27-09-2003 10:40									#1
	Evil Plan Part VI Tired of ads?

it's been a while since one of these...

EVIL PLAN VI



Events in the other continent have taken a sharp and decisive twist with the war between GWT and CGN. We are committed to maintaining a false neutrality while quitely working one against the other and reaping the benefits. It is a delicate juggling act but one which I think can be accomplished, and not only that so far has been working almost flawlessly.

The idea here is to get as much as we can from them now, knowing well that both will pretty much be pissed at us if we openly help the other during the war. Likewise we must somehow make it impossible for them (rather GWT) not to trade with GCA once the inevitable contact between them occurs.

So, it's double-dealing-mania:

Let's start with GWT

It is likely that they are not the agressors in this conflict from what we have seen from both them and CGN. I suspect that they are a bit weaker than CGN and thus tried to avoid war. Since we first obtained contact with them, we made a tech deal already, and have agreed to another (either mono-inv or more likely chivalry-inv). Those are pretty much written in stone.

However, they are noticably concernet that we may trade with their hated enemy CGN and have directly asked us not to trade with them. On one hand, we cannot agree to this since it limits our trading opportunities with CGN, plus gives the appearance we are backing one of them overtly. However, we also cannot say no because in revenge they can very well gift GCA enough techs as to make our war far more difficult.

So, there must be a middle ground. The idea I had proposed was to agree to a non-agreement on trades with either GWT or CGN once the war has started. They seemed to like the idea since our deals have already been made. However, now that they are at war, the issue must be changed into something more like "we will not trade from now on upon ratification of the agreement". Since it does not apply retrospectively, we can still make deals before signing.

What this also does is that if they agree, we force them not to trade with OUR enemy, GCA. And since they don't have contact, works in our favor since they can't deal with them beforehand.

Now on to CGN

CGN recently agreed to a Republic deal as well as a world map trade. Basically the Republic was sold for 180g and 6gpt and the world maps straight up. That means we will now be in possesion of a partial map of the other continent (they apparently don't have all of GWT mapped out). They now have Republic, but anarchy will hurt them for a while as well as the fact we have leeched their treasury a bit. That should even up the scales with GWT a bit making the war hopefully even bloodier.

Finally ,we should try and get a deal for Invention with CGN, long term. Perhaps Theology. As long as we agree to this deal without yet agreeing to a no-trade tech deal with GWT, we're all good.

Now back to GWT

Now, right before GWT meets GCA, we offer them something they can't refuse: a WM trade/sell. What's the benefit? We have all of CGN mapped out! Since GWT is at war, that information will no doubt come in handy. We have discussed a possible sell at 160g to help with our upgrades. During this agreement, we also settle the no-trade techs thing, by which time we have already established a further trade with CGN. Thus, when GWT meets GCA, they will be bound by treaty not to trade anything that might hurt us in the war.

It's not over

One final detail. We have contact with CFC and CGN doesn't. We can sell them that contact for another good bunch of gold. The benefits? We can now also channel any potential trades via CFC to the other civs, thus bypassing the no-trade techs agreement. In other words, CFC would be the "black market", the intermediary by which Apolyton continues to trade with the other continent regardless.



So, any questions? CGN has already sent us their WM and gold. Methinks there is a way to appear to be neutral yet continue to trade with both of those two juggernauts, and hopefully aid them enough so that their little war ends in a bloody unproductive stalemate.

	27-09-2003 11:10									#2
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Don't we all love bloody unproductive stalemates

	27-09-2003 11:11									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: It's not over

LOVE the titles!

This scheme works remarkably well, so long as we decide to keep CFC around. We'll have to judge CFC's character and desire to be our long-term buddies. Without them in the picture, we could end up being 3 major world powers isolated by a no-trade deal we made WAY BACK in the middle ages.

However, I'm sure that if that happened we could get ourselves out of it. Seriously. We've dealt with more difficult situations than this. I'm just surprised at how easy this is coming along for us.

--Togas

	27-09-2003 11:19									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Several problems:

1. Do we WANT to provide a full map of CGN territory to GWT? Or a full map of GWT to CGN? We do not yet know which of them is the weaker of the two, so it would seem incredibly imprudent to give one of them the advantage w/o having any idea whether we're helping the superior or inferior one.

2. Something tells me that arguing that we'll not make any agreements after the signing of the agreement, but lining up future agreements and "signing them" before the no-agreement agreement is signed will be seen as underhanded by GWT and thus the technical legitimacy of the action will be worthless. They're still going to feel cheated.

3. I like the idea of selling GWT everything that GCA has to offer them so that GCA has nothing substantial to offer in return for technology. However, my thought is that perhaps GWT (given that they can't get anything valuable in return) will refrain from gifting technology to GCA for free when all that will accomplish is to anger Apolyton and make any future relations more difficult, essentially throwing our support behind CGN. If there is no incentive for GWT to gift techs to GCA, they may not (or at least the risks are more than the incentives).

4. I do not believe that we should agree not to make agreements with CGN and/or GWT, even if both of them or either of them want us to agree to that. Ultimately, I'd prefer that we kept our options open... we can trade with whomever we want whenever we want. The only incentive to agree otherwise is GCA and I hope we can find other ways to minimize that risk.

	27-09-2003 11:39									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

1. I suspect, from their attitude that CGN is a bit more powerful. I believe so because it seems CGN is the aggressor. They rarely touched on their current relationship with GWT whereas GWT openly said they were hostile. When fighting a monster like GWT any team with even a bit of sense would only consider it if they felt some sort of superiority.

2. so if we openly trade with them, both will feel even more cheated.

3. Global strategy: do you think GWT is interested in us being overly dominant in our contient? They'll realize that once they get our map. The same efforts we might pull to not give the advantage to CGN or GWT, either one of them might do to prevent us from being too powerful.

4. Well as long as we don't figure out the "other ways" we're screwed if they do.

	27-09-2003 13:56									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: I say we either give them both maps of each other or we wait until we hear who is winning the early conflicts to decide who to give a map of the other's territory. Simply deciding that we like GWT better and sympathize with their condition should not be the basis of our policies.

And should we find GWT more powerful, what prevents us from trading CGN our map for some extra $$$ which will now have GWT's map?

quote: Openly trading as a neutral with both parties, if we ensure that both parties receive what we have to offer (WM's, tech, etc.), is entirely fair. Neither of them will fall over in love with us, no, but they will have far less reason to resent us than if we truly bar ourselves from trading with ONE power and not the other. Aside from that, I'd just like to keep our options open.

Who said we were only going to trade with one of them? The idea is to make each one belive we're not going to trade with the other.

quote: This is why killing iron sources is going to be extremely critical. The point is that agreeing not to trade with CGN should be considered as an ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT rather than our knee-jerk reaction for how to prevent GWT from trading things to GCA we don't want GCA to have. I'd just like to cut the sources of iron and make the entire problem moot.

CGN knew that accepting a practically worthless Firaxis city would get them on GWT's hit list and they did it anyway, morese knowing that (right before our contact) that they would most likely face GWT as despots, not good odds in the long run even if you do have a bigger army (lending even more credibility to my theory that CGN is in fact stronger since they'd have to be truly confident of their strength in this case).

I just don't want to sit on my ass and "hope" that GWT won't trade anything with GCA. Precisely knowing that GWT is the no-bullshit type I fear them more than capable of pulling off a stunt like and saying to us plain and simply that it was in their best interests to do so. And I can give more than one example in the PTWDG of them acting in a similar way.

Finally I do agree that if we manage to cut off their iron, we're home free. Hopefully we can do this and not have to worry over overly complex diplomatic maneouvers which either way can screw us if we're not careful.

	27-09-2003 20:48									#7
	Increase the size of your Attachments

How about this? Publicly we are neutral. Privately, the respective ambassadors for these two civs give the impression we are on that civ's side. In other words - we suck up. This will likely allow a better info flow out of the other continent to us, and should facilitate trades when we want to make them. If necessary, we use CFC as the black market trader to get around agreements and embargos, and then we can publicly berate them for doing so.

I throw it out as another idea. I appreciate that this will be a fine line we will be walking, but as I have indicated elsewhere (Webring thread), I think it is important to give each of them a sense of confidence that we are in their camp.

	27-09-2003 22:06									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by Arnelos Is it just me or does it seem that you're rather partial to GWT? Seriously, we simply do not know whether CGN or GWT is the more powerful and which side will come out on top. It would therefore be unwise to give an advantage to one side and not the other while knowing so little about how much impact that advantage might have. I say we either give them both maps of each other or we wait until we hear who is winning the early conflicts to decide who to give a map of the other's territory. Simply deciding that we like GWT better and sympathize with their condition should not be the basis of our policies.

Let's review the evidence to see who we think is stronger.

1) Who has control of territory over their chokepoint? CGN
2) Who has a swordsman army, has been deploying troops to the border and building roads there? CGN
3) Who did not tell us at all about their current relationship with the other? CGN
4) Who suddenly acts aghast at a suppossed attack against a lone horseman? CGN
5) Who's history is so full of propaganda it would make Stalin proud? CGN

My point is we don't know for sure who is stronger, but we can guess by these little details that is CGN is ready to launch an attack on GWT, it is because they have 1) been gearing up for it and 2) feel themselves confidently sure of victory.

Also notice the evidence when talking to GWT:

- When asked if they were ready, they said they counted on their cities aided with Republic and the fact that CGN is still despotic. No mention of any percieved military superiority.

- Still asked us to try and get CGN to agree to some form of splitting up their continent. Avoid war.

- Told us from the start about their sour relationship with CGN, unlike CGN, who refrained from really talking about GWT in their chat.

As for my bias, yes I'm biased, because we've seen quite well that GWT is the no-bullshit type, and frankly miccofl just reeks of deceit.

-MZ

	27-09-2003 22:24									#9
	Suffering from ads?

quote: I say we either give them both maps of each other or we wait until we hear who is winning the early conflicts to decide who to give a map of the other's territory. Simply deciding that we like GWT better and sympathize with their condition should not be the basis of our policies.

And should we find GWT more powerful, what prevents us from trading CGN our map for some extra $$$ which will now have GWT's map?

quote: Openly trading as a neutral with both parties, if we ensure that both parties receive what we have to offer (WM's, tech, etc.), is entirely fair. Neither of them will fall over in love with us, no, but they will have far less reason to resent us than if we truly bar ourselves from trading with ONE power and not the other. Aside from that, I'd just like to keep our options open.

Who said we were only going to trade with one of them? The idea is to make each one belive we're not going to trade with the other.

quote: This is why killing iron sources is going to be extremely critical. The point is that agreeing not to trade with CGN should be considered as an ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT rather than our knee-jerk reaction for how to prevent GWT from trading things to GCA we don't want GCA to have. I'd just like to cut the sources of iron and make the entire problem moot.

CGN knew that accepting a practically worthless Firaxis city would get them on GWT's hit list and they did it anyway, morese knowing that (right before our contact) that they would most likely face GWT as despots, not good odds in the long run even if you do have a bigger army (lending even more credibility to my theory that CGN is in fact stronger since they'd have to be truly confident of their strength in this case).

I just don't want to sit on my ass and "hope" that GWT won't trade anything with GCA. Precisely knowing that GWT is the no-bullshit type I fear them more than capable of pulling off a stunt like and saying to us plain and simply that it was in their best interests to do so. And I can give more than one example in the PTWDG of them acting in a similar way.

Finally I do agree that if we manage to cut off their iron, we're home free. Hopefully we can do this and not have to worry over overly complex diplomatic maneouvers which either way can screw us if we're not careful.