Catwalk Wrote:I agree with banning this, also because it's a pain in the ass to decipher. How about a horse for horse trade though, signififying peaceful intentions? That's also been used before, and is another example of trying to communicate outside of the game system. In-game, horse for horse has no meaningful effect.
Actually it does have three effects:
1) Neither of you is able to trade that horse to any other player.
2) The horse disappears from your trade screen so someone who's only met one of you doesn't know you have it anymore.
3) Anyone who's met both of you can see you are doing a horse for horse trade.
However I don't subscribe to "meaningful effect" being a fair discriminator of what trades are OK to offer, for two reasons.
1) I can think of several legitimate trades that don't have a "meaningful effect" that I consider desirable to be allowed. Demanding all of someone's cities for example has no meaningful effect on the game as they will obviously decline it. However it does tell someone you are really mad at them.
Also, under certain circumstances, believe it or not, offering OB to someone (and them accepting) will have no meaningful effect (no units are near and you don't have a trade connection, or were recently at war). Yet this is surely a fair gesture of desired cooperation.
2) There are plenty trades that could have a meaningful effect but also communicate information in a way that is IMO against the rules. For example, I could offer someone Fish, Iron, Sheep, Sugar, Rice, 5 gold to tell them I will attack the city of Fissure in 5 turns. Implausible? Yes, but it's quite possible. And it could certainly have meaningful consequences if accepted.
Like I posted in oledavy's thread, I thought we'd decided that AI diplo meant that all diplomacy must be kept in-game and talking (i.e. words...) aren't allowed. Seems easy enough to me.
