Foreign Policy and General Diplomacy

[talonschild]

I remember in my first Noble game I was doing exceptionally well as the Dutch when all of a sudden Tokugawa of all people won a religious victory. I'd love to replicate that. With Open Borders all around and judiciously spreading Judaism only to the smallest city in each empire I imagine we'd have a shot. Mind you, if we fail we may be subject to some retribution.

Anyhow. I'd love to try it for the novelty. I fear what happens if we fail.

And why not try a religious economy, if we go that path? Angkor Wat, Spiral Minaret, maybe Sistine Chapel and University of Sankore...


All just speculation, of course.

 

[Maga_R]

AP is nice. And people who dont have religion till late do tend to prefer the AP religion for sure. But I never built the AP in a MP I think. It is just too away from the tech paths I want to follow. And I can say I never saw a religion alliance in MP, at least I dont remember such. Sometimes people start to spread the AP religion in their cities if only for preventing a religious win. (Yes, I saw once a religious win in a MP pitboss and I was once 1 vote away from losing the game to one devious Polish hlopak. He needed like 433 and he got only 432 or something like this).

Perhaps we played together once? Or it is just my Polish blood talking ;-)

Will be hilarious to try and win Religious Win though in an ISDG Everyone will be afraid of our espionage and we will win trough the meek word of our priests

I am in! For the novelty and the fun factor. Although the tech path is horrible - we will have to think how to make it less of a problem?

 

[Maga_R]

I remember in my first Noble game I was doing exceptionally well as the Dutch when all of a sudden Tokugawa of all people won a religious victory. I'd love to replicate that. With Open Borders all around and judiciously spreading Judaism only to the smallest city in each empire I imagine we'd have a shot. Mind you, if we fail we may be subject to some retribution.

Anyhow. I'd love to try it for the novelty. I fear what happens if we fail.

And why not try a religious economy, if we go that path? Angkor Wat, Spiral Minaret, maybe Sistine Chapel and University of Sankore...


All just speculation, of course.

If we go there, I would definitely advocate also religious economy - we do have these cheap temples Although the income from shrine looks bleak compared to cottages, I must admit.

But trying for religious alliance/victory has tempting aspects:
* it is sneaky - people would rather suspect we will try to win through espionage (May even build TGW as a decoy)

* goes well with our spi treat

*novelty/fun factor

Although the tech path is horrible - perhaps we can talk allies - interested in participating eg in AP palace temple bonuses - to research some? Or steal them, but who would research e.g. theology willingly?

BTW, does anybody now if city gifting can be exploited to share bonuses? E.g. our ally wants our cheap temples - gives city to us, we chop a temple (to make it quick to avoid increased maintenance) - and give it back to her? And then give her our another city to chop cheap libraries? If there are no restriction on city gifting/regifting it can be also abused for mutually agreed -on technology stealing to maximize bonuses. Although it does require high level of trust

 

[talonschild]

I think city-gifting was banned except as a peace settlement.

 

[Maga_R]

Will be hilarious to try and win Religious Win though in an ISDG Everyone will be afraid of our espionage and we will win trough the meek word of our priests

The best part would be to tell them afterwards: "What? You did not see it coming? We picked a spiritual leader, a civ that starts with mysticism, went for early religion ..."

But seriously mostly trying to reopen discussion on big strategy, that many team members complained seems to be lacking

 

[Maga_R]

Anyhow. I'd love to try it for the novelty. I fear what happens if we fail. .

Me, too :sigh: If we fail, RB's tanks will rollover us - or evrybody in the game would dogpile us. And proponents of tried and tested simple cottage economy will tell us "I told you so" for ages to come...

This is just very preliminary idea, but perhaps we can make something workable out of it

 

[Maga_R]

Ah, and theology can be best bulbed by a prophet - we can get them from our cheap temples. It only remains to convert a city in every civ to judaism, lol.

Edit: We could try to give (loose in war?) a city with religion in it to civs resistant to other forms of regions spreadinG

 

[2metraninja]

Ah, and theology can be best bulbed by a prophet - we can get them from our cheap temples. It only remains to convert a city in every civ to judaism, lol.

Not only, I am not an expert in Religious wins (never done any IIRC), but we need someone else to vote for us too. I think the vote is not even available if we can have enough votes to vote ourselves winner alone.

 

[2metraninja]

The best part would be to tell them afterwards: "What? You did not see it coming? We picked a spiritual leader, a civ that starts with mysticism, went for early religion ..."

HAHAHAHhhh.. that would be hilarious! I would have try this if only for this line alone

More serious, if we have one ally - ideally dying and about to be killed from the strongest team in the game (who will presumable win the game if left alone), we can talk them to voting for us for the Religious win. They lose nothing, as they are going to die anyway at some point, they make us favor, as we were their only true friends left when the rat-like-friends start leaving the sinking ship, and most important - they deny the win to their worst enemy. All great reasons to make it happen.

 

[Maga_R]

Not only, I am not an expert in Religious wins (never done any IIRC), but we need someone else to vote for us too. I think the vote is not even available if we can have enough votes to vote ourselves winner alone.

Never done it, but from what I have read, we have to have our religion in every civ, and do not have more than 75% of the votes (based on population, counted twice if state religion is run). I have to check in-game what percentage one needs for winning, assumed it is 50% but maybe it is incorrect.

EDIT: No, you are right, 75% is required for diplomatic victory, so no single civ can pull it out :-( Dont see how we can convince anybody to vote for us :-(

 

[Maga_R]

HAHAHAHhhh.. that would be hilarious! I would have try this if only for this line alone

Exactly! And to RB, we could also add "Should we make it our team name for you to notice?". Next time they would ask for banning religion, I bet you ;-)

More serious, if we have one ally - ideally dying and about to be killed from the strongest team in the game (who will presumable win the game if left alone), we can talk them to voting for us for the Religious win. They lose nothing, as they are going to die anyway at some point, they make us favor, as we were their only true friends left when the rat-like-friends start leaving the sinking ship, and most important - they deny the win to their worst enemy. All great reasons to make it happen.

Your plan is much better than mine The only thing we need is an almost-dead ally ;-) Germans come to mind, lol. And they wanted deeper cooperation...

 

[talonschild]

As fun as it is to contemplate, I think it's too much risk with too little chance of success. I think a more traditional win would be simpler and easier. The audacity alone won't save us.

 

[Caledorn]

This is probably not exactly the right thread, but in the public ISDG thread there is a discussion about reducing the turn timer because the Germans are using too long. RB has suggested it, SPAP and WPC has agreed to it so far. I concur with them that a turn timer reduction would be in order, especially in the current war situation when the Germans does not press end turn. I refused to comment in public as I don't think that is appropriate for me to comment on as the game host, but as a team member I concur with the suggestion of a timer reduction.

Now, the problem with it is that r_rolo seems to be MIA, which is an issue if we are to reduce the timer, as I am not happy with reducing the turn timer without admin approval. The only case I can see I could do that without admin approval is if the vote is unanimous, and I doubt the Germans will vote yes for the timer reduction.

I suggest we call a vote on the matter regardless though. 24 hour turns was suggested by RB.

 

[Aivoturso]

This "grand strategy" point is pretty much what I wanted to bring up earlier. I believe that we are in understanding that from diplomacy point of view, our current main strategy in diplo is to find ourselves in a majority alliance. Aside from having NAP with almost everyone, we have not yet worked much towards that. I think we should start thinking, who could we form the alliance with. And perefably we would have an ally (or allies) within alliance as well. When the non-allied teams are wiped out, we don't want to find ourselves at against everyone else left.

BTW, it would theoretically be possible to win a religious victory if a team would vote for us just to spite another team. (E.g. if it at some point is evident that no-one can catch up with a runaway Civ nobody really likes.)

 

[Caledorn]

I agree with you, Aivo. The most obvious candidate we have so far for an alliance is WPC. The second one is RB, based on cooperation and friendliness. RB, however, is already so far ahead that allying with them may be shooting ourselves in the foot, and I suspect that the mere suggestion of allying with them is enough to start a cascade of negativity on the team. I'll put it out there for consideration nonetheless though, as allying with them at this point could be a wise move.

 

[talonschild]

Thoughts on prospective allies:

RB: I accept the prospect of allying including RB in a 5-way alliance, provided that they're first to go once there are 5 teams left. They look too dangerous for them to survive any further.

WPC: Friendly, and inclined to war. If we keep them at our side and out-economy them, they'd be an excellent choice to bring along and let them have second place.

Spanish Apolyton: Like WPC, but less friendly and with a language barrier. Good to have around for now, as long as they never get too much more powerful militarily than us. I could see us working together.

UCiv: Despite the NAP deal problem, I like these guys. As long as we're super-careful that we understand the deals we make, I'd like to work with them. Provided the rest of the team can stomach them.

The Germans: I saw them as dangerous, seeing the size and skill f the team they'd put together. Now, it seems the bulk is illusory, and they've had WPC put a serious dent in them. Now they seem ally material, provided we're able to pull off working with WPC and them.

Apolyton, CivFr, and CivPlayers: Unmet and unknown. I'm hesitent about working with CivFr because of the language barrier. Apolyton will be a major player, I think. CivPlayers I'm just unfamiliar with.

 

[Caledorn]

Very good summary, talon. As you state about RB, they should be first to go in round two, if we ally with them. Another approach would of course be to try to take them out now, early game, but I fear we lack enough alliancemembers to pull that one off. Especially now that WPC decided to go after the Germans. If WPC hadn't started the war against the Germans, we could possibly have pulled off an early 3 vs 1 gang against RB, but alas too late for that now.

If we want a major alliance however we absolutely have to meet the last teams asap, as having some of them in the alliance will be crucial unless we want to be situated in a position where we can't really participate in the war due to distance penalties to our capital..

 

[talonschild]

Then we need more scouts, I think. How can we fit that in the current build plan?

 

[YossarianLives]

In the public ISDG thread there is a discussion about reducing the turn timer because the Germans are using too long. RB has suggested it, SPAP and WPC has agreed to it so far. I concur with them that a turn timer reduction would be in order, especially in the current war situation when the Germans does not press end turn.

I suggest we call a vote on the matter regardless though. 24 hour turns was suggested by RB.

I agree with reducing the turn timer to 20 or24 hours. Since the Germans aren't ending turn, we'll still have 40-48 hour turns.

The only downside is we will need to play our own turn in the first 24 hours, and currently we're taking closer to 35 hours to play our turns. We'll just need to plan ahead a little better.

 

[talonschild]

I think we'll manage - there's something remarkable motivating about an absolute deadline.