Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[sunrise089]

30% sounds low to me. Maybe they don't know this, but due to snowballing mechanics the discount rate in civ is really high. I think 50% is more fair. In fact, with so much economic development coming soon would we turn down 50% even if we weren'tthreatened?

[darrelljs]

My bad. I forgot that an upcoming 3v1 dogpile means they might quake in their boots still

.

Darrell

[scooter]

This email still sounds like we are desperate.

We should probably stop making offers and hope that someone rescues us.


Look, I see a lot of "sure we can offer that but WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK" stuff. That stuff is imaginary. It's when you hear in sports someone talk about "grit" or "clutch" or whatever - it's not real, it has no in-game effect. Like, do you think our neighbors will go "oh they sound weak so let's build EXTRA military!" I'd rather "sound weak" and win than be proven weak and while 3 civs run roughshod over us.

Besides, UCiv specifically just said they thought our neighbors sounded arrogant or cocky. Responding by projecting loads of confidence sounds like a terrible idea to me. It sounds to me like they want to matter. They want to prove those arrogant teams wrong and be on the winning "side" and we can definitely offer that to them.


preview-edit: I see sunrise's post. I think he's right. I'll change it to 50%. I want it to be a genuinely worthwhile investment for them.

[NobleHelium]

30% sounds low to me. Maybe they don't know this, but due to snowballing mechanics the discount rate in civ is really high. I think 50% is more fair. In fact, with so much economic development coming soon would we turn down 50% even if we weren'tthreatened?

It depends on how quickly we'd get to Rifling and pay them back. Interest rate is generally expressed depending on time.

[scooter]

Quick poke sent to WPC:

Hey, haven't heard from you about this. Any updates?

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[Mardoc]

In the longer term, can we offer UCiv something tangible, beyond this penny-ante stuff? A military alliance to carve up Apoly or CFC (maybe not now, but pick an era), or an EP/techer alliance, or...basically anything that we can do to help them come in ahead of these dogpilers?

We don't have any friends because we've kept all our deals small and businesslike, and haven't really tried to court anyone as an ally. I realize that we're focused on surviving the next 20 turns or so, but after that we'll want to dream big, won't we?

Just thinking from their perspective: an offer of a gold loan doesn't sound like 'ally', it sounds like business.

[scooter]

Ok, chats with CivPlayers and Apolyton both are over. I need some time before I can clean up the chat log, kinda busy at the moment. Quick Summary:

* They both said they would think about it. Seemed to both have mixed feelings
* CivPlayers said if we had offered this 20T ago it would have been a for-sure yes. So the idea appeals
* Neither gave a flat no. Apolyton was actually slightly more positive about it than CivPlayers
* Apolyton confirmed one wrinkle: he confirmed that CivPlayers, Apolyton, and CFC mutually agreed to not extend the NAPs with us. He said this was for mutual defense, not for concrete 3v1 plans. But he feels he might need CFC's approval, which would probably submarine this whole thing. However, he did note that "this was before they ran over Zulu easily.... and started a war with Maya " so I don't think he feels super bound to CFC. We'll see.

Log later. It's out of our hands at the moment with these two teams. Told them both I'd follow up over the next couple days.

[scooter]

In the longer term, can we offer UCiv something tangible, beyond this penny-ante stuff? A military alliance to carve up Apoly or CFC (maybe not now, but pick an era), or an EP/techer alliance, or...basically anything that we can do to help them come in ahead of these dogpilers?

Ep/techer type thing is our best bet IMO. I'm open to ideas. I think I'll add to the email that I have a few other ideas I'd like to chat with them about, and I can bring this up again. We aren't directly touching, but we do have a city that is quite close to them.

[pindicator]

EP or war are the two long term benefits i can see. They are going to want help with tech, military, or land if they are going to buddy up to us

[antisocialmunky]

I wonder if this dogpile would fall apart to some degree if we can cripple CFC preemptively with UCiv's help?

I think the best way to do this is to drop into chat with them and gauge what they are willing to do rather than just making a gold offer off the bat. It'd sure help make them feel better.