Civic Diplomacy is a part of diplomacy that everyone will graduate to after completing the Diplomacy Tutorial Quests and Civic Diplomacy Tutorial Quests when their diplomacy level is 4+.
Civic Diplomacy allows you to create city wide buffs that will benefit everyone in (or just passing through) the city you are working in.
Additionally, each successful Civic Diplomacy Parley will reward you with Diplomacy Skill, Diplomatic Prestige, Faction, Diplomatic Presence, and Information (which you can use to obtain Diplomacy Gear that will boost your Diplomatic Presence).
Please note however, that when you fail a Civic Diplomacy Parley, you may also lose Diplomatic Prestige and Faction and if you lose enough Faction you will become KoS (Kill on Sight) to the NPCs in that City. Of course, if you are already KoS to the citizens and you want to engage in Civic Diplomacy with them, then you will have to use other means (e.g Crafting or Adventuring and Questing) to gain enough Faction first.
Requirements
- Players can commence Civic Diplomacy after they have reached a skill level of 40 as a diplomat.
- Diplomats need a certain amount of Diplomatic Prestige to engage in most Civil Diplomacy.
Rewards
- Civic Benefits
- Information
- Diplomacy Gear
- Faction
- Diplomatic Prestige
Levers
An NPC's Station combines with the available Conversation types of Diplomacy to create Levers. Levers are the grand and ponderous instruments which the Civic Diplomat attempts to operate.
For instance, in Bordinar's Cleft there are currently: Domestic Convince - The Will of the People Domestic Incite - Support of the People Domestic Entertain - Cheer the People Domestic Gossip - Story of the Town Domestic Interview - Simple Pleasures Each one of these, when active, has a specific effect that takes place on anyone in the city until it goes away. It is up to the community of players to determine these effects and decide when to bring them about.
In smaller villages and towns, there may be only 5-6 levers. In the largest cities,
there can be 35 or more! Aruspex
Opposing Levers
Levers also oppose each other. Increasing a lever will cause the opposing lever to decrease. These are known to be certain rules.
Example: You perform an Interview Domestics. You move the "Simple Pleasures" lever up one
space (from 10 to 11), and move the other three levers associated with Domestics down one
(from 10 to 9) - Support of the People, The Will of the People, and Cheer the People. Aruspex
Group Effort
While a parley may be an individual encounter, the production of Civic Benefits is far from a solo endeavour. Each Lever has a Threshold which must be reached before a Civic Benefit becomes active:
- Winning a diplomatic parley will increment the level one space (more as you gain presence, but at the same time decrease opposing levers.
- However, the city is never passive. Every few minutes, all levers move back toward their starting points. Levers that have increased move down, and levers that are below the startingpoint move up.
Increasing Prestige and Faction Ratings
Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley, you increase your Faction Ratings with the city whose NPCs you are Parleying. You also increase your Diplomatic Prestige with the nearest Diplomatic Center.
Other than stopping you from being KoS with that city, there are currently no other known benefits to having high Faction Ratings.
Diplomatic Prestige is capped at 1000 points. Prestige in a particular city can be used to pay for certain things.
A failed Civic Diplomacy Parley can result in a significant loss of Diplomatic Prestige or Faction Ratings.
Gaining Faction and Prestige
The rate at which faction and Prestige faction are gained through parley is dependent on the parley type.
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Increasing Diplomacy Skill
Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley, you increase your Diplomacy Skill.
The rate at which this happens depends on the difference between your Diplomacy Skill and that of the NPCs that you Parley. In order to maximise this rate, you should attempt to Parley with NPCs that have the highest skill that you are permitted to Parley with.
You should note that you may have greater chances of failing when attempting to Parley with high level NPCs.
Increasing Diplomatic Presence
Every time you engage in a successful Civic Diplomacy Parley, you increase your Diplomatic Presence with the NPCs of the particular Station that you are Parleying.
The rate at which this happens depends on how many points the NPC managed to score during the Parley. If you completely prevent the NPCs from scoring any points at all, then you will gain a point of Diplomatic Presence for every 5th successful Parley. In the worst case (where the NPC scores heavily and you only just win), you should gain a point of Diplomatic Presence for every 12 successful Parleys.
Information Rewards
All Civic Diplomacy Parleys have a chance to reward you with additional items. The type of item you receive depends on the type of Conversation you engage in.
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Arcana, Blackmail, Plots, and Trends are all types of Information that can be turned in to an Informant in exchange for a variety of items including Diplomacy Gear to help you improve your Diplomatic Presence with all of the Stations that the NPCs belong to.
Civic Diplomacy Buffs
Every City has a number of Civic Diplomacy Buffs that you can activate by "pushing" the appropriate Lever in that City.
The citizens of each city belong to one of eight Stations, and you may engage in a total of five different Conversations with each of them.
Stations
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Conversations
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Each combination of Station and Conversation corresponds with one Lever and Civic Diplomacy Buff.
At present some Conversation types are not permitted in some Cities. The particular Conversation that is not permitted will be the one which blocks the type of Expression that is the main Racial Expression used by the citizens of that city. Some cities deny two types of Conversation.
Additionally, not all cities and outposts will have NPCs for all Stations. If you wish to activate a particular Civic Diplomacy Buff for your own benefit, you may have to travel to a different city that has NPCs belonging to the required Station.
It is not currently possible to engage in Civic Diplomacy Parleys with Merchants (who will be part of the Regional Trade system to be introduced in the future).
The Civic Diplomacy Buffs can provide benefits for Adventurers, Crafters and Diplomats and will last for at least 1 hour once activated. To activate a Civic Diplomacy Buff, the diplomat must engage in repeated Parleys that push the same Lever. Use the /citystatus command in game to see the state of all Levers in a city.
Each Levers will activate its Civic Diplomacy Buff when it has at least 40 points and can be pushed to a maximum of at least 70 points. Levers will decay over time and when it falls below 40 points, the Civic Diplomacy Buff will remain active for 1 hour.
All of the Levers for a particular Station are grouped together so that when you push one Lever, all of the other Levers in that group are reduced in value. This effect does not however apply to Gossip which can be pushed without affecting any other levers and is not in turn affected when other Levers are pushed. This means that if you want to activate a Civic Diplomacy Buffs you can push at most two Levers at the same time, and one of those Levers must be Gossip. You can of course push Levers from different Stations at the same time without any negative impact.
When you win a Civic Diplomacy Parley, you will push the Lever by a certain number of points. This number is determined by how much Diplomatic Presence you have with the Station that the NPC belongs to.
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In order to push a Lever as fast as possible, you need to increase your Diplomatic Presence with that Station as much as you can.
Whilst it is possible for a single person with low Diplomatic Presence to push a Lever enough to activate a Civic Diplomacy Buff on their own: This takes a great deal of effort. It is much easier when your Diplomatic Presence is higher, or when you have the assistance of other diplomats in the same city.