Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Shoot the Moon]

Guys we want this NAP. Can we stop the silliness of suggesting we'll walk away? The terms are minimal, especially considering we were originally thinking of straight gifting them stone in exchange for where we settled. Don't over think things. We want this deal.

[Sullla]

scooter has already perfectly summarized my feelings about this deal with CFC. I hate to requote, but this is worth bumping up to a fresh page:

I get this sentiment. However, I view our "big get" to be the NAP. Given that we are clearly the top dog of this relationship, all NAPs heavily favor us. This deal essentially makes us dogpile proof for the next 70-75 turns. We can do a lot in 75T. Gobble up the German team, win liberalism comfortably, draft ourselves Rifles, build Taj to kick off yet another MoM-enhanced golden age... We might very well be an era ahead of CFC in 75T if they don't start playing signficantly better. A 70-turn spice + stone gift kind of pales in comparison IMO.

It's a great deal for us and we shouldn't squabble over the details. Let's just clean up the language in a few places (as already suggested), ask that they gift us marble in the future, and go from there.

scooter: regarding your question on marble timetable, sometime in the T120 to T150 range is perfect. That's when we will want to build both Epics, possibly take a shot at something like Sistine, and have our best window to build Taj Mahal. (I am estimating a turn around roughly T150 for a Liberalism/Nationalism play.) As a rough guess, it's a good choice for our marble timetable.

Other teams: we should just send the WPC message, I've seen little discussion and no objection. We can hold off dealing with CivPlayers until we sort out the CFC stuff. I still read nothing in their message that wasn't already promised (10 turn rolling NAP, can be first canceled T110 / attack on T120) and a whole lot of fishing for information (who are you thinking of attacking?) Bleh to that team.

Would anyone object if I asked Spanish Apolyton in-game for Open Borders? I mean, worst that can happen is they just say no, right?

[kalin]

Despite not liking the agreement, I will trust Sullla and scooter on this and say that we should agree to it.

Kalin

[scooter]

Sent to CFC:

Caledorn,

One issue we discussed previously that we do really need to see added to Section 5 is this:

5.5 Team Civfanatics agrees to give Realms Beyond a 10T loan on marble at some point during the NAP. This can be arranged around CFC's builds to be a 10T window in which they will not be using the marble. RB would like this window to start no earlier than T120 and no later than T150. Both sides will make good-faith effort to be accommodating on the timing of this loan.

We also agree with your section 3.2 and 3.3 suggestions. If we can get confirmation from you that these three suggestions are officially added (3.2, 3.3, 5.5), our team will consider this document signed by both parties. We will then immediately send you the spice as a sign that the agreement is in effect.

I'll be mostly available on chat today so we can get this turned around in a timely manner.


Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[Ruff_Hi]

3.1. The members agree not to conduct actions which will could lead to a declaration of war between the members of this pact for the duration of the pact.

There are plenty of actions that will not lead to a declaration of war that we want to avoid. Either we change the above to be more inclusive, or we detail them.

[scooter]

FWIW, they seem to be in a rush, because they do not want to settle the city without the agreement in place (and I'm guessing they also want the spices immediately, as in T103). Evidence from a very brief chat I had with Caledorn this morning

Caledorn: as for other amendments, we are more than open to discuss them - but for now we really need this deal signed on both parts, and then we can discuss any other terms/suggestions/amendments that you guys would like added as we then have the luxury of time again

This is why I'm trying to push this along quickly, because for now we have something to offer that they really want (a signed agreement in less than 24 hours), so they're more likely to just say "fine" on the marble and move along. If we delay it further, we lose that leverage and we resort to either A) giving up on marble or B) playing chicken by risking the agreement as we try to strong-arm them into giving us the marble loan. I don't like either of those possibilities obviously.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I think many of the objections to this deal are emotional rather than rational. kjn gives a good analsys of that, the diplomatic vs. civ-centric approach to this deal. Does CFC get more from this deal? In a quid pro quo perspective, yes, they are walking away with a generous haul of resources for very little expense. However, from the expansion perspective, we need a solid agreement to secure our border. I am more concerned about the prospects of fighting CivPlayers, as their diplo continues to reek of stalling and bullshit, IMO. We can't make an enemy of everyone, and we actually benefit tremendously from a long NAP with CFC. I doubt any other teams are looking at being remotely close to doing anything with the Taj around T150, and this agreement gets us to that point sooner. This is a good deal for us, even if we are paying more upfront, per turn.

[scooter]

I'm just doing this to help ease the minds of those who are going along with it but don't like it... but here's another way to look at this deal. Look at it from CFC's perspective. In a vacuum, it looks awesome for them. They get a long NAP with their neighbor and wriggled quite a few concessions out of that neighbor in the process. Cool! That's a win, right?

The problem is this: if we're going to be beaten, there needs to be a dogpile soon. If we land HG and MoM in the next few turns as planned, and we use our first golden age intelligently, we are going to be getting awfully close to the level where we could repel a full-on dogpile and still win. The snowball is really getting out of hand. CFC is the team best equipped to organize such a dogpile - they're close to us and sharp diplomatically compared to the other teams we've talked with. They shouldn't be signing a NAP with us right now, they should be refusing any extensions past T130 and working frantically to get several civs on board to hit us in 30 turns or so. Them signing this NAP is very likely them losing their last chance to win, but they don't realize it. T175 is very likely going to be too little, too late (and I bet at that point we could wriggle some more extensions out of teams if we try hard enough).

The emotional reasons people don't like this deal is exactly why it's perfect for us - it has convinced them that they're signing a slick deal when really, they're severely hurting their odds of winning and helping ours.

(I say all that not to beat a dead horse, just trying to ease minds)

Other Teams
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Other teams: we should just send the WPC message, I've seen little discussion and no objection.

Sending in just a second.

Would anyone object if I asked Spanish Apolyton in-game for Open Borders? I mean, worst that can happen is they just say no, right?

Go for it. Can't hurt.

[Ruff_Hi]

With a legal-ize document like this, we do need to review it, suggest some changes and haggle a little. But we should agree to the general direction (NAP, resource exchange). Any objection locking in the resource now for (say) 10 turns while we haggle over the exact word-age? You know - 'As a sign of good faith'.

[scooter]

With a legal-ize document like this, we do need to review it, suggest some changes and haggle a little. But we should agree to the general direction (NAP, resource exchange). Any objection locking in the resource now for (say) 10 turns while we haggle over the exact word-age? You know - 'As a sign of good faith'.

To be clear, this is exactly what CFC wants as I understand. I posted a snippet of this from a chat a few posts up, but essentially they want the body/terms agreed on right away so they can settle the city & get the spices this turn (103), and then we can make any adjustments we'd like under Section 8, so long as both parties agree to it. This is why I phrased the last message the way I did - aiming to tell them we'll do exactly that if they just slip the marble thing in real quick. The marble loan is not something they're likely to agree on as an "Amendment" because it's a straight gift to us, so we need to slip it in now (or expect to pay for it). Hopefully they go for it, fingers crossed.