Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Old Harry]

I might not mention Brick by Brick until the NAP is confirmed, with the extension if possible (nicely worded by the way), perhaps say "we could road to your southern city"? I think we need breathing space to get a city nw of bbb settled. If ten turns would be enough for that perhaps we should just accept without the minimum, to get it signed quicker...

Or will that come across as too sneaky?

[kjn]

I think it will be enough if we could road to the river from Brick by Brick to get the trade route. Their southern city is on the river, and we've unfogged all the tiles on it between BbB and Xochicalco.

[scooter]

I don't want them to feel deceived. If they feel deceived (us pretending BbB doesn't exist, us pretending like we've had claim to that land for a long time), we'll have a conflict on their hands.

Eh, I could be convinced to remove the words "pretty new"... I think I'm good with that much. I'd like to send this in the next hour or two at the longest, are there any strong objections?

[scooter]

WPC confirms NAP!

Hello scooter!

Our team agrees to the extension of NAP until the turn 175. We consider it to be in effect as of now.

We also have a proposal that might be of interest for you.
Currently we are keeping a pressure on the Incan team and slowing down their expansion, but taking cities is too costly at this point of the game. We are currently researching towards technologies for catapults. With the help of cats, the cities will fall much more easily and we can put an end to the problem that is slowing down the game for all of us.

On that thought, we have a proposal for your team.
Could you tell us how long your NAP with the Incan nation is in effect?
We would like to invite your nation in taking down the Incan team when we have catapults available. Joint attack would make a quick work of them. We will gladly offer our catapults for assistance in taking the cities for you. Our teams can plan a fair division of Incan lands between our nations considering the positions of our nations. We will keep the Incan nation in check until we have the catapults and your NAP with them would be over.

We think that this co-operation would be immensely beneficial for our teams and would be a great basis for a long term relationship that could boost us both until later stages of the game and make us stronger compared to other nations.

Maybe you will be happy about the increased game speed also.
What do you feel about this suggestion?

FM of WPC
Tatu

(let's hold off discussion on this just until this CivPlayers message is sent so we don't get too sidetracked)

[Sian]

wouldn't it be better to fork the discussion into another thread? ... it seems like an very important debate to take...

As for the age of BbB ... given that we have Stonehenge it shouldn't be rocket science math for them to figure out that its fairly new ...

[scooter]

As for the age of BbB ... given that we have Stonehenge it shouldn't be rocket science math for them to figure out that its fairly new ...

This is my thought. And if they just scouted that spot, say, 15T ago and never met us, it's not hard for them to figure it out. I think we might as well try not to sound deceitful.

[Sian]

no mentioning the age of the settlement at all (neither stating that its an old one, but not saying that its brand new either) might be the best way ...

Might also point out that it is rather close to our capital, by counting tiles (8 tiles?)

[scooter]

Alright, I think it's really important we get a quick response from them, so I went ahead and sent it:

OT4E/Civplayers,

I'll send this message to both of you just to make sure it gets to the right person. If you would both like to be on emails, I will just reply-all from now on.

Thanks so much for the quick response! Much appreciated. I like the idea of getting our teams agreed to a basic NAP with 10-turn cooldown so we can ensure peace in the short-term, and then we can move forward on other arrangements. How about we put a small minimum timeframe on it - let's say the earliest either of us can begin NAP cancellation is T110. How does that work for you? That would mean there's no possibility of conflict until at least T120, which gives us plenty of time to figure out how our teams can work together best. If you'd like to adjust the minimum cancellation date or do away with it completely, let me know, we can be flexible for you guys.

We're really interested in signing Open Borders with your team. We have a pretty new city to the east of our axe, and we think we can build a road between our city and yours so that we can get trade routes going. That would be a nice economic boost for both of us. Do you have any interest in signing Open Borders with us?

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[waterbat]

wasnt about deception - more along the lines of let them figure it out on their own. we need to lead them to the idea that the river area (even though they have settled past it) is more the natural division of our civilizations. We want to avoid the more natural conclusion that the lake is the natural divider - that puts BtB on the "their" side.

[novice]

wasnt about deception - more along the lines of let them figure it out on their own. we need to lead them to the idea that the river area (even though they have settled past it) is more the natural division of our civilizations. We want to avoid the more natural conclusion that the lake is the natural divider - that puts BtB on the "their" side.

I don't think they would reach that conclusion - the lake is much closer to us than to them.