Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Mardoc]

I see the CivFr comments. Just a reminder that we sent two messages to them yesterday, so we're waiting on responses.

My comment was intended as a general observation, not a request for action.

[Sullla]

scooter, we should send a message to Apolyton protesting their chariot. We're pretty sure that it was them that pillaged roads in neutral territory near us:



That chariot almost certainly pillaged the road on the tile east of Mano y Mano to delay our push into the German core (before we could log into the game). I would dial them up and let them know that we don't appreciate it, and that any further actions will have negative consequences for our relations.

[scooter]

Chat with MZ of Apolyton:

scooter
hey, are you around by any chance?

MZ
heya, yes i1m here

scooter
ok. I've talked with our turn players, and it seems your chariot was pillaging a road of ours in neutral territory
what do you know about that?

MZ
was it your road? I thought it was our friend's

scooter
it wasn't in our culture, but it was certainly under our control given we tookt he city in the region

MZ
you destroeyed it so making that land to no one's

scooter
look, you knew what we were doing, surely you saw our settler ready to replace it the following turn
I just wanted to inform you that we do not appreciate you pillaging tiles in neutral territory
it is borderline abuse of our NAP agreement, and continuing it further will damage our relations. so we'd just like to ask that you not do that anymore

MZ
the NAP agreemen is what it is. we may go into that further by no abusing it by gifting units for example. But we will make no secret about it that we don1t lik your expansion on inca's expenses. we will help them ways which does not violate the NAP.

scooter
Yes, if you gift them units, we will consider that a NAP violation.

MZ
we will not gift the units and we did not in he pst

scooter
yeah, was just clarifying

MZ
them and pst* sry
past
bad keyboard

scooter
Obviously we cannot stop you from pillaging tiles in neutral territory, but if you'd like relations to be positive between us at any point in the future, I would strongly request you stop doing anything of the sort to aid their team
propping up our enemy is not a friendly thing to do.

MZ
we will take this into consideration. i will forward your message to my team.

scooter
Thanks, much appreciated

MZ
i hope you understand that this was not expressing our hostility towards you, we just worried seeing others growing too big and we might even worry about cfc1s power as well

scooter
yeah I understand, sorry if I came off as harsh/cold, and one road is not the end of the world. I just wanted to make it clear that it does get noticed by our team members and it's an annoyance, so if it keeps going it would be damaging
and yeah, CFC is rolling through the Zulu very quickly, and they get to keep all that land for themselves. they'll be about the same size as us in 15T I imagine

MZ
actually it could hd been civplayers who did the pilage as they had a horsearcher just there, but no point denying it

scooter
we thought it might be them at first, so we asked them first.

MZ
i see

scooter
they said no, we saw your chariot, so it wasn't too hard to figure out from there

Message delivered. He resisted a bit at first, then seemed to back off. He didn't confirm that they would stop doing anything - not that we can do anything about it if they continue - but I think he gets the picture that it could be hazardous to their health if they don't stop.

[Ichabod]

Maybe one of our elephants can slip due to the lack of roads on that tile and accidentally smash their chariot?

[kjn]

I really wish Civ had a more fine-grained model of hostility.

But I think you handled it well, Scooter. And Apolyton evading, and trying to justify things, and blame CivPlayers doesn't come off well.

[scooter]

Yeah, this line in particular was really irritating: "But we will make no secret about it that we don1t lik your expansion on inca's expenses. we will help them ways which does not violate the NAP. " - I had to wait a minute or two before typing back to that so I wouldn't say something dumb. I don't really like this team, but bigger fish and all that. They do have basically no military and cities that are prime for capture, but taking a bite out of them is little more than a pipe dream right now.

[Sullla]

Very nicely done. Even better: might want to tell CivPlayers that Apolyton blamed them for pillaging tiles near us, when we knew full well that they were lying. I bet they would find that interesting.

[Mardoc]

WPC has no chance of capturing "their" cities in the partition agreement we signed. We should wind up with the bulk of the spoils after their attack peters out.

Just want to check, scooter - did we promise anything more than this?

But we can promise a few things if you do the same for us:
1) We won't race you for the cities in your half of the land split.
2) We will prioritize capture of cities in our half over cities in your half.
3) We will share any useful intel that we come across
4) And of course, we will be sincerely rooting for your speedy progress and success.

So, basically, we're free to conquer as much Germany as we can, so long as we work from our end first, and don't sabotage WPC?

[scooter]

WPC has no chance of capturing "their" cities in the partition agreement we signed. We should wind up with the bulk of the spoils after their attack peters out.

Just want to check, scooter - did we promise anything more than this?

But we can promise a few things if you do the same for us:
1) We won't race you for the cities in your half of the land split.
2) We will prioritize capture of cities in our half over cities in your half.
3) We will share any useful intel that we come across
4) And of course, we will be sincerely rooting for your speedy progress and success.

So, basically, we're free to conquer as much Germany as we can, so long as we work from our end first, and don't sabotage WPC?

Nope, no additional promises, so yes, you're right - we're pretty free to do whatever if we 1) conquer the cities in our half and 2) make a good faith effort to help them by providing info and all that (which we've been doing consistently thus far).

[Mardoc]

Nope, no additional promises, so yes, you're right - we're pretty free to do whatever if we 1) conquer the cities in our half and 2) make a good faith effort to help them by providing info and all that (which we've been doing consistently thus far).

Perfect .