Please correct me if I am wrong, but players cannot ungift subs after 10 minutes of issuing the gift order. Under the 'Subs' header in the rules, it states that "... gifts cannot be canceled within 10 minutes of the gift order being issued."

However, this is the perfect bait-and-switch... to lure someone into a truce or coordinate an attack on a third party, and then suddenly ungift a mass of drillers/specialists just before they arrive. That you cannot ungift after the 10-minute mark seems antithetical to both the strategy and theme of Subterfuge.

Thoughts?

I thought about this once, but decided against it. I think that once you make a gift, you should stick to it no matter what. Nobody would want to do gifts or accept gifts, because they could turn hostile at any point. This would end up with gifts being worthless and nobody using them. I don't know, just my perspective.

Also, the ability to "ungift" would make stealing a gift with a pirate basically impossible. If you want to betray an ally by turning a gift back into an attack, just don't turn it into a gift in the first place and tell them it's scheduled to gift right before it arrives.

v3xt wrote:Also, the ability to "ungift" would make stealing a gift with a pirate basically impossible. If you want to betray an ally by turning a gift back into an attack, just don't turn it into a gift in the first place and tell them it's scheduled to gift right before it arrives.

This tactic breaks bonds and makes people so paranoid. Its a kin to holding a gun to someone and telling them- "This gun has Rainbows and Cheer in it, I promise" Gifting it half way is alright, or even 2/3 of the way, any closer and its a huge test.

Why the hell did you attack me?
You attacked me first...
IT WAS A GIFT AT THE LAST MINUTE LOL
Suuuuuuuuure, nooooow its a gift, but how do I know you weren't just gonna let it take my outpost had I not said anything?
Because I set it to do so?
SUUUUUUUUURE

Sorry for the rant. just recently happened to me. now the guy is convinced I was going to back stab him is now ranting at my disloyalty and how I'm a sleeze bag.
I just...I just didn't want the others to turn on me when they found out I was helping him in advance.


I think ungifting would be an annoying thing to deal with when doing diplomacy, just another thing to worry about. Theres a nice sense of finality to seeing a gift go towards you. And like you said, it would take away the coolness of pirates,

If there was the ability to ungift the only people who would want to gift are those who had the closest outpost