Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[SevenSpirits]

CFC has had less than a day to even check what resources we have, no?

[kjn]

CFC gets bilateral trade routes, Univers probably don't.

[Sullla]

I don't see any reason to be stingy here. Open Borders with UniversCiv are worth extra income to us, and trading them a resource will make them more inclined to be friendly. Getting wrapped up in second-order considerations ("we can't trade them a resource because then other teams might also ask for a resource trade") feels like overthinking the situation to me. After all, as Nicolae said, no one else has asked for anything in the way of resource deals yet.

Have it go through as two separate deals, sheep for spices and straight Open Borders. Obviously the sheep resource is completely pointless, but we can spin it to other teams should they ask that we were only trading a resource for another resource (not paying for OB). We should get this done and let the trade routes recalculate immediately.

[scooter]

Let's accept this as two separate deals, and let's also just assume OB means we can enter their territory and go for it. That way we can map out their land. When they get a resource we could use, we could try to renegotiate the sheep/spice deal. I'll write something now.

[scooter]

Wait. Could we ask for something like 1-2gpt instead? That's still a steal of a trade for them, but at least we get some value out of it.

[scooter]

SOmething like this:

UniversCiv,

I wanted to get you an Open Borders proposal real quick. We're happpy to include some sort of spice trade accompanying the Open Borders, but we're wondering if we can adjust the trade a little bit. The sheep is not useful for us since we are Expansive and have a health surplus. Would you be willing to trade us 3 gold per turn for the Spices to go with the OB?

If this deal is acceptable to you, do you mind if they are proposed separately from Open Borders? We would accept both deals, but it's easier in the diplo window to offer them separately so if you get your own spices, you don't have to cancel the OB in order to make a new deal.

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

[kjn]

Ok by me. Try to get a good deal, but make sure Univers think they got an even better deal.

[scooter]

Ok cool then, I went ahead and sent it. Figured if we want the deal to go through this turn, it's worth rushing the offer over to them.

[scooter]

Ok, let's talk CFC NAP extension.

Here's the thing - our current NAP is through T130. That means we're still 30 turns away from it running out. This means we're not really at a natural extension point - it's sort of early. Last time we started talks with about 10T remaining.

What do you guys think of trying to get a NAP by telling them up front that we're considering helping WPC in their campaign to remove the German team? I think if we tell them we'd like to help the game speed out by aiding in the German team removal, they would be willing to give us assurances of a safe front by signing a NAP through T175 or something like that. I know that letting other people know we're considering going to war with another team won't sound so great to some of you, but I really think there's considerable upside here. And honestly, there's not as much downside as you might naturally think.

If it works, we could try the same tactic on CivPlayers, but I'm less certain on that one. Either way, I'd like to have CFC locked in first. Thoughts?

[MWIN]

If this statement by Seven is true (has it ever been not true), why even bother putting all effort/text about separating OB and resource deal.

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Actually you can cancel the resource part of the deal without touching OB, and vice versa, regardless.
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