Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[pindicator]

Elimist, i think we are pretty similar in our thinking. Just differ on how best to send that message

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Quick draft to Apolyton:

Hey,

Sorry, our turnplayer missed the diplo discussion and moved closer to the barb city. We will not be interfering with your plans there, though, you have our word.

scooter

[scooter]

Sent GES's quick Apolyton draft.

[kjn]

Letting CFC stew a bit might be a good idea, but I think we should work hard on trying to make sure they don't get to frame the discussion later on, either with us or with the other teams.

Going forward, I think we should avoid doing diplo power-gaming with all teams but CFC - they're fair game. Make sure that every deal we make is good for both parts, and don't stint on what we can provide.

Getting that intel from the Spanish about how the war went in the later stages would be quite valuable, and the Spanish are no threat at all to us in this game, while they still have some small chance of tripping up CFC later on.

I'm going to post some maps and screenies in the turn discussion thread about the international situation soonish.

[scooter]

From Apolyton:

ok, np. we will discuss this NAP thing with our team and get back to you.

MZ

Really interested to see how they reply. Last night I was thinking about this, and my pet theory (CFC and Apolyton are BFFs that have the exclusive map trading deal together) looks better if it seems Apolyton and CFC are lining up their NAPs to end with us at a similar time. If they accept this out to T185, I'll feel less paranoid.

[Azoth]

I think we should respond to CFC. "Making them sweat" won't work. Why? Because we have a NAP until T175! If they see us drafting 40 turns before it expires, they'll assume we're planning to attack someone else. Either that, or they'll worry that we're going to break our agreement, which is not an impression we want to give. (It'll encourage them to break it first.)

In general, I think there's a tendency to react emotionally instead of rationally to the "sweetheart" deals we're offering CFC. "Our empire is stronger and better developed than theirs. So why should we gift them Stone and Spices for peace? It looks as if we're sending them tribute!" The answer, of course, is that our gifts are NOT tribute but an insurance policy against a dogpile. And they cost us nothing. A spare happiness resource that only makes a difference in a couple of CFC cities, and spare Stone, which kept the Pyramids away from the dual Academy Philosophical civ, and the ToA/GL/MoM wonder hog. We signed the deal for the NAP, the Marble was an afterthought that were never counting on, CFC did not outsmart us. They just had good micro over the past few turns. (If CivFr had skipped Music and beelined Nationalism, we would have lost Taj to them.)

Anyway, I like this response the best.

Hi Caledorn,

Thanks, but we don't need marble at this time. Maybe you know why.
If you have something else to offer us instead of marble we'd be interested, otherwise we'll take a 10 turn loan of marble after you've finished your epics, starting no later than t150.

P.S: We suggest you be honest with us in diplo and refrain from insulting our intelligence. You settled your marble resource the turn before you signed peace with the Spanish. Don't try to pretend that your war with the Spanish is the reason for the timing of your marble settlement.

scooter

I'd be fine with skipping the P.S. too, but people are calling for snark...

The PS is skipped because snark never wins over anyone. It doesn't make them "fear" us. It's just annoying.

[sooooo]

I support Azoth's edit.

For what it's worth, I don't think CFC has done anything wrong. Nothing I wouldn't expect our team to do, anyway.

[Dantski]

I support Azoth's edit.

For what it's worth, I don't think CFC has done anything wrong. Nothing I wouldn't expect our team to do, anyway.

Agree, they did a good job on Taj. No need to congratulate them, and no need to make them an immediate enemy. Just negotiate the best time to get marble and be done with it.

[Shoot the Moon]

I support Azoth's edit.

For what it's worth, I don't think CFC has done anything wrong. Nothing I wouldn't expect our team to do, anyway.

Agreed fully. I'd say we should gently insist that the marble come later but certainly not do so in a needlessly confrontational manner. Being pissy towards CFC isn't going to change the fact that we lost the taj, but it can change the fact that we have a relatively safe border there.

Also, where does this idea of CFC getting sweet deals off us come from? Even after taking account of the stone and happiness gifts, we still benefitted a lot more from the NAP than they did. We're still likely in a position to win the game because of it, while they aren't. Sure they got a better deal than other teams for a NAP, but just because the other teams were stupid enough to not realize NAPs benefit us more than them doesn't mean it was a sweet deal for CFC, just that it was a sweeter deal than those where we rip off other teams.

[sooooo]

We may still need CFC to be friends down the line - let's not burn any bridges here.

I don't think any message proposed so far is burning bridges. Currently, there is no bridge. The only possible way we end up with a bridge involves acknowledging that.

This isn't true. We are not at war, that's a start. We have diplomatic relations, there's another. We have a NAP that both parties are abiding by. We have resource deals. We may need resource deals or NAPs in the future. We don't need to be BFFs, but I'm fairly sure that sometime down the road both teams will need cooperation from the other, so let's try to keep relations as best as they can be given the game circumstances.