Turn Discussion Thread

[Sareln]

I would make contact.

We get the known tech bonus.

We get to send out feelers about the map and what team Pirate knows.

We can snoop on them with EP spending to get demographics.

We enable diplomacy (which is very important IMO).

I think I'm outvoted though.

[Mortius]

I would make contact.
We get the known tech bonus.

We won't get even a single beaker this way, even if they would know any tech we wouldn't.
They start with Agriculture, Mysticism and non of the techs we will research before turn 35. So it doesn't matter.

We get to send out feelers about the map and what team Pirate knows.

Would the knowledge influence any decision we would take during the next 20 turns? If it would not, the additional knowledge doesn't matter.

We can snoop on them with EP spending to get demographics.

The same reason as above + we still need to spend EPs on Gillette.

We enable diplomacy (which is very important IMO).

I think I'm outvoted though.

Everyone says it's important to establish contact as early as possible but none can say why?
I don't know it neither.

Would any real diplomatic decision be taken before even building the first settler? I doubt. So it's just for chit-chating, and IMO it's not worth to throw away the real advantages we can get.

[kjn]

Lets see if I can explain things from my view.

Diplomacy, to me, in this type of game, isn't about gaining short-term advantages. It is not really about tangible long-term advantages either. But it is about making sure every we are on the right side of every 2-v-1 war.

We can accomplish that by being too big and powerful for anyone to want to attack us, but that just makes a 3-v-1 more likely (Spullla in PB2 is one scary example). We can accomplish that cheaper and IMO more reliably through trust, and friendship. You won't attack a team that you view as a friend, and that you trust.

Building trust and friendship takes a long time, and our main elements here are communications and small favours. Just like Civ in general, building trust is a snowballing game - the more trust you have with someone, the easier it is to get more trust. On the other hand, lost trust is very hard to recover.

Kyan had a great writeup about this in the diplo master thread in the ISDG forum, but like many "natural" experts I think he missed to mention the slow-building element of trust, simply because it comes natural to him.

Last: I think we have two long-term teams where we have a commonality of interest already, if Mortius map guess is correct: TEAM and Trolls. We can use them to help us contain the growth of Pirates and Gillette, and maybe even take one of the latter down in a 2-v-1. At the same time, we should try to avoid getting caught under an alliance between Gillette and the Pirates.

One more thing: using MOO-style diplomacy, it is easier to be friendly with all teams but one that is an enemy, than it is to maintain decent relations with all teams. A shared successful war is one great way to build trust.

[Mortius]

@kjn - Does any of your statements become false if we meet Pirates like 20 turns later? Would it change anything you said about triangle diplomacy?

This is not a choice between meeting Pirates now or not meeting them at all.
It is a choice between meeting them now and throwing away the advantages we have in the forms of better information, or meeting them in 20-25 turns and trying to use the advantages that we have to secure the Gold City.

[Lord Parkin]

I vote for meeting the Pirates.

- We know about the contested gold spot, Pirates don't. It gives us an advantage, because we know we should hurry there. They don't know it and can settle other spot first. Giving us an even greater advantage.

Even if they don't, I doubt that will remain the case until T35.

- Settling the Gold spot before the contact is easier to swallow for Pirates, in contrary to situation we pink doting them just before their eyes.

I doubt it'll be that long before they meet us.

- We have an advantage in discussing the fair borders with Gillette, because they will know we aren't so pressed by the other neighbour as they are by Sury of India.

Except that their Scout will also continue to explore and will probably have figured out where the Pirates are and possibly the land between us before too long.

- If we tell Gillette team about our second neighbor, they may be less eager to agree a fair border agreements, knowing we can be as much pressed as they are.

I think expecting them not to realise something basic like the map probably being symmetrical is a bit silly.

- Telling the Gillette about Pirates, makes it absolutely clear that our scout is to the North, giving them oportunity to send a warrior or two to choke us early (they didn't hide from us without a reason )

I think this is probably a bit far-fetched.

[kjn]

Yes, Mortius, it does. 20 turns earlier contact means 20 turns more of early chit-chat (as you called it) to build trust. These early turns are quite valuable in that regard - we can help "groom" each other to build some rapport and mutual understanding, feed each other small tidbits of info, congratulate them on good things we can discern via C&D, and so on.

Put another way, the gold is but one tile. One very powerful tile, but if we gave up the gold to the Pirates and used that to gain a firm alliance with them, which we then leverage into beating up Gillette and getting most of their land, then I'd say we had come out far ahead on the deal.

On the other hand, having contact with the Pirates and a presence in the area means that we can detect any settlers of theirs and can use that to gain something if they are out-expanding us.

To continue, checking the team roster, I'm less scared by the Pirates than of Gillette. Apart from us, I view the Pirates as the least scary collection of MP civ players. Something to consider with the triangle diplomacy.

[Herandar]

To continue, checking the team roster, I'm less scared by the Pirates than of Gillette. Apart from us, I view the Pirates as the least scary collection of MP civ players. Something to consider with the triangle diplomacy.

That's 'cause you don't know me yet. I'm scary bad at Civ.

[HitAnyKey]

Current tally unless I've missed anyone:

Votes to scout SE-SE and not meet Pirates yet: [SIZE="4"]5[/SIZE]
HitAnyKey
Herandar
Mortius
stonag
Elkad

Votes to scout NE-NE and meet Pirates next turn: [SIZE="4"]4[/SIZE]
kjn
Lord Parkin
Azza
Sareln


If anyone else wants to vote, you should do so ASAP since this decision needs to be made soon. If I have anyone's vote incorrectly, or if you want to change it, post it here.

[HitAnyKey]

There is one other thought that I just had, that we might want to also consider. Though this will delay a bit our exploration of the area SE of our capital.

Move the scout SE-SE to that hill. Then move him back to the NE, to approach the Pirates more directly from their SE. This way they might think we are located somewhat to their SE and that's where they will scout first for looking for our city. Possibly gives us more time before they find the Gold.
And we just do our best to be somewhat obtuse in our communications when/if conversations come about with regards to where we are located. All they need to know is that we are "south" of them. Just like, right now we don't yet know if Gillette is directly south of us, or if they are directly to the SE of us. We are currently just assuming they are to the SE.

[Lord Parkin]

Pretty closely split vote.

I don't think it's worth the extra time to have our Scout approach from a different direction... I think we're grossly overestimating the influence we'd have on their scouting. It's a reasonable assumption that they probably scouted N or E first since we haven't encountered them yet to their SW, but sooner or later they'll be swinging back (or sending a new unit) to explore the region between us anyway. Meeting them (or not) isn't going to change that.

It's unreasonable to expect that they won't scout anywhere near us or the Gold for 30+ turns. Also, we're forgetting that we probably have equally good land in other directions (e.g. towards Gillette) that we just haven't revealed yet.

Overall, I think if we adopt an insular and obtuse approach to diplomacy, it's not going to go unnoticed and it certainly won't win us any friends.