Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[pindicator]

If anything we should press even harder with the king maker card. Give them the ultimatum that they should take this by T175 or we will German-Gift our cities to CFC and we should at the same time start talks with CFC over gifting them our land (not in earnest but drop the idea that we hate CP and Poly more than them and want out of this game) to make our story more credible.

I don't think its believable to frame CFC as the leader but we could probably convince them that we would be willing to make them the leader especially if we can make it look like we seriously are tired of this game and want out.

I've been thinking about this. This is kind of the "nuclear" option to me - full-on threatening to throw the game to CFC if they don't take our peace deal. Of course we would not do anything to ruin the game, but it's a handy threat. But it's a one-time use (effectively anyway), and you burn up a lot of goodwill/credibility in using it. I don't think I want to go that route just yet. But if they continue to press the war and not realize the position they're putting us in with regards to CFC, I'm up for this route.

I think I'd like a few more opinions on the draft, so if you're on the sidelines and have an opinion, please share it. I'm going to send something tomorrow.

If we were to throw the game, my preference would be to ruin CFC. Of course, that doesn't help with this particular diplo situation

[MWIN]

Would univCiv be happy, if we offer this. What if, poly takes their attack to univCiv. I am still in favor of this deal, just putting something to discuss...

[mostly_harmless]

We are not going to throw the game.

mh

[scooter]

UCiv is irrelevant for the purposes of this offer, I don't care what they think about this, survival is all I care about.

The only real objection I see that I think is definitely worth discussing is the naming of cities issue. However, I'm not sure how you guys would suggest offering this without naming cities. Their first question is going to be "so what cities would you give up" and then all we're doing is losing time in communication. I think I'd rather just lay the offer out there, but if someone can come up with an actual alternative wording that makes sense and that doesn't involve naming cities, I'm definitely willing to listen.

[darrelljs]

If we were to throw the game, my preference would be to ruin CFC.

This + a billion.

Darrell

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

UCiv is irrelevant for the purposes of this offer, I don't care what they think about this, survival is all I care about.

The only real objection I see that I think is definitely worth discussing is the naming of cities issue. However, I'm not sure how you guys would suggest offering this without naming cities. Their first question is going to be "so what cities would you give up" and then all we're doing is losing time in communication. I think I'd rather just lay the offer out there, but if someone can come up with an actual alternative wording that makes sense and that doesn't involve naming cities, I'm definitely willing to listen.

I agree with this. Time is of the essence. Even if we get them to agree 100% right away (nigh on impossible), we'll still need several turns to transport our army back east. We need this resolved as quickly as humanly possible, so let's just cut to the end of the page and be honest and direct.

As to the issue of why they should consider our offer when things are going so well, it's simple: there is a very limited amount of time where they will enjoy this level of success. As soon as we get rifling, we're going to mass whip/draft a stack that they simply won't be able to dislodge. How much collateral does CivPlayers have with that mounted stack? None, it can't keep up. Rifles get an additional 25% bonus vs mounted, so the cuirs are totally hosed once we have rifles on the field. Apolyton may be willing to trade some units with us, but they'll need a TON of cats to make significant gains once we have our rifles in position.

That's the situation. Here's the corresponding politics, from our perspective: We can't fight both of you as well as successfully defend against CFC, and what army we have is already concentrated against you. Thus, we can't concentrate against CFC. If you want to win the game, go beat on someone else, or CFC is going to roll us up and win. Plain and simple.

Now, here's the corresponding human element: We gave you a chance to get out of this war with decent gains AND your army intact. You shit on our offer. Ok, well, our game is already ruined and we can't win because you wouldn't treat with us, so we're going to do everything we can to keep guys from winning too. Guess what that means? Yep, more rifles from us than you'll be able to crack, and we'll bleed your army dry and grind you into dust. Who cares, we can't win at this point, so why not?

Once we have tech parity we can grind and grind and grind until we have no population left. We'll have, what, 20 turns at least until they can upgrade from rifles to infantry? We'll have at least 10t, probably more, until they can get Steel for cannons. Lacking one or the other, it's going to be tech parity and the defender's advantage and we'll drag them down into the mud for a nice romp, while CFC takes everything.

The choice to me is clear. Just as at the casino when you have had a good run, you have to know when it's time to cash in your chips and take your winnings, before you lose. If you stay in long enough, the house always wins.

[scooter]

Alright, I went ahead and sent that draft of mine with a very minor tweak. Thanks so much for the great feedback everyone . I know we gave a little more info than some would like, but we didn't give up any tactical info that they didn't already know, so I think we're good. Now we wait.

[mostly_harmless]

Hey guys,

You mention the germans and wpc and that we could expect something like that: you use whatever you got against us and give cfc freebies. Thing is we were hesitating about going war against you, especially in this scale before your war started with inca, but once we saw how easily you acquired their whole empire and saw the potential of a run away we had no choice, but to play as determined as possible, and now we are honour bound to finish what we have started. To what length I can't say yet but if you let cfc easily capture your core cities, then i guess there will be no point of peace talking later.
If cfc will be the one who gains only from this war we can still hope that a simillar alliance will arise to stop them.

MZ.

Ok, it was worth a shot. At least they know we are ready to talk.

Why don't we include an offer to CFC also in this deal? What ever we offered plus ED and starfall to CFC..

I don't see CFC being happy with just those two cities in a deal. Remember all the trouble and planning they underwent to get this war going. Fake war with the French. God knows what concessions to CivPlayers/Apolyton ("honour-bound", yeah, right!).

We face with Cuirassiers, Rifles and Cannon and our own Rifles will not see an enemy until T177 or so. Why would the three of them combined call off the attack for the cities we offer them? Approaching the two western enemies separately was worth a shot.

mh

[MWIN]

I guess they simple mean by honorbound is that they can't take peace without CFC. Reading their message, it sounds like they would be happy with, if we can manage CFC.

If we are talking surrender, we should do it now. We can start with those two cities on east and see what they say. At least this gives our team will have an option to grow vertically and see what we can do at a later point...

[scooter]

The main concern to me is the "honor bound to finish what we have started" - do they mean with CFC? That's the main issue I think. I'm not sure how to respond.