Pirates doing Diplomacy?

[luddite]

Got this message from GES today:

Can you pass this along to your team:

Team Pirate,

I am sure you will see several different modus operandi for diplo this game. Lord Parkin will likely send you novellas filled with self-congratulatory prattle and not so subtle sycophancy. With 7 & Kyan's team, I would generally suggest keeping a close hand on your wallet, because as they butter you up with hours of chat logs, they will be robbing you blind. Darrell's team, well, I suspect they won't be too bad to work with. But they have novice, which means if you get into any micro contest, you will likely come out on the short end.

And then there is us. Let's cut the BS. You want to win and we want to win. And no doubt, at some point, those purposes will be contradictory. But I would suggest that our teams should have extremely close diplomatic relations. I don't think either of us are probably fancied by the population at large as likely winners of the game. That lends us a great opportunity to work together, settle aggressively in the other direction, and generally work to put our teams in the most desirable situation late game, at which time we can simply duel it out from positions of strength.

You've seen my other games, and I have worked very closely with Luddite in the past. I can be trusted. I am glad to meet you guys first, because I told our team before this game even started that we should try to work with you guys from the start.

Anyway, we are going to keep diplo as short and direct as possible. Most of us are too lazy for intensive Civ strategy talk, let alone useless diplo nonsense.

--Gold Ergo Sum, Team TEAM

[luddite]

ha, jinx with dave. Anyway yeah, I would trust GES. He's told me several times (before this game started) that he'd rather lose than break an alliance.

[Nakor]

Got the same message. Here's the reply I send:

Greetings, TEAM!

Sorry for the slight delay in responding. Work can be quite busy as all of you know.

We're of a similar mind when it comes to diplomacy.
Here is the information we'd like to share with you.

- You guys are the first team we've met.
- The land we've scouted between us is very green and resource rich. Exactly the land you want to fight over.
- We're not big on NAPs, and aren't interested in signing one this early. We trust you guys aren't the sort to go kamikaze and try to ruin our game with a worker snatch. "That being said, if you do fuck with us we will drag you along with us to the depths of hell. (Dave quoted)"

We're interested in building up a nice and friendly information sharing relationship and hope to hear your thoughts on this soon.


Cheers,
Nakor

Team Pirates

I think we can trust GES. Let's hope he stays sincere.
Have to agree with his assesment of the other teams.
The only way to deal with Parkin is by putting earwax in your ears, while the only way of dealing with Kyan is by staying invisible while in gmail.
Darrell, we can work with as well...Might he be our western neighbour...

Now let's wait for a reply...

[Nakor]

And here is the reply:

Hey Pirates,

The land looks lush everywhere. We are open to cooperation on any and all levels, including screenshot trades and more. However, it's pretty obvious in your message that you don't know whether you want to cooperate or not. If we didn't make it clear in our first message we have zero interest in flowery language, bullshit hedging or basically anything Parkin would put in a diplo message. If that's cool with you guys, we can get along great and have a productive friendship. If you'd rather engage in verbal masturbation, we can add you to the "Go Fuck Yourselves" list with the others. Your call.

Regards,
TEAM

Bit overreacted?

[oledavy]

Bit overreacted?

Indeed

[pindicator]

They're just fucking with us; at least, that's my take on it. Unless Krill is doing all the diplo on his own, and then I don't know what kind of reaction we can expect.

Still, maybe we should just throw it back in their faces? "We want to work with you. If you don't want to, we'll find someone else."

Edit: i guess whatever we say i would just try to be blunt about it.

[kp]

That's a bit uncalled for from team. I always thought diplomacy included a bit of tact. Clearly not.

[oledavy]

They probably took our unwillingness to talk about an early NAP as aggression (or perhaps the drag to the depths of hell part )

Alternatively, they may just be trying to play diplomatic hardball with us - see if they can get us to blink first.

We could reconsider our position on NAPs, it's inclusion in our last diplo message was largely on my suggestion I think. I don't like NAPs on principle, and don't like having our hands tied by an "unbreakable" peace in the event TEAM Pink dots the land between us. That being said, I recognize they have their uses, and if the majority of the team feels otherwise, we could change our position.

As for how to respond to TEAM, my instinct is that we should lie and say we've met our other neighbor, and they're being far less belligerent - that we would like to pursue a friendly relationship with them, but if they continue to play diplomatic hardball, they need to go looking somewhere else for friends.

Just my $0.02 though, I'm admittedly very inexperienced with diplomacy. I leave it in the very capable hands of Nakor.

[kp]

Alternatively we could sign a nap and do a Pink dot on them. See how they like them apples.

[Bigger]

Alternatively we could sign a nap and do a Pink dot on them. See how they like them apples.

yeah, I like this.

I personally don't see the point of antogonizing them. Their reaction was an overreaction, but they do have a point - this "However, it's pretty obvious in your message that you don't know whether you want to cooperate or not" is spot on, I do think our message to them was a bit of an attempt to straddle the fence and leave our options open. And this line "Exactly the land you want to fight over" is dangerous, a reader would have a hard time deciding if that is a threat or not.

I think we should just apologize for the ambiguity and insist we of course agree that cooperation is in both of our best interest. You win more friends with honey than with vinegar.
Since they claim there is lush land everywhere, perhaps we can even "pink dot" with just a settling agreement, not even needing to be overtly agressive.

as for the NAP, we can dodge the question and if they keep pushing it just sign a short term deal until we figure out what the rest of the world look like. Its not like we're going to be declaring war in the first 30 turns anyway.