Dot mapping

[Qgqqqqq]

Pink is definitely better, but no matter how much we rule-lawyer it. its going to mightily piss s them off.
If were going to do this we should inform them of it soon, and open negotiations.

They (almost certainly) can't afford to get. the ~two settlers it would require to steal that spot, and it would be much better for relations if they were informed early and had a chance to negotiate it.
They (almost certainly) won't put their foot down/rules lawyer it (they can't afford to as we can do the same for it to allow us) so everything (IMO) favours contacting them soon to work it out.

[mostly_harmless]

Oh, it will greatly piss them off, no doubt.
But why inform them early? There are many good spots for them to settle there, invalidating pink dot and even some good spots invalidating red dot.
Why would you alert them of the situation now? Surely they can get a settler there in a few turns if they really want to.

mh

[Qgqqqqq]

A settler. (at least) 5-6 tiles from their territory, without worker/military support, pink dotting a powerful neighbour with axes (and maybe WC) in the area who they had been in friendly relationships previously and whom had been negotiating for a spot now invalidated previously?

We can easily afford to let them know 5-10 turns prior.

[kjn]

5-10 turns prior is now! We will whip the settler in Tree Huggers on T94, and settle circa T97.

That said, if we are to open talks with them about this (I think so), I believe we should do it circa T94 or T95, not earlier than that.

[SevenSpirits]

A settler. (at least) 5-6 tiles from their territory, without worker/military support, pink dotting a powerful neighbour with axes (and maybe WC) in the area who they had been in friendly relationships previously and whom had been negotiating for a spot now invalidated previously?

We can easily afford to let them know 5-10 turns prior.

You seem to think that if either of us settles in an inconvenient way for the other, it will count as a NAP violation. Hence 1) wanting to tell them, and 2) thinking they'd never dare settle their own city there. Some other people disagree with this version of reality and think whoever settles first gets it.

Who's right? We actually don't know, because we don't really know what CFC collectively thinks.

* If your version is right, I don't see how we are getting the city there at all. CFC can just say nope, that's not OK, and we would throw away a big part of our game to fight them over it.

* If the other version is right, we need to not tell them until shortly before we settle.

Telling them sooner doesn't really help in the first case, so we should only tell them when it's too late for them. At that point, we need to judge which method is the most likely to work out well in case it's the second way:
a) Tell them before settling when they are in a bad position to negotiate, reducing their casus belli for a nap-break by showing a bit of respect, or
b) Tell them only after settling, and ask for forgiveness, reducing their ability to bluff anger at us.

I tentatively think the best course of action is to tell them right after settling. E.g. "btw, just to be nice we are telling you that you may need to update your dotmaps as there is a new city in town." Basically play it as though city-spot racing is a perfectly legitimate sport engaged in by well-off friends.

[mostly_harmless]

I agree with Seven completely on this.

mh

[Sian]

one thing that might defuse them a bit is that we could mention that we've expanded naturally around the capital (while they have completely ignored expanding west) and that it is a logical next spot for our city without overreaching, and perhaps even invite them to come scout our cities to prove us wrong ...

Perhaps include a pragmatic count that given length from capital starting spots (they've settled t0 right?) it is within our sphere of interest both counting from capital and counting from closest border

[mostly_harmless]

A settler. (at least) 5-6 tiles from their territory, without worker/military support, pink dotting a powerful neighbour with axes (and maybe WC) in the area who they had been in friendly relationships previously and whom had been negotiating for a spot now invalidated previously?

We can easily afford to let them know 5-10 turns prior.

A CFC settler finished on turn X in either Indira or Daivagati can settle spot A as early as turn X+3 invalidating Pink Dot. And can settle spot B as early as turn X+4 invalidating even Red Dot and that is not accounting for any roads that got constructed in the meanwhile by their fast workers.
Now look at that land from CFC's viewpoint. Would not spot B be a very good city, considering you can place another city at the rice/horse site? Making sure you don't lose that would probably be enough to risk an unescorted settler.
And both A and B are not even close to violating any trust or agreements we have with them. They wouldn't be pink-dotting us at all. Why should they fear our axes or WC when we have a NAP in place and a border agreement and they have informed us that they want to settle there??? If it wasn't for the barbs they could easily walk an unescorted settler there. Heck, they might even ask us whether we know the area is clear of threats.

But we already know that CFC has sent an axe a few turns ago from Daivagati into this area for barb control. So a proper escort might already be in place for the dangerous bit of the journey.

Informing them now about our plans is giving away that area.

mh

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I am going to support the pink dot, but we must massage this diplomatically and be ready to give some concession that would be perceived by CFC as mutually beneficial (or at the least, beneficial to them) for this to go down well.

Suggestions:

• Agree to limited culture in the city: Stonehenge + religion for X turns, allowing CFC sufficient time to establish cultural control of the stone. After that we can discuss culture production with CFC if necessary.
  
• Suggest CFC settle 1W of the rice, putting stone 1st ring. This would allow them to two-move Eastern Dealers, but IIRC, that city is on a hill, so is somewhat more defensible.
  
• Failing CFC settlement first ring on the stone, agree a perpetual gifting of stone. No need to mention that this gift will continue until war, should that ever occur. This may become moot if another stone resource is found in CFC's east.
  

What other sweeteners or inducements could we offer to CFC? Right of first refusal on resource trades? That is probably going to far, but I'm trying to think outside the box. Do we even mention our intent to "straighten the line" defensively, allowing us to focus our military strength away from CFC and toward our mutual opponents? This is something that helps us more than them, so probably we should not mention it.

We may discover another stone resource to the east of CFC's lands with the Welcome Wagon, in which case this area becomes strategically less important for CFC and strengthens our hand in negotiation/obfuscation. For the reasons Seven and m_h state, we should not tip our hand until we have our units in position, else we lose this area.

[Sullla]

The whole point of the pink spot is to establish cultural control over the desert region. We're not limiting culture in that city, and we're not putting a CFC city the minimum 3 tile distance away where they can hit us with double-movers any time they want. That defeats the whole purpose; might as well give up and go settle red if that's the plan.

I still don't understand the desire to bend over backwards towards CFC here. What exactly have they done to deserve such drastic concessions from our team? A vaguely worded agreement that they weaseled out of us 50 turns ago? We can be good neighbors to them while still settling south of the oasis. That's a fairly even split of land between our teams, slightly favored towards our team of course but hardly an aggressive plant on their borders. They have to accept that if they settle their first 7 cities in the opposite direction, then yes, we're going to have more control over the disputed region between us. That's the price of getting the lion's share of the territory on their border with the Spaniards. We didn't agree to give them a permanent free pass on all territory between our teams. (We really didn't - I've read what we told them and it said nothing like that. We are not breaking our word.)

As I see it, capturing Eastern Dealers changed the strategic dynamic in the desert region. It pushed our borders further east, and to protect that investment, we now need more control of the desert area to protect ED. The situation changed and we adapted our plans. It would have been different if CFC had made a concerted effort in this region, but they didn't, and now they pay the price.