Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Qgqqqqq]

Everyone already *has* our maps.
I think its worth it.

[kjn]

Well, the Germans don't have Paper yet. If Apolyton has traded maps with CFC, then they already has all our map data anyway.

Getting some idea on the extent of the arctic islands will be good, and I think the chances are decent that the Germans has some idea of the terrain around CivPlayers and CivFr - or at least I hope so.

[darrelljs]

We've been talking about the CFC reply for a dozen pages...pretty sure there is nothing new to be said on the topic. Just as we give Sulla civ management latitude as our turn player, scooter should have diplo latitude when there is no clear consensus. So, scotter...whatcha gonna do (or not do) ?

Darrell

[Ellimist]

I think we nearly have a consensus on what their motives were in sending that message, and how we want them to react to our reply.

[Brian Shanahan]

"[insert movie quote or clip]"

"I think you're a funny guy Sully. I like you. I think I'll kill you last."

I think that conveys the right menace.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I think people really need to take a quick breath here and take off the tinfoil hats. The things being discussed over the last few pages don't exactly give us the moral high ground here.

And even if all the accusations turn out to be true (which I honestly doubt), there is no value in us antagonizing one of our neighbours just when we're about to start a major military campaign against another.

At this point it isn't about the moral high ground. It's about not having to take shoddy treatment from a team who is in no position to do anything to us. I, for one, refuse to have someone serve me a shit sandwich and say "Can I please have some more??" The value in antagonizing the relationship is the prevention of further bad faith deals in the future.

And, while on the subject of CFC, the less words sent to them the better, for the simple reason that there would be less room for maneuvering and interpretation of the agreement on their end. Scooter has done a fantastic job this entire game with all the teams, but this team does not adhere to the spirit of our agreements, only to the letter. See previous uses of the "good faith" clause. Let's try some binary responses. Or better yet, let them come up with a better reply to supplant the crap they just shoved at us. What's the rush to respond? We don't need anything from them right now, nothing is time sensitive.

[scooter]

@Scooter: if you get cornered in chat or we feel we have to send something, we can answer with the truth "Our team is carefully considering our response".

Kalin

Oh don't worry, Caledorn pulls this crap on me all the time so I have zero guilt about doing the same.

Anyway, I like this response the best.

Hi Caledorn,

Thanks, but we don't need marble at this time. Maybe you know why.
If you have something else to offer us instead of marble we'd be interested, otherwise we'll take a 10 turn loan of marble after you've finished your epics, starting no later than t150.

scooter

I think I'm OK with this Azoth edit of the novice message. Does anyone object to it strongly? My current feeling is to send that later today if there's enough people that are OK with sending it. Also: to be clear, we are NOT in a rush to respond here. I've never advocated ignoring them, but when we asked for the marble last time, it took them NINE days to write back and say "sorry we can't." When I asked them about maps, it took around 4 days for them to reply. It's only been 2 days so far, so it's not like I feel even slightly bad if they have to wait another day for a response.

I still believe they're trying to see if they can get away with this, but fewer words may be better here. There's also a strong chance they object to the "we'll take a 10 turn loan no later than T150" because that's what they do. If they do, that may be a better time to pop them. We're about to start drafting, and they will not know who the target is. We've got a TON of leverage right now.

And no, the rejection of the marble will NOT make them think the obligation is fulfilled. That very, very clearly does not work according to the wording. If they try to pull that (they won't), we will get very aggressive in diplo and scare the crap out of them when we start drafting.

[kalin]

I like the message. I would also wait to send the message.

If they object do we care? Not like we need marble anymore atm. And they would be in breach of the agreement which they already kind of are given the "good faith" wording. I am thinking that come turn 175 if we want to renew the NAP, we should be getting concessions from them if they still don't have much military.

Kalin

[Ellimist]

I still believe they're trying to see if they can get away with this, but fewer words may be better here.

Yes, so change the status quo.

Caledorn,

When we want your marble, we'll ask for it.

RB

[pindicator]

Scooter, i think the message is good, but you're right about response time: if they've been waiting several days to respond then we can wait a day or two longer before sending ours off.

I still want to make them think we're aiming for Sistine (unless we really are), and asking for the marble in that timeframe may be enough to do it.