Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Ruff_Hi]

Why point out that we don't see it as a NAP violation?

So they cannot say that we said the NAP was void and then attack us. Sure - drawing a long bow but I don't want to give them any small window of opportunity.

[Zargon]

I don't think I'd want to say explicitly one way or another whether we view it as a NAP violation. If we say it is, then we're inviting them to alpha strike us. If we say it isn't, we're inviting them to carry on. Sure, it's not much damage now, other than they're picking our pockets for a few dozen gold, but if they follow us up to our new academy capital and pillage all the towns to hamlets, I could easily see the damage topping 1000 beakers.

Just getting them all down to hamlets would be 3 commerce per turn per town for 20 turns, then 1 commerce per turn per town for 40 turns., so 100 high multiplier commerce per town.

I'm starting to wish we hadn't traded ivory to the Spanish. I feel like we'd have a lot more leverage here if we hadn't interfered with their war first.

I'm not sure what we should do if they tell us to shove it. The potential damage is so high, I want to suggest something more drastic, but the tactics just don't allow it.

[Tyrmith]

I just don't see what positive result could occur, it's not like this will force them to stop.

[Ellimist]

CFC,

Stop pillaging our captured territory. Immediately.

RB

[Ceiliazul]

I agree we don't want to mention any impact on to the NAP. We can say that in the coming dogpile, we'll be looking for someone to hit hardest/first. We've already done this with CivPlayers and it works because it's true.

This also has the advantage of skipping their obvious counter argument, "but you traded Ivory to the Spanish..."

[spacetyrantxenu]

Whatever. We traded ivory to the Spanish before the war started. They pillaged our cottage after it was inside the BFC of one of our cities. That it was in "neutral" territory because the city is in revolt only means that the game does not recognize that they committed an act that is only possible while two teams are at war.

I would demand that they pay us the gold they received from the pillaging (or whatever the average of that dice roll would be since they're in no way to be trusted to admit what they pillaged from our cottage) and send a short message like what Ellimist posted above. If they refuse we can start a smear campaign and tell everyone about their deal breaking (written as a warning against signing deals with the deal breaking bastards) since I DO consider this a NAP violation. We don't want to fight them right now with our army in German territory, true, but I don't think the day is far off when we may truly need to consider building a force along our eastern border near Starfall and hit them with an alpha strike. I don't necessarily think we need to wait until T175, if we can get our army in position in time and it's convenient for us to hit them early. Fuck them, they're behaving like we're at war already. Let's get the game engine to recognize it as soon as we can get positioned to do it.

I don't view attacking these guys prior to T175 as any kind of breach of a non-aggression treaty since they're so obviously already behaving aggressively toward us and have annihilated the spirit of the deal many times over. What we have is a state of undeclared war. How does that jive with a non-aggression pact??? I say it doesn't, and that we show them it doesn't just as soon as it suits us to show them.

[spacetyrantxenu]

TL;DR - CFC does not NAP-stab, they've perfected the art of NAP violation by administering death by 1,000 papercuts.

[Ellimist]

We should tell them to knock it off but use as few words as possible. This doesn't commit us to any particular decision yet.

Depending on how they respond, the next move might be to simply declare and kill their chariot, then reaffirm the peace/NAP. We can weigh the risks, of course, but keep in mind that the NAP is what we make of it. There is no neutral arbiter that enforces these things or gets to decide who was in the right or wrong on any disputes between teams. Any teams that would side with CFC over these dickhead moves is going to be anti-RB anyway, and there's nothing we can do about that. It is safer to be feared than loved, anyway.

We've been letting them get away with stuff like this for a long time... they're just going to keep escalating their provocations until we convince them to stop.

[spacetyrantxenu]

We've been letting them get away with stuff like this for a long time....

Perhaps the cooler heads here will say that you, I, and some others identify more with a different persona?

[antisocialmunky]

Dear CFC,

We see you are admiring our new lands. Please look but do not touch, it is very fragile.

RB