Discerning Friend From Foe, Are They Really Your Ally?

18 Feb 2023, 05:01

Sometimes you think you can trust your ally with your life, right? Wrong, 79% of the time your Ally has thought of betraying you or already has, here are some red flags/signs of betrayal:

1. Putting troops within 1 province of your cities (not including a country you are both at war with) You may think that this would be common among the front lines, but this is the first sign of betrayal(1), (let me explain what i mean, if they are stacking outside their country, INSIDE you're country, that is a red flag, not that hard to discern, usually) there is a large chance you have no more than 10-25 units in your homeland, especially if you are a relatively large country, so if units are stacking in any more than 6-8, you should be ready for a potential attack from your ally, exceptions include: Stacking on or near borders of a country are are about to attack, if you are retreating and they are covering you.

2. Placing ranged units just within range of your cities.(2) (not much explanation needed)

3. Ranged (Flying Bombs, Rockets, Nuclear Bombers, Nuclear Rockets) inside their territory in large numbers but only reach inside their country and yours, this one is decently hard to deem bad, sometimes someone could be indecisive about where to send such mass weapons of destruction, but if they are in stacks of 5-7(3) or more, and seemingly they are going nowhere to any of their front lines, i would be suspicious of such activity.

4. I use this all the time when i want to dispose of a useless ally, assisting them in an attack, via, through their country, now this is sometimes quite hard to deem bad, but, the way i do it is as follows: Make it look like i am moving units to front line, i time them so they all are around a city at the same time, then when they are all next to (or close) to a city, i attack, sending them into an unrecoverable war.(4) This is a pretty uncommon way of doing this, but i am going to mention as many possible ways as i can.

5. "I will hold it down" "i can cover your homeland" "i'm just moving my army through" these are some of the most common ways of telling someone you're moving units through, or to stay, but most of the time that is when someone falls victim to a trap, new players especially, of if they volunteer to 'protect you homeland', that may seem like a nice gesture, but usually not.

6. False Allies. Now, this is probably the hardest one to detect, your ally could secretly be allies with another nation, suggest to attack them, now, it depends on where this 'False Ally' is located, but if you both share a border with this 'False Ally' he will stack on his border, you stack yours, then you both start sending units in, but your units reach the enemy before his does, then he marches all his troops back towards you(or through the 'False Ally') and you will probably die.(5)

7. Your Coalition members can most of the time be trusted, you can count on them

8. If i missed any, please be open to sharing, or if you have used any of these, i would like to hear those stories! this is partially a learning post for newer players, so if you think i have said anything wrong, let me know, i accept all input!

(1) If you were going to dispose of an unwanted ally, wouldn't you do this as well? knocking out cities early into a war greatly increases the chances of you winning.

(2) Rail Road Guns may be an exception, if they are closer to an enemy or front line.

(3) Stacks of units start becoming truly dangerous around this mark.

(4) Cities are the soul of your land, without them you cannot win, no matter how big your army is.

(5) If you are still allies you are both probably about the same strength, add another possibly strong player and death is ensured.

5 Replies

18 Feb 2023, 05:41

Fox-Company wrote:
Sometimes you think you can trust your ally with your life, right? Wrong, 79% of the time your Ally has thought of betraying you or already has[.]

I think allies should always assess the feasibility of betraying somebody, just as they should assess the feasibility and probability of likely attacks.

Fox-Company wrote:
7. Your Coalition members can most of the time be trusted, you can count on them

However, fortunately the above is true. Most of the time.

Fox-Company wrote:
2. Placing ranged units just within range of your cities. (not much explanation needed)
3. Ranged (Flying Bombs, Rockets, Nuclear Bombers, Nuclear Rockets) inside their territory in large numbers but only reach inside their country and yours, this one is decently hard to deem bad, sometimes someone could be indecisive about where to send such mass weapons of destruction, but if they are in stacks of 5-7(3) or more, and seemingly they are going nowhere to any of their front lines, i would be suspicious of such activity.

Paratroopers could be added to this for obvious reasons. They can easily take all your cities, build aircraft factories, and continue to take everything in a Yellow Empire-style paratrooper-and-rocket aerial blitzkrieg.

Fox-Company wrote:
5. "I will hold it down" "i can cover your homeland" "i'm just moving my army through" these are some of the most common ways of telling someone you're moving units through, or to stay, but most of the time that is when someone falls victim to a trap, new players especially, of if they volunteer to 'protect you homeland', that may seem like a nice gesture, but usually not.
[...]
(5) If you are still allies you are both probably about the same strength, add another possibly strong player and death is ensured.

As Sun Tzu said, Obtain Safe Passage to conquer the state of Guo. However this seems unsustainable in the future; continually attacking your allies in the game will not earn friends, and if you make friends with a more powerful country it doesn't exactly give them an example not to attack you. Although it is better than immediately to die.

Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
— Marshal Foch
A pretty mechanical toy [...] the war will never be won by such machines.
— Lord Kitchener, on tanks

18 Feb 2023, 05:45

Lord Crayfish wrote:
Fox-Company wrote:
Sometimes you think you can trust your ally with your life, right? Wrong, 79% of the time your Ally has thought of betraying you or already has[.]
I think allies should always assess the feasibility of betraying somebody, just as they should assess the feasibility and probability of likely attacks.
Fox-Company wrote:
7. Your Coalition members can most of the time be trusted, you can count on them
However, fortunately the above is true. Most of the time.
Fox-Company wrote:
2. Placing ranged units just within range of your cities. (not much explanation needed)
3. Ranged (Flying Bombs, Rockets, Nuclear Bombers, Nuclear Rockets) inside their territory in large numbers but only reach inside their country and yours, this one is decently hard to deem bad, sometimes someone could be indecisive about where to send such mass weapons of destruction, but if they are in stacks of 5-7(3) or more, and seemingly they are going nowhere to any of their front lines, i would be suspicious of such activity.
Paratroopers could be added to this for obvious reasons. They can easily take all your cities, build aircraft factories, and continue to take everything in a Yellow Empire-style paratrooper-and-rocket aerial blitzkrieg.
Fox-Company wrote:
5. "I will hold it down" "i can cover your homeland" "i'm just moving my army through" these are some of the most common ways of telling someone you're moving units through, or to stay, but most of the time that is when someone falls victim to a trap, new players especially, of if they volunteer to 'protect you homeland', that may seem like a nice gesture, but usually not.
[...]
(5) If you are still allies you are both probably about the same strength, add another possibly strong player and death is ensured.
As Sun Tzu said, Obtain Safe Passage to conquer the state of Guo. However this seems unsustainable in the future; continually attacking your allies in the game will not earn friends, and if you make friends with a more powerful country it doesn't exactly give them an example not to attack you. Although it is better than immediately to die.

Thanks for the input, i never thought of paratroopers either.

Also, i think you mis-put my (#) i put in (5) in a spot where i was giving an explnation, not (5) for 5.

18 Feb 2023, 05:49

Fox-Company wrote:
6. False Allies. Now, this is probably the hardest one to detect, your ally could secretly be allies with another nation, suggest to attack them, now, it depends on where this 'False Ally' is located, but if you both share a border with this 'False Ally' he will stack on his border, you stack yours, then you both start sending units in, but your units reach the enemy before his does, then he marches all his troops back towards you(or through the 'False Ally') and you will probably die.(5)
(5) If you are still allies you are both probably about the same strength, add another possibly strong player and death is ensured.

This is what correlates.

18 Feb 2023, 11:44

Good points. Just to add from the other side: if you are the player frequently finding yourself in a position where you're considering backstabbing your allies, it means you did a pretty poor job of picking allies. Be more deliberate and thoughtful about teaming, don't just join the first coalition that seems convenient on day 1. You really shouldn't have to backstab allies to have success in this game.

18 Feb 2023, 11:54

Well said.

jubjub bird wrote:
Good points. Just to add from the other side: if you are the player frequently finding yourself in a position where you're considering backstabbing your allies, it means you did a pretty poor job of picking allies. Be more deliberate and thoughtful about teaming, don't just join the first coalition that seems convenient on day 1. You really shouldn't have to backstab allies to have success in this game.

Post a Reply

Please log in to post a reply.

Back to Discussions