(February 22nd, 2013, 01:19)kjn Wrote: My diplo guidelines:
Keep it simple.
Do not make assumptions.
Do not make fun of other teams unless you want to make an enemy.
Did I not follow these?
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Also, I sent a brief message back to Decebal trying to connect with him on chat. I'll keep posted on where it goes.
Goals:
1) Longer NAP that extends past our German conflict. I'm thinking something similar to CFC in length is best, maybe T170 or T180 or so. Long enough that we could take a chunk out of the German team. Obviously this would include the usual requirements with espionage and all. Culture bombing too obviously.
2) Communicate that Open Borders are not a huge priority with us. We have them with enough people that we don't need their routes. However, we're willing to sign them straight-up with scouting allowed. We're not going to pay for them, though.
3) Try to convince them not to settle a city right in our faces. However, we don't really have much leverage here or reason to be able to tell them not to do is, so I'm not sure how much I can really push this one.
(February 22nd, 2013, 10:04)scooter Wrote: Also, I sent a brief message back to Decebal trying to connect with him on chat. I'll keep posted on where it goes.
Goals:
1) Longer NAP that extends past our German conflict. I'm thinking something similar to CFC in length is best, maybe T170 or T180 or so. Long enough that we could take a chunk out of the German team. Obviously this would include the usual requirements with espionage and all. Culture bombing too obviously.
2) Communicate that Open Borders are not a huge priority with us. We have them with enough people that we don't need their routes. However, we're willing to sign them straight-up with scouting allowed. We're not going to pay for them, though.
3) Try to convince them not to settle a city right in our faces. However, we don't really have much leverage here or reason to be able to tell them not to do is, so I'm not sure how much I can really push this one.
Regards to settling the areas between us, anything planted right next to the border for cultural pressure, or a city from them on the shore of 'our' lake should be dissuaded. The reason is that it would piss us off. ;-)
I'm interested why they wish to settle land they admit is junk when, presumably, they'll have more attractive land to settle. My best guess it will be to either do the above, or claim as much of the land between us as possible, but from an economic standpoint it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw
(February 22nd, 2013, 10:04)scooter Wrote: Also, I sent a brief message back to Decebal trying to connect with him on chat. I'll keep posted on where it goes.
Goals:
1) Longer NAP that extends past our German conflict. I'm thinking something similar to CFC in length is best, maybe T170 or T180 or so. Long enough that we could take a chunk out of the German team. Obviously this would include the usual requirements with espionage and all. Culture bombing too obviously.
2) Communicate that Open Borders are not a huge priority with us. We have them with enough people that we don't need their routes. However, we're willing to sign them straight-up with scouting allowed. We're not going to pay for them, though.
3) Try to convince them not to settle a city right in our faces. However, we don't really have much leverage here or reason to be able to tell them not to do is, so I'm not sure how much I can really push this one.
I agree on the NAP length, if we can get them to come to terms there. As long as we have an agreement of sufficient length, our concerns about them whipping and hiding production are allayed.
Open Borders, since we don't need their trade routes, this would be in their favor now, so I would like to scout their territory, mutual scouting from them of course would be allowed. I think we benefit more from the scouting aspect of the deal than they will, since we have kjn doing yeoman's work at C&D, and generally being fucking awesome at it. If they're so pressed for time that they make repeated diplo gaffes leading us to what I hope is the totally wrong conclusion about their intentions, I doubt they have time to do the analysis of our cities through scouting that we will do of theirs. OB: economic advantage CP, intel advantage RB. Decent trade, on the surface this is a token of goodwill on our behalf.
The border agreement is where this can all fall apart. We cannot afford to have BbB culturally crushed and become more vulnerable than it already is. We need the agreement to address this, so don't be afraid to be firm here. Tactically, BbB is our dangling left flank that we can't have turned, so we need to reach an agreement that does not leave it in further danger. We've given some sweet inducements to CFC to get them to give us what we want. Let's see what CivPlayers are willing to take for an agreement not to settle this location. Maybe a surplus wine resource, since we get one from CFC? Be willing to trade here, but don't be afraid to push them. A show of resolve is what has them taking us seriously now, we can continue to bristle to get what we want if that's what it takes.
We said the land was bad, their reply was, "then you should have no problem with us settling it."
I dont think they'd agree about the land. Especially a city on the lake has good strategic value for them. And even the strip near Brick still has 2 flood plains.
I agree with scooter that e don't have much leverage. However, could we tell them we feel a city there is aggressive, as in violating our NAP? this would work both ways, natually.
A thought: would we consider a NAP like the one we have now but with a cooldown of 15-20 turns? I think it wouldn't be bad. If we have such a NAP, we don't care too much about a city on the BbB border as long as it doesn't steal important tiles. I would tbh condition NAP and all of them not settling a city the overlaps the BFC of our border cities. I think that the NAP is the leverage. As I said before, if they plan to attack us then anything we do in negotiations hardly matters, and they would not hesitate to plant a city on our face. If they do not plan to attack us though, us threatening them with cancelling the NAP should be leverage.
EDIT: We said the land between us is bad, but since when is that licence for them to settle it. The point here is that any of us settling that is a threat to the other. The argument to make is: since the land is bad and settling it is a threat to the other party, let's neither of us settle it.
In terms of leverage, we could offer them spices in exchange for a NAP and border agreement. If we're willing to do so for CFC, why not Civplayers, too?
(February 22nd, 2013, 11:33)Ceiliazul Wrote: We said the land was bad, their reply was, "then you should have no problem with us settling it."
I dont think they'd agree about the land. Especially a city on the lake has good strategic value for them. And even the strip near Brick still has 2 flood plains.
I agree with scooter that e don't have much leverage. However, could we tell them we feel a city there is aggressive, as in violating our NAP? this would work both ways, natually.
We have no problem with them settling a city of dubious value when it does not infringe on the safety and security of one of our cities. That would not be the case in the FP region.
A city on the lake would also have good strategic value for them: providing an avenue for attacking us. We would do well to encourage them to settle a city that will actually help pull their civ forward in other ways than just causing tactical problems for our defense, as that is only likely to antagonize us and force our hand in removing the city. We would prefer not to have to do this.
We can counter the good strategic value for them with our concern that it is strategically necessary for us to eliminate any city that endangers one of our established cities. Cramming in a city just to encroach on BbB will force us to take swift action against it. We would view a city settled minimum distance to BbB as a reason to fight, and we don't want to have to do that. Likewise, a city on our lake is of very little economic benefit to them, and thus its existence would be aimed at providing a foothold in a future conflict. We have no interest in that, and would be forced to remove that city as well. We would prefer not to have to do this.
To put it bluntly, if they settle up on BbB for such little economic benefit to their empire, their goal is to get a tactical advantage when fighting commences. Better to take the fight to them, under those circumstances.
