A Guide to Playing “Small” on Deity (feat. Piety)

[Magean]

I've tried this strategy twice. Byzantium both times, Continents map, deity, 8 civs, 16 CS.

First try : a militarist China with Honor attacked me on turn 65. Since this is not how things are supposed to go, I reloaded the turn 60 autosave and gifted China 8 gpt. They had not met anybody else than me and a far away Sweden, so I couldn't bribe them to go to war with somebody else. Anyway, the tribute didn't deter them from attacking once again. Actually, there were other people to meet on the continent, or across shallow water, but China started on a peninsula behind me. Bad luck.

Second try : started on a continent with Siam in the North, and Japan further North. Japan DoW'd Siam on turn 60 and steamrolled it. No more Ramky. Meanwhile, I got my religion, though a poor one, since it was the last religion to be founded (apparently, Celts and Ethiopia were in, seeing how fast Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism appeared). No faith bonus, no religious building ; I picked tithe, choral and religious texts as bonus belief. On the bright side, I had an entire continent open to conversion, because Japan had no religion. Unfortunately, my first missionary stumbled upon barbarians in Japanese territory. Boom, 160 faith lost. I kept trying, but my subsequent missionaries got really delayed by the sheer amount of Japanese troops moving around (I was researching civil service but hadn't got it yet) . Around turn 115, my spy in Kyoto told me that Oda was plotting against me, and that an army was marching for a sneak attack on another civ. I gifted Japan 500 gold (added to our declaration of friendship). In fact, he attacked Prague (very close to my borders), and swiftly took it. A few turns later, he DoW'd me, in spite of the DoF, the tribute, and of my two trade routes connected to his empire. Of course, I quitted, because I didn't even stand a chance. I had no army, no science. Now, maybe I could have prevented the war had I managed to convert the majority of Oda's cities. But, even if my first missionary hadn't been captured by barbs, I'm not sure I could have converted so much cities (he had a quite large and populated empire). And I'm not even sure that a brethren Oda would not have DoW'd me.

Anyway, this strategy seems more map dependant than I thought. Starting next to a warmonger with no other target than us... there's not much to do but building defences.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Hmm... I've never made a LP before. Not sure I'd be good at it, because my turns usually take a bit of time. Might give it a shot when work frees up a bit. What would work better? An edited video showing key turning points in the game, or a full LP type?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

For me, definately a full LP. Although some tedious / obvious bits can be skipped of course. The same as with other LP's.

 

[Buccaneer]

Anyway, this strategy seems more map dependant than I thought. Starting next to a warmonger with no other target than us... there's not much to do but building defences.

Also, more dependent on the ability to bribe - which I have found to be slim to none most of the time, despite what others have asserted.

 

[adwcta]

Hello adwcta,

There's one thing I don't quite understand, though. After taking the Piety Opener, Organized religion and Mandate of heaven, I found that taking the rest of the policies early would be a kind of waste, because:

Yup. The guide mentions this in the discussion of Piety. It's poorly designed. If you have any source of culture at all, your policy rate will go faster than your ability to use them. In my Greece game, I took Honor to help protect my trade routes. If you've tech up to Classical already, Patronage is probably a better choice. Tradition opener is a bit useless, as you'll find that tile acquisition is not an issue due to how slow you are growing in the beginning, but this is terrain dependent. So, in *most* cases, this is just an inefficiency you'll have to live with. Faster finish of Piety means faster Prophet finisher, and I think that's still the best choice.

I've tried this strategy twice. Byzantium both times, Continents map, deity, 8 civs, 16 CS.

First try : a militarist China with Honor attacked me on turn 65. Since this is not how things are supposed to go, I reloaded the turn 60 autosave and gifted China 8 gpt. They had not met anybody else than me and a far away Sweden, so I couldn't bribe them to go to war with somebody else. Anyway, the tribute didn't deter them from attacking once again. Actually, there were other people to meet on the continent, or across shallow water, but China started on a peninsula behind me. Bad luck.

Second try : started on a continent with Siam in the North, and Japan further North. Japan DoW'd Siam on turn 60 and steamrolled it. No more Ramky. Meanwhile, I got my religion, though a poor one, since it was the last religion to be founded (apparently, Celts and Ethiopia were in, seeing how fast Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism appeared). No faith bonus, no religious building ; I picked tithe, choral and religious texts as bonus belief. On the bright side, I had an entire continent open to conversion, because Japan had no religion. Unfortunately, my first missionary stumbled upon barbarians in Japanese territory. Boom, 160 faith lost. I kept trying, but my subsequent missionaries got really delayed by the sheer amount of Japanese troops moving around (I was researching civil service but hadn't got it yet) . Around turn 115, my spy in Kyoto told me that Oda was plotting against me, and that an army was marching for a sneak attack on another civ. I gifted Japan 500 gold (added to our declaration of friendship). In fact, he attacked Prague (very close to my borders), and swiftly took it. A few turns later, he DoW'd me, in spite of the DoF, the tribute, and of my two trade routes connected to his empire. Of course, I quitted, because I didn't even stand a chance. I had no army, no science. Now, maybe I could have prevented the war had I managed to convert the majority of Oda's cities. But, even if my first missionary hadn't been captured by barbs, I'm not sure I could have converted so much cities (he had a quite large and populated empire). And I'm not even sure that a brethren Oda would not have DoW'd me.

Anyway, this strategy seems more map dependant than I thought. Starting next to a warmonger with no other target than us... there's not much to do but building defences.

Can you post screenshots of the maps? I'm going off your descriptions here, so the advice may not be 100% applicable, since I can't see the map.

Reloading 5 turns and paying a tribute will not change the AI's mind. Tributes (like any form of positive modifier) will not alter an AI's plan once it is already set in motion. It will only work at the time the AI is making the plan. So, once China has decided to attack you, only gold concerns (the "sanity check") will stop her. If you try reloading from turn 35, you will see different results. Tributes that early are pretty crippling though, and I would advise against it if you have any means at all to get China to trade with you (e.g. forward settled on one of his expansions; this works as long as he expanded toward you, instead of away from you). If you are China's ONLY possible trading partner (since they were on a peninsula behind you), it means you have done things very, very wrong to get a DoW. If you mean it the other way around, and your units literally couldn't meet other civs because China's lands had completely blocked off the map, you should be investing in boats asap, and at this point, tributes (very early on) become a good idea, because no one besides China can possibly attack you anyway.

Well, we know what went wrong with your second game.... rule #0 of deity games, don't lose units to barbs? =/ Your missionary has 4 moves per turn, the barb has 2, sending your scout with the missionary is usually fast enough to keep up and make sure your missionary stays alive. I guess this wasn't covered in the guy explicitly because I assumed it was obvious. =) Once you set religious points on his major cities, his other small cities (esp Siam's old cities, which will all be small due to war) will convert quickly due to religious pressure (4 religious pressure points takes no time at all to convert a 5 pop city), certainly before turn 130s, which from your story is approx when Japan actually attacked you. I'm not sure this one can reasonably be blamed on a strategy not working. Also, when you say no faith bonus, you meant no pilgrimage, right? (i.e. you still had a faith pantheon; religious buildings are not even recommended by this guide, but the faith pantheon is pretty key. you can still pull this off without the faith pantheon, but you'd need a faith civ or a lot of experience with this strategy, which is why faith pantheon was a requirement for this guide).

If you post some screenshots, I can tell you exactly what to do.

 

[Magean]

Thanks for the answer. =)
For my first game, I checked what was going on in China after revealing the map. Looks like the peninsula was much bigger than I thought, and that they weren't alone on it. Morocco was there, too, and he made a much better trading partner than I.
Also, still 6 turns from Philosophy. That's quite late...
Screens :

Full map, showing China :



As for the second game, I didn't mean to blame the strategy for not working. Just that I had understood it was especially good at salvaging a poor start with few potential for fast science, or too much early hassle. And I was a bit disappointed after the Japanese DoW.
And, no, I had no faith pantheon. There was nothing I could have used for it. Instead, I picked god of the sea, because I had 3 crabs and 1 pearl next to my capital.
As for the missionary... the city was so close. I would never have sent an unescorted settler, but I simply didn't expect to meet barbs pillaging everything in Japanese territory.
1 turn from Drama & Poetry.

 

[adwcta]

so, the second game looks like you just didn't get the religion set up fast enough. satuma would convert easily, as well as the CS, muang saluang, tokyo and si satchanalai (meaning, no missionaries needed on those). So, you would need only 2 missionaries to set up 4 pressure points, and you would have easily overwelmed him religion-wise. Also, you expanded your second city on the wrong side of the river. The AI takes geopolitics into account (wouldn't matter in this case, but if you were fearing siam's early aggression, this would be a concern).

That China game... were you following the guide? You had the opportunity to pick tear of the gods, or sun god, but didn't (or you switched all your citizens away from your pearl/gem, and also didn't build any shrines outside the capital?). There's very little I recommend doing in the beginning... but getting and using a faith pantheon, and building shrines first is on that list. Having only 90 faith, at a +2 rate on turn 66 is very very very bad for a Piety start. The start was rough, and China was going to attack you regardless, very soon. If you scouted well early, between the Honor open and Morocco's desert start as his other neighbor, you should have started paying tribute, working all gold tiles 100% in your capital from a very early place. You would then have to fight Morocco for China religiously, which will take your entire faith resource. That's a rough spawn, especially since China didn't forward expand toward you until his 4th city. You needed to scout Singapore sooner so you could bribe China to fight it sooner (or just generally scout China, it seemed like you did not scout them at all from the first screenshot). With super-early aggro, your goal isn't to indefinitely delay china, it's to delay China until you get get one missionary out. This requires scouting (aka: diplo), gold, and faith. You had only one of the three. I'm still not sure how your faith was so low. Faith is the most important thing in a faith-based strategy.

 

[Magean]

As for the China game, I realized my faith generation was quite bad. That's because I waited a terribly long time to build settlers. Don't know why exactly, because I didn't repeat that mistake the second time. In fact, I picked sacred patch for the jungles, hoping to reach Organized religion fast. And, I couldn't scout the area near China because of a pesky barb camp sitting on the hill right North of Nanjing. Should I have built the 2 units mandatory to clear the area for scouting ? I had very low .


Concerning the second game, does the AI really wants me to stay behind natural borders like a river ? So, mountains would do the same effect ?


I think I'll try another time, with the Celts maybe, or Ethiopia. I played Byzzies the two first times to eventually get something out of them, 'cause both of their UUs come at an awful moment, when you're too busy building a religion. So, a small pacifist strategy might have worked better to focus on their UA.

EDIT : I started a Celt game. Things went much better. Here's a screen, on turn 142. World Congress has just been founded.

I'm the founder of Tengrism, renamed Druidism. Other religions are : Danish Catholicism, Japanese Shinto, Russian Orthodoxy and Zulu Protestantism. Being the first to get a religion, I picked pilgrimage and quickly swam in faith.
Greece is entirely following my True Faith. Polynesia is a religious battlefield between me and Japan. I had the edge till they sent a GP there, but I've 2 missionaries on their way, and can send more, so the damages will quickly get repaired. As soon as I'll have astronomy, I'll send 2 GP across the sea, to convert Songhai. I've picked Messiah, so it's going to be easier.

As for the diplomatic situation, I was quite scared at the beginning of the game. I quickly DoF'd Oda and Kamehameha, but Alexander coveted Dublin, which I needed to send him a caravan. He seemed to be shuffling troops in his empire, perhaps intending to move toward my borders... I wasn't sure. I paid him 5 or 6 gpt at turn 47. Later on, I paid Oda 2 luxuries and 3 gpt for him to declare war on Alex. It costed my dear, but perhaps did it buy my survival. No fight actually seem to have happened, and that war ended like 20 turns later, but then I was ready for a missionary invasion of Greece. Since Alex started sending me caravans, I guess he had abandoned the idea of conquering me. And indeed he offered me a DoF, which still lasts. Now we're trading luxuries together.

Concerning Harald, he was apparently less of a threat. Nonetheless, he coveted Cardiff. I dealt with it by paying Oda, after he peaced out with Alexander. This time it costed me only 100 gold and 2 gpt. That war keeps going on, though no real action took place.

In the World Congress, I can propose Scholars in residence, or a cultural crowd pleaser. Since I'm unlikely to be able to take the reins of the congress before the next host election (because Alex has bought too many CS), perhaps should I propose Scholars now ? According to the tooltip, it shouldn't anger anybody.

Oh, and I picked Charitable missions as my reformation belief. Unity of the prophet would have been a great pick considering how fast and far I initially spread my religion, but with Greece in the place, I thought I needed something more to compete for CS.

 

[adwcta]

great, glad it's working out better.

in your celts game, the dublin expansion is very dubious. the whole point is to give the AI room to expand. in your china game, you couldn't do that, since your capital was positioned the way it was. In your Japan game, expanding south would put you in the tundra (which is still something to consider). In the Celts game, you had absolutely no reason to expand into Greece, besides greed. at least you stayed on the right side of the river this time =D i would have stayed at 3 cities, or settled Dublin 2 hexes north on the cow or by the lake, if i wanted that location. more likely, i'd have picked the east coast, which allows me to not bother anyone, have a trading city for my second city, and have a forest for quicker faith (dublin's current location doesn't even have a forest... it's pretty bad)

the AI takes into account geopolitics for attacking. especially on Emperor/Immortal, you'll notice a huge difference between settling around mountains, jungle patches, rivers, etc. on Deity, it usually won't matter, becasue the AI's aggression is turned up a notch... but if you want to do early tributes, or early religion to give diplo modifiers other strategies do not have access to, this becomes a high consideration again.

for your china game, yes producing one archer won't kill you (and you only need the archer/warrior combo to take out barb camps, which only involves building one unit). "low" production is relative to what you need to build. since this strategy doesn't need to build anything (less workers, no library, possibly no grainery/watermill, etc), what would be low production for other strategies is not low for us. it's perfectly fine. what i would have done though is to build a boat and explore that way instead, while protecting your sea trade routes after the short china exploration, if the barb camp wasn't posing a threat to you otherwise. hell, as byz, it's even your UU. in my greece game, i built a boat and actually cash-bought a boat too, because boats are great. but, an archer would also be fine.

 

[BobiB420]

Marathon small inland sea, 921 turns to DV. I played poorly, so poorly that I swear I was going to lose at any turn for at least 500+ turns, yet I somehow managed to pull a DV outta nowhere while running two wars, 3 eras behind in terms of war tech, and a poor economy compared to the AI's (I had, at best, 1/10th the stockpiled gold of the AI's), but I won. Go figure. Seriously.. I lost 2 out of 3 cities, and still managed to win, barely.. It's not easy being small!

 

[toulose420]

Accidentally backed out on mobile so my whole sphiel got erased. Here is the tldr

Tried it as celts, went great til last turn Pedro, my bro 100% of the game, beat me on last turn to sci victory

"I gave him a favorable peace deal"
"oh?"
"yeah, I let him live."

 

[consentient]

in the eyes of many, still does not have a functional multiplayer)

There is a lot of discussion in this thread about theory vs. fact, and the definitions of concepts like 'good vs bad play', 'what is an exploit?', etc.

However, I have to say for the record that it is a FACT that Civ 5 BNW does NOT have a functional multiplayer. I've never completed a single game, and neither 2K or Steam are interested in actually fixing the issue with an update.

- There are fatal technical issues that cause all manner of errors, most notable the one that occurs when me and my friend BOTH receive a message telling us that the OTHER player has left the game and we are the only humans left in. Absolute codsh*t.

- The lobby issues make it almost impossible to even START a game (that you'll never finish)

- And most of the players out there have terrible etiquette and will boot you from staging room cuz they wanna keep the slot for their BFF. And private game doesn't work for a whole load of people, so you can half understand their frustration.

When I see MP video playthroughs I am literally totally baffled by how a small minority of players actually have workable MP, when 90%+ of people wanting to complete a game are totally unable.

I've had plenty of deity games where no one goes patronage... I'd say around 30% of the time actually. (on the other hand EVERYONE loves aesthetics... and piety... can't remember a game where these trees were not picked)

Yeah, in my 20-30 Deity games, Oracle, Pyramids and Forbidden Palace were built by the AI each only once.

Overall, nice guide. I think I'm gonna give it a shot as something to attempt. I've done warmongering Deity and got my first CV last night. Small Piety empire is something I'm definitely gonna try, since ICS Sacred Sites seems to be unfeasible on Deity.

 

[consentient]

If I'm playing Arabia on Pangaea and most of the CS are on the other side of the AI, should I go for Pilgrimage rather than Papal Primacy?

 

[Fluphen Azine]

This is a fallacious distinction. Diplo itself is not even implemented in multiplayer, because there's no AI.

Recent posts on other threads made me go back and read this entire thread. Fun read once again. I have to disagree about diplo on MP though. I have played 1000s of hours of MP, I guess I am one of the 10% who actually get the game to work on 6 player ffa games which I do not enjoy as much as 1v1 or a 4 player ffa. Although I seem to have a major problem when I try to play NQ games with the NQ group. The way I understand it is that since most of the players are from across the pond and I am on the West Coast (Las Vegas) the connection will never work no matter what we do. So I pretty much gave up on the NQ Group games even though I am still a member and try once in awhile. I have played 10-15 games with that group though and I found that most of the same players are in the game together. I find that players tend to play some players softer than others. You could say that Diplo can go hand in hand with collusion in MP but I would rather call it "soft play".

MP Diplo is downright dirty compared to Diplo in SP (IMHO). It is not hard to play soft with your buddy and crush someone who you don't like or don't know. All you really need is 1 friend in your game but if you have 2 it can be impossible to stop the "team play" that can occur. I know you do not play MP but sometimes you will get double dowed or triple dowed in an MP game and 1 human vs 2 or 3 humans... well let's just say that the player who is alone with no help has no chance.

It gets worse if 2 players are playing soft with each other sending trade routes to each other and RAing it up. If they are neighbors they can basically plan out where they want to settle and create a large wall or choke points. I have been in many of Public FFA games (most Public games don't go past 50-100 turns because of people quiting) and have found it very easy to manipulate neighbors via Diplo. Secret Chat to your neighbors can get very manipulative.

Most of my games I hardly play nice because I do not like all the "lets play nice" for 100 turns and after that get back stabbed hard. I have had games where I have been able to defend this but usually if you trust a human opponent you are going to be in trouble later when they decide they want to win the game.

Another way I used to play MP was down right dirty as well. I would talk to my neighbor telling him I am in no position to win this game because I am too far behind but I could be a very good ally to you and we could get you the victory and I will get second place if you want to team up. Surprising enough this usually works even though some players are suspicious it is not hard to give them free luxes or what not and earn their trust.

Also... you do have AI Diplo in MP when someone quits or loses their capital and leaves the game. Now the AI is in the game and watch how people abuse the AI. They claim that all is fair with trade with the AI but RAing with the AI in a 6player ffa game is not suggested. I had a game recently that was a public 6 player ffa game and I was in trouble against 12 cho ko nus that I could see, so I sold the city to the AI since the city was about to fall and you should of seen the reaction lol!! The player that DOWed me was the host (The host always has a faster connection and has a small advantage when the turn finishes processing) and picked China on a Pangea map. So it is ok for him to roll neighbors with an obvious OPed Civ in MP but I can't sell a city to the AI? I said he was wrong because he never mentioned any type of rules or do's and don'ts before the game started but he was too upset to continue. It did not matter anyway since we were in a deadlock for our Cont and the other player had total control of his own with 20 cities going to crush us anyway so the game was really over but my point is that 6 player ffa Diplo is a much harsher world than SP Diplo anyday.

Lastly... MP Diplo does exist and it is much worse than SP AI Diplo (IMHO). I have done and seen players bribe the Immortal AI in ffa games to war against a human opponent. Not too difficult to defend but it can lock the player out of AI trade and what not. However if the player gets the AI to DOW you and he/she DOWs you and has some control of Immortal CS's it can be a difficult task to defend. This is why I now enjoy 1v1 MP which has no Diplo whatsoever and I like to play 1v1 with no CS's.

 

[Bliss]

Just wanted to say that this guide is a masterpiece.

I was doing something very close to OP's strategy but I gave up.(Didn't have read your guide yet). Now, I'm sure I was in the right path. Seriously, the guy did a very good job here.

 

[nickytootricky]

Yes, an absolute masterpiece (both the strategy and the write-up). In case you didn't know, I've been using the Small Piety strategy to beat some of the DCLs (Ethiopia and Netherlands). Brilliant work, adwcta.

 

[beetle]

I have to disagree about diplo on MP though.

The mind games you describe are very different from people usually mean on this board when they are referring to diplomacy! Apples and oranges really.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

The mind games you describe are very different from people usually mean on this board when they are referring to diplomacy! Apples and oranges really.

Ok, but you have to admit that private chat when playing MP games is real world real life Diplo and not AI SP Diplo. However, as I stated before if a player quits early or leaves after his/her capital is taken you do have Diplo with the AI in MP. That is the question/statement that I was trying to answer because they claimed that Diplo did not exist in MP but I would say Diplo is a very large part of FFA games on MP. Unless, of course, I misread that statement and he was trying to say you can't win Diplomatic Victory on MP but that has been sorta banned in NQ MP games or actually you are not allowed to vote for a rival Civ. However in Public MP Games you really have no rules.

Edit: I am not trying to disagree but I am pretty sure people will agree that Diplo in MP games has to do with trade to your fellow civs and as they call it "working together". Every time I play an NQ game or talk to the players in the NQ group they clarify Diplo as such. Things that you do with other Civs in the game like RA, trade, trade routes...etc. I guess I am wrong and you are right because you seem bent on saying I am wrong so its cool. I guess I just disagree with what you think Diplo is in an MP game. I find it funny when people get upset about OT discussions because it happens on almost every thread and IMO is not that big of a deal, but I can see your point and I was directly answering a statement on this thread by the OP so I do not see how that is Off Topic!

Honestly I do not see how you do not see this. You use Diplo the same way you do in SP as MP except it is with real life people instead of AIs unless you get an AI into the game which happens every game and if your game goes down to 2 or 3 players you will always have at least 1 AI in the game and I have seen 3 as well since people let the AI live to trade with it although some players wipe the AI out so other players can't abuse it. However, your Diplo in MP gets stronger the more you chat it up with your players/neighbors.

 

[beetle]

^^Well FA, you are changing what you (and everyone else too) mean by “diplo” in order to disagree with adwcta.

Mind games in MP is interesting, but OT for this thread.

 

[jester204]

Hey adwcta

So I tried your strategy out and it worked quite nicely. I ended up winning a diplomatic victory on turn 286 with Byzantium. This was my 2nd deity victory and another one that was long awaited. I could never beat deity before, immortal was getting very easy but I could never make the next step. All I need to do is win a cultural and domination victory on deity now.

So I followed your strategy of opening piety which I thought would be suicide but it paid off in the end. My start was great, I settled on a hill a tile away from a river but was still next to an oasis. I had 3 wheat and 3 salt plains which basically got my cap going. What really made my game I belief was my food bonuses, its hard to say I played small. I hit a ruin giving me archery in the first 15 turns so I tried for the Temple of Artemis and surprisingly got it. I then went for the two faith food bonuses with my extra belief. I had 35% food increase which I used to get a massive capital and two big secondary cities. I kept growing until around t250 then I plateaued. The biggest challenge was dealing with happiness and it wasn't until I got the patronage social policy granting extra happiness till I solved it. With a big capital and cities with good gold production and a great reformation (30% gold influence) I eventually bought out all remaining city states, passed world religion and ideology, and got globalization to win.

Dealing with the other Civs was a little challenging. Attila was conquering everyone in his path so I helped him start a few wars here and there with a bribe. I ended up flipping to autocracy and allying with him to help protect myself from him. He did his usual raze all hell and plant as many cities as he could. In the pictures you'll notice he planted 5-6 cities in my back yard. I didn't take a single city I however DoW twice, once to steal an early worker, second to help kill off Siam. If the 2nd DoW disqualifies me well then go yourself I worked hard. A few denouncements here and there to gain favor with certain Civ's were made which really helped keep me from being invaded.

I'll provide pictures below to legitimize my victory enjoy. If any duplicate photos then my bad.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198072493420/screenshots/

I'm new and I dont know how to upload pictures, sorry bout that. If someone wants to tell me let me know please.

 

[consentient]

I have to say that I completely agree with F.A. about this definition of the word diplomacy. It does NOT have a positive connotation unless you are very naive.

"Sandra was diplomatic when telling Larissa that her hair was messy" demonstrates consideration for Larissa's feelings, but every other context it's about what you can get out of it.

Look at the history of secret treaties in the real world. The Sykes-Picot agreement, the Balfour declaration, etc, etc.

So, for me, even though I'm not able to play MP, it makes sense for F.A. to directly compare friends scheming by Skype or other means, with "Hello Nappy, will you DoW Rammy for 8GPT?"