Diplomacy Master Thread- Helping Your Opponents Beat Themselves

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Let them know the moment we send off a resource. Make it clear that we're doing it for the marble, and that the war is still on.

Unfortunately, we might not be ready for a war on T150. So that could be something difficult to work around. On yet the other hand, we don't actually need WPC's help. Like, the Germans won't even have Longbows at that time, considering how dedicated they are to crashing their economy.

[kjn]

Agree that we should send off a note about any trades with the Germans to WPC as soon as we do it in-game.

Yeah, it's an open question if we will be ready to invade by T150, but at least the marble speeds it up with a few turns (since we get Taj earlier). As long as we can show that we are doing real preparations by that time I think WPC will be fine with us. I wouldn't be surprised if they hit delays too.

[Qgqqqqq]

Let them know the turn before - that way we're keeping them informed, so they can't complain, and still too late to cancel.

[SevenSpirits]

If desired we can spin it as positive for the war effort. We are "tricking" the germans into thinking they have +1 long-term happy, but they don't!

[scooter]

Ok, looks like the forum clock is caught up now. So I'll repaste this here for those who weren't able to parse the jumbled discussion.

Agreed, if/when we send gems to the German team we immediately send off a heads-up to WPC.

Here's a thought. The Apolyton map rejection said they could not do it for 50T or "if both parties agree." How about we offer them permission to pass our maps off to their partner after the map trade? So we would effectively we trading with Apolyton and whoever their partner is. We may also consider asking who their partner is - if it's CFC for instance, we already have their land pretty much uncovered so it's not a big deal for us to get their maps.

They may just say no, but I think it's worth asking. This puts the decision to trade maps in the hands of their trading partner rather than them. I think it's worth a shot - any thoughts?

[kjn]

On the other hand, we will know Paper ourselves soon, and I imagine we can trade maps at least with WPC, the Germans, and CFC. No need to tie us down with Apolyton as a sole trading partner - better to use it to get closer connections with some other teams. Though I'd love to know which team that Apolyton traded with.

Anyway, the answer on marble from CFC reeks of stalling to me, though I see no way to call them out on it. If they really wanted to grab the spot, they could easily whip out barracks and overflow to units, and simply overwhelm the Spanish quality with quantity. Ie, I see no sign of real military buildup from CFC's side - they still haven't built a single barracks, and their power hasn't had any real change since T119, it's keeping just north of 250k.

Of they simply have no idea on how to fight a war.

[Qgqqqqq]

On the other hand, we will know Paper ourselves soon, and I imagine we can trade maps at least with WPC, the Germans, and CFC. No need to tie us down with Apolyton as a sole trading partner -better to use it to get closer connections with some other teams. Though I'd love to know which team that Apolyton traded with.

Yeah but the point is we already know (most of) the panda listed - what we want to k.ow is the lands of civfr, Apolyton etc. who are also our principle rivals.
And they're likely to be less then willing if/when we land liberalism.

[kjn]

Well, the one trading with us will not only get maps of our lands, but of the Germans, CFC, the Spanish, most of WPCs, and some of CivPlayers. Similar for us.

What about contacting Univers as our first partner? They're not among the leaders, but they hold a lot of land and cities, and it can be worthwhile as a last try to break the diplomatic deadlock with them. On the other hand, they're unlikely to have visibility on CivFr's core land and cities - no OB between them. Anyway, here is the current diplo overview:



Apolyton has OB with everyone. I think they're well placed to play kingmaker later on, if they're so inclined.

WPC and CivPlayers are both missing two contacts. First with each other, and then with CivFr for WPC and with the Spanish for CivPlayers. Interesting also how it might be possible to isolate CivFr diplomatically, I think they run a real risk of becoming that.

[scooter]

Ok let's try this:

Apolyton,

Would you be willing to talk with your map trading partner to see if they'd want our maps as well? We'd be perfectly willing to agree that you can pass our maps to them after we trade with you. Who is your partner? We have defogged the lands of several of our neighbors, so depending on who your partner is, that could be valuable info for them. Is that something you/they would be interested in?

Thanks,
scooter - Team RB

[NobleHelium]

I would probably say "Could you tell us who your map trading partner is?" instead of asking straight out. You can laugh when they respond and say "yes, we can."