The "No Diplo" Challenge
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Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
I'd like to challenge folks (especially the top players) here to a "No Diplo" game. I will also try this.
In this game, there is only one new rule:
--You can't initiate any diplomatic contact with other civs. Rather, only when and if they contact *you* can you then trade tech, cut deals, etc. And even then only for that turn! To talk to them again, you have to await another contact. Yes, there are belligerent ways to have them contact you --park a battleship in their favorite sector, for instance-- but will that strategy help or hurt your cause?
Backstory:
In this scenario, human beings have developed an 'understanding' of the alien races that leads some to believe that only if and when an alien civ *initiates* contact can they be trusted in negotiations. The science upon which this theory was based, Dr. Harmon's 'Theory of Xenopatholophia', is both highly secretive and highly controversial.
As you might imagine, therefore, this policy has caused great debate --even some violent protests-- by the Senate and various xenophilic sections of society. Some argue that only active and shrewd negotiations with alien civs, even if human beings distrust them, will give us the technological and economic edge so desperately needed to secure a strong human future. A re-active rather than pro-active diplomatic stance is, they plead, a sure path to human misery in the near future.
Others merely argue that any diplomacy based on distrust will yield nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy and that with this passive approach we are giving what may be otherwise peaceful alien societies a reason to attack us.
Still, the most powerful elements of goverment refuse to relent, and a majority simply have taken a 'wait and see' attitude. Very few want to appear over eager to deal with alien civs in any event since doing so often leads to the end on one's political career and/or public labels of being an 'aliophile.'
Will you still be able to win with this "No Diplo" rule in effect? Try! Please reply if you plan to try, then please come back here with an AAR (after action report)!
Good Luck!:D
In this game, there is only one new rule:
--You can't initiate any diplomatic contact with other civs. Rather, only when and if they contact *you* can you then trade tech, cut deals, etc. And even then only for that turn! To talk to them again, you have to await another contact. Yes, there are belligerent ways to have them contact you --park a battleship in their favorite sector, for instance-- but will that strategy help or hurt your cause?
Backstory:
In this scenario, human beings have developed an 'understanding' of the alien races that leads some to believe that only if and when an alien civ *initiates* contact can they be trusted in negotiations. The science upon which this theory was based, Dr. Harmon's 'Theory of Xenopatholophia', is both highly secretive and highly controversial.
As you might imagine, therefore, this policy has caused great debate --even some violent protests-- by the Senate and various xenophilic sections of society. Some argue that only active and shrewd negotiations with alien civs, even if human beings distrust them, will give us the technological and economic edge so desperately needed to secure a strong human future. A re-active rather than pro-active diplomatic stance is, they plead, a sure path to human misery in the near future.
Others merely argue that any diplomacy based on distrust will yield nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy and that with this passive approach we are giving what may be otherwise peaceful alien societies a reason to attack us.
Still, the most powerful elements of goverment refuse to relent, and a majority simply have taken a 'wait and see' attitude. Very few want to appear over eager to deal with alien civs in any event since doing so often leads to the end on one's political career and/or public labels of being an 'aliophile.'
Will you still be able to win with this "No Diplo" rule in effect? Try! Please reply if you plan to try, then please come back here with an AAR (after action report)!
Good Luck!:D
