logical to turn back gifts from dying civ. Of course he will. If gifting some 30-40 gold can be seen as unfair, how Spaniards emptying cities for French can be seen then? Should we say something about it? I know we should not complain (smart guys dont lament), but the temptation to expose the French is so strong...

Anyway, interesting and to some degree unexpected act from RB. Well done guys.