Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[pindicator]

t165 offer seems a pretty blatant attempt to get us spending our hammers on something other than military right before the t175 NAP deadline.

Do we want them to know that they're going to attack us on t175? If we think that may discourage them from doing so, then it seems worth it to call them out on it. If we want them to attack (and if we do, then we better be working on getting their allies off the dogpile) then let's continue to play dumb.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I like ASM's draft best. It fucks with them, because they almost certainly have discussed attacking us with some other teams, even if only for discussion. Planting seeds of doubt is useful.

I might combine it by finishing the first paragraph saying we will take marble on T165 and the second paragraph with 7's direct, "Do you want peace?"

[scooter]

Got Caledorn on chat finally. We'll see how this goes.

[scooter]

Alright. I got to talk to him for a few minutes, but he hasn't responded to my last couple messages, so I think the chat is done. I'll update if he gets around to responding before I leave.

scooter: Hey, so I don't have tons of time, so I'll get to the two things
1) We'll take the marble for 10 turns on T165. There, we can stop discussing that silly thing
2) You pretty clearly ignored the NAP comments. So, direct question. Do you guys want peace to last longer than T175 or no?
Caledorn: As for 1, that sounds very good
As for 2, I can't respond to that as I can't bind the team into any agreements of that magnitude. But I will post it in the team forums, and we will discuss it
scooter: Well, we did ask about it something like 8-9 days ago, so I'm sure you guys have discussed it and you have a good idea of how the team feels
Caledorn: Actually, I haven't been all that much around due to real life, so most of my time with the game has been spent with the troubles with the server. I'm not very much up to speed on what's going on right now.
Caledorn: I was going to send a suggestion to you about the marble more than a week ago (which included t165 as a suggestion, so that response is now redundant)
You may have to deal with a different diplomat if things doesn't calm down for me
scooter: Ok yeah I understand. The last message just seemed like a clear choice to avoid the NAP issue. That seems like a bright red flashing sign that you don't want a NAP past T175.
scooter: We will have a lot of explosive toys to play with at T175, and it seems we have a couple of NAPs ending vaguely around that time. So given that's only 25T away, it's our job now to gauge who is interested in keeping peace and who isn't.


Yeah, not surprising he tried the "um I have to ask my team, sorry" thing. Anyway, I think we probably need to assume CFC intends on war and start poking all our other neighbors under that assumption. If CFC wants to prove that assumption wrong, great, but we cant bank on it.

My suggested outline:
1) Approach CivPlayers about NAP extension. I think this will be the easiest to get.
2) Upon finishing #1, Apolyton is next. By this point we will already be at war with the Germans IMO. We sell them on a NAP extension by noting that our army will be in the region and we'll be neighbors shortly, and see how they feel about being neighbors with the top military.

If we can succeed with #2, we have full flexibility to wipe CFC off the map if we want. If they don't go for it, we do whatever we try CFC. If we can just break up those two, we're golden. As I type this, Caledorn started typing again, so there may be more here shortly.

[scooter]

Hah, I sort of feel like a jerk? Not really though, I think the paranoia is healthy. Here was the second half:

Caledorn: Sorry, my grandmother called. I have to make another phone call I will ask someone on the team to step in for me as diplomat until things calm down, and ask them to contact you. I will post this chat on the team forums
scooter: Ok, yeah totally understand things getting crazy. Hope everything's alright. If you have someone else take your place temporarily, feel free to pass on my email address if they want to chat directly instead of email
Caledorn: My head is spinning at the moment. Too much going on RL, so I am unable to conduct proper diplomacy.
scooter: Ah sorry. Hope things get better!
Caledorn: I will do that
Thank you. And please don't think this a ruse to delay things, because it really isn't
scooter: Yeah I understand, apologies if I came across sounding a little too paranoid. It's a necessary evil sometimes
Caledorn: I know. It could have been a ruse, and it would not be unheard of at all. So I understand. I can explain to you later. Right now I have to make that call though. Will post on the team forums after that.
scooter: Yep, no problem. I'll let you go, ttyl!


Anyways, I don't think this changes anything about our game. We know we need to kill the German team and we know it's best we operate on a bit of a timeline. I'll draft up something to CivPlayers tonight.

[Shoot the Moon]

If we don't hear back from CFC in a couple days, what about not just looking for NAPs but also looking for partners in a CFC dogpile? The Spanish are an obvious target there, but CFC also shares a nice contested border with Civ Players right? Even if word of that dogpile gets back to CFC, it should only increase the pressure on them I'd say. If they get upset, we can always just say "Hey, we offered an NAP a week and a half ago and you guys stalled, what do you expect us to do? The offer's still on the table if you want it".

[scooter]

Or I'll just draft it now as I"m about to be out for most of the day/night.

Status: We have a NAP with CivPlayers until T160 that automatically has a 10T cooldown. It's almost T150 now.

OT4E,

Hey, just wanted to check in with you guys. Our NAP has about 10T left on it, so I figured I'd be a little proactive here and shoot you guys a message. We've really appreciated the peaceful relationship with your team, and we'd like to extend it if you feel the same. How about a 30T extension until T190? I know you guys don't like really long deals, so hopefully that one is not too bad. What's your thoughts?

Thanks!
scooter - Team RB

I would ask for longer, but as I said in the message, they seem to feel weird about long extensions. Anything to take them out of that T170-175 window would be great.

[scooter]

If we don't hear back from CFC in a couple days, what about not just looking for NAPs but also looking for partners in a CFC dogpile? The Spanish are an obvious target there, but CFC also shares a nice contested border with Civ Players right? Even if word of that dogpile gets back to CFC, it should only increase the pressure on them I'd say. If they get upset, we can always just say "Hey, we offered an NAP a week and a half ago and you guys stalled, what do you expect us to do? The offer's still on the table if you want it".

I was thinking something similar to this, too. What do you guys think about just sending a message to the Spanish team and seeing how long their NAP with CFC lasts?

[kalin]

Scooter, thanks for your work on diplo. I agree with the initiatives: NAP extension from civplayers, and touching base with the Spanish.

I am not sure that full blown war with CFC makes sense beyond capturing/razing their closest border city and/or sniping a couple of coastal cities. We could ask WPC even for some help assuming we don't end up as enemies. I don't think CFC borders civplayers.

Kalin

[Shoot the Moon]

If we don't hear back from CFC in a couple days, what about not just looking for NAPs but also looking for partners in a CFC dogpile? The Spanish are an obvious target there, but CFC also shares a nice contested border with Civ Players right? Even if word of that dogpile gets back to CFC, it should only increase the pressure on them I'd say. If they get upset, we can always just say "Hey, we offered an NAP a week and a half ago and you guys stalled, what do you expect us to do? The offer's still on the table if you want it".

I was thinking something similar to this, too. What do you guys think about just sending a message to the Spanish team and seeing how long their NAP with CFC lasts?

I'd say maybe give CFC at least a couple days to respond. They know we feel like they're stalling/are aware that they are, so I'd say at least see how they respond.

Also, it would be hard to get someone on board with a dogpile only to two days later declare on someone else probably (and I doubt we'd want to spread around information regarding the Germans ahead of time in case they get tipped off). Even if we wanted to get in touch with the Spanish as soon as possible, might be easier to do after starting stuff with the Germans.