Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[darrelljs]

Giving another team warning doesnkt have much benefit to us, I think. If we can flash a couple elephants on the BbB border, hopefully that will help point CPlayers the other way.

I think novice made the most salient point...if they respond "don't worry we have a NAP" that's a smoking gun. Of course the fact we don't have direct contact with all of their neighbors is problematic. In that case I think Sulla is right and we'll just have to try and make direct contact with them work...or rather scooter will . I like that his message is focused on letting them know that we won't be caught unaware. Until we get that through their thick skulls I don't think we should add anything extraneous like OB.

Darrell

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I think novice made the most salient point...if they respond "don't worry we have a NAP" that's a smoking gun. Of course the fact we don't have direct contact with all of their neighbors is problematic. In that case I think Sulla is right and we'll just have to try and make direct contact with them work...or rather scooter will . I like that his message is focused on letting them know that we won't be caught unaware. Until we get that through their thick skulls I don't think we should add anything extraneous like OB.

Darrell

I think any message we send should convey the following:

We have an NAP with all of our neighbors so . . .

1) If you are planning to attack us, we will be ready and we won't have to fear anything from neighbors, so we will direct our full might your way.

2) You might want to go ahead and NAP us if you aren't planning to attack us, because if you send your army in the other direction, we might just use the opportunity to raize a few border cities if you aren't going to play nice with us.

Given point #2, we will assume that if you don't want to NAP us, you are attacking us.

[scooter]

Ok, finally got a few minutes to draft something. Here's a rough stab at a CivPlayers draft.

Decebal,

We have no plans for war currently, but we need to protect ourselves. We currently have a neighbor that is refusing a longer term NAP while whipping in military buildings and teching military techs, so we're concerned that they have plans to attack us. That neighbor is you guys . We're not interested in war this early in the game when there is still land to be settled. However, you guys are showing signs of war buildup mode, so of course we are concerned. A 10 turn NAP cooldown is not much time at all. Either way, you guys are avoiding any talks of a longer NAP, so until you are willing to sign a longer NAP, we're going to make sure our defenses are extremely strong. I hope you can at least understand that type of prudence. If you guys would like to attack a different neighbor, we're of course happy to give you a longer NAP so you can do that without worrying about us. You don't seem interested, though, and that's concerning to us.

That said, we have NAPs with all our other immediate neighbors, and they all last longer than the NAP with your team. So to be clear, if you try to get aggressive with us, we will be extremely prepared to handle things. However, I do hope we can come to an agreement where that won't be necessary as it'll just hurt both of us.

We would also prefer we get an agreement about the land between our cities. Specifically, any plant from either of us between Brick By Brick, Tlaxcala, and Xothicalco would be A) on very bad land and B) very aggressive. We both would get much better peace of mind to just leave that land alone and settle elsewhere. We would be happy to promise not to settle in that region if you will do the same. Let me know what you think about this.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

I tried to shoot straight without being a jerk. Input welcome, especially on the tone (too nice? too blunt?)

[NobleHelium]

Looks good to me.

[Ruff_Hi]

I like it. Lots of 'and that concerns us' comments interspersed with what it is that concerns us and what we can do to address our concerns. You might want to throw in that our very much preferred method of addressing our concerns is a longer NAP.

Now, I would swap this sentence around ...

If you guys would like to attack a different neighbor, we're of course happy to give you a longer NAP so you can do that without worrying about us.

... to something like ...

Of course, we're happy to give you a longer NAP so you you don't have to worrying about us and then you can concentrate your forces in an attack on a different neighbor.

[Bigger]

I don't like "war this early when there is still much land to be settled". Thats true of course, but implies that we are just waiting to run out of good expansion spots before we attack them.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Ruff, I like the former sentence, as it's meant to get into the CPer's heads. Also your grammar is borked

[Ceiliazul]

Decebal,

We have no plans for war currently, but we need to protect ourselves. We currently have a neighbor that is refusing a longer term NAP while whipping in military buildings and teching military techs, so we're concerned that they have plans to attack us. That neighbor is you guys .

We're not interested in war this early in the game when there is still land to be settled. However, you guys are showing signs of war buildup mode, so of course we are concerned. A 10 turn NAP cooldown is not much time at all. Either way, you guys are avoiding any talks of a longer NAP, so until you are willing to sign a longer NAP, we're going to make sure our defenses are army is extremely strong. I hope you can at least understand that type of prudence. If you guys would like to attack a different neighbor, we're of course happy to give you a longer NAP so you can do that without worrying about us. have a safe front on our side. You don't seem interested, though, and that's concerning to us.

That said, we have NAPs with all our other immediate neighbors, and they all last longer than the NAP with your team. So to be clear, if you try to get aggressive with us, we will be extremely prepared to handle things. ** However, I do hope we can come to an agreement where that won't be necessary as it'll just hurt both of us.

We would also prefer we get an agreement about the land between our cities. Specifically, any plant from either of us between Brick By Brick, Tlaxcala, and Xothicalco would be A) on very bad land and B) very aggressive. We both would get much better peace of mind to just leave that land alone and settle elsewhere. We would be happy to promise not to settle in that region if you will do the same. Let me know what you think about this.

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

I think the last paragraph can be omitted for now. We're just trying to get them to come to the table for real. Don't let them get distracted by border debates. When they actually show interest in agreeing to anything at all, we can bring up borders.

** = I'd like to work in there, "so we're looking right at you." But that seems a bit much.

[Ceiliazul]

Sounds like I focused on the same areas as Ruff and Bigger. I did think the "you can at least understand" passage sounded condescending.

[scooter]

I'm very open to totally omitting the last paragraph. I'd rather not give them the window to hijack the conversation with the next message.