[PB70 Mjmd] STAND AS ONE!

[Qgqqqqq]

An advantage is different from duress. Almost all contracts are signed between parties of different strength/power. It only becomes duress when that power is such that it overpowers an individual's ability to consent / freely enter a bargain. I would say you had options available to you, and a passing advantage doesn't meet that threshold.

Didn't you say you'd been building military? How much could he genuinely have taken? How much danger were you in? It seems like it didn't take long for you to go from this position of supposed duress to burning his cities.

What would the implications of this be? Does a NAP not count if a player has guilds and you don't? If they have maces and you have crossbows? If they have cataphracts and you only have camel archers? Is every NAP with Bing or Charriu forfeit, because they have less military power? Or is it just how they choose to express themselves - is your diplomacy invalid if you happen to have an abrasive tone? Does every threat have to be veiled, lest the entire bargain is forfeit?

[Mjmd]

I mean there was a direct threat of 25 cho ko nus off of several galleons. Because my entire empire wouldn't have been razed it isn't duress? How many razed cities until its duress Q? If he only says he will raze 1 city, I would argue that is duress. I will note again, I TRIED negotiating a treaty of equals. I was threatened into accepting what Scooter proposed. Could I have fought back once say 3 of my cities were razed, sure. But saying a big strong man can go come and get a bigger gun himself hardly makes a contract with a gun pointed at his head valid and he might get shot running away from the negotiation.

There are plenty of historical examples of implied threat that yes I probably wouldn't consider valid (edit you can find plenty of these broken too). I have never tried directly using my place as #1 power or score leader in this game.

So Charriu I've used force with this game, but only after the trade embargo. As far as deals, I've offered him open borders, so he can see I'm not up to stuff, but the only recent NAP since I've had power was when both had border resources to improve. When I saw that his worker wouldn't finish by end of NAP I freely offered to extend it until whenever it was done. Now a fascinating argument is if my current NAP with him is invalid. IE I only entered into it because of Scooter, but Charriu didn't know that. Lets say this if Charriu goes to war with me now, I would understand.

To Bing I've offered free resources and generous loan terms. When I needed a loan to get to Astro I asked him, I asked him to trust me, he did, and I saved his butt from invasion. I never implied any threat; you would have to ask him if he felt threatened.

SD, the main "threat" I've used is that Bing will get eaten. I consider this a valid truth, as again I've viewed this game as balance of power. I've offered him a variety of uneven deals where he ends up with more than me to try to get his cooperation; again including current one where I help him conquer all of Scooter and in return I get a few island cities.

Scooter I'll note threatened SD into the 1st trade embargo. SD COULDN'T fight back, so Scooter got what he wanted (temporarily). If SD suddenly had knights I imagine that might have gone differently and in fact I'm hoping that memory burns hot in SDs memory.

[Mjmd]

T139

I'm kicking myself for few mistakes.

1) I should have razed the far island city first. Ya ya he had lessened the near garrison, but the far city strategically is more important.
2) Obviously the mistake where I accidentally unloaded 3 maces came back to bit me. Now I could probably have razed the southern city this turn still, which is another mistake, but morning brain. My head just didn't consider the longbows I had loaded as offensive units and my brain was thinking of #1. I'll try next turn.
3) Forgot to load my mace on former moai city.

[Mjmd]

BTW I'll note how much EASIER this would have been had I waited for Scooter to invade Bing. It would have guaranteed Bings involvement and meant all Scooters Galleons were far away. But ya even though I had promised Bing nothing, I jumped in asap.

[pindicator]

Changing topics, I went to see a friend's choir performance last night and the program theme was sea shanties. Thought you would have appreciated that, Mjmd. Also it reminded me that I needed to check in here

[Mjmd]

Changing topics, I went to see a friend's choir performance last night and the program theme was sea shanties.  Thought you would have appreciated that, Mjmd.  Also it reminded me that I needed to check in here

LUCKY. Best I get is once a year an Irish band performs at local historical society and some of their stuff is shanties / sea folk songs.

Did they hand out a list of the songs they were performing / do you remember any?

[pindicator]

Oh yeah, I still have the program from last night.  It started off with more traditional stuff and then got a bit more international/eclectic/modern as the night went along. And most of the stuff was heavily arranged for a choir, including an encore of a very chaotic What Will We Do With a Drunken Sailor.

But here's from the program:

Don't Forget Your Old Shipmate
Richard Creagh Saunders, arr. The Longest Johns & Alexander Johnson

Here's A Health to the Company
Trad, arr. Alexander Johnson

Roll the Old Chariot Along
Trad, arr. Alexander Johnson

Euroclydon
William Billings

Barrett's Privateers
Stan Rogers, arr. Ron Small

Sailing Away
Melissa Dunphy, text by Isabel Griems Richey

Dayung Sampan
Trad. Singaporean Folk Music, arr. Darius Lin

Horizons
Peter Luis Van Dijk

The Sea Bird
Alexander Johnson, text by James Joyce

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot, arr. Alan Dunbar/Alexander Johnson

Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

Leave Her, Johnny
Trad, arr. Alexander Johnson

[Hitru]

Any reason why you did not wait for few more turns for Scooter to commit? Were you afraid Scooter would have found out via diplo that you are planning to attack?

[Mjmd]

I am very much regretting it now, and I thought about it briefly, but is it better to betray an enemy or a friend?

I didn't tell Bing why I was borrowing the gold, all I asked for was help and he provided it.

[Qgqqqqq]

I'll stop now, but in answer to your central question: I would not consider a threat to raze one city duress. I'm not going to look back through the diplo games, but i suspect that that would make many many deals signed invalid. Using force is part of the game, i would consider it leverage. I'm sure people would disagree on a threshold, if they considered one to apply, but if so it would be a heck of a lot higher than one (or even three) city for me.

I would consider that sort of uneven pressure to exist only if the threat was existential in nature - if I would be likely eliminated if I didn't agree. Even then, I believe I'd be unhappy and feel forced into it. But I don't think I'd consider myself to have grounds to stab.

Still, there's a reason I don't play diplo. YMMV.