Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Ruff_Hi]

I sent this as a place holder.

Greetings Caledorn (on behalf of Team CFC),

I have pasted your email to our discussion thread and should have a formal reply for you before too long..

Ruff (for Team RB)

[Ruff_Hi]

Team CFC:

Greetings and well met!

We, too, would like to put behind us any pre-game unpleasantness between our teams. At least one of our team members wanted to declare game-long vendetta against you for your misuse of affect/effect, but cooler heads prevailed (as we hope they always will).

We accept your offer of a NAP until turn 100 (which we take to mean the NAP expires at the beginning of turn 100). The term "NAP" is thrown around a lot in these games but rarely defined. For now, we will assume the narrowest definition: no actions which would cause war to be declared in-game (i.e., attacking units or violating borders).

With respect to borders: most of our members who have replied think it's too early in the game for such discussions, but we are always open to negotiations.

This is fine by me ... but the 'affect / effect' comment is a bit clumsy and we are setting our selves up for when we use the wrong word ('why did you settle their'!). I would just drop the last sentence. If they come back and re-ask it, we can apologizes for missing that in the first reply and then send that sentence.

[Twinkletoes89]

I think we should be wary of accepting a NAP that is entirely undefined for convenience.

While it may help in the short-term, we could end up having issues of CFC doing something that we see as aggressive and against the spirit of a NAP when we have nothing other than our opinions to back it up.

[slowcheetah]

While it may help in the short-term, we could end up having issues of CFC doing something that we see as aggressive and against the spirit of a NAP when we have nothing other than our opinions to back it up.

What do we think will be done that's against the spirit of the NAP? The only thing that springs immediately to mind are civic swap missions and pink dots, maybe just try to add a ban on civic swap missions for the duration of the NAP. Pink dots we can deal with, we've got good expansion traits and can prepare knowing we signed a loose NAP, or we can just use later diplomacy.

[kjn]

My comments:

Drop the comment about affect/effect - especially since Caledorn is Norwegian.

I also think it's better to quietly drop the settling agreement for now and don't mention it. If they're hot on it, they'll ask again in a few days.

The one thing I believe we can freely share is info on the barb situation around here.

Team CFC:

Greetings and well met!

We, too, would like to put behind us any pre-game unpleasantness between our teams. We are here to play a nice and fun game of Civ at the best of our ability.

We accept your offer of a NAP until turn 100 (which we take to mean the NAP expires at the beginning of turn 100). The term "NAP" is thrown around a lot in these games but rarely defined. For now, we will assume the narrowest definition: no actions which would cause war to be declared in-game (i.e., attacking units or violating borders).

We hope your warrior hasn't had too much trouble reaching us. We saw a lion on the tile one west of your warrior on turn 26, and there has been both lions and panthers prowling our borders.

[Ruff_Hi]

maybe just try to add a ban on civic swap missions for the duration of the NAP

I disagree with this. We are re-hashing old ground here. And these missions are fairly expensive in the early part of the game.

[mostly_harmless]

My comments:

Drop the comment about affect/effect - especially since Caledorn is Norwegian.

I also think it's better to quietly drop the settling agreement for now and don't mention it. If they're hot on it, they'll ask again in a few days.

The one thing I believe we can freely share is info on the barb situation around here.

I agree with this draft. And also would not go into detailed NAP definitions now, like "no civic swaps, no espionage things, etc." If they do somehting like this and Sommer and friends try to wriggle their way out of it, well, we break that NAP. Simple as that.
I am undecided on mentioning the "stay one tile away from our borders".
Getting a visual on a city square is so important for later C&D that I would always go for it.

mh

[kjn]

Realised we should reciprocate with the contact info (they volunteered, and they can check espionage numbers next turn), and I think Ruff's first intro is superior:

Team CFC:

Meeting Team CFC in this wilderness is a stroke of pure luck. We too are happy to see you so close. As you have freely volunteered contact information, we feel honour bound to return the favour. You are our first and only contact.

"harsh words" - bah, I don't remember any harsh words. Even if there were some ... they were just friendly discussions regarding game set up and are long forgotten. We are here to play a nice and fun game of Civ at the best of our ability.

We accept your offer of a NAP until turn 100 (which we take to mean the NAP expires at the beginning of turn 100). The term "NAP" is thrown around a lot in these games but rarely defined. For now, we will assume the narrowest definition: no actions which would cause war to be declared in-game (i.e., attacking units or violating borders).

We hope your warrior hasn't had too much trouble reaching us. We saw a lion on the tile one west of your warrior on turn 26, and there has been both lions and panthers prowling our borders.

[DaveV]

First paragraph: whoever is our main diplo guy should use his local spelling of honor/honour and favor/favour.

Second paragraph: I would prefer "to the best" rather than "at the best".

Last paragraph: I think "there has" should be "there have".

[/grammar nazi]

[scooter]

I'm not sure I'm crazy about the "narrowest definition" comment as that's explicitly stating they can screw with us by other means. Otherwise I like it.