Because as long as you maintain that policy, no one will turn around and come to kill you right?
Assuming Sweden won't and other nations won't peace out to screw you over.
Johan is playing an excellent game. Who can deny him a place in the top 3 at this stage? The answer: Germany and/or France. The others are too far away to do anything even if they peace out because Johan can defend himself at sea and Ottomans and Ethiopians would have to march through Europe to access Burgundy, so this would require approval by Germany.
So of course Johan wants Germany and France to be busy elsewhere. The thing is, everyone knows this but at the same time the brilliant thing is that it is in fact in Germany's and France's interests to work with Johan. Johan + Germany cooperation is mutually beneficial as we have seen, and France is out of the top 3 already no matter what so there is no need for him to take a diplo rep hit for future games by stabbing Johan who has been more or less a very reliable ally for France the whole game.
So all of their incentives are aligned. Germany wants to keep the deal with England so they are guaranteed the new victory points in the Low Countries and they want to keep knocking Ottomans and Ethiopia down. France wants to attack Ottomans and Ethiopia because they effectively screwed him over by letting him fight Prussia alone. And as mentioned before, there is no benefit from him attacking Johan.
Great play all around! The only wild card in this scenario is Portugal because their fleet is so strong that they could threaten England together with Ethiopia etc. But there is no real incentive for them to attack Johan either, they'd rather attack Spain instead. And they have not been very cutthroat anyway. So the only way Johan could lose is if there is some personal vendetta against him growing, but he hasn't been that sneaky in this game that someone would blow up their own game just to get at him.
- 2
- 2