Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I really think for this to work it has to be an all or nothing proposition. Either all teams agree, or it ends in a one-sided abuse.

I disagree. There is no in-game gain for Apolyton to have broached this subject. I think they genuinely believe they are BS and don't want any part of winning that way.

[Bigger]

I really think for this to work it has to be an all or nothing proposition. Either all teams agree, or it ends in a one-sided abuse.

I disagree. There is no in-game gain for Apolyton to have broached this subject. I think they genuinely believe they are BS and don't want any part of winning that way.

yeah, agreed. additionally, making it an all or nothing will just guarantee its a nothing, pretty much.

[Zargon]

I think that we can't make it an all-or-nothing proposal, because CFC won't agree and then we'll have nothing.

Let's just add a little something in there to add a reasonable disincentive for any team outside the agreement to spy revolt us, which won't hold up the accepting of the agreement (like insisting that all treaty members declare war on the offending party, instead of just ceasing trading and open borders).

It won't be perfect, obviously. Perfect would have been getting it in the rules. But it will be something. It will increase the cost CFC will have to bear if they want to revolt us. That's the most we can ever hope to get, so let's try to get that.

I'm either way with a little edit about not directly aiding others to do the swap, but I'd slightly prefer this to be as simple and straightforward as possible. I think ceasing trading after the fact will mostly cover it. They could aid CFC in revolting us, and then they'd have to cease all trades with them forever? Probably not.

[scooter]

Honestly… I don't think Apolyton will agree to this if we insist that we all close borders with those who don't sign the agreement and use the missions. Just my gut feel.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Honestly… I don't think Apolyton will agree to this if we insist that we all close borders with those who don't sign the agreement and use the missions. Just my gut feel.

Doesn't hurt to just ask if they would like to encourage diplomatic repercussions for those who engage in that behavior.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I really think for this to work it has to be an all or nothing proposition. Either all teams agree, or it ends in a one-sided abuse.

I disagree. There is no in-game gain for Apolyton to have broached this subject. I think they genuinely believe they are BS and don't want any part of winning that way.

The "all or nothing" aspect of this is referring to closing the loop on this exploit. If even one team does not sign the agreement, that team can abuse this mechanic with impunity, unless we build some teeth (real consequences) into the agreement. Apolyton can take the high road and agree that they will not abuse the religion/civic swap missions. This does not mean that CivPlayers would not be ready and willing to do the deed on behalf of their noble ally. And CFC too. They're going to go all in on this revolt/swapping stuff. We've identified them as a rational, win-only team. They fought tooth and nail to get this espionage shit into the game rules. They're not going to give it up now when it is most beneficial to them, particularly when there's a 3:1 dogpile brewing and gains to be made. Not unless there is a very strong reason to do so, which would be diplomatic and economic isolation.

I just don't see every team thinking they'd do better to give up the espionage missions in a treaty rather than beating the juggernaut civ over the head with it. One or two teams may be exhibit good sportsmanship in this regard, but unless everyone does, we're not protected, and we're only hamstringing ourselves without the ability to abuse our abuser.

That is the purely rational, non-emotional, no belief in good/humanity approach. I do realize that there is some benefit to having an agreement, even one that does not completely curtail this type of abuse, I just want to make sure that we're seeing it for what it could turn out to be, just a noble sounding pact that limits our options when the dogpile predictably uses it against us. Even if Apolyton/CivPlayers don't want to use the revolts, they benefit when CFC uses them against us. What then is their recourse? What is ours? Apoly/CP won't take a stand against their wartime ally on behalf of their wartime opponent and we can do very little once our civics have been changed to harm CFC, who is spiritual anyway. I just don't see any good answers here, except that magically everyone agrees not to use the broken missions.

[scooter]

I really think for this to work it has to be an all or nothing proposition. Either all teams agree, or it ends in a one-sided abuse.

I disagree. There is no in-game gain for Apolyton to have broached this subject. I think they genuinely believe they are BS and don't want any part of winning that way.

The "all or nothing" aspect of this is referring to closing the loop on this exploit. If even one team does not sign the agreement, that team can abuse this mechanic with impunity, unless we build some teeth (real consequences) into the agreement. Apolyton can take the high road and agree that they will not abuse the religion/civic swap missions. This does not mean that CivPlayers would not be ready and willing to do the deed on behalf of their noble ally. And CFC too. They're going to go all in on this revolt/swapping stuff. We've identified them as a rational, win-only team. They fought tooth and nail to get this espionage shit into the game rules. They're not going to give it up now when it is most beneficial to them, particularly when there's a 3:1 dogpile brewing and gains to be made. Not unless there is a very strong reason to do so, which would be diplomatic and economic isolation.

I just don't see every team thinking they'd do better to give up the espionage missions in a treaty rather than beating the juggernaut civ over the head with it. One or two teams may be exhibit good sportsmanship in this regard, but unless everyone does, we're not protected, and we're only hamstringing ourselves without the ability to abuse our abuser.

That is the purely rational, non-emotional, no belief in good/humanity approach. I do realize that there is some benefit to having an agreement, even one that does not completely curtail this type of abuse, I just want to make sure that we're seeing it for what it could turn out to be, just a noble sounding pact that limits our options when the dogpile predictably uses it against us. Even if Apolyton/CivPlayers don't want to use the revolts, they benefit when CFC uses them against us. What then is their recourse? What is ours? Apoly/CP won't take a stand against their wartime ally on behalf of their wartime opponent and we can do very little once our civics have been changed to harm CFC, who is spiritual anyway. I just don't see any good answers here, except that magically everyone agrees not to use the broken missions.

I don't really understand what your point is. Of course an agreement with more teeth would be better, but a basic agreement like this is better than nothing at all. What on earth do we lose here? It's not like we were going to have the EP resources available to do this stuff ourselves, so Apolyton is literally gift-wrapping this for us. If we can get them on board with it, and THEN use that to recruit others, then we might have the leverage to give the agreement some teeth. I mean yeesh, CFC is about to adopt Mercantilism, so they'll just LOL at the threat of Open Borders being dropped.

So... yes of course we don't know that everyone will agree to this, but right now Apolyton is, for 100% free, offering to promise never to do it to us. To that I say HOLY CRAP YES PLEASE and go from there. We lose 0.000 things here. We get Apolyton on board, then we try to recruit CivPlayers to agree. If they do, then we can try getting someone else. Maybe CivFr, I don't know. Just check the list of what civs voted against the missions pregame and start from there. If we can get a couple to agree, we then have enough influence to actually hold it over CFC's head. As of right now, it's most important to get Apolyton and CivPlayers on board because they are the ones with an EP advantage over us. CFC does not have that right now at all, we have a spending agreement in place.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Good points, and I don't mean to discourage taking what they're offering to us for free. I just don't want to make a deal and then think "whew, that's good, we don't have to worry about that issue anymore".

Realistically, though, I think that getting CivFR, CivPlayers, and CFC (especially, at any cost) to agree is just not likely to happen. Univers I could see going for it, maybe, but they're the diplomatic odd man out here. WPC is going to be irrelevant to the discussion as well, unless we covertly hire them on to religion swap us back to Hinduism as needed. I just think it's going to be an incredibly hard sell to make any progress after Apolyton, but the effort costs us nothing, as you say.

[novice]

CFC may be spiritual, but they still have a minimum of five turns between revolts. Mardoc, can you check if this is a possible strategy: Bonk CFC to our religion and our civics. Will this trigger their no revolts timer and prevent them from switching to other civics and bonk us to those? And could we repeat the process every fourth turn to restart their revolt timer?

[scooter]

Realistically, though, I think that getting CivFR, CivPlayers, and CFC (especially, at any cost) to agree is just not likely to happen. Univers I could see going for it, maybe, but they're the diplomatic odd man out here. WPC is going to be irrelevant to the discussion as well, unless we covertly hire them on to religion swap us back to Hinduism as needed. I just think it's going to be an incredibly hard sell to make any progress after Apolyton, but the effort costs us nothing, as you say.

I guess. But I look at it this way. Here was the original conversation and what MZ (apolyton turn player) said:

yton apol
i will propose this to other team as well in some kind of foms.. i expect cfc not want to enter but we will see
i don't like cheap tactics.. though would hd enjoyed putting you into taoism6pacifism/bureau/caste system
ok i did not have enough spies but still

He views it to be a cheap tactic. They want to include other teams, but they expect CFC will be a tough sell. To me, that suggests (does not confirm) that they think CivPlayers would probably agree too. Again, just a hunch, but they specifically singled out CFC but didn't mention CivPlayers who they seem to be close with. Also, keep in mind they will want others to agree to this, but they won't view it to be urgent like we do. They won't like the idea of immediately threatening others so much. So to me, the best timeline is:

1) Officially agree with Apolyton
2) Feel out CivPlayers by chat
3) Officially propose to them with Apolyton

If we can get CivPlayers on board, we have bought ourselves a ton of time. CFC hardly has any EPs on us because of our agreement which runs til T175 minimum, T200 if they vote in favor of our proposal. The only real civic revolt threats right now are Apolyton and CivPlayers, so let's deal with those first and in that order.

Also, I want to hurry up and agree with Apolyton before they change their mind.