Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[pindicator]

They definitely violated the good faith part. The way that they're offering it is a slap in the face. Seven outlines our options nicely, but I don't agree with the thought that they didn't break the deal. If they hadn't even mentioned the marble until we brought it up, I wouldn't have minded, but they are gloating over beating us to the wonder and that will be repaid with interest on the battlefield.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Here is my attempt at pairing down scooter's message down to something a little more direct.

Caledorn,

We requested the marble several turns ago, but you overstated the threat presented by the Spaniards so that you could keep the marble and race us to Taj Mahal. Given the overflow you guys lined up for the Taj, it's safe to say you were confident in securing the marble quite a few turns ago. The lack of a "good-faith effort to be accommodating on the timing of this loan" is damaging to our relationship.

Thus far we have maintained friendly relations, and we would prefer that they continue forward. We provided you with a very favorable deal that allowed you to secure 'Mids and even get Nationalism in time to have a chance in the race, and we expected you to uphold your end of the deal with similar honor. The swing in hammers/commerce from the Taj is fairly significant. If you're willing to pay reparations (a one-time gift of 3 fast workers), we would be willing to consider our relationship officially repaired and move on.

But if you are not willing to meet us halfway, I would suggest come T175, you better be ready for us to take our reparations by force.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

The part in bold might be a little too aggressive, so I can see us editing that out.

[SleepingMoogle]

I'd say that we are well within our rights to ask for the Marble starting on T145. The onus will be on them to agree to it, since refusing to do that means that they are not making a good faith effort to be accommodating, as per the agreement. Offering Marble now that we already have a different source is skirting the good faith part already, but I see no value for us to call them out on that.

So just tell them we want Marble for 10T starting T145, and don't mention the Taj. I think that ignoring the snipe is actually the worst insult we can deliver, especially since they will have no grounds whatsoever to come out and accuse us, even though they will probably know damn well that it is.

[kjn]

I think the idea of punishing CFC for being sneaky and underhanded with diplo, AND doing good Civ play, is a bad one.

Come to think of it, the marble in the T145-155 time frame only comes across as petty.

I think a response more in the spirit of "we will eat you last" would be better - tell them that the NAP has been extended to T200, with the resource dels being terminated at T170 T175.

ETA: fix style and get correct NAP date

[Qgqqqqq]

Err will they accept that?
And do we want that? (There are calls to kill them after Germans IIRC)

[NobleHelium]

Why does it matter whether CFC's underhandedness or non-underhandedness is justified or not? Why do we care about them? We care about us. It doesn't matter whether they were underhanded or not, it only matters whether we can get an advantage out of the situation.

[Azza]

Are we seriously going to send CFC a petty response telling them to give us reparations for legitimately beating us to Taj? They haven't broken the agreement in any way. At worst, they're insensitive and/or ignorant for offering us the Marble immediately after Taj is built while we have our own source. Have them gift us the marble when it suits us (they have to do this by t150 as part of our agreement anyway), propose a NAP extension, and maybe mention that we're annoyed by the timing of the marble offer considering we already have a marble deal.


There is absolutely no point in chucking a hissy fit over this.

[Azza]

Why does it matter whether CFC's underhandedness or non-underhandedness is justified or not? Why do we care about them? We care about us. It doesn't matter whether they were underhanded or not, it only matters whether we can get an advantage out of the situation.

What we want from CFC is a safe border while we take care of the Germans and WPC. Threatening CFC because of an irritating offer of marble is counter productive.

[NobleHelium]

We already have a NAP to t200. Obviously if we think that is at risk (and that we actually want to keep the current arrangement) then we should reconsider our message.

There is no hissy fit. The point of diplomacy is to contribute to winning the game, just like any other aspect of the game.

[Ceiliazul]

CFC pulled off a good move, one we would have been proud of if the tables were turned. I like option 4, but lets be classy about it. The diplo offer for marble leftovers is low, but their Taj play was not. Building Taj was a result of good micro and metagame skills... lets not despise them their best play of the whole game so far.

Call them for the bad diplo, and be honest. But give them some credit here too.