Foreign Policy: WePlayCiv

[YossarianLives]

Just wanted to bump this thread up. I know most communication with WPC has been over chat, so a formal message to them might not be needed, but I still think it would be a good idea to touch base with them. Especially if we are offering OB to the Germans, we should probably extend the same offer to WPC as soon as possible. 2metra, is there any other guidance you would want from the team as far as where we want diplo to go with them?

 

[RegentMan]

Well, with the WPC attack appearing to be stalling, the only thing this war has accomplished is knocking WPC and the Germans out of the running for victory. That said, the Germans need a buddy. I propose we be that buddy- open borders, information sending, information about WPC that might be helpful.

This means not being so open to WPC, which is why I'm against open borders with them right now. This'll show the Germans that we really want to work with them- we don't also have open borders with their enemy.

 

[cav scout]

I'd like to try to walk the fence as far as being good friends to both teams. If this just isn't possible though and we have to pick a team to favor I want it to be the one that can best help us keep RB in check (not just power wise but also being willing to oppose RB when the time is right).

 

[Caledorn]

A word of thought here. If we align with the Germans, our friendly ties to RB must become even more friendly, as aligning ourselves away from WPC would mean we have no obvious ally who is close enough to truly participate in any potential future hostilities against RB if need be.

I personally do not favour either team over the other, as I see both RB and WPC as friendly teams towards us - but I feel quite convinced that we have to choose between one of them as a long term ally. The war between WPC and the Germans can probably be considered a failure on WPCs part, and regentman is most likely very correct in his prognosis that both teams are out of the race for who will win the game. RB is very much in a strong position still. And we should definitely weigh our options here.

With the renewed effort that is taking place in our diplomacy work now, and turn 100 coming closer, my opinion is that we should start to seriously consider who we want as our allies and not.

 

[cav scout]

nice crosspost Caledorn, I see we are thinking on similar lines

 

[Caledorn]

nice crosspost Caledorn, I see we are thinking on similar lines

It was even within the same minute!

 

[talonschild]

I want to be allied with people who won't be our rivals. Ideally this means both WPC and the Germans. RB should be a friend, but I do not want to rule out the possibility of opposing them.

 

[Caledorn]

I want to be allied with people who won't be our rivals. Ideally this means both WPC and the Germans. RB should be a friend, but I do not want to rule out the possibility of opposing them.

I fully agree. RB is not a viable longterm ally if we want to win the game (we do, right? ), but we should stay friends with them for as long as it benefits us.

Now, ideally I would like us to be friends and possibly even allies, with both WPC and the Germans. If we can manage to convince them to put aside their differences and become friends too (however unlikely that is at the present time), then that would be capital as we would be able to wage a three-front war against RB if we decide to attempt an attack on them sooner rather than later. But this is mostly wishful thinking as I doubt we can convince WPC to quit their war, just as I doubt the Germans will easily forget how WPC attacked them. And finally I doubt we would be able to put ourselves in a position where we could take on RB anytime soon, even with the support of both WPC & the Germans, without seriously risking our own long term chances at winning the game.

 

[2metraninja]

I want to be allied with people who won't be our rivals. Ideally this means both WPC and the Germans. RB should be a friend, but I do not want to rule out the possibility of opposing them.

I fully agree. RB is not a viable longterm ally if we want to win the game (we do, right? ), but we should stay friends with them for as long as it benefits us.

I absolutely agree with both these sentiments. My main thinking on the bigger picture diplomacy is we want to befriend people, who we can defeat when the time comes and fight those who can be threat to us for the final win.

Now, ideally I would like us to be friends and possibly even allies, with both WPC and the Germans. If we can manage to convince them to put aside their differences and become friends too (however unlikely that is at the present time), then that would be capital as we would be able to wage a three-front war against RB if we decide to attempt an attack on them sooner rather than later. But this is mostly wishful thinking as I doubt we can convince WPC to quit their war, just as I doubt the Germans will easily forget how WPC attacked them.

Yes, that would be a great thing to have - both teams as allies, but just as you, I doubt this is possible too.

And finally I doubt we would be able to put ourselves in a position where we could take on RB anytime soon, even with the support of both WPC & the Germans, without seriously risking our own long term chances at winning the game.

Actually, with the time advancing, it will become harder to attack RB for quite some time. Once catapults and HAs are available to the defender, the attacker must have concentrated advantage in numbers like 2:1 or even better 3:1 to have a chance for winning.

As for preferring Germans over WPC, I can remind that WPC already told us they will be with us when the time to confront RB comes.

 

[YossarianLives]

I just received an email from the APT site that WPC has proposed Open Borders in-game. Nifty feature.

I say we agree, as I think it's important to remain neutral, and we already have OB with the Germans.

 

[2metraninja]

Yes, I just got the same mail. Neat as you say. And yes, I am a bit ashamed we did not proposed them OB first. I though we did.

 

[YossarianLives]

Whoops, just opened up the game to see this:

Spoiler :

I'll go ahead and accept.

 

[2metraninja]

 

[2metraninja]

Just had a very short chat with WPC Head Ambassador Proviisori and asked him about their war. He said they just keep the pressure while working on catapults, because otherwise taking cities is too costly for them. Construction and Catapults are damned expensive to get though.

I was thinking that if there is no chance for quick victory, we can act as mediators for ending the war. What good makes us if RB have two exhausted and backward civs as neighbors to choose from which one to take once the time comes?

This answer gave me another possible course of action. Maybe we can asses the situation and ask WPC if they can use some financial help in getting Catapults earlier. This small amount of money will be loan and we will ask them to return it to us in short after they get Construction and maybe we can ask them for territorial concessions? Sounds like a good investment to me. Even beside that we will have victorious neighbor who is deeply grateful towards us and can have the chance to regrow and be back in the business instead of two nearly dead from eternal fruitless war neighbors for RB. Yes, pity for the heroic Germans, they fought well, but the geopolitics dictates us to act otherwise.

Or if we see the situation and decide there is no chance for WPC to have quick victory, we can take the opportunity and gut half of them? Not nice, but it is jungle out there and the first thing we must thing of is our team's interests.

 

[2metraninja]

Youssa, can we make an educated guess if WPC have already Mathematics and what amount of wealth they can make per turn?

 

[YossarianLives]

Youssa, can we make an educated guess if WPC have already Mathematics and what amount of wealth they can make per turn?

Just took a quick look, and their tech situation is pretty abysmal. They definitely don't have Maths, or any other Classical Era tech for that matter. By my count, they only have 10 / 17 Ancient techs. Their last tech was researched on T66!?! Can that even be right? I suppose they could have researched an Ancient tech on T76, but I had attributed their score increase that turn to pop growths...

Ok, went to go check out the Gold graph on the APT website (that thing really does come in handy). Based on the way the graphs look, it does appear they saved up to about 150 gold before spending it down to complete an Ancient tech on T76 (maybe Archery?). Since then, though, they have not resumed saving, and have been maintaining less than 20 gold in their treasury for the past 10-15 turns. Looking at the research graph, their GNP is almost at Rival Worst, so their research is turned off, and they are also unable to save any money. I had a brief thought that maybe they're spending their money on EP's to steal construction, but we can see those graphs, too, and they show that WPC is only getting the standard 4 EP's from their palace.

All that said, my opinion on this:

Spoiler :

Just had a very short chat with WPC Head Ambassador Proviisori and asked him about their war. He said they just keep the pressure while working on catapults, because otherwise taking cities is too costly for them. Construction and Catapults are damned expensive to get though.

I was thinking that if there is no chance for quick victory, we can act as mediators for ending the war. What good makes us if RB have two exhausted and backward civs as neighbors to choose from which one to take once the time comes?

This answer gave me another possible course of action. Maybe we can asses the situation and ask WPC if they can use some financial help in getting Catapults earlier. This small amount of money will be loan and we will ask them to return it to us in short after they get Construction and maybe we can ask them for territorial concessions? Sounds like a good investment to me. Even beside that we will have victorious neighbor who is deeply grateful towards us and can have the chance to regrow and be back in the business instead of two nearly dead from eternal fruitless war neighbors for RB. Yes, pity for the heroic Germans, they fought well, but the geopolitics dictates us to act otherwise.

Or if we see the situation and decide there is no chance for WPC to have quick victory, we can take the opportunity and gut half of them? Not nice, but it is jungle out there and the first thing we must thing of is our team's interests.

is that our best option is to try to broker a peace deal. There is no way either team can hope for a quick victory, but imo we have gotten what we needed from this war. WPC has done sufficient damage to knock both teams out of contention for the win. At this point, the only thing continued fighting will accomplish is leaving RB with 2 fewer neighbors to deal with. I think WPC is too far behind to be able to quickly finish the Germans with Catapults, and they are too far away for us to be able to get any serious advantage from attacking them ourselves. We'll do better if we keep on the good side of both teams, and keep them both propped up strong enough so RB can't take them out too easily.

 

[talonschild]

Ayup. Let's end ths war.

 

[2metraninja]

Ok, went to go check out the Gold graph on the APT website (that thing really does come in handy). Based on the way the graphs look, it does appear they saved up to about 150 gold before spending it down to complete an Ancient tech on T76 (maybe Archery?). Since then, though, they have not resumed saving, and have been maintaining less than 20 gold in their treasury for the past 10-15 turns. Looking at the research graph, their GNP is almost at Rival Worst, so their research is turned off, and they are also unable to save any money. I had a brief thought that maybe they're spending their money on EP's to steal construction, but we can see those graphs, too, and they show that WPC is only getting the standard 4 EP's from their palace.

Damn... I was afraid this could be the case. Their diplomat sounds so sure of their final victory, but my instincts have told me already the sad outcome. I even fear it is too damned late for those two to be even real opposition to a normally developed nation. RB could have maces and xbows in 30 turns if not less and from there it is up to their discretion who of them two will die first. I fear it will be WPC, as they are closer to RB, just as Uciv are directly to our north. Strategically this makes the most sense too - they gut the closer to us nation, while leaving Germans for a bit later, so we cant take anything from this feast.

I start to think that even if we are successful in brokering peace between them, the time is not on their(our) side. Now their armies are respectable, but in 20 turns? In 30 turns? They will be a thing from the past which is only to serve as xp boosting material for the catapults/xbows/maces /HAs armies. Until t130 we have NAP with RB, so I cant even think what we could do, as only the armies of WPC and Germans will not be enough to overcome RB's strong economy and numerous cities + WCs even if we make the currently warring parties unite and strike at RB. Maybe if they keep them occupied and drag them down we could come as the final drop that breaks RB at turn 130, but this is risky scenario as it requires a lot of trust and strategic good sight from WPC and Germans.

 

[talonschild]

There are three ways we could play this: One, go after RB. I believe this would result in us doing a WPC - knowcking both us and our targets out of contention, handing the game to - who, maybe Poly? Second, we do nothing, soldier on quietly. I believe RB would pick up enough spoils to pull ahead of us decisively.

Third, the ugly and pragmatic option, is we strike first.

 

[2metraninja]

Another reason why even the simplest peace brokering could fail and even earn us bad points with WPC is that as I said they seem to believe they can and will win the war. Sometimes someone when involved in something cant really take a sober look from the side at himself and his real chances. He is emotional and will insist he can handle this till the moment when he just crumbles and falls. And he will accuse all and everyone of being against him just for suggesting that he might not be doing the right thing.