Foreign Policy: The CivPlayers League

[talonschild]

This thread is to archive dealings with CivPlayers. Any information we have on them and also our current attitudes and relations.

CivPlayers (Darius - Aztec)
Leader Traits: Financial and Organized
Unique Unit: Jaguar Warrior
Unique Building: Sacrificial Altar

Starting Techs: Hunting and Mysticism
Starting Unit: Scout


Current Status: Unmet, neutral

Liable to be ruthless, and not to indulge in roleplay

 

[Aivoturso]

We are about to meet team CP and I believe we don't have a named ambassador yet. Any volunteers? Also, we might need to modify our general greeting message™ since the game has progressed quite far from when the message was composed.

 

[2metraninja]

I might take the position if there is no one else willing to take it.

 

[2metraninja]

So, we get contact with Civplayers next turn:



Anyone else willing to take the position of diplomat with CP? We have high expectations for the possible cooperation/dealings with them. The position is highly demanding, but highly rewarding too.

 

[SilentConfusion]

I am willing to help the diplomatic team for CivPlayers as I think it will be very important to handle our relations with them correctly, considering the Realms Beyond start and our respective positions to Realms Beyond. I am hesitant to volunteer for all responsibilities, and if 2metraninja prefers for simplicity sake to not share diplomatic duties I completely understand, but if 2metraninja would like help in crafting messages and checking and posting incoming messages I am volunteering to be at least part of the diplomatic team. I promise to communicate with the team if I am not able to do something due to time or internet issues.

With that said, what do we know about CivPlayers? Does anyone have much experience with them in the past or with any of their listed players? Does anyone know how much they like to role-play? In general we would like to build a relationship with them that would facilitate our curtailing of RB dominance. They must also be worried about the continued growth of RB. They are almost exactly equal to us in score, so they may be able to actually help unlike WPC and Civforums who may only be able to distract RB. If they trusted that they had support on the other side of RB it would make them more amenable to helping.

For me the major points to work on with CivPlayers are:

• building trust
• building growing concern with RB's apparent dominance
• discovering their already established relationships with other nations

 

[Caledorn]

I know I effectively have ensured I cannot be the diplomat towards CP thanks for the huge mistake I did in the beginning of the game. I would not be comfortable with dealing with them unless it's a crisis and I absolutely have to. So I hope either 2metra or SilentConfusion (or someone else if anyone feels they want the position - speak up!) can step up and take the main role for this team.

We need a draft prepared before we meet them, so we can immediately send the draft upon making contact though, so this position must be filled quickly - or I will have to send the initial message signing as foreign minister telling them that an ambassador has been appointed and that their contact with us will be through said ambassador.

 

[2metraninja]

I had always liked your cold, clear analytic thinking, SC. Glad to have you along with me on the CP diplomatic mission, which can turns out to be our most important.

Edit: crosspost with Cal, leaving internet for few hours.

 

[SilentConfusion]

I will start putting together some pieces for a message to CivPlayers. If anyone has previous knowledge of the team as a whole or of individual strong players on CP, please let me know by posting here and I will consider it when drafting messages. With such a short roster, I am guessing they don't want to do much role-playing and want to take less time reading and sending messages. I will post some thoughts in the next few hours. 2metraninja, feel free to take the ideas and craft it into a message. Otherwise, when I get home I'll craft a message and post it here for review and criticism.

CivPlayers Roster as posted in official thread.
OT4E
IPlayCiv
Decebal
Filon

 

[YossarianLives]

Should we change the Chariot's name? If we explain that Cal is the foreign minister but we are assigning a different diplomat to them, they might feel that we're not giving them enough priority. I am not sure if they would feel threatened to see General 2metraninja scoping out their borders. I know SilentConfusion was given a lot of credit for Amazon's tech-sharing treaty, but I'm not sure if CP would know about this, or how they would react to it ("Yay, we're getting a good diplomat!", or "Oh no, we're getting a crafty diplomat!")

Edit: Crosspost with SC. I don't know of any of those players from past experience, but what I can tell you from Civstats is that Filon is their main turnplayer, with occasional log-ins from OT4E.

 

[Caledorn]

Great, SilentConfusion!

If changing the name can be done without RB noticing it, it's not a bad idea actually. I doubt CP holds what happened against me, but still I would like me to keep a low profile towards them just in case.

 

[2metraninja]

I do know Filon - been playing in 2 games with him. OT4E and Decebal I know some things about, but not from personal experience.

I was thinking the chariot's name is OK, but Cal is right that they might think of him more as the host and be reserved. I think Ambassador SC will be good as rename.

Have to go now, but hopefully will have time to comment Team CP and its players a bit later.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Snippits:

Greetings CivPlayers,

My name is SilentConfusion and I have volunteered to be the CivFanatics ambassador to CivPlayers. We are happy to announce that we have met your civilization this turn.

As a team we have been seeking to find your nation for a while now. We look forward to working together as we feel it is important to have friends in this hostile world. We are looking to build alliances now that will last long into the game and your team is one of the teams we would prefer to work with, mostly due to a respect for the players on your team.

Could someone with a better knowledge of the map write something that explains where the different civilizations that we have met are in relation to RB? Do we know where all teams are yet? I would write this paragraph with respect to "score leader Realms Beyond", i.e. "We are to the east of score leader Realms Beyond and WPC and Civforum are to their north (or whichever direction). That will center the discussion on the empire of RB and perhaps frame future discussion about plans. That ought to be enough for the first message about RB. I want to gauge their thoughts about RB and their other neighbors.

We are curious about which civilizations you have met and whether you already have alliances with any of your neighbors.

What else do we know about their game so far? Do they have a religion? We can compliment their Oracle if we want.

Please comment and add things that would be good to say.

 

[Aivoturso]

I wouldn't ask so directly about alliances. I'd modify that part to asking generally about their relationships with other civilizations. Also I think if we want them to tell those things, we should share alike. So that part could be: "We are curious about other civilizations you have met and what kind of relationships do you have with them. We have currently NAP with most of the teams we have met."

I believe we want to have a NAP and Open Borders with them as well, but I don't have an idea how long.

BTW, I agree with SC that we probably don't want to go straight to the business and we'd better leave agreeing the schedule of beating living daylights out of RB to the second message or so. But we could still hint (strongly) that we'd be willing to do that. For example we can modify your second paragraph a bit:
"As a team we have been seeking to find your nation for a while now. We look forward to working together as we feel it is important to have friends in this hostile world. We are looking to build alliances now that will last long into the game and your team is one of the teams we would prefer to work with, mostly due to a respect for the players on your team and for the obvious mutual interests we have in this world. "

 

[SilentConfusion]

I wouldn't ask so directly about alliances. I'd modify that part to asking generally about their relationships with other civilizations. Also I think if we want them to tell those things, we should share alike. So that part could be: "We are curious about other civilizations you have met and what kind of relationships do you have with them. We have currently NAP with most of the teams we have met."

Are you suggesting we not tell them our neighbors until they tell us theirs? I agree that the information we give them should be shared for their sharing the same thing in turn. I would say that the general locations of civs is not too sensitive to give them, but that we should ask for the same in return.

I believe we want to have a NAP and Open Borders with them as well, but I don't have an idea how long.

Any of our strategists have an idea of the kind of number we want here? For this message we can just tell them that we are seeking NAP and Open Borders with them and work out the number in the next message.

BTW, I agree with SC that we probably don't want to go straight to the business and we'd better leave agreeing the schedule of beating living daylights out of RB to the second message or so. But we could still hint (strongly) that we'd be willing to do that. For example we can modify your second paragraph a bit:
"As a team we have been seeking to find your nation for a while now. We look forward to working together as we feel it is important to have friends in this hostile world. We are looking to build alliances now that will last long into the game and your team is one of the teams we would prefer to work with, mostly due to a respect for the players on your team and for the obvious mutual interests we have in this world. "

I like the amendment.

 

[Aivoturso]

Are you suggesting we not tell them our neighbors until they tell us theirs? I agree that the information we give them should be shared for their sharing the same thing in turn. I would say that the general locations of civs is not too sensitive to give them, but that we should ask for the same in return.

Not at all. I think we should share that information readily. It is not that big of a secret at this time anyway. My point was more on that we should also give information about our dealings with other teams, if we ask them that as well. We want to cooperate with these guys, so we should be open and forthcoming with them from the very beginning.

Oh, and the other point was that I'd just skip the word "alliance" and I suggest using more neutral expressions, like "relations" and such.

 

[SilentConfusion]

Not at all. I think we should share that information readily. It is not that big of a secret at this time anyway. My point was more on that we should also give information about our dealings with other teams, if we ask them that as well. We want to cooperate with these guys, so we should be open and forthcoming with them from the very beginning.

Ah. I understand. I agree. I'll go read the other Foreign policy threads to get an idea of the general relations we have with other teams.

 

[2metraninja]

I would write this paragraph with respect to "score leader Realms Beyond", i.e. "We are to the east of score leader Realms Beyond and WPC and Civforum are to their north (or whichever direction). That will center the discussion on the empire of RB and perhaps frame future discussion about plans. That ought to be enough for the first message about RB. I want to gauge their thoughts about RB and their other neighbors.

Very good! You are not disappointing me for the hopes I have vested in you

 

[2metraninja]

What else do we know about their game so far? Do they have a religion?

Yes, they do. Confucianism they took from Oracle. And we believe they took it from under RB's nose, mind you

 

[2metraninja]

I wouldn't ask so directly about alliances. I'd modify that part to asking generally about their relationships with other civilizations.

Agree with that.

Also I think if we want them to tell those things, we should share alike. So that part could be: "We are curious about other civilizations you have met and what kind of relationships do you have with them. We have currently NAP with most of the teams we have met."

And that.

I believe we want to have a NAP and Open Borders with them as well, but I don't have an idea how long.

Very long I can say. This will tell them we mean serious business and cooperation with them.

"As a team we have been seeking to find your nation for a while now. We look forward to working together as we feel it is important to have friends in this hostile world. We are looking to build alliances now that will last long into the game and your team is one of the teams we would prefer to work with, mostly due to a respect for the players on your team and for the obvious mutual interests we have in this world. "

And this is great addition.

Any of our strategists have an idea of the kind of number we want here? For this message we can just tell them that we are seeking NAP and Open Borders with them and work out the number in the next message.

Yes, lets not be too hurry and look impatient.

Oh, and the other point was that I'd just skip the word "alliance" and I suggest using more neutral expressions, like "relations" and such.

Agree, again, lets not look hasty. "Cooperation" is another good word for such cases

Great discussion, guys! Keep them coming!

 

[YossarianLives]

Great work team! I think this might be one of the most important contacts we've made in this game, so all this discussion is excellent to make sure we get a really strong initial message out to them.

Could someone with a better knowledge of the map write something that explains where the different civilizations that we have met are in relation to RB? Do we know where all teams are yet?

This was my best guess on the layout of the map:

As we get new map info from RB and Spanish Poly, it seems that our speculations three months ago were actually pretty accurate. Here is a slightly revised diagram using our latest intel:

ooo1oooooooo2oooooooo
oooooo3oooooooo4ooooo
oo5ooooooo6oooooooo7o
oooooo8oooooooo9ooooo

1 - Germans
2 - UCiv
3 - WPC
4 - Apolyton
5 - RB
6 - Spaniards
7 - CP
8 - CFC
9 - CivFr

I still think that Plako put in barriers between teams to designate natural border areas, whether those be desert, tundra, jungle, mountains or water. RB mentions a large lake to their west separating them from CivPlayers. I'm also pretty confident that there is an East-West land wrap, but ocean separates the north from the south (if there is a world-wrap in that direction at all. I believe we already established that there is).

2metraninja also did an awesome picture showing everyone lined out in just two rows, since our estimation is that everyone in the top two rows of my diagram have access to the northern sea, and everyone on the bottom two rows have access to the southern sea (which is the same body of water across the world wrap).

Spoiler :

RB had mentioned way back that the Germans reported that Apolyton were located to their west, so that location for CivFr is the only thing I am not confident about. The Spaniards have since reported that Apolyton is to their East.

What else do we know about their game so far? Do they have a religion? We can compliment their Oracle if we want.

As 2metraninja pointed out, they snagged CoL with the Oracle for Confucianism and cheap Sacrificial Alters. I don't know if you need to mention anything to them about it, but our team had a nice "Cheers!" moment when CP landed the Oracle, since we had been predicting that RB was also working on that wonder.