Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, we should try to get marble from CivFr to build our Epics. I would offer a luxury to start with (they don't have spices), and if they want stone instead I would give that too. Even if they refuse, that gives us information.

[Sullla]

You're welcome to try, but they are 100% building Great Library right now, and I very much doubt they are interested in trading away their marble. Good luck.

[NobleHelium]

Even if they refuse, that gives us information.

[Azoth]

Even if they refuse, that gives us information.

I dunno about that. What would you do if, a couple of turns after making contact, the game leader asks for your Marble in trade? You'd probably refuse even if you weren't building a wonder. If we really want access to that Marble, we'll probably have to agree to a very lopsided trade, such as:

A 10-turn trade of Marble for Spices + a promise not to build any wonders CivFr is targeting AND
A 10-turn loan of Stone in the future
i.e.: Help us build our Epics and we'll help you build Oxford later

I can see CivFr accepting something like that, but I'm not sure it's in our best interests. And unless we're prepared to negotiate seriously, we probably shouldn't ask for their Marble at all. We'd just come across as unreasonable.

[Ceiliazul]

If CivFR has closed borders with CivPlayers, open borders would be great for us to scout their land without them getting the same chance.

In PBEMs it seems to work well for strong teams to talk about buddying up to lock out the others... and if our hunch is right about their tension with CivPlayers this angle would work especially well.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Wait, what's this about Civplayers-CivFr tensions?

Obviously, we'd love to fuel the flames. But in that case, who to support? Civplayers or CivFr? Don't wanna be too obvious about playing one against the other, we don't want to seem to opportunistic.

And if we want marble, then we'd better ask for it in a later timeframe. No way in hell they're going to let it go free as they hammer out the current batch of marble wonders.

[kjn]

Here is the new diplo relations overview:




Note that CivFr only has OBs with CivPlayers, so they don't have foreign trade routes in all their cities. They have six (probably seven) classical techs, and of these Aesthetics, Literature, Mathematics, Calendar, and Monarchy are confirmed, with a strong case for Iron Working and a less strong one for Construction.

I think we should ask for Open Borders with CivFr, and also offer them gems for sugar. Yes, gems are better than sugar, but at this stage of the game they're equivalent, and they have two very large cities that we'd love to have trade routes with.

ETA: Me blind, CivFr has OB with Apolyton too.

[SevenSpirits]

I think we should ask for Open Borders with CivFr, and also offer them gems for sugar. Yes, gems are better than sugar, but at this stage of the game they're equivalent, and they have two very large cities that we'd love to have trade routes with.

From what I can see, this trade is ludicrously lopsided in our favor because they have 1 sugar and we have 2 gems. Am I missing something?

[SleepingMoogle]

Let's send them a standard greeting first and see if they are amendable to OB. If that works we can always see if they are interested in further trades.

Speaking of which, have we had any contact whatsoever from UniversCiv since making that gpt proposal some time ago? Is it worth trying to salvage diplomatic relations with them?

[kjn]

From what I can see, this trade is ludicrously lopsided in our favor because they have 1 sugar and we have 2 gems. Am I missing something?

Good point, but they might have a second sugar available. Most of the mid-game happiness resources that we've seen on the map are clustered, with several together (our spices, the dyes, the wines that CFC claimed).