SANCTA Embassy & Intelligence

mikotian · Aug 31, 2009

What's going to happen here is
1) We attack Cav with our entire army
2) If we lose, then we are screwed anyway. Sancta declares war on us and kills us in our weakened state
3) If we win, Sancta backstabs us in our weakened state (assumes our army is stretched across a large territory, and we lose a decent number of troops). We lose all the territory we conquered, and maybe get wiped, period.

let's face it, once Cav is removed from the game, there is no reason for Sancta to remain allied with us. Zero, none. We would be the untrustworthy turncloaks in their alliance and the logical player to destroy as soon as possible.

I don't really like this whole Sancta discussion. I think our best hope is to force Cav into a war with Sancta.

Or maybe you guys just want to be like "screw it let's kill some b!tches". If this is the case then just start doing crazy sh!t and damn the consequences.

cav scout · Aug 31, 2009

haha

No I don't think we should go crazy... we are at a critical moment right now. If we loose this opportunity then I would prefer vassalage to CAV and 2nd place over just BSing to make the game interesting. I think we should make some sort of move now though before just accepting vassalage.

You are absolutley right about SANCTA, they would let us tangle with CAV until we run out of steam and then capture Haz and basically knock us out of the game. Which is why the offer might be tempting enough for them to go for it against their better judgement.

We could do a short phoney war with CAV and then immediately turn back against SANCTA.

More than anything though it would be nice to finally get some leverage on CAV.

Sommerswerd · Sep 1, 2009

For what its worth, I think Cavscout is doing a great job with Krill, Memphus and Oyzar. I like your treaty proposal to SANCTA and agree that we need to maximize our leverage on Cavalieros while we can. :goodjob:

mikotian · Sep 1, 2009

I actually would prefer tricking Sancta somehow. We pretend to ally with them, get them to give us the cities peacefully, and then betray them and go back to Cav.

The good thing about this deal with Sancta is that we commit nothing upfront. No troops, no cash, nothing until x number of turns AFTER they give us the cities. We bargain a bit and agree to whatever they want (let's wait after we win the Lib race, we hold out the carrot that we give them all techs for free). Then we take the cities and screw them!

Of course, we will need Cav's permission and cooperation here...

Meanwhile, we should intimate to Sancta that the relationship between us and Cav is worsening because Cav is refusing to commit troops to the fight.

And instead of attacking Cav, we turn our army on Sancta and hopefully raze one of their cities.

mikotian · Sep 1, 2009

also, those Sancta guys seem to have a pretty darn low opinion of us. this will make it easier to trick them, in my opinion.

Indiansmoke · Sep 1, 2009

This chat happened in the wrong framework. The worst part is that we basically said that we are willing to double cross Cav and brake an existing deal with them. This makes our integritiy seriously doughtable.
This chat needed to happen but in a different more well thought way, perhaps saying that our deal with Cav soon expires short of thing.

Now regarding the opinion that Sancta has on us, don't get fooled, they are right! We are noobs! No point denying it....

So what do we do now?

IMO liberialism race is irelevant since Cav will win it and wil give us the tech (hopefully) (Imagine this chat leaking to Cav :lol:

).

What we need to do is speak to Cav and ask them spesific plans and timing about attacking Sancta. I already did that when I had the chat with Oyzar but at the time they were not interested and they were far anyway.

If we agree on a certain attack plan with Cav then that is fine. If Cav do not agree to attack then we can consider a deal with Sancta.

donsig · Sep 1, 2009

Indiansmoke said:
Now regarding the opinion that Sancta has on us, don't get fooled, they are right! We are noobs! No point denying it....

So what do we do now?

Oh, now we're noobs. Funny. What do we do now? We do what we should have done long ago and accept Team Cav's balance of power alliance. It won't be as easy now, we'll have to put pressure on them to accept.

I'm with mikotian on this. We should be double dealing with SANCTA. Get them to give us some cities and then we enter into a pre-arranged pact with Team Cav to have a 'war' where we can 'capture' some Team Cav cities as a means to restoring the balance of power to our alliance. This is how we play kingmaker. SANCTA wants a deal with us because they are discounting our abilities and would love for us to fight Team Cav. We use the threat (either implied or overt) of actually allying with SANCTA to get Team Cav to go along with the deal. It will be tricky to pull this off if we want to continue the race to liberalism. We can always claim to SANCTA that we have an agreement with Team Cav that lasts till the liberalism race is over. We can tell SANCTA we must live up to our word - they wouldn't want a new partner that isn't honest, after all.

cav scout said:
More than anything though it would be nice to finally get some leverage on CAV.

The only leverage we'll have is threatening to help SANCTA win. The really sad part is there was a time when we didn't need leverage to get Team Cav to help us. We blew that opportunity. In this sense (managing the team game aspect) we are composed mostly of noobs.

Indiansmoke · Sep 1, 2009

donsig said:
Oh, now we're noobs. Funny.

We are not noobs now, we have been from the beginning

I said from the start that Cav and Sancta are more experienced than us. I am just saying it again so that it does not strike us weird that Sancta underestimate us.

donsig · Sep 1, 2009

Indiansmoke said:
We are not noobs now, we have been from the beginning I said from the start that Cav and Sancta are more experienced than us. I am just saying it again so that it does not strike us weird that Sancta underestimate us.

My point wasn't that we haven't been noobs all along it's that some of us are just now realizing that fact. I certainly don't consider you a noob at :bts:

or multiplayer. I'm the first to admit you're a much better player than I am. However, I do think you are a noob when it comes to the team aspect of this game. Diplomacy and alliances are different in this type of game. Also, I think the players are more conservative and less willing to give up on this game than they would be in a regular multiplayer game because you can't just walk away and join another game.

If we want to get back into this game we need the kind of balance of power alliance Team Cav offered us earlier. The only way to get that now is for Team Cav to believe giving us that alliance is better than us becoming SANTA's vassals. So we do need to continue these talks with SANCTA but we should not make any agreements with them unless the agreement is approved by the team as a whole.

damnrunner · Sep 1, 2009

I largely agree with Donsig. Negotiating with sancta is good idea. But we should have two track negotiations with Team Cav as well.

Either way if we are to grow we have to fight one of these two teams and Sancta is a more attractive target.

Sommerswerd · Sep 1, 2009

We need to start weighing in on what we want to do, as far as SANCTA is concerned... The plans advanced so far seem to be:

1. No Peace w/SANCTA, re-declare war on SANCTA Asap - :old:

2. Switch sides to SANCTA, get cities from them, declare war on Cavalieros, get cities from them, switch back to Cavalieros (all w/ Cavalieros permission)- :old:

3. Switch sides to SANCTA if Cavalieros don't take concrete steps to balance the power (gift cities and send units to fight SANCTA) - :cowboy:

4. Switch sides to SANCTA, get cities from them, switch back to Cavalieros (w/ Cavalieros permission)- :run:

IF we switch sides:
A. Switch sides to SANCTA before Liberalism (guaranteeing SANCTA wins the race and hopefully gifts us the free tech) - :cowboy:

B. Switch sides to SANCTA after Liberalism (making it likely that Cavalieros wins the race and gifts us the free tech) - :smoke:

If there are any options I left out, please speak up. We need to decide soon. There is no way we are going to get consensus on this, as some are irrevocably opposed to permanently leaving the alliance w/Cavalieros, so we are going to have to go with a simple majority here... Especially since we need to decide soon.

Sommerswerd · Sep 1, 2009

If there are no other options left out... I would say I prefer Option 3 w/sub-option B. I would consider option 2 as well, but someone would have to do the legwork and show me concrete proof that Cavalieros folks (oyzar, :santa2:

etc.) were absolutely on board.

For me to support option 2 over option 3, Cavalieros would have to acknowledge that they have an obligation to provide 'balance of power' under our treaty. And they have to do it quick, like right now... no more shennanigans or diplospeak.

If they have no obligation to provide 'balance of power' (by either gifting cities, or taking SANCTA cities for us), THEN we have no obligation to gift them tech... since NEITHER obligation is spelled out in our current treaty. We gifted tech, assuming that they would provide military support to keep the alliance balanced.

No balance of power = No alliance, that is the stance we should take with them.

damnrunner · Sep 1, 2009

Sommerswerd said:
No balance of power = No alliance, that is the stance we should take with them.

I think that is a good approach to take. Does anyone want to write up an official statement to send to Team Cav?

Sommerswerd · Sep 1, 2009

I wrote one in the Cavalieros embassy thread.

I noticed Sullla hanging around our forum today... Sullla is usually around when something major is about to happen... The last time I noticed Sulla around was right before Saturn backstabbed us... :lol:

donsig · Sep 1, 2009

I'm going to try to draft an alternate note to Team Cav before I go to bed tonight. I'll post it in the Team Cav embassy thread. First I need to go have a stiff drink since Sommers and I actually agree on something here. I also think his option three is the way to go.

mikotian · Sep 2, 2009

I'm completely against option 3. In my mind, that way leads to our destruction, 100%. As soon as our war against Cav concludes, Sancta will destroy us, one way or another. This is the ONLY course of action open to them.

And if we simply become their vassals WITHOUT declaring war on Cav, what's the point? We will be 2nd fiddle to Sancta and will be destroyed eventually anyhow.

I think it will also be impossible to get Cav to cede cities to us. Cav has proven themselves to be lukewarm allies, sorry. Of course, I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong... But I don't think I will be wrong.

I would advance actually option (4):

Trick Sancta to giving us the bottleneck cities. Double cross Sancta. Do not take additional cities from Cav.

cav scout · Sep 2, 2009

Option 4 sounds sounds good to me.

In order for it to work we need SANCTA to actually gift us the cities. I think this is ultimately unlikely because:
1.) They would be putting their trust in a recent adversary and turncoat.
2.) It would be a bold move and a majority on their team will probably vote against it.
3.) They feel comfortable in their current position in the game and don't see it as necessary.

What MIGHT convince them to go for it is:
1.) They think our relations with CAV are really frazzled and we have a huge chip on our shoulder that they can exploit.
2.) We are a team of noobs with zero strategy or good sense... they can do a delicious backstab on us and pat themselves on the back on how much better they are.

So if SANCTA goes for it great. But if not we should still try to take this opportunity to alter our relationship with CAV... this is potentially the last chance we have.

Sommerswerd · Sep 2, 2009

I have updated the options:

1. No Peace w/SANCTA, re-declare war on SANCTA Asap -
2. Switch sides to SANCTA, get cities from them, declare war on Cavalieros, get cities from them, switch back to Cavalieros (all w/ Cavalieros permission)-
3. Switch sides to SANCTA if Cavalieros don't take concrete steps to balance the power (gift cities and send units to fight SANCTA) -
4. Switch sides to SANCTA, get cities from them, switch back to Cavalieros (w/ Cavalieros permission)-

IF we switch sides:
A. Switch sides to SANCTA before Liberalism (guaranteeing SANCTA wins the race and hopefully gifts us the free tech) -
B. Switch sides to SANCTA after Liberalism (making it likely that Cavalieros wins the race and gifts us the free tech) -

Another thing to consider, is... Do we really think we can 'trick' SANCTA? If we are the less experienced players, how can we hope to outsmart the more experienced players? Also, if all of Cavalieros are aware of our plan to doublecross SANCTA, how can we be sure this won't leak to SANCTA somehow? Just my thoughts...

Indiansmoke · Sep 2, 2009

Your thoughts are correct, we cannot hope to outsmart them. I know from the other diplo game that they do not hold such big regards for out of game deals. I am pretty sure they would double cross us on first occasion.

But if Cavaleiros don't build an army and help with the war we have no chance anyway so we might as well try it.

So again my opinion is presure Cav now to commit to building an army and helping with the war..if they agree good, if not join Sancta and take our chances with them.

cav scout · Sep 2, 2009

So SANCTA didn't go for giving up the cities... Oh well. They do want us to attack CAV though (naturally). I tried to act dumb in the chat, hopefully their opinion of us will stay low and we can take advantage of their arrogance at some point.

Spoiler :

SANCTA Embassy & Intelligence

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