Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Gold Ergo Sum]

We really ought to send Xenu's message. We know we are going to war. Might as well get some chuckles out of it.

[NobleHelium]

Well if they send us a message about the ivory we could tell them to suck it.

[scooter]

Needless to say, we will need some means of holding back these beasts in the future, or they may show fangs and come out for blood! Lol! haha!

The "Lol! haha!" slayed me.

Anyways, we don't really need to respond to CFC. Xenu's message made me laugh, but I don't really want to send a message that is fairly belittling. If I received a message like that from the guy in the lead, I'd quickly forward it to everyone in the game. Nothing motivates people to take the top dog down a few pegs quite like arrogance. We could just send a brief reply that is something like "Not surprising, good luck." Either way, it's not something to spend too many brain cells on.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Well if they send us a message about the ivory we could tell them to suck it.

Just send them back some roleplaying BS:

CFC,

Our mouthy, hippie citizens have decided the ivory trade should be abolished in our lands, so we have decided to throw a bone to their artsy-fartsy selves and secure some dyes for them so they can go traipse around and put on summer stock versions of Antigone in one of our many lovely theaters. You are cordially invited to the Globe Theater for the opening night when it finishes a few years from now, so long as you can make it past all the drafted security at the border.

RB

[NobleHelium]

@ GES.

In all seriousness, I don't think we should say anything at all.

[scooter]

I think we should send another note to our friendly vassals.

Tatu/Beta,

I've got an odd question for you guys, but I hope you don't mind. Has CFC or any of our neighbors approached you guys about helping out in a war against our team? We have reason to believe CFC intends to declare war on us sometime around T175, and I don't think they'd be willing to try that if they didn't have help. Have you heard anything along that line?

Just figured it was worth asking since I trust your team, and it's difficult to find people to trust this late in the game .

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

I think this is worth a shot.

Also, the lack of response by the German team makes me think they might be involved to some extent. Given it's life or death for them, any delay is crazy unless they aren't sure how to respond to the fact that we're calling them on the T175 number.

edit: I posted a not-quite complete draft at first, so I fixed it in an edit

[scooter]

I think it's time to press Apolyton for a NAP extension. Our NAP with them runs through T170. We should send the first message pretty soon, because they typically aren't really fast responding. They are occasionally signed into their team diplo account for short periods, so I'll try to catch them in there by chat if at all possible.

Anyways, I think it will go like this:

Us: hey, NAP extension please?
Apolyton: Nah, that's 20T away still, not a big deal yet

When this happens, I think we need to be pushy with them. Also, we may be at war with the German team by the time the conversation gets to that point. At which point I think we need to be willing to threaten them. I know that's pretty different from our usual approach to diplo, but we're in dogpile breakup mode right now. They'll have a 5T window where CFC cannot help them, and with a horde of Knights we could burn a couple cities in that time frame, since the German cities will (hopefully) be gone by then. Maybe it won't come to this, but we're going to need to get creative here to cut off as much of CFC's support as possible.

Anyways, I'd be interested to hear two things from you all.
1) Your thoughts on the above paragraph and/or how you'd approach Apolyton.
2) Your thoughts on sending this draft as a starter:

Hey guys, are you interested in extending our NAP until T190? T170 is not that far away, and I see a lot of conflict coming in the future to just about everyone. I think we'd both sleep better at night knowing we had another team nearby that we were safe from. What's your thoughts?

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

They'll say no, but I just want to get them talking. Hopefully I can snag them on chat. I wish more teams in this game were on chat consistently.

[pindicator]

So far it looks like Apolyton and CivPlayers in the west at t170, followed by CFC on t175 -- may as well prepare for worst case scenario. How about we "bully" the western teams a bit once the war starts? As in, they'll surely see that we're romping the Germans, and at that time we say that if they are indeed part of some CFC scheme to attack around t170-175 we'll be sure to make sure they get the brunt of our army. In other words, point out how dealing with CFC is not going to be to their advantage. (Of course, I'll trust scooter to say it far more diplomatically than I've laid out, I'm just proposing a strategy.)

We could pull the same thing with CFC in the east, but if we say that to everyone they'll just compare notes and then laugh it off as us bluffing. And I'd think that the CFC border is more defensible (especially once a certain offending city gets burned) than the west, although CFC could potentially be the more dangerous opponent with naval landings and more experience.

[scooter]

Sent the message to the Spanish team.

So far it looks like Apolyton and CivPlayers in the west at t170, followed by CFC on t175 -- may as well prepare for worst case scenario. How about we "bully" the western teams a bit once the war starts? As in, they'll surely see that we're romping the Germans, and at that time we say that if they are indeed part of some CFC scheme to attack around t170-175 we'll be sure to make sure they get the brunt of our army. In other words, point out how dealing with CFC is not going to be to their advantage. (Of course, I'll trust scooter to say it far more diplomatically than I've laid out, I'm just proposing a strategy.)

Yep this is my thought process on what we need to do. I think we generally need to assume it's CivPlayers, Apolyton, and CFC vs us (and WPC I guess) until somebody proves that wrong by signing a NAP with us. CivPlayers I'd give the most leeway, but I don't think we can assume we're safe from them at all. If I were them I'd jump at the chance to topple us.

[NobleHelium]

Have we sent the German message?